Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

Chapter 1

September 4, 1846, Baltimore, Maryland

The reading of a will was far more exciting when one hadn’t been disinherited thirteen years prior. Indeed, Merritt Fernsby was not sure why the lawyer had contacted him at all.

He hadn’t come with his family, of course. He hadn’t spoken to them in a decade. Hadn’t been allowed to. There were letters in the beginning, all from him—the start of his writing career, in a melancholy sort of way, but melancholy things always made for great fiction. The coddled and content seldom told good stories. And though he was thirty-one years of age as of last March, he had yet to start a family of his own, for various reasons he could get into but never did.

And so he was very interested to receive a telegram from Mr. Allen, his maternal grandmother’s estate lawyer. Interested and confused, he’d made the trip out to Baltimore to satiate his curiosity. If nothing else, it might make good fodder for an article, or perhaps his work in progress.

“I’ll get to the point, Mr. Fernsby.” Mr. Allen leaned casually against his desk with papers in hand. He seemed to loom over Merritt and the well-worn chair he sat in, like a vulture sniffing out a fresh carcass, which was a somewhat harsh metaphor given that, thus far, Mr. Allen had been nothing but polite and professional.

Merritt wondered if his parents and siblings had been called into this office as well, or if Mr. Allen had made the trip out to New York to read the will to them there. Admittedly—and Merritt loathed to admit it, even to himself—he’d hoped they’d be here. Death often brought people together, and—

He swallowed hard, keeping his tongue at the back of his throat, until the familiar disappointment burned up in his stomach.

He pushed objectivity into his thoughts. Perhaps they had all come to Baltimore to see Grandmother before she passed. Then again, Merritt had, at best, only seen his grandmother once a year during his childhood, and he couldn’t quite remember the scale of sentimentality between her and his mother.

He wondered what his mother looked like now. Did she have lines in the corners of her eyes? Did she wear her hair differently, and had it started turning gray? Perhaps she had gained weight or lost it. Wincing, Merritt shut off the wondering early; the more he wondered, the less he could remember.

He realized then that Mr. Allen was still talking.

“—weren’t included in the rest,” he was saying, “but an addition was made some time ago.”

Merritt put two and two together. “How long ago?”

He checked his papers. “About twenty-five years.”

Before the disowning, then. He wondered if his grandmother had forgotten to take him off. Then again, the break had been his father’s doing. Perhaps Grandmother had, despite never trying to contact him, still cared for him. He preferred that explanation to the other. Of course, there was always a third possibility: guilt might have prevented her from removing his name.

“To my grandson Merritt Fernsby, I leave Whimbrel House and anything that might be left within it, along with its land.”

Merritt sat straighter in his chair. “Whimbrel House?” When Mr. Allen didn’t reply quickly enough, he added, “That’s it?”

Mr. Allen nodded.

Merritt wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the mention of a house had him distracted. “I’ve never heard of it. A real house?”

“I don’t believe false ones can be inherited.” Mr. Allen put the papers down. “But I looked into the matter myself; it’s all in order.”

“How did my grandmother own a second house?”

Mr. Allen leaned back to open a drawer in his desk. His shuffled a few things around before pulling out a large envelope. Withdrawing a new set of documents, he said, “The property came into the Nichols line some time ago. Before that . . . Well, it hasn’t had a tenant in a very long time.”

“How long is very long?”

He flipped a paper. “Last recorded resident was 1737.”

Merritt blinked. That was over a century ago.

“Understandable,” Mr. Allen went on. “The place is out of the way, on Blaugdone Island in the Narragansett Bay.” He glanced up. “Rhode Island.”

Which meant marshland. “I’m aware of it.” A house abandoned for a hundred years in the middle of a marshy island . . . It must be in terrible repair.

“Commuting would be difficult. Unless you own an enchanted watercraft.”

Merritt shook his head. “Fortunately, I don’t have need to commute.” Although he’d made his name in journalism, Merritt had recently sold his second novel to his publisher—the first having been a moderate success—and one could write novels anywhere there were ink and paper available.

