Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
CHAPTER 30
Eliza didn’t even dare to breathe.
The south wing was just as dangerous as Malcolm had said it would be. Had she been foolhardy enough to charge through the doorway without looking, she’d have toppled straight over the edge of the makeshift plank she now stood on, falling onto the marble checkerboard of flooring far below. Instead, she stood balanced like a tightrope walker on a rough-hewn beam no more than twelve inches wide, spanning the chasm of missing balcony. Her muscles tensed like a cat’s. She hugged the wall with her back and slowly sidestepped along the board to the section of balustrade with its railing intact, the lantern clutched in her hand.
Though the rafters and roof had been repaired by the workers, great swaths of soot still muddied the wallpaper from floor to ceiling and smudged beneath the broken windows. Cold air channeled through the ragged shards of glass, causing her flesh to pimple.
A double waterfall staircase streamed down either side of the atrium. Other than that, this foyer was an exact mirror image of the one in the north wing. From Eliza’s vantage point, she could see the section of flooring Freddie had fallen on, its surface now cleared of debris. She closed her eyes for a moment to center her equilibrium, then worked her way to the staircase on her left. She put a slippered foot out to test it, carefully proceeding until she’d reached the bottom.
At the back of the house, beyond a series of arched French doors, the rear gardens with Leda’s fountain glowed in the moonlight. Eliza had a sudden vision of the windows flung wide to the summer air, music streaming in from the gardens while ladies in white lawn swanned about. The picture was so well formed she even heard a string quartet and caught the cherry-sweet fragrance of roses in full bloom.
There were two large drawing rooms facing the main foyer, their double-hung doors wide open. Eliza went to one, then the other, but they were empty, with not a scrap of furniture within, their floors crazed with moonlight. The fireplaces had been swept clean, with only the lingering scent of old ashes serving as a reminder these rooms once enjoyed life.
Seeing no other doorways on this level, save for the one leading to the main part of the house and the servants’ quarters, she made her way toward the stairs. A whisper of sound met her ears, like a dry leaf skittering across the floor. Her eyes flitted from the broken balcony above her to the statue of Cupid and Psyche in the center of the room. “Is anyone there?” Eliza called. Only her own voice echoed back.
For a moment.
“Eliza.”
She gasped. Her name. Someone had just whispered it. She was sure of it. She whipped her head from side to side and peered up at the balcony.
“Who’s there?”
Again, only an echoing of her own voice. Cupid grinned at her from his marble pedestal, his blank eyes indifferent to her fear.
“Time to quit the laudanum,” she whispered, and went back up the stairs.
There were several doorways lined up on either side of the gallery, equivalent to the bedrooms in the main part of the house. She tried the first door she came to, the cut glass knob twisting easily in her hand. This was a small room, no bigger than a closet, meant for a maid or nanny—empty save for a set of blowing lace curtains and plaster flaking off onto the floor.
The next room was connected to the first by a pocket door. It was a nursery. Eliza’s heart clutched at the sight of twin cribs set on either side of the casement window, their headboards carved with thistles and roses. She imagined Ada leaning down to look at her sleeping babies. She thought of how often she’d done the same when Albert was new—in those brief, halcyon years before the drowning, when her little brother was safe and the house on Metairie Road was happy. She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying her breath.
There was a small Chippendale bureau against the wall with a water-stained tintype on top. Eliza picked it up and held it in the beam of the lantern. Malcolm and Gabriel—chubby babies both—seated in a pram with stoic expressions. She studied the photo for a long moment before replacing it. In the drawers beneath, she found nothing but the dusty wings of a dead moth and a few old postage stamps.
She stepped into the open corridor and paused. For a moment, around the corners of her eyes, there was a flickering—not unlike the wavering hallucinations she often had with her migraines. The same sort of flickering Freddie had mentioned. She turned her head, trying to re-create the phenomenon, but the walls remained still. “How queer.”
When she lifted her lantern and went through the remaining door, her breath caught in her throat. Inside, it was as if the wings of time had been held down and punctured with a lepidopterist’s needle. The room was a shrine—so much so it felt like Ada would emerge from behind the silk dressing screen in the corner of the room, her green eyes widening in surprise at Eliza’s intrusion. The bed was turned down, its duvet pushed aside, as if someone had just risen from it. A china teacup sat on the nightstand, rings of evaporated tea staining the inside. Eliza opened the drawer beneath, and her stomach dropped. Inside was a novel. The very book she’d been reading when Albert drowned: The Portrait of a Lady.
Despite the sickening jolt the book triggered, she was drawn to take it. She slid it into the pocket of her dressing gown, alongside the precious keys. As she did, she had the sudden, uncomfortable feeling of being watched. She slowly turned.
Someone else was in the room.
Eliza jumped, her heart pummeling.
And then she laughed. She wasn’t seeing anyone else at all, but her own reflection in Ada’s dressing table mirror, her hair frizzing around her head like a lion’s mane. She took a moment to calm herself, then went to examine the items on the vanity. Long strands of black hair were caught in a silver brush, untarnished despite its age. Eliza picked up a beautifully etched perfume atomizer and spritzed it. This was how Ada had smelled—like attar of roses and warm cinnamon.
Next to the toiletries, a portrait of the twins and their mother by the seashore sat in an oval frame. They were older in this photo—around three, by her reckoning. One of them gazed up at Ada with a rapturous expression while the other scowled at the camera, his arms crossed beneath the bib of his sailor suit.
In the photograph, Ada’s face was placid, inscrutable, the mere hint of a smile playing on her lips. She was so young. Fragile.
“Where are you?” Eliza whispered. “What happened to you?”
There came a soughing hiss from the hall, like something being pulled across the floor. Too late, Eliza realized the flame inside her lantern was dying, its paraffin spent. After one final flicker, she was plunged into deep and total darkness.
In the dark, blind, all of Eliza’s other senses came to life. Her eyes picked up every shadow, her ears perked at every sound. She drew in a shaky breath and pushed her back against the wall, her hand still clutching the useless lantern. With a whimper, she felt her way to the balcony, the peeling wallpaper coming off in her hand like a corpse’s leathery skin.
The hissing sound came again.
As if drawn by a magnet, Eliza’s head swiveled to follow the noise. It had come from the right side of the gallery—the section she had yet to explore. One of the doors stood open there, its portal a blackened maw in the already dark space. That door hadn’t been open when she’d first entered, she was certain of it. Her heart thudded in her ears, in her throat, in her head. Shirley was right. She shouldn’t be in here. Not alone. Not at night.
Suddenly, a painful, very human groan echoed from the open door. Eliza’s adrenaline surged. She dropped the lantern and hurtled toward the entrance of the ballroom, relying on memory to take her over the broken section of the balcony. She slammed the heavy door behind her and leaned against it to catch her breath, passing a trembling hand over her hair.
There came a hollow thud from the other side, as if someone had struck the door with the heel of their hand. A growl, feral and low, vibrated through the wood. Fear climbed through the soles of her feet and threaded through her limbs, cold as a January day. Eliza ran to her room, found her long-forgotten rosary beads in her dressing table, and knelt at the foot of her bed to pray as fervently as a frightened child.