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Chapter 1
I’d never questioned the presence of my wits more than the moment I stood in the frigid morning air and watched the hired car arrive. The vehicle, sleek and ostentatious, was said to be capable of going fifty miles an hour, and I pretended it was the prospect of that speed making my stomach do somersaults.
The car pulled to a smooth stop, and a tall, ruddy driver unfolded himself from the front seat, introduced himself briefly as Joseph Dempsey, and went to collect my bags. It was short work; I had only one. I wasn’t a woman of means. As the gentleman loaded my valise into the trunk, I ran my bare fingers along the smooth deep sea blue of the wheel hull. This was, undoubtedly, the worst decision I’d ever made, but there were few options, and this was by far the least evil of them.
I glanced over my shoulder to the doorway of the little bookshop I’d come to know as home, where the stooped owner, Mr. Helm, had appeared, his blue eyes uncharacteristically red-rimmed. I’d never seen him on the verge of tears, and my heart constricted painfully. I rushed to him, pulling a thin cotton handkerchief from my pocket. It wasn’t in his character to embrace, so he enveloped both of my hands in his. They were large hands, covered in the ink stains of his trade as an antique book restorer, a business he had been teaching me for the past year despite his once firmly held belief that restoration was not for women.
Mr. Helm had been a tall man in his youth, but the war and many years hunched over a workman’s table had scuttled his stature. I didn’t need to lift my chin to look at his face, which was working to arrange itself into something less aggrieved. I was glad for his trying, because I would call off everything if even one tear rolled down his cheek.
“My dear,” he said, his voice hitching. “You will be sorely missed.”
“Oh, Mr. Helm.” My own words warbled. “I’m positive you’ll find another helper soon, and she’ll give you grief about leaving out your tools and scold you for all the ink on your shirts.”
He squeezed my fingers.
“Horseshit. Where will I find another assistant who reads ancient scriptsandmakes the best damn coffee this side of the country? No, you’re one of a kind, Millie, my girl, and I hope you find peace and happiness in your future. Leave the dark, lonely rooms of old forgotten bookshops behind you and all your ghosts with them.”
It was the first time Mr. Helm had ever officially referred to me as his assistant and the first he’d ever acknowledged the dark moods I tried so hard to keep to myself. I loved him more for his knowing. Eighteen months ago, I’d come to the bookshop seeking employment as a housekeeper. My official responsibilities had been to keep the shop in order and tend to Mr. Helm’s household needs. Those had been few for a gruff, busy old man used to living alone, and a month of grueling boredom had come and gone before I’d snuck one of the fragile texts on the Battle of Assandun and began reading it in my downtime. It wasn’t the most riveting read, but any new knowledge was worth having. He’d discovered my secret without reprimand and then began requesting my help with his work in the smallest of ways. That seemed a lifetime ago.
I tried to offer him my brightest smile.
“I’ll come back when this assignment is finished. It won’t take the professor more than a year to write his paper, and then…”
I lost my train of thought.
Professor Callum Hughes was the master of Willowfield, a small historic estate a full day from Boston, where I’d shown up, not a penny to my name and a gaping black hole where years of memory should be.
“This Professor Hughes,” Mr. Helm started, and I steeled myself for another of his grave warnings, a tale of caution, one of the hundreds offered to me like sparkling farewell wishes from longtime customers who’d heard of my plans. A young woman taking any position in a widowed household was risky. Mr. Helm appeared to change his mind about what he was going to say, alerting me to my expression. I consciously relaxed the tense muscles in my forehead.
“Give it your best,” he offered instead. “If you must leave for any reason, you’ll always be welcome here.”
“I know,” I replied, and this time tears wet my cheeks. Mr. Helm took my handkerchief and wiped my eyes, then cupped my face in his hands and placed a sound kiss on my forehead.
“God be with you, Millie,” he said.
I sniffed, nodded smartly to show him I was keeping a stiff upper lip, then headed to the car before I started to bawl like a lost child. As I climbed in, I combatted my sorrow with the knowledge that I was working my way up in the world, closer to the day I could live a safer, less haunted existence.
Mr. Dempsey fell heavily into the driver’s seat with the grunt of a man whose back wasn’t as good as it used to be. I waved once more to Mr. Helm through the window before the vehicle lurched and began its slow crawl down the road clogged with walkers and shoppers. The old bookkeep watched the car like a man watching a hearse carry off the dead.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Millicent,” I admonished myself. I was letting my morbid fancy run away again. The driver gave me an odd look in the rearview.
I adjusted my threadbare wool bengaline skirt, the nicest I owned though it was secondhand. Blue and brown plaid made it dowdy, especially when paired with a white blouse and tan pullover as it was. I touched the felt of my cloche hat, knowing it didn’t become me the way it did the other young women I saw walking the streets of Boston, their hair cut short, their moon faces painted in kohl and cheery rouge. It was 1928, a year of evermore daring fashions, but I remained comfortable and unnoticed wrapped in unassuming beiges, though I’d dabbed a bit of blush to my cheeks to make me seem alive. At only twenty-six years old I felt I was approaching sixty but had no energy to mind it. I glanced again at the throngs of youth mulling near the Jordan Marsh department store on Washington Street as we passed. They were all little stars brightening the walkways with their smiles and their eyes full of mischief and freedom. I was the dust being swept from under their feet.
“How long until we arrive?” I asked.
“It’s a good 120 miles, and the state of the roads out west are something else. We’ll be seeing the better part of a six-hour trek, and that’s with a bit of speedy driving, if you don’t mind, miss.”
My skin became clammy. “Er, no. No, I don’t mind. It’s better to get there faster, I think.”
He gave me a cheeky wink. “I promise I won’t break thirty.”
I settled against the seat, wondering about our destination. Before the silence grew too thick to break easily, I asked, “Do you know much about Willowfield?”
“Only that it’s deserted these days. Just a couple of staff left to the whole place.” He glanced back at me, waiting for my reaction. The newswasstartling. I’d been under the impression the estate was large, a home built at the turn of the century by a family who made their fortune, as many other families had, in the flowering shipping trade. I’d assumed it would be bustling with the typical activity expected of such an estate. My knowledge of the professor was further limited, and all I was sure of was he was currently on sabbatical, studying Celtic folklore and the psychology of myth. He was desperate for an assistant who knew enough ancient language to help him organize his notes and who wouldn’t mind living out in the middle of nowhere. The image of a meandering, lost-in-thought academic was so typical it was almost a caricature, but the messier he was, the better for me. The longer I was there, the more money I could squirrel away to escape my current reality: no savings, no living family, and a psychiatric hospitalization, which turned most decent employers away, clutching their breast.
Mad Millie.
I had planned to use the size of Willowfield’s staff to my advantage by staying hidden in the chaos and being present only when needed. The less one-on-one exposure I had with my employer, the less difficult it would be to avoid damning personal conversations. I’d been quiet for too long. One of the driver’s eyebrows was slightly raised.