He rubbed his chin, noting he’d forgotten to shave that morning. Having been on his own since he was eighteen, he’d learned how to shingle roofs, place floorboards, grease hinges, the lot of it. There would be a great amount of work ahead of him, but he might be able to fix up the place.

It would be nice not to share walls or pay rent. And finally break away from the Culdwells.

Mr. Culdwell was Merritt’s landlord. He was a crochety moose of a man who was grisly even on his best days. And though Merritt was always timely with his rent, the bloke’s grandson had recently moved to the city for school. Culdwell, of course, wanted to house him in Merritt’s space. When Merritt refused to move out in exchange for a month’s returned rent, Culdwell had blatantly said there would be no renewal of contract come October. Which, obviously, put Merritt in something of a bind.

Plus, Culdwell’s wife was nosy and smelled like broccoli.

So the pertinent questions were, how poor was the condition of Whimbrel House, and how much did Merritt actually care?

“I . . . might divulge one other thing listed here.” Mr. Allen’s mouth skewed to the side almost in distaste. A thick line formed between his eyebrows.

“Oh?”

He shrugged. “I’m not one for superstition, Mr. Fernsby, but it does state here that the previous tenant claimed the place was haunted.”

Merritt laughed. “Haunted? This is Rhode Island, not Germany.”

“Agreed.” While it was possible for magic to root itself in inanimate objects, it had become so rare—especially in a place as new as the States—that the claim felt incredible. “But haunted or not, the parcel is yours.”

Merritt knit his hands together. “How large of a parcel is it?”

Mr. Allen glanced at the papers. “I believe it’s the entire island. Roughly eighteen acres.”

“Eighteen,” Merritt exhaled.

“Marshland, mind you.”

“Yes, yes.” He waved his hand. “But wasn’t Jamestown built on the same? Folk are always multiplying and expanding. If the house is unsalvageable, there’s the land. I could sell the land.”

“You could, with the right buyer.” Mr. Allen didn’t hide his skepticism as he handed over the papers. “Congratulations, Mr. Fernsby. You’re now a homeowner.”

Despite his ever-growing curiosity, Merritt did not spend the extra money to take the kinetic tram out to Rhode Island; he took a train, a wagon, and then a boat. By the time he crossed a good portion of the Narragansett Bay and reached Blaugdone Island, he understood why no one had bothered to live there. It was vastly out of the way. There was something uncomfortable yet incredibly appealing about how out of the way it was.

Because after the hired boat dropped off Merritt and the one bag he’d packed, he heard a beautiful thing.

Silence.

Now, Merritt did not hate noise. He’d been raised in a sizable town and lived in a bustling city for over a decade. He was used to it. It was familiar. But the only time cities got quiet was during heavy snowfall. So it was strange for a place to be both quiet and warm. There was something about the hush that made him realize he was completely alone, on an island that may have been untouched by humankind for . . . years. A century, even. But it didn’t bother him, not precisely. After all, Merritt had been alone a long time.

The cry of a bird broke the silence momentarily, announcing Merritt’s arrival to others. Shading his eyes from the sun, he spied what he believed to be a heron off in some tall grass between trees. The leaves had not yet changed on the elms and oaks spotting the land, but they were certainly thinking about it. Just beyond that was a nub of a shadow—the house, most likely. He walked toward it, and the heron took off, long legs trailing behind.

The earth was moist beneath his shoes, the local plant life wild and untouched. He recognized some of it: weeping cherries, golden aster, autumn olive. He thought he smelled chrysanthemums as well, which had the effect of relaxing his shoulders. He hadn’t realized they’d been tense. Crouching, he pinched some soil between his fingers. It looked rich; if he started a garden now, he might be able to wheedle some garlic, onions, and carrots out of it before the frost hit.

