The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

Threads By Carrie Vaughn

Unicorn

For the twentieth time, Jerome reviewed the invitation that had brought him, more than prompt, to the parlor in the doctor’s obscure manor house. Mr. Kennelworth, Brief interview granted, ten minutes only, be prompt. Signed, Lambshead. It appeared to be his actual signature, and not a note by some assistant.

The stooped housekeeper, who no doubt had been with Lambshead for decades, had guided him here to sit on a velvet-covered wingback chair and wait. The loudly ticking clock sitting at the center of the marble mantelpiece over the fireplace now showed that Lambshead was three minutes late. Would his ten-minute interview be reduced to seven minutes?

Not that sitting in the parlor wouldn’t have been fascinating in itself, if he weren’t so anxious. He’d arrived at the village the day before, to prevent any mishaps with the train, and spent the night in one of those little country inns with a decrepit public house in front and sparse rooms to let upstairs. The included breakfast had been greasy and now sat in his belly like lead. The village had exactly one taxi, whose driver was also the proprietor at the inn. Jerome had had to practically bribe him to drive him out here. He needed that interview, if for no other reason than to make sure the newspaper reimbursed him for his expenses.

But all he could do was wait. Breakfast gurgled at him. Perhaps he ought to review the questions he hoped to ask the doctor. Doctor Lambshead, what of your sudden interest in occult experimentation? Is it true the Royal Academy has censured you over the debate about the veracity of certain claims made regarding your recent expedition to Ecuador?

He ought to be making notes, so that his readers would understand what he was seeing. The parlor was filled with curios of the doctor’s travels, glass-fronted cabinets displayed a bewildering variety of artifacts: elongated clay vases as thin as a goose’s neck; squat, mud-colored jars, stopped with wax, containing who knew what horrors, wide baskets woven with grass in a pattern so complicated his eyes blurred. Weapons hung on the walls: spears, pikes, three-bladed daggers, swords as long as a man. Taxidermied creatures of the unlikeliest forms: a beaver that seemed to have merged with a lizard, a turkey colored scarlet.

The tapestry of a unicorn hanging in the center of one wall amid a swarm of serious-visaged portraits seemed almost ordinary—every country manor had at least one wall containing a mass of darkened pictures and a faded, moth-bitten Flemish unicorn tapestry. The beast in this one seemed a bit thin and constipated, gazing over a pasture of frayed flowers.

Jerome was sure that if he got up to pace, the eyes in the portraits would follow him, back and forth.

When he heard footsteps outside the parlor, he stood eagerly to greet the approaching doctor, and frowned when the doors opened and a young woman appeared from the vestibule. She stopped and stared at him, her eyes narrowed and predatory.

“Who are you?” they both said.

She wore smart shoes, a purplish skirt and suit jacket, and a short fur stole—fake, no doubt. A pillbox hat sat on dark hair that curled fashionably above her shoulders. She had a string of pearls, brown gloves, and carried a little leather-bound notebook and a pencil. He pegged her—a lady reporter. A rival.

In the same moment, she seemed to make the same judgment about him. Her jaw set, and her mouth pressed in a thin line.

“All right. Who are you with?” she said. Her accent was brash, American. An American lady reporter—even worse.

“Who are you with?” Jerome answered.

“I asked you first.”

“It doesn’t matter, I got here first, and I have an exclusive interview with the doctor.”

“I have the exclusive interview. You’ve made a mistake.”

He blinked, taken aback, then held out the note, which he’d crushed in his hands. Chagrined, he tried to smooth it out, but she took it from him before he could succeed. Her brow creased as she read it, then she shoved it back to him and reached into her handbag for a very similar slip of paper, and Jerome’s heart sank. She offered it to him, and he read: brief interview granted, ten minutes only, for the exact same time. The exact same signature decorated the bottom of the page.

His spectacular opportunity was seeming less so by the moment.

“So the professor made a mistake and booked us both for exclusive interviews at the same time,” she said.

