“Well,” I said, “my life is hardly more important than anyone else’s. I believe you are the only one with even a prayer of stopping this creature before it kills again, and I think I may have found it for you.”
His eyes went wide with shock. Slowly shaking his head, he said, “You are remarkable.” It didn’t exactly sound like a compliment. He tipped his head to my left, where a path branched away from the one we stood on. “Follow me down the heath so we may talk in the open,” he said. “Not too closely.”
I let out a breath. “Yes, sir.”
Footpaths led off in various directions over the estate. From below, you could see them snaking up the hill through the heather and around the dark blocks of granite. The path we walked on now would likelyhave been the same he’d taken when he carried me, unconscious, from the pool to the chapel.
Though the wall painting at St. Gomonda made it seem even more likely the heath creature had been the one that attacked me and the others, I had to wonder why it hadn’t renewed its attack during the close visit to our cottage. The creature had simply watched me and then disappeared with the fog.
We were almost to the pool now, and Mr. Tregarrick’s kindness in coming to my aid that day reminded me of another kindness he’d done me.
“I wish to thank you, sir,” I said, “for sending your man with your letter and the tasseography book. It was very thoughtful of you.”
“Please call me Harker,” muttered my companion. “The formality between us has begun to feel silly. And you’re welcome to the book. I thought you might get some use out of it.”
“Indeed, I already have.”
“I appreciated the author’s straightforward way of explaining things. Books on alchemy are often opaque and labyrinthine.”
“You’ve read it?” I asked, surprised.
“Itwasin my library,” was his puzzled reply.
“Well, yes. But I guess it seems to me your interests are more ... scientific.”
“Alchemists are naturally curious. And alchemy has no contempt for spirituality.”
“I see.” And mostly I did. Sometimes his explanations went right past me, but the more time I spent with him, the easier I found him to understand. “Did you try it yourself?”
“I did, in fact.”
“How did you get on?”
He let out a breathy sound that might have been a laugh. “Not at all. It seems I don’t possess the gift for it, despite having a great quantity of spent tea leaves at my disposal.”
Ilaughed, and I took a few quicker steps so I wouldn’t have to speak so loudly. “Mrs. Rochester says that besides tea leaves, you only need study and practice.”
“I fear my mind may be too busy to really excel. I got the sense a certain sleepy quality of thought was conducive.”
I couldn’t help it; I laughed again. “Are you saying you weren’t quite lazy or simple enough?”
“Not at all, Miss Penrose, only that—”
“Mina,” I corrected, because I found I enjoyed teasing him, and also I had no wish to return to “formality.”
“Mina. I meant that I struggle to settle my thoughts. You’d think after so many years, I’d run out of things to think about.”
“I’d expect rather the opposite.”
“Mmm.”
We’d come to the pool, and I looked around with new eyes after what Mr. Hilliard had told me. There was the wide slab where I’d often sat, and where I’d hit my head, but the ground here was also littered with blocky stones of varying sizes, their lines softened by time. Especially telling were the small mounds with edges and corners of stones showing. I guessed that earth and grasses had gradually filled in the crevices among piles of masonry bricks.
Moving to stand beside the slab, I noticed a dark stain on the granite that hadn’t been there before.My blood.Harker stood a few arm lengths to my left, avoiding my eye. I tried to conjure the missing memory—him lifting me in his arms, carrying me to the chapel. Would he have scooped me up without thinking, then realized the risk, or the other way around?
Harker is always thinking.
Yet how well I knew that he could be taken by the moment.
