Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

Chapter 6

September 7, 1846, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island

While Merritt waited, his wards arranged around him—not on his person, as they’d begun making him queasy when he wore them—he told himself all the benefits of staying on Blaugdone Island.

No more rent. No more landlords. No more pestersome neighbors. An office to write in. Lots of space. Lots of reading available, once the books stopped hurling themselves at him. And the island was beautiful, not that Whimbrel House was allowing him to enjoy it.

And he certainly wouldn’t be bored.

Essentially, this house was a challenge, and besting a challenge was progress, and progress was success, as far as Merritt was concerned. Progress was something he could achieve all on his own, regardless of what he had lost—or who had abandoned him—along the way.

Something shifted upstairs. He wondered if the breakfast room had dropped down. It had moved last night, replacing the bottomless pit of the first bedroom.

Merritt had slept in the reception hall.

Wards now on his person, he shuffled through the kitchen for a knife, hoping dearly that the house could not somehow wield it against him, and was surprised by how calm the place was being. Shadows still lurked in the corners and snuffed light from the windows, but otherwise it was . . . he dared not say peaceful, but tolerable.

And yet, as Merritt ventured up the stairs, he felt like the place was watching him.

Deep breaths. She’ll be back today. It felt better facing this place with another person, especially one who understood it far better than he did. But it was . . . interesting to think Hulda Larkin would essentially be his roommate.

He wouldn’t call her a roommate, of course. Not to her face. He imagined he’d be scolded for that.

Entering the largest bedroom, he paused, adjusting to the sunbeams streaming through the window, the light smell of dust, and the overall pleasantness of the space.

“You know,” he said to the ceiling, standing clear of the door in case it slammed again, “we would get on swimmingly if you could make everything like this. I’d even weed the foundation outside.”

The house didn’t respond.

Swallowing, Merritt approached the lump in the carpet. “I need the books back.” Hulda had spoken to the house, so why shouldn’t he? “It’s very important that I get them back. I have a manuscript and notes in there.” He knelt. “I’m going to cut it very cleanly, all right? Nice and easy.”

He touched the knife tip to the carpet. Held his breath. Waited. Gripped the ward around his neck with his other hand. Hulda had said not to wear it long, but he also liked living.

So.

Pushing the knife into the carpet, he sawed a slit just long enough to pull the books out. He felt like he was helping a cow give birth, trying to wedge the things out. It was a worthy metaphor, because he had helped a cow give birth once. In Cattlecorn, after he’d moved in with Fletcher’s folks.

A sigh escaped him as he retrieved the last book and flattened the carpet down. You could hardly tell he’d cut into it in the first place.

He didn’t notice the drawer of the dresser inching toward him until it was nearly under his chin.

Shrieking, Merritt whipped back at the same time the drawer snapped shut, missing his face but snatching the scarf around his neck. It was loosely tied, so instead of choking him, it came clean off.

Merritt’s blood steamed.

Not. The. Scarf.

“Give it back!” He lunged at the dresser, which danced away from him on suddenly mobile bracketed feet. Forgetting the notebooks, Merritt surged up and took chase. The dresser couldn’t fit through the doorway, so he—

The doorway expanded like the mouth of a snake, allowing the furniture passage.

“No!” he barked, grasping its top. It pulled him into the hallway. “Please, stop! Take anything else! Take back the notebooks! Just give me the scarf !”

The drawer with the scarf popped free. For a sliver of a second, Merritt thought the blasted house was going to listen to him.

But the drawer merely skidded off, using its handle like a clam’s tongue, and raced for the stairs, leaving the dresser blocking Merritt.

“HOUSE!” He shoved the dresser down and vaulted over it. “I mean it! Give it back!”

The drawer toppled down the ward-frozen stairs.

Merritt’s eyes stung as he grabbed the banister and charged after it, nearly tripping on the steps.

The drawer scooted through the reception hall and into the dining room.

Panic suffocated him. Notthescarfnotthescarfnotthescarf.

“Please!” he shouted, bursting into the dining room as the drawer slid into the breakfast room. “It’s all I have of her. I’ll do anything! I’ll leave! Back to New York!”

He dove into the now well-lit breakfast room, smashing his ribs into the floor. His fingertips brushed the drawer, but it slid from his grip. Merritt hit his shoulder on the table as he stood and ran after it, into the kitchen.

“House, stop—”

The windowsill separated from the wall, and the drawer tossed the multicolored knit scarf into the separation, which swallowed it like a mouth.