“Evidently.”

James A. Owen’s depiction of the medieval tapestry from Lambshead’s collection, the original so badly burned in the cabinet fire that only the fringe remains (now on display in the International Fabric Museum, Helsinki, Finland).

“Figures,” she said. She crossed her arms, scanned the room, then nodded as if she had made a decision. Her curls bobbed. “Right, here’s what we’ll do. You get five minutes, I get five minutes. We coordinate our questions so we don’t ask the same thing. Then we share notes. All right?”

“Hold on a minute—”

“It’s the only fair way.”

“I didn’t agree to a press conference—”

“Two of us are hardly a press conference.”

“But—”

“And don’t try to blame me, it’s the doctor who double-booked us.”

I wasn’t going to, Jerome thought, aggrieved. The afternoon was crumbling, and Jerome felt the portraits staring at him, a burning on the back of his neck. “I think that since I was here first it’s only fair that I should have the interview. Perhaps you could reschedule—”

“Now how is that fair? I came all the way from New York to get this interview! You’re from where, Oxford? You can show up on his doorstep anytime!”

He blinked again, put off-balance by her identifying his accent so precisely. He was the son of a professor there, and had scandalized the family by not going into academics himself. Roving reporting had seemed so much more productive. Romantic, even. So much for that. “I can see we’ve gotten off to a bad start—”

“Whose fault is that? I’ve been nothing but polite.”

“On the contrary—”

Just then the double doors to the library opened once more, freezing Jerome and the woman reporter in place, her with one hand on her hip, waving her notebook; him pointing as if scolding a small child. The housekeeper, a hunched, wizened woman in a pressed brown cotton dress, scowled at them. Jerome tucked his hands behind his back.

“The doctor is very sorry, but he’ll have to reschedule with both of you. He’ll send letters to confirm a time.” She stood next to the open door, clearly indicating that they should depart.

The woman reporter said, “Did he say why? What’s he doing that he can’t take ten minutes off to talk?”

“The doctor is very sorry,” the housekeeper said again, her scowl growing deeper. She reminded Jerome of a headmistress at a particularly dank primary school. He knew a solid wall when he saw one.

Jerome gestured forward, letting the lady reporter exit first. She puckered her lips as if about to argue, before stalking out of the room. Jerome followed.

Once they were standing on the front steps of the manor, the housekeeper shut the door behind them with a slam of finality.

“Well. So much for that,” he said. “I don’t suppose you’d like to share a cab back to the village?”

“I’d rather walk,” she said, and did just that, following the lane away from the building.

He watched her, astonished at the many unkind adjectives his mind was conjuring to describe her.

His cab arrived, and gratefully he rode it away, ignoring the hassled mutterings of the driver. They passed the woman reporter on the road, still marching, still with that look of witchy fury on her face, which was flushed now and streaked with sweat. A better man might have stopped and offered a ride yet again.

Further on the road, they passed an impressive black Bentley, filled with children. They seemed to be playing some game resembling badminton, in the backseat. And what were they doing, going to the doctor’s manor? Lambshead didn’t have children, did he? Grandchildren? Nieces and nephews? Jerome hadn’t thought so, and he’d certainly never find out now.

He left it all—the doctor, the manor, the housekeeper, the car full of children, and the harridan of a reporter—behind, determined not to think on the day anymore. The pub and a pint awaited.

Mille-fleur

Their screaming certainly did carry in the close confines of the automobile.

The chauffeur scowled at Sylvia in the rearview mirror, and she turned away, her headache doubling.

“Children, please sit. All of you, sit now. Sit down.” She had been instructed by Lady Smythe-Helsing not to raise her voice at the children, as that would damage their fragile psyches. She had also been instructed not to ever lay a hand on any of them in an effort to control them—such efforts led to violence, which could not be tolerated. If she ever did any such thing out of Lady Smythe-Helsing’s view, the children would report it. Never mind them, the chauffeur would report it. And he had the gall to glare at her for their misbehavior.