A cottontail thumped and darted from his path—he’d have to cut down some of this grass—and a flock of swallows watched him from a slippery elm. The house grew in size, enough to garner some color—was that a blue roof? Blue shingles were a surprise, given the age of the house. Time faded colors. That, and most of the early roofs in the States were thatched.

The house continued to grow to two stories, and its sides took on a yellow hue. Merritt’s steps quickened, startling a feeding bird—a whimbrel—from a puddle. He’d half expected the house to be slanting one way, to have gaps between weathered boarding, to shelter large families of mice. Hence his decision to pack a single bag. It wasn’t his intent to stay; this visit was exploratory.

He approached the house from the north; it faced east. When he came around to the front, his lips parted as sea-scented air puffed his hair back.

The house was . . . fine.

It was perfectly fine. In fantastic condition, at least from the outside. No weathering, no missing shingles, no broken windows. The nature around it was wild, but surely someone lived here for the place to be so pristine. It could almost be brand new, though the style was certainly colonial.

“I’ll be,” he said, and followed it with a whistle, which seemed appropriate. He squinted at the windows but couldn’t see much within. So feeling strange, he approached his front door and knocked. He didn’t know how to feel when no one answered. Had he expected someone to answer?

“Surely someone has been keeping it up . . .” Perhaps they had vacated the premises after the place was bequeathed to him, but Mr. Allen had said there had been no recent tenants. Squatters, perhaps? Very handy squatters?

There was a key in the lawyerly envelope in his bag, but when Merritt tried the handle, the door opened with only the slightest creak of its hinges. It was early afternoon, so sun shined through the windows, which were only lightly pocked with trails of rain. The moderate reception hall looked every bit as fine and put together as the exterior. At the end was a set of intact stairs and a door. Leaving the front door open, Merritt stepped in, marveling. He’d intended to open that second door, but his attention was diverted by the rooms stemming off either side of the reception hall—a dining room on the right, with a table already set for a party of eight, and a living room on the left, fully furnished in burgundy and forest green.

Merritt gaped. He had considered that his grandmother’s will was set to dump an unwanted parcel on him, leaving it to him to let it rot or try to sell it, but this house already looked . . . amazing. More than he could afford, unless he managed to pull an Alexandre Dumas and make bank off his publisher.

“Thank you, Anita,” he murmured, reaching out and touching the wall. There was a portrait there of a British woman, though nothing else to denote who she might have been. She seemed to look at him, wondering about the transition of ownership just as much as he did.

He turned to the living room, stepping reverently. Everything was in order, like it’d been prepared for him, though a heavy coat of dust lined every available surface, and the furniture had some wear. But no sign of rodents, or even a fly. He ran his hand over the back of a settee before peering through the next doorway, which led to a sunroom. The plants there were either dead or overgrown, as though whoever had been caring for this house lacked a green thumb. But Merritt owned a sunroom. The thought put a weird pressure in his chest he didn’t quite understand.

Turning back, he was a quarter of the way through the living room when something caught his eye. Turning toward the window, his gaze fell upon a burgundy armchair, upholstered in velvet, maple leaves carved into the armrest and legs.

And it was melting.

Merritt squinted. Rubbed his eyes. Inched closer.

It was . . . most definitely melting. Like a candle under too hot a flame. The seat dripped onto the carpet, though the carpet didn’t absorb or repel it. The drips simply ceased to be. Meanwhile, the wood glistened with perspiration and wobbled, ready to break under the lightest touch.

“Good Lord,” Merritt mumbled, stepping away. He caught himself on the settee, and his hand pushed through its soupy exterior.

Yelping, he wrenched back, toppling onto the carpet, quick to get his legs under him again. Drips of settee clung to his fingers, then puffed away as though they never were. Once the walls began warping, Merritt sprinted back into the hall, his breath coming fast, his previously gooped hand to his chest.

“What on earth?” he asked, spinning about.

The portrait’s eyes followed him.

Something thumped up the stairs.

Swallowing, Merritt bolted for the front door.

It swung shut and locked just before he reached it.