For a long moment, Merritt didn’t do anything. He stood there, near the three-legged stool, chest heaving, eyes wide. Staring.

Then he bellowed like a Viking and lunged for the window, slamming bodily into it.

“Give it back! Give it back!”

He dug his fingernails into the sill and tried to lift it, but the house didn’t budge. Grabbed the ward around his neck and pressed it to the glass, but the house still didn’t move. The spell was over. There was nothing to undo.

Vision tunneling, Merritt turned toward the cupboards and flung them open, rifling through them. A jar hit the floor and shattered. Empty flour sack. Spoons flew into the air, matches and an acid vial, an old lamp, a meat mallet—

He took the last thing and slammed its head into the windowsill, trying to break it off. And while a meat mallet was not made for hammering wood, he did a decent job of it.

The wall shuddered and rebuffed him, sending him flying back. He landed hard on his hip, and the meat mallet arced from his fingers toward the hearth.

Wincing, Merritt pushed himself up, eyes going to the nearly empty vial of sulfuric acid.

Acid used to light the chlorate of potash on the ends of the matches.

He grabbed both, then snatched up the empty flour sack. “You want to challenge me?” he seethed. “Fine.”

He dipped the matches, lighting them. The flames caught easily on the flour sack.

Which he then threw into the empty cupboard.

Fire licked the cupboard walls. For a heartbeat, it seemed it wouldn’t catch.

Until it did.

The entire house bucked. Sounds of shattering glass and warping metal penetrated his ears. The floor rumbled and split, sending a gush of marsh water up into the kitchen, dowsing—and mudding—the cupboards.

But the house didn’t stop there. Because why would it?

The great chasm in the kitchen jerked apart, widening, and swallowed Merritt whole.

Merritt groaned. Cold seeped through his clothes and into his skin. His head and back ached, and . . . No, he was still breathing. Just took a moment to remember how.

His hand brushed moist, dark soil. His other brushed the ward still secure around his neck. He lay supine, staring up at the hole in the floor of his kitchen. Wondered why it was still open at all. Maybe his ward prevented the house from closing over him. Maybe the house was reeling from its own injuries.

Maybe Merritt didn’t care.

Grunting, he pushed himself to sitting. His pulse thumped painfully beneath his skull. Prodding his hair, then his neck, he checked for injuries. Just bruises, he guessed. Bad bruises, but bruises had never killed him.

None of it had ever killed him.

Propping his elbows on his knees, he dropped his head into his palms. Focused on his breathing. In, out. In, out. He sat like that for a long time, trying to tamp down the anger and the hurt. Just when he thought it was finally done, that he was finally cured, it came bubbling up again. Something always brought it up, and he hated it, because it never hurt any less, even so many years later.

He breathed until his throat wasn’t tight anymore. Until his lungs felt a little lighter. Then he stood slowly, testing for other injuries, fortunately finding only bruises. He’d fallen about . . . eleven or twelve feet.

Good news, his house had a root cellar.

At that thought, he glanced around, searching for bodies. Human, rat, or other. But there was nothing here but dirt, roots, and some dripping water.

“Okay, then,” he murmured to himself. “Step one, get back into the house.”

If it didn’t kill him on the way up.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot for Merritt to use to climb back up. There were some boards in the foundation, but none were beneath the hole. Not enough stones to build a tower. And Merritt most certainly could not jump that high. He was a writer, not an athlete.

Sighing, he ran his hand back through his hair, then grimaced at the slick sensation of mud on his forehead. He walked the perimeter of the dark space—which would only get darker after sunset—searching for something to help him. He found the meat mallet and two matches, useless to him without the acid vial.

He tried to climb. He really did. Using the wood of the foundation, he dug his shoes into the mud and attempted to shimmy across the knobs and crevices under the floor. He tried, and he fell. He tried again, and he fell harder, earning himself a new bruise. After the fourth time, he didn’t get back up. He sat, elbows on his knees, and breathed.

“Can you lower something?” he asked the house, his voice strained. “I’m sorry I lit you on fire. I just wanted it back. I need it back.”

The house didn’t respond.

A lump formed in his throat. “If you’re going to keep me down here, can’t I have it back?”

It was stupid to bargain with a magical house he’d just tried to set on fire. He knew it was stupid. The scarf was old. Starting to fray. But it was all he had of her. His sister Scarlet had knitted it for him the Christmas before . . . before all of it had happened, and he hadn’t seen her since. He’d accepted he’d never see her again.

He’d never gotten to say goodbye. To any of them.