So here they were, the four little darlings scrambling all over the seats and each other, throwing their dolls and stuffed bears and India-rubber balls, kicking at the windows and ceilings, punching and screaming. Alice, Andrew, Anna, Arthur.

“That famous doctor is opening his house for tours, just for the afternoon, take the children to visit, it will be so educational,” Lady Smythe-Helsing had announced this morning. Commanded. “Simpson will drive you. Hurry along, won’t you?” The children had been lined up, tallest to shortest, oldest to youngest, ages ten to five, looking smart and crisp, the boys in their pressed suit jackets and ties—real, not clip-on—the girls in their pleated skirts and snow-white blouses with lace-trimmed Peter Pan collars. So lovely, weren’t they? Their mother had kissed their rosy cheeks as they beamed up at her. Then Lady Smythe-Helsing had left Sylvia alone with them while she went to lead the latest meeting of the Oakwaddling Village Improvement Society.

The children had looked at Sylvia with such a piercing sense of anticipation.

Now that they had turned the interior of the car into a rugby pitch, the chauffeur looked at Sylvia, clearly thinking, How could you let them carry on so? He’d report to the mistress how the incompetent governess couldn’t control a few innocent children.

“Miss Sylvia, are we there yet?” said the youngest boy, Arthur.

“Not yet, dear.”

“I want to be there now!”

“Unless you’ve found a way to alter space and time, you’ll have to wait.”

He bit his lip and furrowed his brow, as if considering. If anyone could find a way to disrupt the workings of the universe, it would be one of the Smythe-Helsing children.

Meanwhile, Sylvia stared out the window, wishing she could speed up time. They had reached the drive leading to Dr. Lambshead’s manor when they passed a woman in a dress suit walking away. She seemed angry. They’d also passed a car earlier—so the doctor’s tours of his manor were popular. That many more people to notice the unruly children and tsk-tsk the poor governess who couldn’t control them. Sylvia sighed.

Finally, the car stopped before the manor’s carved front doors. Sylvia struggled to pop the door open, succeeded, and the children exploded out of the car. They ran laps around it, pulled each other’s hair and sleeves and skirts and ties. Sylvia couldn’t tell if they were screaming or laughing. Well, if they ran it out now, maybe they’d actually sleep tonight.

She glanced at the chauffeur, intending to discuss procedures for getting them all home. “I’ll wait,” he said, glaring.

Sighing again—she probably sighed more than she spoke—Sylvia moved to the bumper to head off the latest lap around the car. Andrew pulled up short in front of her, and the others crashed into him. Sylvia pointed to the house. “That way.”

Screaming, they rocketed toward the ancient-looking and no-doubt fragile front doors, which obediently opened inward. The housekeeper, a stern-looking woman who seemed even more ancient and weathered than the doors, stood by them. Even the children fell silent at her appearance.

The old woman glared at Sylvia and said, “Here for a tour, miss?”

Sylvia swallowed and nodded. “Yes, if you please. The children really aren’t so bad—”

“This way.” The housekeeper disappeared into a darkened vestibule.

Alice, the oldest, glanced at Sylvia, sizing her up.

“Go on,” Sylvia said, but the children had already raced inside. Sylvia hurried to follow them.

Housekeeper and children waited by another set of doors at the end of the entryway.

“If you would kindly keep the children in the parlor.” The housekeeper glared with her beady, crab-like eyes, and opened the door. Sylvia and the children inched inside.

When Sylvia saw the parlor, she nearly cried. So many things, all of them smashable. Pottery, glassware, trinkets with gears and levers, arcane instruments made of spindly wire, fabric to be soiled, paper to be torn, entire cabinets to be toppled, and a wall full of art to be destroyed. Almost lost among portraits whose gazes followed her hung a floral tapestry in faded colors, which looked like it would disintegrate if one merely breathed on it. It was an odd, blurred thing that almost seemed to change shape if she turned her head just so.

