“Mr. Pilchard,” Miranda Beryl echoed faintly. “Your cook is Nemos Moore?”
“I think—I think so,” Judd answered, looking dazed. “I believe he tried to poison Ridley yesterday, which is why he was so sick when you came. Fortunately, you sent for Hesper in time. Miss Beryl, how do you know about the bell, about the other Aislinn House? Ridley Dow spoke of you as someone with whom he was scarcely acquainted in Landringham. Nor did he wish more, it seemed.”
She smiled suddenly, revealing a lovely, startling glimpse of the secret Miss Beryl. “So did I, Mr. Cauley. Speak of him that way, I mean. To keep Nemos Moore’s eyes off him, and always on me. My friends here know Nemos Moore as the clever and wealthy Mr. Moren, who amuses himself in my company. To him, I’m the idle and fatuous heir of Aislinn House, which he regards quite possessively. To him, Mr. Dow has been only a rather earnest, scholarly young man who collects books and becomes excited about the most cobwebby topics, like ancient history and the habits of nightjars.”
“And magic,” Gwyneth interjected.
“And magic. Ridley learned years ago about the strange otherworld within Aislinn House. Of course he told me. We are—” She hesitated, while the faintest shade of rose warmed her skin. “We have always been close. And very secret. Nemos Moore is extremely jealous of his discovery of the world he found here, and is convinced that it rightly belongs to him. He has power over it; it is his perfect spell. I am heir only to its outward pillars and posts, a handful of sticks and floorboards. So he thinks: the rest belongs to him. He would marry me to keep it,” she added with unexpected tartness. “Failing that, I don’t know what he’d do. So far I’ve managed to persuade him that my total lack of interest is not in him but in the entire subject of marriage. I’m afraid that won’t satisfy him once Aislinn House is truly mine.”
“What a tale,” Miss Blair breathed. “You and Ridley are both in danger from Nemos Moore, it seems. We must find Ridley Dow as soon as possible, help him in any way we can. But how? What should we do?”
“I could open a door,” Emma suggested. “It worked before, when he was in trouble.”
“Open a door,” Gwyneth repeated, her brows peaked. “I don’t understand. There’s a special door into the other Aislinn House?”
“Any door in the house might open to the other Aislinn House,” Emma explained, “to those who can see it. Most people never do. But I’ve found it behind nearly every door in this house, including the coal cellar and Lady Eglantyne’s dressing room.”
“So we can get into it that way,” Gwyneth said, looking entranced. “Rescue Ridley, and—” She paused. “Well. Somehow. I wish I knew more about magic.”
Judd glanced at her. “How much would it really help him, you mean, for us all to go blundering in armed with candlesticks and pokers?”
“The other Aislinn House can be frightening,” Emma said. “I’ve never crossed into that world in my life, and I’ve been opening doors since I was tiny. I was never certain I’d find my way back. And there are things that you’d never think to be afraid of in this world. A great flock of crows nearly did Mr. Dow in, the first time. He barely made it back through the door. If I hadn’t opened it, no telling, between the crows and the bad-tempered knights, what might have become of him.”
“Not to mention the wicked sorcerer,” Gwyneth murmured. “We can slam the door against birds, but would that work against Nemos Moore?”
Judd shifted restively, causing his chair to creak. “One way to find out,” he reminded them. “We’re not doing much to help, sitting here and scaring ourselves with what-ifs. From what you’ve said, Emma, an open door might actually help him. We could at least do that.”
“It’s a place to start,” Miss Beryl agreed, rising quickly. “I have no idea what we can do against Nemos Moore, but I don’t see why we should make things easier for him by doing nothing.” She looked at Emma. “Which door?”
“The stillroom pantry,” Emma answered promptly. “It worked before, and none of your guests would likely wander down there and see us.”
None of the guests seemed to have bothered to get out of bed yet; no one was around at all, staff or visitor, to make a comment or ask a question as the little group followed Emma through the silent house. She didn’t think to wonder if anyone might be already waiting in the stillroom itself. Opening the door, she realized that of course she should have known.
“Hesper!” Miss Beryl exclaimed, as the flighty-haired, barefoot woman slid off the table to greet them.
For once she had no smile for Emma, only a deepening of the worry in her eyes as she looked at her daughter.
“I guessed that this is where you might come.” She cast a glance askew at Miranda Beryl, acknowledged her uncertainly, “Miss Beryl.”
“We all heard the bell ring at the wrong time of day,” Miss Beryl explained, her eyes going to the closed pantry door.
“Even Lady Eglantyne noticed,” Emma told her mother, who was still staring at Miranda Beryl.
“Did she? I’ve been wondering lately how much she knew. If that’s why she is waiting.”
“Waiting?” Miss Beryl queried, taking her eyes off the door.
“For the end of the story,” Hesper explained. “I wondered if maybe she made a friend in the other Aislinn House, like Emma did, and she wants to see things put right before she dies.”
“That could be part of it,” Miss Beryl mused, pacing now, back and forth in front of the pantry door. “I know she worries about me and Ridley.”
“Mr. Dow? And you?” The missing smile illumined her face; she exclaimed, “Well, that explains that, doesn’t it, now?” Miranda Beryl looked at her without answering, except for the faint flush on her face, the wry smile. “That’s why you sent me over to the inn so quickly to help him. And what now? Is your Mr. Dow in trouble again?”
“We thought we’d have Emma open a door and see,” Judd explained.
“Good idea. Just seeing, that part, I mean.”
“Well—”
“Of course you’d all have the good sense not to cross a threshold laid down by sorcery. Or rush into a spellbound world without a word to defend yourselves with.”
“Of course we’d never do that,” Judd said adamantly. “I mean, unless, of course, circumstances require.”
“Are you going, too?” Gwyneth asked her shrewdly.
“I took a very strong dislike to Mr. Pilchard last night,” Hesper answered roundly, “misusing good, green, living treasures like that. When I heard the bell ring, I put this and that together and wound up here, waiting for Emma. Let’s see what you can do, girl.”
Emma stepped forward, opened the stillroom pantry door.
A solid wall of stone blocked it from threshold to linteclass="underline" a message from the other Aislinn House.
“Keep Out,” Miranda Beryl whispered. She moved abruptly, tried it with her boot: a fierce shove that in another world might have shifted a lesser stone.
Nothing budged. She turned finally, wordlessly, went to sit on the long wooden table, gazing at the door. One by one, they ranged themselves beside her and waited.
Twenty-two
Ysabo crouched on bare stone, staring at the bell.
It hung from nothing in the middle of the tiny room she and Ridley Dow had fallen into. The room had no door; it was a perfect cube, with a window in each wall, little more than gaps in the stones and open to the weather. One looked out over the sea, the others over the endless wood.
From the seaward side, she guessed, someone might watch the sun go down every evening, could ring the bell at exactly the moment the light vanished. If there had been a door to come and go by.