Nothing good can come of anything my father wanted, and he wanted me here, looking through these boxes, somehow living up to the potential my mother literally died to give me, and all of it whittles away at any ambitions I might’ve had to find out more about Sam and Beth. I did want to help the helpless. Fight for those who cannot fight for themselves, as my mother put it. But were those really her words? Just as likely that her beliefs were manipulated by the professor as well.
If you don’t fight, you will grow lazy and discontent under the guise of wanting peace, she wrote.
You will acquire money to acquire toys but the biggest ones will never be big enough.
You will fill your mind with trash because the truth is too ugly to look at.
And maybe, if you were another child, someone else’s child, maybe that would be okay. But you aren’t. You are mine. You are strong enough and smart enough and you are destined for greatness. You can change the world.
Brilliantly, perfectly vague, isn’t it? Destined for greatness. Change the world. As if it isn’t hard enough just to make myself want to exist in the world. I’ve seen the truth; I looked straight at it when my own father handed me a syringe, a knife, and a gun, and forced me to choose between killing the person I love most or killing the person she loved the most. I’ve never seen anything uglier than that. Why should I have to keep looking?
Maybe Mara and Daniel are right, and there’s something worth finding amongst these boxes and trunks and whatever else my father’s got stored up in his archives. But I’ve seen enough of the truth at this point to know the answers to the questions we want answers to won’t be handed to us by anyone else. We have to be the answer. Ignore the past and just keep going.
My mobile vibrates in my back pocket. It’s Daniel.
Update?
Horrid. I set the phone down on the desk and crouch amongst the trunks and boxes. My mother’s, battered and beaten and ugly, taunts me silently a few feet away, and my father’s paper empire has me surrounded. I can’t leave the room without seeing Mara and I can’t look at my phone without seeing Daniel’s texts, so I rise up, open the desk drawer for the envelope of keys, and shake out a few at random. Let fate decide, if it exists.
One of them is a tiny, polished silver skeleton key, and there’s only one trunk it seems like it would belong to, the walnut-wood, silver-edged one with all of those women’s names engraved in silver. I move over to it and pick it up; it’s quite heavy, and without any obvious lock.
Opening it again, I look for a compartment inside, sifting through the letters sent to one E . S. by the various women he seems to have fucked, which at least makes me grin. The bottom is red velvet, like the rest of the lining, but—
The top of the trunk is a half cylinder. And hollow.
Maybe it’s a piece of priceless history, who the fuck knows, but I take my house key to it and tear the fabric anyway. There’s a silver keyhole beneath it.
My Dearest Wife,
I have found it. I cannot express my joy in words—it is beyond measure. I am eager to return home to you and the boys, but I do not know when I will be well enough to make the journey. Do not worry—I am being expertly tended to and have been given all manner of treatments—traditional and . . . much less traditional. But I am compelled to discuss a matter with you if—if, against all odds, I fail to return.
There is a thing I must ask of you, a thing I must beg of you. There is a girl—she is orphaned and alone, but she has the most exceptional Gifts—my darling, I want to take her in as our ward. She would come to London with me and live in our home and be raised as our niece, despite—well, despite her differences, which are not insignificant.
I regret having to ask this of you in a letter. But I cannot bear to see her Gifts wasted—I wish I could explain my reasons, but I fear that our correspondence might be intercepted and I cannot risk it. But do know that though I want this very much, I would never make such a decision without your blessing. I eagerly await your reply.
Your Loving Husband,
S. S.
18. March
My Darling Husband,
I wish you were alive to see how the plain ward you have sent me has blossomed into the most exotic flower.
You begged me to treat her as if she were our niece, but the girl has become more like a daughter to me. She is as gifted as you promised, with more talent and accomplishments than I could have imagined. It took her mere days to learn to paint the most beautiful portraits. I wish you could see her, what she has become. Her dark hair is luxurious enough that she need only adorn it with a single flower. And though she is not gifted musically, she has the voice of a lark. When she enters a room, she draws everyone present like moths to her flame.
She is as demure and elegant and humble as she is accomplished, and she shows no signs of self-interest and has no ear for gossip; for that, I am afraid she lacks for friends. The latest crop of London society girls whisper and swoon over the slightest things; and I am most proud that she is not inclined toward that behaviour.
She is inclined to remarkable studiousness, however, and I know that you would delight in her curious mind, though I admit I find it a bit unusual. The tutor you’ve arranged for her is rather queer himself, as is the fact that she has a tutor rather than a governess, which as you surely knew is generally regarded as inappropriate, and yet I have been assured you desired that he, and only he, be charged with her education. I don’t even know his name; Mr. Grimsby calls him the professor, and everyone seems to accept that.
The doors are always open during their sessions, of course, but somehow I can never quite hear what they’re studying together, and though I have searched her room out of curiosity, she doesn’t appear to have taken any notes. I shouldn’t be so distrusting; she has proven herself to be honest and kind and generous, mostly with me. I believe she knows I am lonely and indulges this poor old widow accordingly. When I remember that she is even more alone in the world than I, than anyone, in fact, my heart breaks for her all over again. But seeing her, the way the candlelight sets off the fire in her skin, the way she commands a drawing room conversation with just a few words—she is dear to me, Simon. A greater blessing than I could ever have imagined.
Your Faithful Wife,
Sarah
26
THE DEVIL GOES ON
THE SOUND OF MY MOBILE vibrating on the metal desk gives me a start. When I look up from the letter, the sky beyond the window is dark.
I stand to pick up my phone—hours have passed. Worse, there’s another text from Daniel. I turn the phone off without reading it and nudge the lid of the trunk shut with my foot, leaving the letters, the keys, everything on the floor.
I desperately want it to be a coincidence that a nineteenth-century letter, written by one Sarah Shaw to one (apparently deceased?) Simon mentions “the professor.” Surely there were many professors in Victorian or Georgian England or whenever the fuck they were written, the ink on the dates is smudged.
But it’s him. All roads lead to him.
Enough. I’ve had enough.
I cross the room to leave, but as soon as my palm touches the knob, it twists and— Mara’s on the other side of it.
“Did you hear?”
“Hear . . . ?”
She seems a bit jittery. “Daniel said he texted you.”
“He did,” I say. “Asking for an update.”
Her eyebrows draw together for a moment before she shakes her head. “Check again.”
“I’ve turned it off,” I say, rather bitchily. “Just tell me.”
“Stella’s missing,” she says. “Apparently.”
“What do you mean, missing?”
“Daniel said Leo texted him, and he thinks we should go over there. And that we should bring Goose.” She rushes out, her footsteps echoing in my skull. I shake my head, rub my temples. My body feels heavy, as if I’ve been sleeping for days, and Mara’s voice sets my teeth on edge.
“Come downstairs!”
I follow her slowly, not sure how to process this news, trying to will myself to stop ruminating and drag my mind back to the present. Jamie’s voice carries from the first floor.