The children trembled—vibrating, anticipating, potential energy waiting to burst forth—hoping for the chance to get their dirty little claws on everything. The housekeeper closed the double doors, her gaze still boring into Sylvia, as if expecting the worst and knowing it would be the governess’s fault if even the smallest sliver broke free from the leg of a chair. The children would destroy it all, and the doctor would report the horror to Lady Smythe-Helsing, and Sylvia would be fired.

And would that really be such a bad thing? Perhaps she could leave right now, climb out a window and run . . .

She put a hand against her forehead, trying to stave off the headache building behind her eyes. “Children, do behave,” she said, by rote, out of habit, tired and unconvincing, even though the children hadn’t moved since the closing of the door. It was only a matter of time before the human whirlwind.

Still, the children didn’t move. Sylvia allowed herself to exhale. She attempted an actual instruction.

“Why don’t you sit here on the sofa while we wait?” she said. Quietly, the children obeyed. They lined up on the sofa and sat, one after the other, no one pinching anyone.

Extraordinary. Truly extraordinary. Something was terribly, terribly wrong here.

Sylvia sat in a wingback chair across from them, watching. They sat, hands folded in laps, and waited, not making a sound, not even flinching. Somewhere, a clock ticked, and it sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell. Sylvia’s heart was racing for no reason at all.

When the double doors opened again, she nearly shrieked, hand to her breast to still her heart. The children merely looked.

The housekeeper stood there, like a monk, in her brown dress. She frowned. “There’s been a change of plans. I’m afraid the doctor has been unexpectedly detained. You’ll have to come another time.”

That was that. The whole afternoon for nothing, and now Sylvia was going to have to herd the children back outside, and back to the car for the ride home.

But they left the parlor quietly, single-file by height and age. Outside, on the front steps, they halted in a row, like little soldiers, while the car pulled around. They got in, sat quietly, and stayed that way until the car left the grounds of Lambshead’s manor. Then, they burst into screams, the boys hit the girls, the girls pinched the boys, and everybody bounced against the ceiling. She could only watch. They were spring toys that had been let loose.

Terrifying.

The Girl at the Fountain

A week later, Jerome returned to the manor in a hopeful mood, eager, prepared. His newspaper had agreed that a second trip to Lambshead’s manor was worth it, for the chance to recoup some of the expenses with an actual story. This attempt couldn’t possibly go any worse than the last. He knocked on the door, which the scowling housekeeper opened, showing him into the foyer and pointing him to the library.

The lady reporter was in the library, standing before the tapestry of a girl at a fountain, nestled amid the staring portraits.

“Not you again!” he blurted, and she turned on him, gaze fierce. She had the most extraordinary green eyes, he noticed.

“Oh, give me a break!” she said.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for my interview—what are you doing here?”

“Your interview, this is supposed to be my interview. How did you manage this?”

“Don’t lay this on me, this isn’t my fault!” She stepped toward him, pointing, and he took a step forward to keep her from getting the upper hand.

“You’re trying to tell me that you aren’t following me?” he said. “That you didn’t arrange to be here simply to aggravate me?”

“Wait a minute—I was here first this time! Are you following me?”

“What? No!”

She was only slightly shorter than he was, but the heels of her shoes may have made her appear taller, just as they accentuated the curve of her calves and the slope of her hips inside their clinging skirt. Today, she wore navy blue, a well-tailored and flattering suit, a cream-colored blouse contrasting with the flush of the skin at her throat.

“I don’t care who screwed up and who double-booked us,” she said. “I’m getting my interview and you can’t stop me.” Her lips were parted, her eyes shining, and her hair seemed soft as velvet.

“I don’t want to stop you,” he said, and realized that he really didn’t.

“Then you’ll turn around and walk out of here right now?”

“I don’t know that I’m ready to do that.”

