The fact: Mary left in a hurry.

  The question: What drove her away?

  After putting the snow globe in my room, I crept downstairs, hoping to gorge myself on leftover birthday cake. But there was no cake to be found. Only Berniece Mayhew, who looked none too pleased to be washing dishes at that late hour.

  “Happy birthday, Miss Hope,” she muttered when she saw me, not a drop of happiness in her tone.

  On my way down the hall, I noticed that the door to the billiard room was ajar. Maybe some of the servants were playing, which they sometimes did behind my father’s back. Usually, they let me join in, much to Miss Baker’s alarm.

  “Ladies shouldn’t play pool,” she once told me.

  “Lucky for me I’m not a lady,” I replied.

  I paused at the door and peeked into the room. Indeed, there was a servant inside. I couldn’t see who it was because she was spread facedown against the billiard table, her skirt pushed up to her waist.

  Behind her was my father, his trousers around his ankles and his face turning crimson as he thrust into her.

  I gasped. Loud enough for them to hear. My father looked to the door as I scrambled away. But it was too late. I’d been caught. I ran anyway, down the hall, past the portraits of my family that Peter had painted earlier. Their faces stared at me, as if I was the one who’d done something wrong.

  I ran to the other side of the house and slipped into the ballroom. There, I collapsed onto the floor, my mind a jumble of thoughts, many of them wicked. I wondered how many other servants my father had screwed, in how many different rooms. I wondered who this one was, and if she was taking pleasure in it or if my father had forced himself on her. I wondered if Peter at that very moment wanted to be doing the same thing to my sister. Mostly, I wondered if anyone would ever want me in that way.

  My father soon appeared in the doorway, casting a long shadow across the ballroom floor. For a moment, I thought he was about to confess his misdeeds, apologize, promise to do whatever he could to atone for them. If he did that, maybe my mother would feel fit enough to leave her bedroom. Maybe my sister and I wouldn’t be treated like prisoners. Maybe there could be some happiness again in this godforsaken house.

  Instead, my father joined me on the floor and wiped away the tears that had started falling down my cheeks. It was, I realized, the first time he had touched me in months.

  “Hush, my darling,” he said. “This isn’t worth getting upset about.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  It did to me. By then, I’d known about the rumors that my father liked to seduce the servants. Berniece whispered about it so much I couldn’t help but hear. But I wanted to know who it was and why my father did it.

  “Don’t you love Mother?” I said, trying hard to halt my tears.

  “I do,” my father said. “In a very complicated way. Do you love her?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then it’s best not to tell her about this. It would kill her. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  “No, sir,” I replied, my eyes downcast because I couldn’t stand to look at him.

  He chucked my chin like I was a baby. Or, worse, a dog. “That’s my good girl.”

  As my father turned and left the ballroom, I almost called out that he was the parent I wanted dead. After all, he deserved it. I didn’t because I felt the need to behave like the good girl he expected me to be.

  But here’s the thing--I wasn’t a good girl.

  Not in the least.

  You’ll see for yourself very soon.

  ELEVEN

  Sleep doesn’t come easy.

  Granted, I never sleep well the first few nights with a new patient. Different room. Different bed, some more comfortable than others. Different house, with all its unique nocturnal sounds. At Hope’s End, the dominant night noises are the ocean and the wind—a discordant duet that keeps me awake. The waves are low and steady, crashing into the cliff below with a rhythm that would be soothing if not for the wind, which hits the house in irregular gusts. Each blow rattles the windows and shimmies the walls, which in turn creak and groan, reminding me where I am.

  A mansion teetering on the edge of the ocean.

  Inside of which is a woman most people assume murdered her family.

  A woman who has now offered to tell me everything.

  The pattern repeats itself. Thinking about Lenora, being lulled to sleep by the waves, then startled awake by the wind. Every time it hits, I grip the edge of the mattress, certain I can feel the house leaning toward the sea. But then the wind calms, my thoughts roll, the waves continue, and the whole process starts anew.

  This goes on until I hear another noise.

  Not the wind.

  Not the waves.

  It sounds like a floorboard, emitting the faintest of creaks.

  I sit up and scan the room, looking for—well, I don’t know what to expect. An intruder? A burglar? The mansion beginning its inevitable slide into the Atlantic? But there’s nothing to see. I’m the only person in the room, making me conclude it was just the wind causing Hope’s End to creak in a way I hadn’t yet heard.

  I crawl out of bed, crack open the door to my room, and peer into the hallway. Right now, it’s empty. Knowing I could have just missed someone passing by, I step into the hall and listen for the sound of departing footsteps or a door closing.

  “Hello?” I say, my voice hushed. “Is someone out here?”

  No one answers.

  Not another sound is heard.

  Until I return to my bedroom.

  When the creaking resumes, I realize exactly where it’s coming from.

  Lenora’s room.

  I press my ear to the door between our rooms, listening for signs of movement. Again, there’s nothing. Just nocturnal silence and a sliver of moonlight from Lenora’s room slipping through the crack between the door and the floor.

  The noise sounds again.

  This time, I open the door and peek inside.

