“Could be a woine cellar,” a man with a bushy mustache opines.
“Or a dungeon,” another says, grinning. He smacks the boot of the smallest among them. “Oi, Charlie—be a good lad or it’s into the ’ole wif you!” He makes a sudden grab for the young man’s ankle, scaring him, and the men fall into rowdy laughter.
Mrs. Nightwing takes the lamp and holds it over the ancient stone. She examines it from above, pursing her lips, and then, just as quickly, gives the lamp back to Mr. Miller. “Likely it is a relic from the Druids or even the Romans. They say Hannibal himself may have led his troops through these parts.”
“Ye might be right, missus. Looks to be a marker of sorts,” the burly man says.
There is something strangely familiar about it all, like a dream I can’t quite catch before it flies away forever. I can’t keep from reaching fingers toward the relic. My breathing comes faster; my skin is warm. I want to touch it…
“Careful, miss!” Mr. Miller pushes me back as I topple forward.
The warmth leaves my hands, and I startle as if waking.
“Miss Doyle! You are entirely too close!” Mrs. Nightwing reprimands. “None of you girls should be here, and I do believe, in fact, that Mademoiselle LeFarge is waiting for quite a few of you.”
“Yes, Mrs. Nightwing,” we answer, but we don’t leave.
“Should we clear it away, missus?” Mr. Miller asks, and again that queer feeling surges through me, though I cannot say why.
Mrs. Nightwing nods. The men strain to remove it. Again and again, they fall away, red-faced and gasping for breath. The biggest and strongest of them jumps into the hole and puts his full weight against it. He, too, steps aside. “Won’t budge an inch,” he says.
“Wot d’yer wanna do, missus?”
Mrs. Nightwing shakes her head. “It’s been here this long. Just leave it be.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
FELICITY’S NOT FORGIVEN ME YET FOR MY ADVICE ABOUT Lady Markham, so I find myself shut out of her tent in the great hall. It’s not that she tells me I’m not welcome; she simply greets each of Cecily’s dull tales with a jolly laugh and fawns over the simpering details of Elizabeth’s latest trip to the dressmaker’s, whilst every syllable I utter is met with complete disdain. Eventually, I take refuge in the kitchen.
I’m surprised to see Brigid leaving a bowl of milk on the hearth. Even more curious, she has affixed a crucifix to the wall beside the door, and small sprigs of leaves mark the windows.
I help myself to a hard crust of brown bread from the larder. “Brigid…,” I say then, and she jumps.
“By all the saints! Don’t sneak up on your old Brigid like that,” she says, putting a hand over her heart.
“What are you doing?” I nod toward the milk. “Is there a cat about?”
“No,” she says, grabbing her basket of sewing. “And that’s all I ’ave to say on the subject.”
Brigid always has more to say on every subject. It’s simply a matter of luring the gossip out of her.
“Please, Brigid. I won’t tell a soul,” I promise.
“Well…” She motions for me to sit with her by the fire. “It’s for protection,” she whispers. “The cross and rowan leaves on the windows as well.”
“Protection from what?”
Brigid dips her needle into the fabric and pulls it through the other side. “The East Wing. Ain’t right putting that cursed place back as it was.”
“You mean because of the fire and the girls who died?”
Brigid cranes her neck to be sure we’re not overhead. Her sewing sits idle in her lap. “Aye, that, but I always felt that there were somethin’ not right about it.”
“What do you mean?” I say, taking another bite of bread.
“You just get a knowin’ in your very bones about such things.” She fingers the cross she wears around her neck. “And one day, I heard Missus Nightwing askin’ Missus Spence somethin’ about the East Wing and Missus Spence, God rest her as an angel, tellin’ ’er not to worry, that she would never let anything in, even if she ’ad to die first. Gives me a shudder jus’ thinkin’ abou’ it.”
Eugenia Spence giving her life to save everyone from the Winterlands creatures. The bread I’ve been chewing goes down hard.