Wards and Warnings

Chapter 3 of A Murder of Crows, involving some most disturbing rumours.

Welcome to A Murder of Crows, the first book in The Ravenscourt Tragedies, a gothic fantasy gaslamp web serial. In the first chapter, after the mysterious disappearance of her father’s spirit, Abigail and her family recieved a most dismal invitation to stay with their estranged uncle at Ravenscourt Manor.

Read the first chapter here | OR | The previous chapter (if you missed it)

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The housekeeper grabbed us both by our collars before I could even blink, pulling us away from the books and shoving us out the door. She then proceeded to drag us through the dusty halls, past the galleries and locked doors, all the way back to our rooms, muttering under her breath the entire time. Whatever else I might say about Mrs. Thompson, the fact remains that she had a truly respectable vocabulary of swears, and a lot more strength in her short, wrinkly arms than you'd expect.

"Up and poking into everything already, and it not barely dawn!" she screeched, as she shoved us into our sitting room and finally released us from her claws. "Perhaps we were not completely clear on the rules: you are not to be out of your beds past ten o'clock and you are certainly not to be wandering about the house at all hours of the night!" Conveniently enough, she left out the part where she definitely had not mentioned those rules before. "Mind you, if I do catch you at it again—" she slashed one of her gnarled fingers across her throat.

Of course, that part, she had mentioned before, though I rather hoped throat-slashing wasn’t one of her usual punishments. "Since you're up, you might as well get dressed," she croaked. "You’ll be having lunch with Doctor Crowe today, and it's in your best interests to be presentable."

And with that, she left, slamming the door behind her.

"Taking good care of us, aren't they?" said William.

At one point, one of the maids slipped in to put breakfast on the table, and at another point, William had finished off the entire plate, assuming I wasn't hungry because I could barely keep my eyes open. I practised my Defences and let myself drift, while William took up his candle-making experiments where he'd left off last night. And then, of course, at some other, third point, the Housekeeper barged in again, and since we hadn't even begun to get dressed, she continued yelling at us as if she hadn't so much as paused, and let me tell you, lacing up the bodice of a mourning dress is no easy task when there's a toad-faced Housekeeper yelling at you for not being able to tie knots behind your back instead of just tying the knots for you.

Finally, though, we were ready. I finished lacing up my shoes, and William pulled on his jacket. The Housekeeper ushered us once more through the dusty house and we came, at last, to the Dining Hall, a huge, draughty space that was a bit smaller than the library (but only just). There was only one table in that Dining Hall—a single, heavy, wooden table, long enough for a dozen chairs to be lined up on each side—and Uncle Edward was sitting at the head of it, already waiting. He stood as we stepped through the doors, beckoning us to sit:

"Come, come! Don't be shy."

There were three places set, but Mother was nowhere to be seen—and so we sat down in awkward silence and began to eat. Eventually, Uncle Edward spoke:

"I hope your stay has not been too unpleasant thus far?"

Of course there was nothing honest we could say to that without offending him. William took a keen interest in his green beans, picking at bits of bacon that had been stirred into the sauce, leaving me to make an attempt at being diplomatic if I dared.

"Well—"

"Mrs. Thompson tells me that you have been getting well acquainted with the house—a most fascinating structure, is it not? Even I must admit to knowing little of its full extent." He didn't wait for us to comment before pressing on. "But perhaps a little history. You see, the first Master of Ravenscourt was Sir Atreus Crowe, who was granted the lands of the Manor in 1485, after the Battle of Bosworth. He began construction on the house the next year.

“However, the work was beset with ill luck from the start. Less than two months in, several workers were trapped by a collapsed wall. Their bodies were never recovered. Some time later, the head architect was struck down by plague. But still the work continued on, until in 1487, two of Sir Atreus' children disappeared.”

Here he paused, taking a long drink from his water glass, as if washing down his words. "No one was quite sure what happened to them,” he continued, setting down the glass. “Some believed they had wandered into the Blackwood, others that they were buried in rubble from the construction, their bones turned to mortar. It was not until the house was completed that their fate came to be known.” He set down his silverware. “For you see, Sir Atreus, upon completion of the house, decided to throw a celebratory dinner. In this very room, he and his guests gathered, sitting around this very table. The appetizers were brought out, then the soups, and finally the main dish. It was said to have been a magnificent feast, and only Sir Atreus refused to partake. But finally, near the end of the main course, he finally gave in to the urging of his wife and uncovered his plate—and what do you think he found there?"