Ignoring the mud, Merritt pressed his knuckles into his eyes. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It was all he had left of her. He had nothing of Beatrice. Would he even recognize her now? She was probably married with kids. Kids. He had nieces and nephews who might not know he existed. And he didn’t know them. And damnation, he should look for them, because they were still his, weren’t they?

But what if . . . what if Beatrice hated him, too?

He laughed. He pressed his knuckles in harder and laughed. It wasn’t funny. It was mad, if anything. But he preferred laughing to crying. Always had.

This was a dark moment. He recognized that. But it wasn’t his darkest, which made him feel a little better. Only a little, but he would take it.

He sat like that awhile, thinking and trying not to think, trying to let go of the scarf, trying to figure his way out. He tried climbing again. Still didn’t work.

Maybe there weren’t any skeletons down here because he was meant to be the first.

Somehow, Merritt had managed to doze. Doze, not sleep, because he didn’t think he’d hear the creaking if he’d been unconscious.

Sitting up, Merritt registered that the sun was casting burnt-orange light through the kitchen above, suggesting the day was growing late. He listened eagerly and then slumped when he realized the house was likely up to its tricks again, creaking and shadowing and moving the walls. But the creaks turned into steps, coming toward him, and he leapt to his feet at the same time he heard a woman gasp overhead.

“What on God’s good earth happened?”

His eyes rolled back as utter relief washed over him. “Mrs. Larkin, you have the voice of an angel.”

The creaks and steps neared, slower this time. Then they stopped. A new light burned overhead, likely that enchanted lamp of hers, and two sets of fingers curled around one of the splintered floorboards. Hulda’s face peeked over next.

Her eyes widened. “Mr. Fernsby! What are you doing down there?”

Exhaling relief, he shoved his dirty hands into his dirty pockets. “The house and I got into a bit of a tiff, you see. I believe I’m being disciplined.”

She blinked. Pushed up her glasses. “Care to explain what happened?”

He didn’t, but he did it, anyway, keeping the tale as surface level as possible.

Hulda clucked her tongue. “I see the drawer. Really, Mr. Fernsby. I told you not to antagonize the place.”

The house groaned as if in agreement.

“In my defense,” Merritt tried to keep his tone light, “it antagonized me first.”

The housekeeper’s nails drummed against the floor. “Let me see if I can get you up.” She vanished.

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Merritt shouted, “Can’t you ward it or something?”

Farther away, she said, “You’re beneath the house now, Mr. Fernsby. The beneath is not enchanted, and I cannot compel the place to lend you a hand. Or a . . . floorboard, I suppose.”

Her voice grew quieter and quieter, until he couldn’t hear her at all. He waited a quarter hour before she returned.

She sat down near the hole. “Unfortunately, I did not think to bring a length of rope with me.” Her tone was such that Merritt could not determine if she thought the whole thing farcical or if she was taking it very seriously. “Even so, I don’t know whether I could pull you up. I hope you can climb.”

His shoulders and elbows ached from previous attempts. “I’ve certainly tried.”

A sheet dipped over the hole, tied to another, then another. The woman must have stripped the beds upstairs. A wonder that the house had let her instead of merely pushing her into the cellar, too.

The sheets reached him, and he waited while Hulda found something to tie the other end to. However, Merritt quickly learned that climbing up sheets was very difficult. Repelling down them might have been possible, but there was nothing to really grip except the knots, and by the time he managed to scramble to the first one, out of breath, it came undone and dropped him back into the mud.

“Bother,” Hulda muttered.

“Let me try,” he offered.

Hulda lowered the sheets until he could reach the second, and he tied the fallen one to it with a water knot. It held much better, but he just couldn’t pull himself up those damnable sheets, and though she tried, Hulda could not haul him up.

Merritt stood in the cellar, hands on his hips, digging a shallow grave for his mounting despair and burying it messily. “It was a good effort.”

Hulda sighed. “I feel I am to blame. I should have sent a message ahead instead of leaving.”

“Then we might both be down here.”

She snorted. “As if I would have let you near matches under my watch. Oh.” She vanished again, only for a moment this time. “Here.”

She lowered down a wrapped cloth. Merritt hadn’t realized how hungry he was until he saw the sandwich within it.

He ate it quickly. “Thank you.”

“I brought groceries as well, and a receipt for the collection and delivery of your things. Your landlord was rather compliant. The rest of my things are being delivered tomorrow. Trunks and such.” She worked her jaw. “Perhaps if you set the wards aside, we could—”

“No.”