She tilted her head, her fury giving way to confusion, which softened her mouth and forehead and made her eyes wide and sweet. “But you won’t stand in my way?”

“Well, I might stand in your way.”

In fact, they had moved close enough together that they were only inches apart, gazing into each other’s eyes, feeling the heat of each other’s bodies.

“And why would you do that?” she said, her voice low.

“I think—to get a better look at you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t see the rest of the room anymore.

“I have to admit, you’re an interesting man— I . . . I don’t even know your name.”

“Jerome. Yours?”

“Elaine.”

They kissed.

The shock that passed from his lips through his nerves to the tips of his toes came not only from the pressure of her mouth, the weight and warmth of her body pressed against him, her hands wrapped around the hem of his jacket to pull him closer—but also from the fact that he was kissing her at all. It should never have happened. It was meant to be.

The kiss lasted for what seemed a very long time, lips working between gasps for breath, hands on each other’s arms. This, he thought, this was what he had come for.

Finally, they broke apart and stared at each other in wonder.

“What was that?” she—Elaine—said. Her cheeks were pink, and her breathing came quickly.

“It was perfect,” he breathed.

“God, it was, wasn’t it?” she whispered.

“Oh yes.” He leaned forward for another kiss, but she interrupted the gesture.

“Let’s go. The two of us, together, let’s leave, go somewhere and never look back.”

“What about your interview?” he said.

“What interview? Who?”

He could hardly remember himself. They were in this archaic parlor filled with artifacts, books, carved fireplace, stern portraits, and that faded tapestry, which hardly seemed a setting for passion—his heart was suddenly filled with fragrant gardens and winding paths where he could hold her hand and walk with her for hours.

He took both her hands and pulled her toward the door. “You’re right, let’s go.”

A wide, glorious smile broke on her face, a flower unfolding, opening to him, filling him with joy, unbridled and bursting. Hand in hand, they left the parlor, breezed past the scowling housekeeper, and burst through the front doors to the outside, where the sun was shining gloriously and the shrubs seemed filled with singing larks. Jerome had an urge to sing along with them. Elaine was grinning just as wide as he was, and he’d never felt so much . . . rightness in being with someone.

They had to step aside for a passing car filled with countless children, whose screams were audible through the glass.

“Can I ask you a question?” Elaine asked.

“Of course.” He would do anything for her.

“Do you want children?”

He thought a moment; he’d never really considered, and found he didn’t much need to now. “No, not really.”

“Good. Excellent.” She smiled at him, and his heart nearly burst.

At the end of the drive, the boundary to the property, Elaine stopped. Her tug on his hand made Jerome stop as well. He blinked at her; her frown gave him the sense of a balloon deflating, of a recording of birdsong winding down to the speed of a dirge.

They dropped each other’s hands. He was rather startled that he’d been holding it at all.

“What are we doing?” she asked. “We can’t just run off like a couple of teenagers. This isn’t like me at all.”

“Nor me,” Jerome said. “But . . . perhaps if you think that I simply couldn’t help myself.” That was true enough—whatever had happened, it was a surge of passion that seemed to have vanished, much to his regret. He wanted it back.

He tried on an awkward smile for her, and if she didn’t return it, she at least didn’t scowl.

“There’s something really weird about that house,” she said, looking back to the manor.

“Agreed,” he said. “I find I don’t want the interview so much after all.”

“Yeah. You said it.”

“Elaine, would you like to have dinner with me?” he asked impulsively, sure she would rail at him for it and not caring.

She studied him a moment, then said, “You know? I think I would.”

The Hunt

The doctor’s manor was an edifice of terror. The foundation stones exuded a fog of trepidation. Knowing that the children would be horrible would be easier than not knowing at all what they would do this time.

For yes, Doctor Lambshead had sent a note to Lady Smythe-Helsing, apologizing profusely for cutting short their previous tour and offering a second opportunity, which the lady accepted. Once again, Sylvia rode in the Bentley with the angry chauffeur and four screaming children. The housekeeper was waiting for them at the front doors. Once again, she directed them to the parlor. The children lined up next to her, and the doors closed.