My stomach had started to churn. There were very few pleasant endings to a story like that.

"...A roast pheasant?" guessed William.

Uncle Edward shook his head, and though he didn't laugh, he was smiling. "Heads," he said, as if it were a punchline. "Human heads. Those of his eldest son and his only daughter."

William put down his silverware, and I didn't blame him. The plate of roast beef and greens in front of me turned suddenly horrific, bits of bacon like cooked skin. Could you make bacon out of humans? I sincerely hoped I would never actually need to know the answer to that question.

"Did they ever find out why?" I asked.

Uncle Edward shrugged. "Perhaps someone wanted revenge on Sir Atreus, or perhaps it was the work of a jealous and troubled younger sibling. Or perhaps the children merely ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. In any case, it serves to remind us that even the most innocent curiosities can be deadly. It may be better not to venture into uncharted territories, lest you run into things best left alone."

At that moment, the door to the Dining Hall creaked open, and Mother poked her head into the hall. I couldn't help the sigh of relief that escaped me as Uncle Edward stood to greet her, pulling out the chair next to him for her to sit.

"I do apologize for my tardiness," she said as she took her seat. "Now, what are we eating?"

For our first three days at the Manor, the rain did not stop. Wind and sleet and water battered against the windows while the sky churned with storm, and every night, the echo of ghastly wails sounded from somewhere above, just weak and eerie enough for me to wonder if they had come from the wind or my imagination

There was no escape from the cobweb-curtained corridors of the house, and we had nothing to do but lose ourselves in the Library, or when that grew tiresome, to attempt explorations of the other wings, though that was almost impossible to do without provoking the Housekeeper ("that old toad," as William put it). And with every exploration, I couldn't help but hear Uncle Edward's story echoing in the back of my mind, as if he'd meant it as a sort of warning.

Still, we never ran into him—or Mother, for that matter. Whatever the adults did all day, we saw them only during the shifty silences of lunch and dinner. And so, when the rain finally did let up and the sun decided to cast a few damp rays of light into the Dining Hall, it was all I could do to stop myself from jumping up right then and there and running outside with William in tow.

But no, we had to wait until the adults had laid down their silverware, and then we had to politely ask to be excused. Only when we’d done that and the adults gave us their permission could we jump up and run.

Manners.

In any case, at least our explorations had not been in vain. We'd already found several doors leading outside, though most of them opened into courtyards and walled gardens, and there was one just downstairs from our room that let you out near the servants’ quarters, with nothing but the stables in front of you. But there was one door at the end of the hall lined all with windows—a stained glass door that had been locked and bolted tight, and that door was the one I wanted to open, as I was sure it led down to the back lawn, and the woods beyond.

When we got there, light was shining through the stained glass. I had brought an extra hair pin in case William needed to pick the lock—but I needn’t have bothered. A note had been tucked behind the door handle, a square of cream-coloured card with a message in green ink:

Dear esteemed guests, Miss Abigail and Young Mister William,

You are cordially invited to the Rose Garden for a moment of reminiscence in honour of your late father.

With deepest sympathies,

B———- L——

(The door is unlocked, I think you'll find.)

I couldn't even begin to read the signature at the bottom, except for an over-large B and a looping L with far too many lines and curves. William squinted at the note himself for a minute before shrugging and trying the door handle.

It was, in fact, unlocked. We pulled open the door and stepped into a place bathed in daylight, the air fresh and warm—too warm for late November. William looked up, blinking, and I looked up too, at the cage of glass and rusting metal arcing above us, and then down at the iron stair twisting away below, leading into a teeming jungle of plants. Trapped birds chattered among the leaves and vines and the air was full of the thick, damp smell of growing things. The door, it turned out, didn’t lead outside at all, but rather opened to a greenhouse—the largest greenhouse I'd ever seen: big enough to hold the tiny patch of yard behind our old house (which Dad always insisted on calling the garden) several times over. Perhaps it was even big enough to fit the old house itself.

"Oh lovely,” said William flatly. "Plants."

