Page 51 of House of Furies
“Where do you suppose your uncle is going?” Mary asked, pointing along the road, tracing the trajectory of the tall, cloaked George Bremerton walking briskly to the west. We were on the very edge of town as it was, and it looked as if he stalked away toward nothing but the horizon.
“I can’t believe it.” Lee took a few steps after his uncle. “He wanted me to stay in the inn and threatened to box my ears if I left it. I didn’t realize it was so he could go somewhere without me. This is aboutmyparents; I have a right to know what’s going on...”
“Didn’t you say the address in his case was in Derridon?” I couldn’t help but watch with the others. Mr. Morningside had said he didn’t know what to make of Bremerton, but all his doubts seemed silly to me. He was intent on killing the man anyway. Why fuss over the ins and outs of his delinquency?
“Of course, Louisa!” Lee turned back to us, his smile as bold and bright as ever. “Well? Are you not coming along?”
I looked closely at where George Bremerton had gone. The edge of town. We could hail a wagon or simply find a good hiding spot and wait for Mary to get bored of searching. Even if she joined us, it would get her farther away from Chijioke, farther away from alerting him to the fact that we had run off.
“Won’t you get your ears boxed?” Mary asked with a giggle.
But Lee was already leaving us, tiptoeing down the lane andgesturing for us to follow. The full moonlight made his skin glow like polished bone.
“Oh, but I would suffer far worse to have this mystery solved.”
I believed him, and it frightened me to my core.
Chapter Thirty
“Is this the place?” I asked as we approached a trio of cottages a half mile from the village center. They were set back from the main thoroughfare leading through town. A single unmarked dirt path led to a smattering of trees ringed like a wall around the houses. We clustered together closely as we walked, Mary’s hand brushing mine as we avoided the noisier gravel of the road and kept to the overgrown grass.
“To my knowledge, yes,” Lee whispered back. “Not that these homes are particularly well marked.”
“How do you know of this place?” Mary slowed down a little. We were nearing the trees. The cottages beyond lay dark inside. I glanced back toward Derridon, its limits shaped roughly like a potato on its side. The inn was still lit and inviting, and the quaint homes laid out in orderly rows were so different from these homes that seemed to want nothing to do with the town.
“My uncle and I are looking into a matter of inheritance,” Lee explained. He pulled back a few branches on an elm and surveyed the way ahead. “I found the directions to this place in his things.”
“Why didn’t he show you himself?”
“I don’t know.” He let the branch swing back into place and turned to us, rubbing his pointed chin. “His heart doesn’t seemto be in the search. He’s hardly mentioned it since we arrived. I have to wonder...”
I thought again of Mr. Morningside’s suspicions but said nothing. What was the point in making him worry about that now? If anything, we could look in after George Bremerton and see just what he was up to first.
“Either he doesn’t care or he thinks it’s a lost cause,” Lee concluded. He inhaled deeply, moving carefully through the trees. “We’re here now; we might as well see what’s what.”
“At this hour? Isn’t that terribly rude?” Mary asked sheepishly.
“My uncle is going, isn’t he? He must know them.... I’ve waited long enough. This is my parentage, yes? I want to know what it is he’s found.”
I was less certain, and so was Mary, judging by her furrowed brow and pursed lips. Tarrying, I watched Lee push the branches and brush aside as he went ahead, and Mary grabbed my hand, squeezing it.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” she mouthed.
“Just be careful,” I replied silently.
She nodded and followed almost precisely in Lee’s footsteps. An owl hooted overhead, standing sentinel somewhere in the leaves above us. There was more than enough moonlight to navigate by, but that brightness made me feel naked and vulnerable as we passed out of the safety of the trees and into the void near the cottages. No lights. No smoke from the chimneys.No signs of life whatsoever. Two homes lay before us in a pair, the third across from them on the other side of the dirt path. The third one was more recently painted, the door glistening with a fresh coat of white paint. A one-man cart leaned against the cottage with the white door, and the raspberry bushes surrounding the walk looked trampled.
Lee pushed his shoulder against the nearest cottage, peering around the edge to look at the one with the white door. We followed, waiting on him. Mary was right—something did not sit well with me. It wasn’t just the darkness in the houses but the unnerving silence. No dogs had noticed our approach, and any crofter this far from the safety of the village would keep a hound on alert.
And there was something else—something harder to describe as more than an overall sense of emptiness. It was like knowing someone was watching you from a distance. You could always feel it, that tickle on the back of your neck, but you could also feel when there was nobody around at all. If you wanted to steal a loaf of bread in the market or filch from the kitchens at Pitney, you had better grow eyes on the back of your head. The houses felt lifeless. Hollow. Not safe, but not populated either.
Yet George Bremerton had come this way. These cottages were important enough to mention in his personal items. It wouldn’t be right to pull Lee away now, not when he was closer than ever to some hint about his blood.
“Which one do you reckon?” Mary murmured.
Without thinking, I said, “The white door.”
“Aye,” she replied, too quietly for Lee to hear. “There’s darkness beyond that door, that’s how we know.”