Sylvia closed her eyes, held her breath. Waited for screams or sighs or giggles. Or quiet, obedient breathing. As it happened, she didn’t hear anything. So she opened her eyes.

The children were gone.

She had no idea where to look for them, and studied the walls as if the children had melted into the wallpaper, as if she might see their faces staring out of the portraits or stitched into the threads of the tapestry, among the hunters and their spears surrounding the poor unicorn at bay.

A snap of a breeze touched her, and she flinched as something tugged at her hair. Reaching up, she picked at the curl tucked behind her ear and felt some foreign object. She untangled it and looked—a toothpick, perhaps. Or a tiny dart.

She looked to where it had come from and saw Andrew, the older boy, with none other than a blowgun in his hands. And the empty spot on the wall where he’d taken it from. Dear God, the heathen had fired at her.

He ducked behind the sofa and ran.

That was it. She’d had enough. She went after him, with every intention of laying a hand on him—only for as long as it took to throw him out of the house. All of them. Let Lady Smythe-Helsing fire her. Let the doctor report what an awful governess she was.

As she chased Andrew through the doorway from the parlor to the library, she tripped. Looking back, she saw why—Alice and Arthur, crouched on either side of the doorway, had pulled a length of rope across the passage, just as she stepped into it. Good heavens, what had gotten into them? They’d always been holy terrors but never truly malicious. The injuries they inflicted were usually accidental.

The two of them scrambled to their feet and ran back toward the parlor.

Rubbing a bruised elbow, she went to follow them. Four against one was terrible odds. Especially those four. How had she gotten into this? Oh yes, she needed a job. She had too much education for scut work but not enough for anything professional. Be a governess, that was the solution. Some of the very wealthy families still had them. What an opportunity. Better than regular teaching, and maybe she’d catch the eye of some wealthy gentleman who would take her away from all this.

Bollocks. All of it. This wasn’t a job, it was a war.

She entered the parlor and paused—they’d hidden, and were being very quiet for once.

Several more weapons seemed to have vanished from their places on the wall, and she had a sinking feeling. She had already started backing away, step by step, when Arthur came at her with a spear that was larger than he was. Alice had a bow and quiver of arrows.

Sylvia turned and ran. Out of the parlor, through the kitchen, where she nearly collided with Andrew, who was now wielding an axe as well as the blowgun. Changing direction mid-stride, she made her way through a pantry to a scullery and then to a workroom, and from there to the foyer again, and to a second library, where she slammed shut the door and bolted it.

There, next to the wall, stood Anne. She’d been hiding behind the door, and Sylvia hadn’t looked. Anne stared at her. In her hands, clutched to her chest, she held a cage the size of a shoebox, made of sticks tied together with twine. In the cage was a mouse, the small, brown kind that invaded pantries and scurried across kitchen floors. The creature huddled in the corner, sitting on its haunches, its front paws pressed to its chest, trembling. Its large and liquid eyes seemed to be pleading. Sylvia understood how it felt.

On the other hand, the girl’s gaze was challenging. She looked up at Sylvia, who somehow felt shorter. Her breath caught, and when she tried to draw another, she choked. The corner of the girl’s lips turned up.

Meanwhile, little hands had begun pounding on the door.

“All right,” Sylvia said. “That’s how it is, is it?” She unbolted the doors and flung them open. The other three children—spears, blowguns, axes, arrows, daggers, and scalpels in hand—were waiting for her. Little Anne stood behind her, wearing an expression of utter malice, like she was thinking of how to build a larger cage. “You lot will have to catch me, first,” Sylvia said.

