Its light flickered over yellow walls.
Lindsome’s breath stuck in her throat like a lump of ice. She could see the shelves now, the stacks of toys, the painted blocks and tops and bright pictures of animals hung above the chair-rail molding. A tiny, overlooked chair at the patio’s edge. An overlooked iron crib within.
Nobody had said the room was forbidden to approach from the outside.
Lindsome drifted across the grass. As she drew closer, she noticed something new. In the center of the room, between her and the iron crib, stood a three-legged table. Upon the table sat a bell jar. Perfectly clean, its translucence had rendered it invisible, until Lindsome saw the gaslight glance from its surface at the proper angle.
Within the bell jar, something moved.
Lindsome drew even closer. The bell jar was large, the size of a birdcage, but not so large as to dwarf the blur within. The blur’s presence, too, had been obscured from behind by the stark pattern of the crib’s bars, but it was not so translucent as the bell jar itself. The thing inside the glass was wispy. Shimmering.
Lindsome stepped onto the patio. The icy lump in her throat froze it shut.
Within the bell jar, a tiny, tiny fist solidified and pressed its ghostly knuckles against the glass.
Lindsome’s scream woke Long Hill’s last surviving raven, which took wing into the night, cawing.
Thorns tore Lindsome’s dress to tatters as she ran. “Chaswick!”
She fled toward the squares of gaslight, jumping over a fallen tree and flying up the main steps into the house. She called again, running from room to empty room, scattering dust and mice, the lamplight painting black ghosts behind crooked settees and broken chairs. “Someone help! Chaswick!”
Lindsome reached the kitchen. Cook was kneeling by the hearth, roasting a pan of cabbage-wrapped beef rolls atop the glowing coals. “Cook! Help! The yellow room! There’s a baby!”
Cook maintained her watchful crouch, not even turning. “Sst!” She put a plump finger to her lips. “Hush, child!”
“The yellow room,” cried Lindsome, gripping Cook’s elbow. “I saw it. I was outside and followed a path the gardener made. There’s a bell jar inside. It’s got a soul in it. A captured human soul. He’s keeping a—”
Cook planted her sooty hand over Lindsome’s mouth. She leaned toward her, beady eyes pinching. “I said hush, child,” Cook whispered. “Hush. That was nothing you saw. That fancy gaslight the doctor likes, it plays tricks on your eyes.”
Lindsome shook her head, but Cook pressed harder. “It plays tricks.” Her expression pleaded. “Be a good girl, now. Stop telling tales. Lock your door at night. And don’t you bring the gardener into this — don’t you dare. That’s a good girl?” Her eyes pinched further. “Yes?”
Lindsome wrenched herself away and ran.
“Chaswick!” She ran to the second floor, so upset that she grew disoriented. Had she already searched this corridor? This cloister of rooms? She could smell it. Fresh vivified. No — something milder. Right behind this locked door …
A hand touched Lindsome’s shoulder. She squealed.
“Saint Ransome’s Blood, child!” Chaswick said, spinning her about. A pair of spectacles perched on his nose, gleaming in the hall’s gaslight. His other, dangling hand held a half-open book, as though it were a carcass to be trussed. “What’s all this howling?”
Lindsome threw her arms about him. “Chaswick!”
He stiffened. “Goodness. Control yourself. Come now, stop that. Did you see a mouse?”
“No,” said Lindsome, pressing her face into Chaswick’s chest. “It was—”
“How many times must I tell you not to mumble?” Chaswick asked. “Now listen. I was in the midst of a very important—”
“A BABY!” Lindsome shouted.
Chaswick grew very still.
“It was—”
Chaswick drew back, gripped Lindsome’s shoulder, and without another word marched her down the hall and through a door that had always been locked.
Lindsome glanced about. The place appeared to be Chaswick’s quarters. The room was in surprisingly good repair, clean and recently painted, but all carpets, tapestries, cushions, and wallpaper had been removed. The only furniture was a desk, chair, and narrow bed, the only thing of any comfort a mean, straw mattress. The fire in the grate helped soften the room’s hard lines, and Lindsome’s fear of this stern and jealous man melted further under her larger one. “I’m sorry, Mister Chaswick, but I was walking outside, and there was a path that took me past the yellow room, and inside I saw a bell jar. And in it was an infant’s soul. It solidified a fist and put it against the glass. I swear I’m not fibbing, Mister Chaswick. I swear by Mama’s virtue, I’m not.”
Chaswick sighed. He placed his book upon his desk. “I know you’re not.”
“You know?”
Chaswick shook his head, the flames highlighting the firm lines around his mouth. “I have said. The doctor is a brilliant man.”
“But he — but you can’t just—” Lindsome sputtered. “You can’t stop a soul from going to Heaven! It’s wrong! You’ll — The Ghost will — you’ll freeze in the Abyss! Forever and ever! The Second Ghostscroll says—”
“Don’t quote scripture at me, girl, it’s tiresome.” Chaswick withdrew a small leather case from a pocket in his trousers, removed his spectacles, and slid them inside. “The Ghost is nothing but a fairy tale for adults who never grow up. Humankind is alone in the universe, and there are no rules save for those which we agree upon ourselves. If Doctor Dandridge has the knowledge, the means, the willingness, and the bravery to experiment upon a human soul — well, then, what of it?”
Lindsome shrank back. “He’s going to — what?”
Chaswick set his mouth, the firelight carving his sternness deeper. “It’s not my place to stop him.”
Lindsome took a full step backward, barely able to speak. “You can’t mean that. He can’t. He wouldn’t.”
“In fact, I rather encourage it,” said Chaswick. “Fortune favors the bold.”
“But it’s illegal,” Lindsome stammered. “It’s sick! They’d think he’s gone mad! They’d put him away, and then they’d—”
She stopped. She stared at Chaswick.
They’d take away all of Uncle’s property.
And they’d look in Uncle’s will and give it to …
“You,” Lindsome whispered. “It’s you. You put this idea into his head.”
Chaswick sneered. “His wife, Marilda, died in childbirth, and the doctor chose his unorthodox method of grieving, well before I ever set foot on Long Hill. Not that you’d know, considering how very little your ilk cared to associate with him, after the tragedy. Ask your precious mama. She doesn’t approve of the yellow room, either.” Chaswick’s laugh was nasty. “Not that she thinks it’s anything more than an empty shrine.”
Lindsome backed toward the door. Chaswick advanced, matching her step for step. You monster. You brute. What has my poor uncle done? What awful things has he already done?
And what else is he going to do?
The door was nearly at her back. Chaswick loomed above her. “Go to bed, little girl,” he warned. “Nobody is going to listen to your foolish histrionics. Not in this house.”
Lindsome turned and fled.
She ran down the hall and into her own bedroom, where the bed sagged, the mold billowed across the ceiling like thunderheads, and the vivified mice ran back and forth, back and forth against the baseboards, without thinking, all night long.