Excitement of an unfamiliar sort was building beneath Myers’s ribs. Nothing had fired his imagination like this in years, not even his work with mediums. Annie would have been delighted, he thought. It brought with it a familiar lance of pain—but not as sharp as he would have expected. For the first time since she died, he found himself eager to pursue something that was not about communicating with her spirit. Eager, and guilty, as if he were somehow betraying her by thinking of other things.
Mrs. Chase rescued him from these thoughts by addressing him. “What do you think your friends in the Society for Psychical Research would make of this, Mr. Myers?”
Henry Sidgwick meeting faeries. The very notion made his head hurt. But— “It falls outside the purview of our usual work,” Myers admitted. “Then again, most of our members view fairy tales as a literary matter rather than a scientific one. If I were to write an article, or speak at one of our meetings—”
“Not yet,” Lady Amadea cautioned him.
“No, of course not. What I mean is, once aware of the situation, I imagine they would be eager to investigate.” He laughed ruefully. “They would probably make a new committee, and force me to be in charge of it. But if faeries are willing to meet with them, and show proof of their—your—natures and capabilities, then my colleagues will establish this field of study so quickly, it will make your head spin.”
“Will they be friendly?” the Irish faerie asked bluntly.
Myers blinked. “Why would they not be?”
“What I mean is, sure I don’t fancy being tossed in a cage like some kind of ape for folk to gawp at—”
“Eidhnin,” Rosamund said. Mild though her voice was, it hushed him. “Nobody will do anything until we’re sure. And if we can’t be sure, we won’t do it. But don’t gallop to meet future difficulties before you must. Mr. Myers, please continue. You mentioned committees; what exactly would this one do?”
By fits and starts, with contributions from fae and mortals alike, the London Fairy Society laid plans for a future beyond the death of the Onyx Hall.
Cromwell Road, South Kensington: May 19, 1884
For days the storm built, an unsubtle tension that put all the Kitterings’ servants on their toes, jumping at shadows. Mrs. Fowler struck anyone, maid or footman, who fell short in their duties; even the usually pleasant butler, Mr. Warren, began to employ the sharp side of his tongue. Little Sarah, the scullery maid, ceased to speak to anyone, and more than once Eliza caught Ann Wick looking through the “help wanted” advertisements in newspapers.
The source of the storm, of course, was Mrs. Kittering. Not her daughter; no, the creature pretending to be Louisa seemed the only one unaffected. She flitted through the house like a butterfly, delighting in the smallest things—when she was there at all. Her absences were frequent, despite her mother’s attempts to curb them, and that was the source of Mrs. Kittering’s fury; never tractable at the best of times, Louisa had become a wild thing indeed, and threatened to overturn every plan her mother had for her future.
When at last the thunder came, it was almost a relief. Almost—but not quite, for instead of breaking upon Louisa, the cause of all this trouble, it broke upon the servants.
Eliza’s fears took on sharper form the moment the bell rang on the downstairs wall, as if she could hear doom in that brassy, imperious sound. It signaled the drawing room, a place usually unoccupied at this hour of the morning, and Mrs. Fowler went to answer it. Within two minutes the housekeeper was downstairs again, her brows drawn together like those of an unpitying magistrate, and she ordered every last one of them up to the first floor.
Everyone: not just the maids, but Cook, the footmen, even the gardener and the grooms from the stables. Mrs. Fowler and Mr. Warren lined them all up against the north wall, facing the windows; the curtains had been drawn back, and despite that brilliant light, the gas lamps had also been lit. The effect reminded Eliza of a theater she’d gone to once, when she and Owen had a little money to spare; the searing limelights there had illuminated the actors for all to see. She did not think the staff had been assembled to entertain anyone, though.
Mrs. Kittering was an ominous shadow against the left-most window, looking out over the back terrace into the garden. The missus’s hands were locked above her bustle, and her spine was even more rigidly straight than her stays demanded. Unlike many women who had borne a large number of children, her aging body had not run to fat, and in her dark dress she looked like a skeletal, ravenous crow.
An impression that did not change when Mrs. Fowler murmured that all the servants were present, and Mrs. Kittering turned to face them at last. Eliza could see nothing of the missus’s expression—which was, she was sure, exactly as Mrs. Kittering wanted it. With slow, deliberate strides, the woman paced the length of the room, studying them all; then she pivoted by the grate and came back along their lines. Only when that was done did she speak.
“I want to know,” she said, carving each word into the air as if with a knife, “what has possessed my daughter.”
At the word possessed, Eliza tried not to jump. Fortunately, Mrs. Kittering’s attention was on Ned Sayers at that moment, so she did not notice her under-housemaid going rigid.
“It is not possible to keep secrets in this house,” Mrs. Kittering went on. This time, Eliza was better able to hide her reaction. You like to think that—or maybe you think that by saying it, you can make it be true. “I will discover what Louisa is hiding. Whatever you know, speak up now. I will be very grateful to the one who assists me in this matter.”
Keeping her mouth shut was no difficulty at all. Mrs. Kittering wanted an answer, but she didn’t want the truth; if Eliza spoke, the best she could hope for was a beating and immediate dismissal. Though part of her wanted to do it, just to see the incredulous look on Mrs. Kittering’s face. Your daughter’s gone, and I’m the only hope you’ve got for ever bringing her back.
Her own thought startled her. Bring Louisa Kittering back? Eliza scarcely cared two pins for the girl; had this been some other kind of trouble, she would have abandoned the silly chit to it, and good riddance. But she couldn’t save Owen and leave Louisa behind. Not if she had a chance to rescue both.
She might not. Among the few things Eliza was certain of, one was that the faerie who’d taken Louisa’s place was not the one who had stolen Owen, seven years ago. To begin with, this one was undoubtedly female. But there could not be many faeries in London; it beggared belief to think the changeling and the thief were not connected in some fashion. Find Louisa, find Owen—and then find a way to bring them back. If she could. Should it come to one or the other, Eliza would choose Owen in a heartbeat, and anyway there might not be a choice: in some of the tales it took true love to win a prisoner free, in which case Louisa was out of luck. But Eliza would cheat the faeries of both if she could.
Fortunately, cheating was another thing that happened in the tales.
With a start, she realized Mrs. Kittering was standing in front of her. In a cold voice, the woman said, “Anyone caught keeping secrets on Louisa’s behalf will regret it most acutely.”
Eliza disciplined her face, trying not to look as though her thoughts had been wandering. After a moment, Mrs. Kittering moved on, to stop in front of the coachman and his grooms. “Where has Louisa asked you to drive her, these last few months? I want to know every destination.”