She shoved past them with enough force to startle them into stillness, just for a moment. Then, they pelted after her. This time, Sylvia made for the front door, breezing past the startled housekeeper. She wrestled opened the heavy front doors, didn’t say a word to the chauffeur who was leaning on the hood of the Bentley and smoking a pipe. He stared after her wonderingly, but she didn’t have time to explain, because the four little Smythe-Helsings were charging after her, silent and determined, weapons held to the ready. As she’d hoped they would.

The end of the drive was perhaps a hundred yards away. Sylvia wasn’t an athlete, by any means, but she was no slouch, either, and herding these children for the last year had certainly kept her fit. All she had to do was reach the end of the property and not look back. But she could hear their footsteps kicking up gravel, gaining on her.

Then she was across the line marked by the brick columns at the end of the drive. If this didn’t work, she was lost. She stopped and turned to see the four children running after her, murder hollowing their expressions. First Alice, then Andrew, then Anne, then little Arthur crossed the invisible line, and they all stopped and stared, bewildered, at the weapons in their hands.

Arthur dropped the spear and started crying.

“Oh, Arthur, hush now, it’s all over now, it’s all right.” Sylvia knelt beside him and gathered him in her arms, holding him while he sobbed against her shoulder. Then all the children were crying, clinging to her, and she spread her arms to encompass them.

She made them wait by one of the brick columns while she went to fetch the car. They stayed right where she told them to, hand in hand, watching her with swollen red eyes her entire way back to the manor, where she told the chauffeur that they’d like to go home now, and didn’t answer any of his brusque questions. The housekeeper watched her from the front steps, a glare in her eye and a sneer on her lips. Sylvia paid her no mind.

BACK AT THE Smythe-Helsing estate, the children were exhausted, and Sylvia gave them each a glass of water and a biscuit and put them to bed. She then went to see Lady Smythe-Helsing, who had returned from her watercolor class and was sitting in her parlor taking tea.

Sylvia approached. “Lady Smythe-Helsing, ma’am?”

“Yes, what is it?” She set aside her cup and scowled at the interruption.

Taking a deep breath, Sylvia said, “I quit.”

The woman blinked, transforming her native-born elegance into a fish-like gawping. It made Sylvia stand a little taller. Without her furs and title, the lady was no better than her governess.

“What?” she finally said.

“I quit. I’m leaving. I’ve had enough. I quit.” She felt like a general who’d won a battle.

“This is outrageous.”

“This is not the Middle Ages,” she said, imagining tearing that medieval tapestry to bits. “I can leave when I like.”

“But what will you do? I certainly won’t be writing you a referral after this.”

“Anything I want,” she shot back without thinking, then tilted her head, considering. “Maybe I’ll go to America. Hollywood. I’ll be a movie star.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“You’ll fail. And you’ll never find another position as a governess.”

“Thank God,” Sylvia said, and went to fetch her things.

SYLVIA REACHED THE stairs that led down from the children’s wing to the back door when a figure stopped her. Little Anne in her nightgown, hugging her flaxen-haired doll.

“Anne. Hello.”

“Hello.”

“And then good-bye, rather. I’m leaving.”

“I know,” the girl said. “I’ll miss you.”

“Pardon? Really?”

“You’re the best governess we’ve ever had. You listen.”

“Oh, Anne. But you understand that I have to leave.”

“Oh yes. It’s the only sane choice.”

Sylvia smiled. “There’s a good girl, Anne.”

Anne smiled, too, and wandered back to bed.

Suitcase in hand, Sylvia left through the back door and walked away from the Smythe-Hesling manor with a spring in her step.

Storage

The housekeeper watched the Smythe-Helsing children and their governess depart, then went to the parlor, to the tapestry hanging in the center of a group of portraits. Odd, faded, ambiguous, it seemed to change shape based on how one tilted one’s head when looking at it. A fascinating piece. The housekeeper took it down off its nail, rolled it up, and carried it to a downstairs room, to put with other ambiguous experiments. On the way, Lambshead removed the wig and false nose, and dispensed with the stooped posture that had transformed him.

There was nothing, he considered, like a little firsthand observation in one’s own home.