Page 114 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
But even in the entry, there were signs of disruption. The French troops had ransacked the hall wardrobe, throwing coats and boots in a messy pile. Panic squeezed my lungs; Hartfield had to be perfect…
I waited for the miasma, that specter of Papa’s unrelenting slide into illness. It did not come. Nor was there any sign of the questing, black ropes, the crawler’s bindings.
The house was very quiet. Silent. Nobody met us; the servants had vanished. Ever since Papa’s death, Hartfield had felt painfully empty, particularly when I sat with a good fire beside his favorite chair, but this stillness was disconcerting.
Augusta, kneading her wrists, retreated into a corner. Mr. Knightley, quiet and efficient, checked Papa’s study and the parlor.
“I wish you had met my Papa,” I said to him to have some sound. “Imagine if he were here, and we arrived to surprise him, already married.”
Mr. Knightley returned, satisfied with his inspection. “Would he be cross?”
“He would act very formidable and demand to know your living, and scowl when you said you were a musician, but he would scowl no matter what you answered. Secretly, he would be thrilled. He was a great romantic before his health failed. My mother and he were a love match. He always hoped I would marry for love.”
The memories caught my heartstrings. Romantic as he was, Papa had also hoped my fortune would attract a lucrative marriage and secure Hartfield’s future. Well, my fortune was stolen, and my marriage would not pay many bills, but even so he would have clasped our hands and beamed.
Gently, Mr. Knightley touched my elbow. “We cannot linger.”
“Of course not.” I dabbed my eyes and turned to Augusta. “You can still leave.” She shook her head and turned in the direction of the kitchen.
Together, we went through the house to the kitchen door. Cautiously, Itried the knob. It turned, but the door was immovable, blocked somehow. The bitter scent I had caught last time made my nostrils twitch.
“The garden door is even more sturdy,” I said, “and John has blocked all the windows. I think we should try here. Can we force it?”
Augusta spoke, her first words since we left the Westons. “It opens like this.” She went to the corner and pulled a string concealed by a little table we used for curios. There was a sound of heavy wood sliding aside.
Mr. Knightley took the lead. He kept the ax, leaned the rifle case against the wall, then turned the knob, pushing with his shoulder when the door resisted. The bottom grated unevenly across the flooring, catching on clods of dirt. It jammed half open, wide enough to enter. A heavy wood bar was visible to the side, pulled away by the string. That was new and certainly unnecessary for a kitchen. The bitter scent flooded out, biting the flesh of my throat and depositing a scummy-sweet aftertaste.
The room was dark. Every window was covered. Worse, I sensed something stir. A twining black rope skittered through my vision, illusory but profoundly wrong. It swept completely through Mr. Knightley—I jumped at the sight—and stretched within inches of me, then pulled back as if burned and vanished.
“What is it?” Mr. Knightley asked. He had not seen it. He was peering into the dark.
“There is something within.” The odor made my voice hoarse. “Can you fetch a light?”
“Perhaps you should.” He had raised the ax two-handed, watching the dark opening.
I went to the parlor, found a flint and lit a lamp, and returned, adjusting the wick until it stopped smoking.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded, and he eased through the door, his motion falling into the supple forms of the morning exercises he practiced. I followed, then Augusta. In the lamplight, she looked as white as a sheet, but she did not hesitate.
The scent strengthened, but the kitchen appeared almost normal. Stove and fireplace, cold. Cupboards and drawers, neatly closed. Shelves with crocks and jars for flour and sugar and butter. There was our ancient, massive cooking table of dark oak and a small pastry table surfaced with marble.
But the windows were crudely boarded up from inside. The planks were studded with poorly driven iron nails, many of them bent. The floor was caked with dried mud and clay.
Mr. Knightley shifted the ax to one hand and lifted a wooden bucket from the floor. He sniffed it. “Pitch. They use it to waterproof ships.”
Augusta began a soft, desperate noise,uh uh uh. I followed her frightened gaze to some dim objects on the cooking table. “What are those?”
Mr. Knightley took the lamp and held it close. Two hinged iron loops were fastened to thick chains. The ends of the chains were bolted to the table.
“Shackles,” he said with profound disgust. “Like those on slave ships. Brutal tools. We have aided escaped slaves that lost a hand to infection or rot.”
“They hold the wyves for the binding,” Augusta whispered. She edged to the table, trembling. She laid her thin wrist beside one of the open, hinged circles as if measuring a bracelet at a jeweler. “Mr. Elton put them on me. Then he told me to pray. I could hardly bring my hands together.”
“How can that man claim to be God’s servant!” Mr. Knightley exclaimed in disbelief.
“He was always a monster,” I said. “Just one with a clever disguise.”
