Free The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle

“She’s seen the cold ones. You’re a fool if you let her out of the house again.”

 

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    I spent the day quietly with Mrs. Sexton next to the blazing hearth, working on Alma Augusta. By afternoon, I had finished her petticoat, and Mrs. Sexton had found me a hank of sheep’s wool to stitch together and shape into her hair. Himself abandoned me to visit the stables with Mr. Ketch, but he came back from time to time, sorry to lose my company, and at last brought his pincushion pirate and played at my feet.
    I did not speak of the horrors I had seen. At first, I was too shocked to bring them back to mind,and then I was too worried about what they might mean. And then, I come from the servant class, where the habit of silence is strong. Telling secrets may mean starving in the street.
    Himself once again demanded a real supper in the dining room, and I found the gathering every bit as awkward as the night before. Miss Winter ate daintily, so that I felt a graceless lump beside her, and acted as if she were alone in the room. Her face was perfectly composed, and one might have thought her bored, except that her eyes flitted here and there so strangely.
    Mr. Ketch did not eat. He drank a good deal instead. He acted like a victim of fever, animated to the point of delirium. If he had been under my care, I should have put him to bed and sent for the doctor at once.
    My charge was completely at ease. He did not appear to notice the agitation of his reluctant companions, and as for table manners, he made up his own. They disgusted us all, but I did not correct him, for fear Miss Winter should have occasion to correct me.
    We had finished our simple meal, and Mr. Ketch was telling a pointless story about London when I became aware of a faint noise in the room, like thecrackling fur of a cat during a thunderstorm. The odd sound moved past me, and when it drew close to Mr. Ketch, he became even more excited, until I feared he might fall into a fit.
    “Why are you afraid of that little boy?” Himself interrupted.
    Mr. Ketch stopped speaking and gulped down his ale. Then he poured more from a pewter jug.
    “What little boy?” I asked.
    “The boy standing over there.” Himself gestured towards the faint noise. “I’ve watched him tag after Master Jack for days.”
    “How curious,” remarked Mr. Ketch, with an attempt at a laugh. “I don’t see a boy. I see a wizened horror, all teeth and hair and fingernails.”
    “How can a thing be all fingernails?” scoffed Miss Winter. “I see no one. I never see them,” she continued in a low voice. “I feel them instead. I wonder which is harder to bear.”
    “He’s a boy my size, with a brown face,” said Himself. “He acts like he can’t see me. Like the girl Tabby talked to today, the one with yellow hair. She didn’t look at me either.”
    “You spoke with someone?” demanded Miss Winter, her strange eyes searching my face.
    “I spoke with Izzy, miss. And maybe withsome—some others; I’m not sure. But I don’t see her yellow hair—not as such, I mean. What I see has been dead for a long time.”
    “She’s pretty,” Himself protested.
    “She was,” remarked Miss Winter. “I suppose I should be grateful I don’t see them.”
    “Why is the brown-faced boy here?” Himself asked.
    “Why is any of them here?” murmured Miss Winter.
    Mr. Ketch drew a deep breath. “If you must know, that boy was fond of me.”
    “Fond of you!”
    There, I knew I shouldn’t have said it. The words had slipped out before I thought. But it seemed wholly improbable that first Izzy and now a little boy should haunt this dreadful house out of love.
    Mr. Ketch glared at me through bloodshot eyes and drank off his ale. “You doubt me,” he snarled. “You doubt my word. You do.”
    “Never mind, Jackie,” warned Miss Winter.
    I said nothing.
    “No, Flora, we see here Christianity at work, and I intend to speak about it.” Mr. Ketch leaned towards her,