  There’s no one else there. Just Lenora, exactly how I left her—in bed, flat on her back, hands at her sides, the left one beside the call button. The low, slow sound of her breathing tells me she’s still asleep.

  As for what caused those creaks, I have no idea. It certainly wasn’t Lenora.

  I close the adjoining door and crawl back into bed, where the waves and the wind resume vying for my attention. When I finally fall asleep, I have a nightmare.

  A real humdinger.

  I’m a girl again, on the metal slide at my elementary school playground. The one I never liked because it got too cold in the winter and scalding hot in the summer. Around me, a group of kids—unseen but unnervingly heard—chant in unison.

  At seventeen, Lenora Hope

  I remain on the slide, not stuck exactly, but not going fast, either. Instead, I inch down it as the chanting continues.

  Hung her sister with a rope

  At the bottom of the slide stands my mother, looking the way she did not when I was young but in the final days of her life. A teetering pile of skin and bones in a powder-blue nightgown.

  Stabbed her father with a knife

  My mother pleads with me, only I can’t hear what she’s saying. Whenever she opens her mouth, instead of words, all I hear is the clack of typewriter keys.

  Took her mother’s happy life

  Still, I know what she’s saying, almost as if the words are being typed across a blank page.

  Please, Kit-Kat.

  Please.

  I’ll only take one.

  I promise.

  TWELVE

  I was wrong about the sunrise.

  It doesn’t peek over the horizon.

  It stares.

  I sit up, squinting at the yellow-orange light blasting through the window. As I do, I notice something strange. Everything on the bed—mattress, blankets, me—is slightly bunched at the bottom of it. Because of the house’s tilt, we’ve all slid a few inches lower during the night. That at least explains the inching-down-a-slide feeling from my nightmare.

  I sway when I get out of bed, as if the floor has sloped a few degrees more overnight. Which, for all I know, it could have. In the shower, I notice the water is slightly higher on one side of the tub than the other as it rushes toward the drain. The same happens in the sink as I brush my teeth. Watching the pooled water gurgle down the drain, I wonder if this is why Mary left. She couldn’t spend another minute inside this crooked house.

  After dressing in one of Mary’s abandoned uniforms, I go to the adjoining door to check on Lenora. I pause before opening it, remembering the creaks I’d heard during the night. I can’t think of anything that would have caused them except a person walking around inside that room.

  But no one else had been there.

  Just Lenora.

  I crack open the door and peek in, finding her still asleep and in the same position as when I last saw her. Which of course she’d be. Lenora can’t move anything but her left arm without assistance. To think otherwise is ridiculous—and paranoid.

  Careful not to wake her, I quietly close the adjoining door before slipping out of my room and going downstairs. Halfway down the service stairs, I notice a crack in the wall that I’m almost certain wasn’t there last night. About four feet long and as jagged as a lightning bolt, it’s impossible to miss. Either I did just that all day yesterday—or it appeared overnight.

  I think of last night’s wind and how it seemed to jostle the entire house. My mind turns, wondering if that’s what caused the crack. And if there are more just like it now scattered about Hope’s End. And, if a few wind gusts can do all that, how much damage an actual storm would cause. The thought sends me rushing down the remaining steps, eager to be on solid ground. Well, as solid as ground can be atop a cliff that’s being eaten away by the ocean.

  In the kitchen, I find Archie at the stove, looking like he’s been cooking for hours, even though it’s barely past seven. A stack of pancakes sits atop a platter on the counter, along with a plate full of bacon and a basket of fresh-baked blueberry muffins.

  “Nice to see a fellow early riser,” I say.

  “It’s Tuesday,” Archie says. “Delivery day. All the groceries for the week arrive bright and early every Tuesday.” He gestures to the food on the counter. “Help yourself, by the way. There’s fresh coffee, too.”

  I make a beeline toward the coffee and pour myself a mug. The scent alone perks me up.

  I take the mug to the counter and down half the coffee in three huge gulps.

  Archie notices and says, “Rough night?”

  “I had trouble sleeping.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me. New place and all that. Probably didn’t help that the wind was wicked last night.” At the stove, Archie measures out some Quaker Oats from a cardboard cylinder and dumps them into a pot of boiling water. “We always get a few gusts, being up here on the bluff with nothing to protect us. But last night was something else.”

  That doesn’t explain what else I heard during the night. I know what wind sounds like. And it doesn’t sound like footsteps. I think again of Mary. Had she heard them, too? Could that be the reason she left so suddenly?

  “Did Miss Hope’s previous nurse ever mention hearing things or having trouble sleeping?”

  “Mary? Not that I can recall.”

  I reach for a muffin on the counter and start peeling away the liner. “How well did you know her?”

  “Well enough, I guess. Nice girl. Seemed to be great with Miss Hope,” Archie says, proving Jessie wrong about only Mrs. Baker not calling Lenora by her first name. “Can’t say I’m a fan of the way Mary left, though. I understand this place isn’t for everyone. But you don’t just leave in the middle of the night.”

  “There were no signs anything was wrong?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “So she had no problems with Miss Hope?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And Mary never mentioned being nervous around her?”