"Don't be that way," I said, pulling him down the stairs and into the jungle. There were drooping clusters of kingsfoil and blooming mandrakes and dark, rusty bloodmoss, all of which I pointed out to William, while he pointedly ignored me. But there was no sign of roses, or of the stranger who had invited us there. It wasn't long before William started complaining about the stuffy air and the stuffy light and the stuffy plants, and so, at last, we found the door that led outside.

And with it, another note:

Straight ahead and into the maze.

I stuck the note into my sock, and William and I ventured out into the manor. The outdoor gardens lay withered and dull under tattered clouds. In the distance, the dark tree-line of the Blackwood marked the edge of a grey sky. Our path cut through a forest of bushes sculpted in the shape of giant chessmen, before ending at the trellised arch that marked the entrance to the Rose Garden. Naturally, our host had left a third card in the dry, thorny branches.

Please be advised to watch your fingers. These roses can still bite.

William raised his eyebrows at that one. Whoever our host was, I was starting to doubt that they were particularly sane—which was all the more reason to find out exactly who they were. I took William's hand, and together, we stepped into the rose garden. The path twisted and turned—as the card had said, it was, in fact, a maze—and it took only a few minutes before we were completely lost, the thorny hedges rising, unbroken, on all sides, and the dry leaves rattling in the wind, and our feet crunching over brown, dead petals, as we looked in all directions for an escape—but there was no escape, just more hedges, and more thorns, and more dead leaves, and somewhere, very close by, the snip, snip, snip of scissors clipping trimmings from the hedge.

I paused, and William looked at me. He'd heard it too—and without exchanging even one word about it, we started running toward the sound. But it shifted and softened and echoed, and it was no use trying to tell where it was coming from, really, because every single time we thought we were close, the path turned away.

At the end of it all, we found ourselves at a dead wall, with the snip of the scissors, or the clippers, or whatever they were very close by—we could even hear the soft whisper of the rose branches as they fell at the feet of whoever was trimming them. They were just on the other side of the hedge—the bushes trembled a little, and I could hear them humming—but the only path was behind us. There was no other way to get through the foot-or-two of rose hedges between us and the gardener.

Except, of course, by going through the hedge.

When you do something unfathomably silly—or rather, when you're about to do something unfathomably silly—it's often in your best interest to think about it for another moment to stop yourself from doing it. The important exception to this is when that silly thing you're about to do has got to be done anyway. In that case, it's best not to think about it at all, and rather to just step forward, thrust your hands into the hedge full of sharp, bloodthirsty thorns, and push your way through to the other side.

It only took a few difficult steps—less than seven seconds, really—though the thorns were everywhere, scraping my face and hands and dress. I tumbled into the corridor on the other side, nearly toppling the woman who was tending to the bushes. The snip of the hedge clippers fell silent, and she looked over, her eyes hidden in shadow beneath her wide-brimmed hat and her flyaway hair, and even though her lips were quirked in amusement, I could tell she wasn't particularly surprised.

But then William tumbled through the hedge after me, and of course he did trip into the gardener, crashing into her skirts before falling backward into the dirt with a muffled "ow!"

"Sorry!" he spluttered. I had never been prouder.

Before I could step forward, the gardener bent down, to grasp William's arm in her long, dark fingers and pull him standing. "Well now," she said once she was sure he was on his feet. Her voice was laughing, even if she wasn't. "What do we have here? Are you a sort of insect?"

William stared at the gardener, though if she found it rude, she didn't show it. "Do we look like insects?"

The gardener let go of him at last, and dusted a bit of dirt from his sleeve. "No," she said, "I don't suppose you have the legs for it. Shame, really. Aphids are easily dealt with, but humans? Now there's a real pest."

I guess we'd found our mysterious host, though I was starting to wonder whether that was a good thing. She turned back to her rose bushes and bent down to sniff the flowers—except, of course, all the roses were dead. "So, Miss Abigail and Young Mister William," she said as she took up her clippers once more. "How are you enjoying your stay in Ravenscourt House?"

I didn't even get to begin my answer before she'd cut me off:

"I find it rather too draughty for my tastes," she said. “There's too much dust and cobwebby stuff. And you can never be sure about the shades."

"Shades," echoed William. He'd started looking at the gardener as if she might be slightly dangerous, and I didn't blame him.

“You mean unrested spirits?” I said. “You can’t be serious. Surely we would’ve noticed.”

