Page 44 of Blackwicket
“If you’d bothered looking at it, you would have seen the inscription.” Nerves had made my patience brittle.
“Fiona was on the Authority’s radar for a long time. There was never any reason to suspect she had a child.”
“Maybe because he’s dead,” I spoke the fear, the horror of it softening the edges of my tone.
“What makes you think so?” he replied, with an overly-gentle indulgence, making it clear he was humoring me.
Nettled by his continued hardheartedness, I flung open the wardrobe doors, revealing its contents.
“Why would Fiona keep toys? Clothes? They vary in size and abruptly stop. She’s stored everything precisely. It’s a goddamn memorial.”
My tumultuous emotions were ascending to the surface, and I pressed my fingers into the hair at my temple, trying to restore my face to its mask of neutral assurance.
His interest finally engaged, the Inspector stepped forward, expression tight with what I hoped was embarrassment for not having taken my concerns more seriously. He scanned each shelf, every hanger, as though categorizing the contents. Evidence. This was evidence. He couldn’t doubt what I was telling him. With this victory in my pocket, I prepared to bare the house’s soul.
He extended a hand, ready to start a closer inspection of the shelves, but I moved to stop him, uncomfortable with the idea of someone else handling these items.
“Please, don’t touch anything.”
When my hand fell upon the bare skin of his forearm, a circuit closed, and the current of magic moved so swiftly that we both reacted. While I hastily pulled away, he merely shifted his focus to the place my hand had been, expression unreadable. The trail his gaze took back to my eyes idled, catching on my lips, which had parted in alarm, inapology. My eagerness to assure him I wasn’t seeking to pilfer his magic sputtered, then died in brutal irritation. My magic being agitated and difficult to bring to heel was a result of his obtuse, willful goading. He was in my house, and I’d be damned if I apologized for any of this.
“Don’t touch anything,” I repeated. This time, the words were a command. The only crack in his usual impassive expression was the slight upward twitch of a brow.
“Well, Miss Blackwicket, you certainly have my attention,” he said, his voice dulcet, like a murmur in a lover’s ear. He was testing the limits of my newfound resolve, sensing it was fresh and unsettled, seeking soft junctures he could exploit. I was on the verge of losing my nerve, and he knew it. If I countered with calm instead of reacting, I could at least keep pace, even if I never quite could outmaneuver him.
“I know.”
I’d attempted to match his lilting inflection, but the words emerged too rigid, resentful.
I prepared to unveil the Drudge, explain what I could while still safeguarding the most volatile secrets, creating the impression of transparency and perhaps tempt some understanding from a man who held my past and future in his indifferent hands.
So as not to startle the cursed creature nesting in the wardrobe, feeding off whatever sadness my sister had left behind in the artifacts of this lost childhood, I pulled the clothing aside.
The Drudge was gone.
Once again, the new reality of the house confused me. All the rules had changed. Growing up, Drudge of this size hadsettled in preferred locations to lurk, and there they’d remained, either scaring off smaller beasts for territory or consuming them, as this one had done to the poor, accidental curse I’d produced. They didn’t migrate unless…
Abandoning caution, I dismantled the psychic gates that restrained my magic, casting my power out and giving little thought to Inspector Harrow’s reactions. The vibration of it was palpable, much as Thea’s had been on stage. Though dread had produced it, the result was strengthening, grounding me in the house, into the earth it was built upon. Inspector Harrow released a small breath, not fully immune to the effects. He yanked me around to face him, as the net I’d cast found what it searched for, the shape of a Drudge, not where it should be.
“What are you playing at, Miss Blackwicket?” he barked.
My gaze traveled to where my magic had tethered itself, high above the apex of the dormered windows, in the dark corner of the ceiling where the shadows had coalesced, thick and viscous. Inside them, clinging to the wall, was the reason the Drudge from the wardrobe was no longer in residence.
Auntie.
She’d always been more substantial than the other drudge. Power, consolidated by ages, had given her a shape unnervingly proportionate to a human woman’s, though she remained too elongated, limbs spindle-like. She dripped with tarry magic, the effluence turning gaseous, rising to rejoin the dark gloaming where she’d been hiding, observing. I hadn’t noticed her. I’d been too closed off, too guarded to detect the noxious force she radiated.
The small hollow of Auntie’s eye sockets had been angled in my direction, but following my noticing of her, the truncated neck turned, clicking, toward the Inspector, stringy tendrils of hair wafting around her skinless face as if submerged in water.
Whether it was my expression or his own senses involuntarily activated by my magic, Inspector Harrow’s attention snapped to where this matriarchal demon clung, and she sprang from her perch, wide mouth opening to emit a sound like train brakes, shrieking. I attempted to lunge in front of him, but was caught in the unyielding enclosure of his arms as he hurled us both to the ground, escaping the line of impact. The three of us hit the floor simultaneously. I landed on my back, Inspector Harrow on his side, hulking form hovering close, narrowly avoiding crushing the breath from my lungs. Auntie tumbled in a flurry of limbs, skittering, resembling a cat on a slick surface. She collided with the bed, which screeched across the floor in protest. Her struggle to find purchase continued, giving the Inspector enough time to draw his revolver and raise it.
Though it wouldn’t have hurt the Drudge, my instinct to prevent the violence was immediate, and I grabbed hold of his arm as he fired the weapon, sending the bullet shy of its target, crashing into Fiona’s clothing cabinet, splintering the door.
“She’s scared!” I screamed, realizing I was talking as much about myself as Auntie. The house pitched, and it felt as though we were passengers on a ship at sea. I’d never experienced anything like this.
“She!” Inspector Harrow bellowed in response, as Auntie finally regained her balance and leaped to the top of the wardrobe, holding Fiona’s sweetest memories inside. The collision caused the wardrobe to rock, and it began its slow tip, directly toward us. As it came smashing down, Inspector Harrow rolled onto his back, dragging me along, just as the heavy wood smashed inches away from my face, the force rattling my bones as violently as Blackwicket House’s own shaking.
I was sprawled across Inspector Harrow’s broad body, chest to chest, my right knee positioned between his legs, his armdraped over my shoulders. He still clutched the revolver in his free hand, raised to track Auntie’s retreat from the room, moving like night chased by the break of day.