  Archie, stirring the oatmeal now bubbling on the stove, turns my way. “Are you nervous around Miss Hope?”

  “No,” I say, aware the reply is too fast, too emphatic. To cover, I take a bite of muffin. It’s so delicious that I already know I’m going to be eating a second one, with maybe a third to snack on later.

  “It’s good, right?” Archie says. “I coat the blueberries in flour. Keeps them from sinking to the bottom.”

  “Where’d you learn to cook like this?”

  “Here,” he says, turning back to the pot. “I pretty much grew up in this kitchen. Started as a dishwasher when I was fourteen. By eighteen, I was the sous chef.”

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “Almost sixty years.”

  I pause, the muffin top in my hand lifted halfway to my mouth. “So you were here in 1929?”

  “I was. Me and Mrs. Baker are the only two left from the good old days.”

  “Were you here the night of—”

  “No,” Archie says, also too fast and emphatic. “None of the help was here that night. Including Mrs. Baker. She’d left Mr. Hope’s employ earlier that day.”

  An interesting tidbit. Especially since Mrs. Baker mentioned yesterday how she’d left Hope’s End after the murders. I take another bite of muffin, mostly to cover the fact that my head is spinning with more questions.

  “You must like it here,” I say after swallowing. “Or Miss Hope likes you. I heard most of the staff was let go.”

  “A lot, yeah. The rest quit immediately after . . .”

  Archie lets the rest of the sentence remain unspoken. Not that it needs to be said. I get the gist. Most of the staff would rather quit than continue working for a murderer.

  “I’m sorry to have brought it up,” I say. “I was just surprised you’ve known Miss Hope all this time.”

  “Since we were kids.” Archie’s voice has returned to its usual warmth. A relief. The man preparing my meals is the last person I want to piss off. “Growing up, Miss Hope and I were quite close.”

  “Are the two of you still close?”

  “Not like we used to be,” Archie says as his broad back stiffens and the hand stirring the pot goes still. “Things changed.”

  What he doesn’t say—but what I infer—is that one thing changed. Namely, the murders of the rest of the Hope family.

  “You’re welcome to come up and see her,” I say. “I think she’s lonely.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Archie says, once again all coldness as he ladles oatmeal into a bowl placed atop a wooden serving tray. He sets the tray in front of me and says, “Miss Hope’s breakfast. You should bring it up to her before it gets cold.”

  I get the hint, even before Archie turns back to the stove. There’ll be no more talk about Lenora today. Or maybe ever.

  “Thanks for breakfast,” I say before placing my coffee and another muffin atop the tray and carrying it up the service stairs.

  At the halfway point, I’m met by Mrs. Baker on her way down. She’s dressed the same as yesterday: black dress, pale skin, red lips, glasses she lifts to her face to inspect my appearance.

  “Good morning, Kit. I hope your first night here was pleasant.”

  “It was,” I lie. “Thank you for asking.”

  My gaze flicks to the jagged crack in the wall, wondering if Mrs. Baker’s noticed it yet. Surely she has. It’s very noticeable. Yet she acts as if nothing is wrong.

  “And you’re finding your new quarters satisfactory?”

  “Very. Although I do have a question about Mary’s things.”

  “Things?” Mrs. Baker says with a schoolmarmish head cock. “You’ll need to be more specific, dear.”

  “Her belongings. Everything’s still in my room.”

  “Everything?”

  “Her books, her clothes, even her medical bag,” I say. As I’m talking, a thought pops into my head. “Is it possible she plans on coming back?”

  The notion should have occurred to me sooner. It makes more sense than anything else about why she left everything behind. It could be that Mary really was called away—by her family or some other pressing matter—and has every intention of returning.

  “If Mary were to return, she wouldn’t be welcomed back,” Mrs. Baker says. “Not after leaving Miss Hope all alone like that.”

  I let out a little huff of relief. At least I still have a job. “But she could come back for her stuff, right?”

  “It’s been a week,” Mrs. Baker says. “If she wanted any of it, she would have done that by now.”

  “So what should I do with it?”

  “Just hold on to everything, if you don’t mind,” Mrs. Baker says, though in fact I do mind. This is literally a mansion, with dozens of empty rooms. Surely there’s somewhere else to store it all. “I’ll decide what to do with it all later.”

  She acts as if that settles the matter, when in fact it doesn’t. She resumes her descent, forcing me to call after her.

  “I have another question, actually.” I pause, waiting for her to stop, which she does with obvious reluctance after taking three more steps. “Were you in Miss Hope’s room last night?”

  “Now that you’re here, I have no cause to enter Miss Hope’s quarters.”

  “So that’s a no,” I say.

  “Yes, dear. A definite no.”

  “But I thought—” I look down at the tray, stalling. “I thought I heard someone walking around in there last night.”

  “Walking?” Mrs. Baker couldn’t look more incredulous if I had mentioned aliens or Santa Claus. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “But I heard the floorboards creaking.”

  “Did you investigate?”

  “Yes. I didn’t see anyone.”

 

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