Beatrice pursed her lips. “And how do you figure that?”

“Well, you can’t live in a place with shades,” I said, which was true. “They’d drain all the spirit out of you, and then you’d be dead yourself, with nothing left of you but your own shade—”

"There are ghosts and shades in any place this old, Miss Abigail," said the gardener. She picked a withered rose from the hedge and tossed it mindlessly over her shoulder. "Oh, certainly, not the kind that screech and wander about as they wish and feed on living spirits all the time. But in a place like this—? Well... shades and ghosts tend to like dusty old houses and overgrown manors and all the forgotten corners of the world. Or didn't Lewis teach you anything?"

At the mention of Dad’s name, my fingers went automatically to the ring on my thumb. "You knew our father," I said, trying to keep my voice even.

"Yes, I knew him," said the gardener, punctuating each word with a snip of her hedge clippers. "And look, there it is, talking about him in the past tense. Never thought I'd live to see the day... I was very sorry to hear of his—how shall we say?—unfortunate demise." She let the hedge clippers fall still, lowering her head and tracing a circle in the dirt with her shoe. Quiet settled over us. "Tell me, then: how did it happen?"

I glanced at William, who shrugged back. "Well," I said, "we don't know, really, you see. We just woke up and—"

"And he was gone," finished William for me.

The gardener went suddenly still, her foot poised in front of her. "You mean—?"

"We weren't able to Rest him or anything," I said.

The gardener turned to look at us, and finally, she'd pulled back her hat so we could see her eyes—golden eyes, quick, sharp, and piercing as a cat's, as if they could see through anything. Those eyes ran over me, and then over my brother, and perhaps they saw something in us under the thorn scratches and grime, because the gardener put down her tools altogether and focused on us fully for the first time. "So then tell me now: what do you make of that?"

What did we make of it? What sort of question was that? What were we supposed to "make of" it? I looked to William, only to find that he was focused fully on the gardener.

"The Inquisitor was asking about enemies," he said. "He seemed to think it meant Dad was murdered."

"Only it couldn't have been," I said, before the gardener could get the wrong idea. "It simply couldn't—"

"And why not?" asked the gardener softly. She was staring straight at me now, those golden eyes watching, and her half-quirked lips had bent into a frown.

"Well, Dad didn't have enemies," I said, though as much as I believed that, as much as I said it, as much as I knew it—or thought I knew it—I was starting to wonder: how could I be sure? How could I be sure of anything when Dad had just suddenly dropped dead one night, and when he had never mentioned a single thing about Ravenscourt before, had never talked about why he'd left, or how he and Mother had ended up in a tiny town on the north tip of Caledonia? How could I be sure of anything at all?

The gardener's face went suddenly grim. "Did they never tell you?" she asked.

"Tell us?” I asked at the same time as William.

"What happened when your father left? How he was disowned?"

"Disowned?" The word felt like a punch in the chest.

"So they didn't tell you," said the gardener, half to herself. She shook her head, and when she spoke again, I got the feeling that the words weren't meant for us. "To think that he wouldn't have told them! You'd assume, considering everything… Irresponsible! Irresponsible as always—but no, it's not my place. Best not get involved." And with that, she packed up her trowel, her clippers, and her gloves, picked up her basket, and began to walk away.

"Wait!" I called, running after her.

She didn't even turn. She was humming to herself, actually humming as she rounded a corner with the express purpose of leaving us completely in the dark. And she was quick about it too—I had to run to catch up with her, trying to get her to stop: "You can't just ask all of that and then walk off!"

She kept walking.

"It's not fair!"

She didn't even look.

William was hurrying behind me, but rather than helping, he kept looking at me like he wanted us to leave. Before the gardener could round another corner and get away entirely, I darted in front of her to block her way.

"Tell us what you know!"

Finally, she paused, and under the shadow of her hat, her lips curled into a smile. "Determined, are we?"

"We ought to know, if it had something to do with Dad,” I answered.

"Very well then. I'll tell you what I can tell you, but not here, and not now. These roses have ears and they're all terrible gossips. Besides, they'll be looking for you for dinner—"

And just as she said it, the manor bells rang out for six, and somewhere, far away, the Housekeeper's voice called our names.

"Well, if you're not going to tell us now, then when?"

