AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And I hadn’t been there. Well, maybe I had been. I didn’t remember the last days of my beloved adoptive mother’s life. They were in the mists somewhere with the other memories and the years I’d lost following my father’s unbelievable act.
I was starting to feel hot; the kitchen was stifling with the stove going and the hard work of kneading the uncompliant dough into something usable. I stopped momentarily to catch hold of myself, and Ms. Dillard gently moved me away and took over the kneading.
“Go on now. You’ve helped plenty, and really you’re more in the way than anything. Dinner will be ready at six.”
She turned her back to me and set quietly to work; our conversation was over. I left both fulfilled by the progress with housekeeper and hollowed out by my memories.
The weather turned abysmal, with icy rain making it impossible to leave Willowfield without a death wish. I wandered the halls as much as I dared, knowing Ms. Dillard would be able to tell if I had gone somewhere I shouldn’t. I became bold enough to search for the staircase again, the one I’d found on my first tour. I was curious about the tower. I imagined it was probably unsafe and better if I never came upon it, but I thought of it often, sometimes a disproportionate amount. I blamed the short days and long nights with nothing to do but think.
Before I could get myself into trouble, Professor Hughes returned, drawn and exhausted, shadows of worry beneath his eyes. When we met to work, he was gruff but polite, and I imagined things had been hard for him. I wanted to offer comfort but had few effective ways of doing it without egregiously breaching the barrier of our now well-established professional relationship.
“Professor Hughes,” I ventured, bringing him out of his thoughts and causing him to stare into the fire with such disquiet it seemed he had found his own demons watching him back from the flames. “I’m ignorant when it comes to your business, but I can tell you’re troubled, and it would be bad of me not to ask after you. If there’s anything I can do to help, please tell me.”
He rubbed a finger across his bottom lip, deeply troubled. “All that burdens me could be solved with one decision, but it’s a decision I can’t make in good conscience as it could either repair the problems at hand or destroy everything.”
I had no words of wisdom, having never been able to successfully fix any of my own struggles without causing further disruptions. Sorry I couldn’t help, I went back to annotating a series of notes concerning the Dullahan, a headless horseman of Crom Cruach. This creature was a favorite of mine, but my brain wouldn’t allow me to focus, so I stared at the words, seeing only angry ink on a snowy page.
“Miss Foxboro?” Professor Hughes’s tone was husky, heavy with emotions he wouldn’t share. My heart tripped over itself, and I didn’t dare glance up.
“Yes?” I asked, feigning distraction with the papers.
“If you were given an opportunity with equal power to heal all ills or irrevocably maim at its pleasure, would you risk taking it?”
I considered my own life and all of the escape routes I’d not taken for fear, moments when a chance at happiness grew hopeful but died from lack of attention. Desperation had finally driven me to reject safety, and it had led me here.
“I wouldn’t have, once,” I replied truthfully, “but I’m afraid I’ve become a person who wouldn’t miss an opportunity for good even if the chances of evil were equal. I’d rather know I’d opted to give myself happiness and failed than live always guessing what might have been.”
“And so here you are at Willowfield,” he murmured.
“Yes. Here I am,” I said.
“Have you found it for good or evil, Millie?”
The unexpected use of my name sent a wave of electricity through me, stunning my senses and provoking the longing that had become, after much effort, tolerably latent.
I took a small, slow breath and looked up, but not at him. Giving myself a moment to gather my wits, I ran my gaze up the bookcases stretching from floor to ceiling, gradually becoming organized with my efforts. I tried to focus on them and the puritanical value of this work.
“Have I asked the wrong question?” Professor Hughes mused when I didn’t answer right away.
I finally looked at him and wished I hadn’t. He sat leaning forward in the chair, his elbows on his knees, fingers resting loosely together. He’d undone his tie, and it had not affected me before, but now I saw only the hollow of his throat. I recalled how close he had been the night I’d accidentally invaded his room, so close I could smell his skin. The weight of his attention was considerable, given the intensity in his eyes.
“It’s been trying. The house is beautiful but unusual and lonely,” I replied, choosing my words as carefully as I was able. “But if I could go back, I believe I would choose to come again.”
He searched my face as though he was sure what I said wasn’t true. Then he stood to his feet and took up the sheaf of papers he’d been leafing through before his thoughts had overtaken him. He ambled to the desk where I was leaning. I wanted to stand straight, to not be in such a relaxed pose as he came near, but moving would give me away. So I remained, and he bent to place the papers on the table again, close enough that if I would move forward only a little more, I could press my lips against his neck. As he straightened, he caught my gaze in his own, holding me hostage in it as though feeding on the yearning he found there. A touch of mortification slipped beyond the haze of my want, and I wondered how clear my feelings were to a man who had already loved so fervently and lost. I didn’t avert my eyes, enthralled in an almost uncanny way.
“You shine a light in this dark house, Miss Foxboro. I pray you let nothing extinguish it.”
At last he looked away and moved past me to leave, his hand brushing mine again, bringing to memory my first night at Willowfield, which felt like so many years ago, though it had been only a month.
“Good night, Professor.” My voice was barely audible.
“Good night,” he replied.
To my intense relief and regret, he departed.
Chapter 13
I returned to my room with all the hope and misgivings I’d amassed in one evening, comforting myself with the knowledge that, at the very least, I was getting the hang of Willowfield, and that the day after tomorrow would bring an incredible distraction: the dinner. Thinking of the event brought to mind something else: the journal I’d squandered from its hiding place in the greenhouse. I’d left it undisturbed, not wanting to give myself any further reason to be fascinated with the professor or the history of this place. I glanced toward the dresser, where I’d hidden it among my slips. It was a childish and obvious place to hide things, the first place any of the girls at St. Mary would have looked for something. But there were no prying adolescent eyes here.