She frowned at him. “I’m beginning to fear that only magic will get you out of this, Mr. Fernsby. And as I said, the house has no power outside of itself, and you are outside of the house. It might not be able to do anything.”

“And it might drop one of these support beams on my head and finish the job,” he countered.

Shaking her head, Hulda said, “At least you see the importance of good staff, hm?”

“Yes.” His tone hardened. “As I plan on falling into pits regularly, it would be good to have some wizards-in-servitude available to fetch me out.”

“You needn’t say it like that,” she protested. “Servitude is the best way for the unfortunate to rise in their station and procure good wages for themselves and their families.”

Merritt chucked the sandwich cloth at the dirt. “You talk like a politician.”

“You seem to enjoy pointing out my idiosyncrasies.” She pulled her tool bag over and rummaged through it, but Merritt already knew there would be nothing in there to help him. “Despite our current conundrum,” she went on, “we will fetch you out. In the interim, I’ll lower down a blanket and food. My movers will arrive tomorrow, and we’ll enlist their help.”

“Can they also break down the front door?”

She closed her bag. “The place merely requires a firm hand. I assure you that with some time and effort it will be quite livable—”

“Mrs. Larkin.”

She eyed him.

Pulling on the ends of his hair, Merritt asked, “Why is it so important to you?”

She hesitated. “Why is what so important to me?”

“This house. My staying. All of”—he waved his hands—“this.”

She opened her mouth as though to deliver a smart retort, then closed it again, thinking. The orange of the sun dimmed, and the enchanted lamp cast shadows on the walls—the parts Merritt could see.

“Magic,” she began carefully, “is a dying art. Magicked homes even more so. They’re crucial to our history. They preserve what we cannot, spells long lost to the whims of genealogy, for when magic has no fallible body, it cannot fade or dissipate. In the modern world, magicked homes provide endless study for scholars, wizards, and historians alike. They are museums of the craft.”

Merritt folded his arms. “That’s why they’re important, yes. Not why this house is important to you.”

She hesitated. Shifted. For a moment, Merritt thought she was going to leave, but she didn’t. She smoothed her skirts. Adjusted her glasses. Smoothed her hair.

“Because this is my life, Mr. Fernsby,” she said, softer. “And because I do not have and will never have anything else.”

His arms loosened. “That’s a dreary thing to say.”

“Hardly. It’s realistic.”

His lips quirked. “Don’t you think someone with magic powers should, I don’t know, not believe in realism?”

“Just because magic is rare does not make it unreal,” she countered.

They were both quiet for several seconds.

“I have made a career of caring for these wonders.” She gestured to the kitchen. “And when the wonders stop, so will my career. I enjoy what I do, Mr. Fernsby. I’m good at it. I would not give you the guarantee if I weren’t.”

“I don’t doubt your abilities.”

“Don’t you?” she questioned, and Merritt shifted his weight from foot to foot. “You wish to know why I care about this house? I see opportunity here. Opportunity that can be seized and tamed and made into progress.”

That last word caught his attention. Hadn’t he been thinking of that very thing?

She considered a moment. “If you leave this house behind, Mr. Fernsby, what would your next step be?”

He shrugged. “I could donate it to BIKER.”

“You could, I suppose. We might find a good curator for it. And then what?”

He met her eyes as best as he could, from the cellar. “I don’t know. I suppose I’d search for another apartment, perhaps in Boston this time. My publisher is in Boston. Find a quiet place to write my book.” Go on as he had before. Yet why did the idea unsettle him?

“Buy a home?”

“I don’t know.” He didn’t really want to think about it, not while he was cold and out of sorts. “Have to save up a little longer to do that. Could build for cheaper, but I’d have to head west for that, and country life doesn’t really suit me. There’s no kinetic rails heading out there, either. Be hard to go back and forth.” His enthusiasm evaporated a little more with each word.

“Give us a chance, Mr. Fernsby,” she said, her mouth curving upward ever so slightly. “Imagine a future where you own a home flush with magic, on an island teeming with life. Imagine—”

She cut off abruptly, and Merritt craned to better see her. “Mrs. Larkin?”

“Pardon me. I just saw something in the debris.”

He paused. “A spider?”

She rolled her eyes. “A vision, Mr. Fernsby. By chance, do you know a well-dressed Black man with short hair? Someone who might have reason to come to the island?”

Relief bubbled up, easing the stress in his body. “Yes, I do, Mrs. Larkin. And God grant that he’s coming now.”