When I stand to leave, Larkin moves to block my way, not with force but with intention. He bows his head, just enough to make me feel the heat of his breath.
“Welcome home, Nora,” he says, voice soft. “Come find me if you need anything. You’ll find the nights here can sometimes be . . . restless.”
His eyes linger on my mouth, and for one deranged second I think he’ll kiss me, or bite me, or both. Instead, he steps back, and I slip past him, heart a snare drum in my chest.
Mrs. Whitby waits just outside the door, hands folded and expression serene.
“Will there be anything else, Miss Vale?” she asks.
I shake my head, unable to trust my voice.
The air is thick enough to drink, and I drift behind Mrs. Whitby, who has taken it upon herself to guide me “back to the comforts of my quarters.” At the foot of the staircase, Larkin intercepts us with a glass of something colorless in hand and a look that could cut linen. I wonder how he beat us here, but it’s not lost on me that there are endless corridors and I have no sense of direction here yet.
“Miss Vale,” he says, inclining his head in a parody of courtly manners, “I thought I’d walk you to your room.”
Mrs. Whitby gives me a glance: half warning, half permission. “Don’t get lost,” she says. “These halls play tricks at night.”
She vanishes. Larkin gestures for me to precede him, but as we ascend the stairs, he slips in beside me. We walk shoulder to shoulder, our footsteps perfectly synchronized.The house is silent, the usual ambient groans and pops muted, as if the building itself is eavesdropping.
He says nothing at first, and I am perversely grateful. I can feel the heat of him—subtle, steady, as if he’s running a fever just below the skin. The sensation makes the hairs on my arms stand up, and I regret not wearing a thicker sweater.
We make a left at the top of the stairs, continue down the long hall in silence. When we reach the blue door, he stops short and pivots to face me. The glass in his hand is otherwise untouched.
“Did you enjoy dinner tonight?” he asks, voice low enough to be mistaken for sincerity. “Normally we’d retire to the salon afterward, but it’s later than usual. Whitby can be a real show off with all her courses when she wants to impress.”
“It was wonderful.” And it was, at least the food. The company was . . . confusing.
“Good.”
I could slip through the door and close it in his face, but I don’t. Instead, I watch the way his lips quirk at one corner, as if he knows he’s won something just by keeping me here.
He presses the glass into my palm. The rim is cold, but his fingers are not. They linger just a second too long, thumb grazing the side of my wrist.
“If you’re going to stay at Hemlock House,” he says, “you’ll need to learn how to drink.”
“I’ll start with a crash course,” I reply, hating how breathless it comes out.
He smiles and steps closer, until I can smell the heat of gin and the faint, metallic undertone of aftershave. I am suddenly, violently aware of my heartbeat.
He leans in—only slightly, but enough to invade theboundary of politeness once again. “Careful, Miss Vale,” he whispers. “Your inheritance isn’t merely a house.”
He steps away, and the spell breaks. I close myself in the room, locking the door for good measure, then gulp the gin—bitter, clean, obliterating. I didn’t see where he went, but I still can hear the echo of his shoes on the wood, deliberate and measured.
I stare at my hand, the one he touched. The skin burns, as if his thumb left a print.
I tell myself that I don’t know him, I’m not here for him. That I’m here for the house, the history, the job of preservation. But I already know that by morning I’ll be looking for him in every room.
In bed, I stare at the ceiling and listen to the pulse in my own ears, the wind rattling the window, the walls sighing.
If Hemlock House is a living thing, then tonight, it is very much awake.
3
The Groundskeeper
Iwake before the sun. Or rather, before the light—because in this latitude, in this season, the sun barely wakes at all. I dress in silence, pulling on the same black slacks as yesterday, the same sweater only a different color—cream, instead of pale pink—and the same boots. I’m misguidedly hoping repetition can conjure a sense of order or control, because right now, I feel none.
This house is overwhelming. I live in a one bedroom apartment back in the city, I take public transportation and get cheap takeout on the way home most nights. A five-course meal served on fine china and drinks in the library, and an escort to my bedroom because I might get lost . . . all of that seems absurd.
