Requiring frequent rests at least allows me to observe my fellow guests as they make their way around the house, and it’s immediately evident that this is not a happy gathering. Whispered arguments spill out of nooks and crannies, raised voices moving hurriedly up the stairs only to be cut off by slamming doors. Husbands and wives goad each other, drinks gripped too tightly, faces flushed red with barely controlled rage. There’s a needle in every exchange, the air prickly and dangerous. Perhaps it’s nerves, or the hollow wisdom of foresight, but Blackheath seems fertile ground for tragedy.
My legs are trembling by the time we arrive at the library, my back aching with the effort of holding myself erect. Unfortunately, the room offers scant reward for such suffering. Dusty, overburdened bookshelves line the walls, a mouldy red carpet smothering the floor. The bones of an old fire lie in the grate, opposite a small reading table with an uncomfortable wooden chair placed beside it.
My companion sums up his feelings in a single tut.
‘One moment, my lord, I’ll fetch you a more comfortable chair from the drawing room,’ he says.
I’ll need it. My left palm is blistered where it’s rubbed against the top of the cane and my legs are wobbling beneath me. Sweat has soaked through my shirt, leaving my entire body itchy. Crossing the house has left me a wreck, and if I’m to reach the lake tonight before my rivals, I’m going to need a new host, preferably one capable of conquering a staircase.
Ravencourt’s valet returns with a wingback chair, placing it on the floor in front of me. Taking my arm, he lowers me into the green cushions.
‘May I ask our purpose here, my lord?’
‘If we’re very lucky, we’re meeting friends,’ I reply, mopping my face with a handkerchief. ‘Do you have a piece of paper to hand?’
‘Of course.’
He retrieves some foolscap and a fountain pen from his attaché case, standing ready to take dictation. I open my mouth to dismiss him, but one look at my sweaty, blistered hand dissuades me. In this instance, pride is a poor cousin to legibility.
After taking a minute to arrange the words in my head, I begin speaking aloud.
‘It’s logical to believe that many of you have been here longer than I and possess knowledge of this house, our purpose here and our captor, the Plague Doctor, that I do not.’
I pause, listening to the scratching of the pen.
‘You have not sought me out, and I must assume there’s a good reason for that, but I ask you now to meet me in the library at lunchtime and help me apprehend our captor. If you cannot, I ask you to share what you’ve learned by writing it on this paper. Whatever you know, no matter how trivial, may be of use in helping speed our escape. They say two heads are better than one, but I believe in this case our combined head may be sufficient.’
I wait for the scribbling to end, then look up at my companion’s face. It’s mystified, though also a touch amused. He’s a curious fellow this one, not at all the straight edge he first appears.
‘Should I post this, my lord?’ he asks.
‘No need,’ I say, pointing towards the bookshelf. ‘Slide it within the pages of the first volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, they’ll know where to find it.’
He eyes me, then the note, before doing as I ask, the page slipping neatly inside. It seems a fitting home.
‘And when should we expect a response, my lord?’
‘Minutes, hours, I can’t be certain. We’ll have to keep checking back.’
‘And until then?’ he asks, wiping the dust from his hands with a pocket square.
‘Talk to the servants, I need to know if any of the guests has a medieval plague doctor costume in their wardrobe.’
‘My lord?’
‘Porcelain mask, black greatcoat, that sort of thing,’ I say. ‘In the meantime I’m going to have a nap.’
‘Here, my lord?’
‘Indeed.’
He watches me with a frown, trying to stitch together the scraps of information scattered before him.
‘Should I light a fire?’ he asks.
‘No need, I’ll be quite comfortable,’ I say.
‘Very well,’ he says, hovering.
I’m not sure what he’s waiting for but it never arrives and with a final look he leaves the room, his confusion creeping out quietly behind him.
Placing my hands on my stomach, I close my eyes. Every time I’ve slept I’ve woken up in a different body, and while it’s risky sacrificing a host this way, I can’t see what more I can accomplish in Ravencourt. With any luck, when I awaken my other selves will have made contact through the encyclopaedia and I’ll be among them.
13
Day Two (continued)
Agony.
I scream, tasting blood.
‘I know, I know, I’m sorry,’ says a woman’s voice.
A pinch, a needle enters my neck. Warmth melts the pain.
It’s hard to breathe, impossible to move. I can’t open my eyes. I hear rolling wheels, hooves on cobbles, a presence by my side.
‘I—’ I start coughing.
‘Shush, don’t try and talk. You’re back in the butler,’ says the woman in an urgent whisper, laying a hand on my arm. ‘It’s been fifteen minutes since Gold attacked you, and you’re being taken by carriage to the gatehouse to rest.’
‘Who are—?’ I croak.
‘A friend, it doesn’t matter, yet. Now, listen, I know you’re confused, tired, but this is important. There are rules to all of this. There’s no use trying to abandon your hosts the way you did. You get a full day in each of them, whether you want it or not. That’s from whenever they wake up until midnight. Understand?’
I’m dozing, struggling to stay awake.
‘That’s why you’re back here,’ she continues. ‘If one of your hosts falls asleep before midnight, you’ll jump back into the butler and carry on living this day. When the butler falls asleep, you’ll be returned. If the host slept past midnight, or if they died, you’ll jump into somebody new.’
I hear another voice. Rougher. From the front of the carriage.
‘Gatehouse coming up.’
Her hand touches my forehead.
‘Good luck to you.’
Too tired to hold on, I slip back into the dark.
14
Day Four (continued)
A hand rocks my shoulder.
Blinking my eyes open, I find myself back in the library, back in Ravencourt. Relief washes over me. I’d thought nothing could be worse than this bulk, but I was wrong. The butler’s body felt like a bag of broken glass, and I’d live a lifetime as Ravencourt before I’d go back to that torment, though it doesn’t appear I have a choice. If the woman in the carriage is telling the truth, I’m destined to be pulled back there again.
Daniel Coleridge is looking down at me through a cloud of yellow smoke. A cigarette dangles from his lip, a drink in his hand. He’s wearing the same scuffed hunting clothes as when he talked with Sebastian Bell in the study. My eyes flick to the clock; it’s twenty minutes before lunchtime. He must be on his way to that meeting now.
He hands me the drink and sits down on the edge of the table opposite, the encyclopaedia now lying open beside him.
‘I believe you were looking for me,’ says Daniel, blowing smoke from the corner of his mouth.
He sounds different through Ravencourt’s ears, the softness shed like an old skin. Before I can answer him, he begins reading from the encyclopaedia.
‘It’s logical to believe that many of you have been here longer than I and possess knowledge of this house, our purpose here and our captor, the Plague Doctor, that I do not.’ He closes the book. ‘You called and I answered.’
I search the shrewd eyes fixed upon me.
‘You’re like me,’ I say.
‘I am you, just four days ahead,’ he says, pausing to let my mind ram itself against the idea. ‘Daniel Coleridge is your final host. Our soul, his body, if you can make any sense of that. Unfortunately, it’s his mind, too’ – he taps his forehead with his forefinger – ‘which means you and I think differently.’
He holds up the encyclopaedia.
‘Take this, for example,’ he says, letting it drop on the table. ‘Coleridge would never have thought to write to our other hosts asking for help. It was a clever idea, very logical, very Ravencourt.’
His cigarette flares in the gloom, illuminating the hollow smile beneath. This is not the Daniel of yesterday. There’s something colder, harder in his gaze, something trying to pry me open so it might peer inside. I don’t know how I didn’t see it when I was Bell. Ted Stanwin did, when he backed down in the drawing room. The thug’s cleverer than I gave him credit for.