The gardener looked toward the sky, at the scattered clouds and sinking sun. “Tomorrow...." she said, savouring the word. "Tomorrow, we can talk. Meet me at the entrance to the maze an hour before noon."

"I guess we'll see you tomorrow then, Miss... er..." She hadn't even told us her name, I realized, though she seemed to know ours well enough.

"Beatrice, child," she said. "Beatrice Lenore." And with a tip of her hat, she disappeared into the hedges.

Of course she'd left without showing us the way out of the maze—and we were in a completely different part than where we'd started. We couldn't even backtrack—not unless we wanted to step through another hedge. The Housekeeper's voice sounded from beyond the high hedges:

"Where are you, you useless brats!"

William pointed up, to where the very tip of Ravenscourt's highest tower just managed to peek above the roses, and using that as a landmark, and the Old Toad's voice as a guide, we began trying to find our way out of the maze. It was like playing a game of Marco Polo, though far less fun. Every time we came to a crossroads, or a turn where we couldn't see the tower, we stopped, and listened, and sure enough:

"I know you came out here, you worthless—"

At last, we stumbled out of the maze, right at the entrance where she'd been yelling the whole time. "Where were you?" she demanded, grabbing us by the arms, before noticing the scratches left by the thorny roses. "And look what you’ve done to your clothes!"

"We got lost in the maze, ma'am," which of course was perfectly honest.

"Well, that maze has made you nearly twenty minutes late for dinner," said the Housekeeper, and her face curdled into a smile. I doubted that a smile from the Housekeeper could mean anything good. "And seeing as how it would take at least another hour to make you even half presentable, I rather think that going to bed without supper would be a good—"

A soft cough sounded from the path.

We all turned, to where Mother had appeared on the path, prim and proper as ever, though for once, her pointed frown wasn't directed at me or William, which was a relief. She glared directly at the Housekeeper, who let us go immediately, and bobbed her head at Mother—just low enough to avoid being completely disrespectful.

"Mrs. Thompson," said Mother.

"Please, Mrs. Crowe. Ellen will suffice."

"Ellen, then," said Mother, giving the Housekeeper the small, tight smile that she usually reserved for beggars and door-to-door salesmen. "Edward told me he had entrusted the care of my children to your capable hands. I'm sorry we haven't had the chance to speak before now. Have they been much trouble?"

"Nothing worse than I've had to handle before," croaked the Housekeeper shortly.

"Good," said Mother. Her voice had taken on a dangerous tone that I knew well. It was the tone she'd used when the catechism teacher had told her that I was looking up Curses to use on the other girls—though really, all I'd been trying to do was find an Illusion or Charm to make them not quite so horrifically annoying. It was the same tone she'd used when she caught Dad sneaking carnivorous plants into the house, or when William—

Well, William probably thought it was her normal voice.

"Because I would hate to tell Edward his trust was ill-founded," continued Mother. "In any case, I'd rather their punishments were discussed with me, rather than handed out at whim."

The Housekeeper's face had gone positively sour. "Of course, Mrs. Crowe," she said, bowing her head, though she still couldn't hide the malice in her lidded eyes.

"Now," said Mother. "I'll see them to dinner—I rather think you have things to clean and organize tonight?" And without waiting for a response, she turned back toward the house, waving for us to follow. The Housekeeper couldn't do anything but glare at us as we walked away. I had to fight the urge to stick my tongue out at her.

But then we were inside, and when Mother closed the door behind us, her lips were still pressed into the tight line of a frown. "Would you care to explain to me what you were doing so you managed to do that to your clothes? Never mind the fact that the Housekeeper had to drag you in for dinner!"

"We were just exploring," I said. Surely she could've understood that? "We've been trapped in this stuffy old house for nearly a week!"

"We got lost in the rose maze,” added William.

It didn't help. "I guess it doesn't really matter," said Mother with a sigh. "But Abigail, William, dears, there are rules here. You're guests. I can't have you running wild the way you have been—"

"We weren't running wild—" I said, while William protested, "We weren't breaking any rules—" but Mother held up her hand.

"I don't want to hear it," she said. "If you insist on spurning your uncle's orders, there really won't be anything I can do about it. This is his house after all." She sighed again, and looked up at the ceiling, as if looking for guidance. "I rather think a lack of dinner would actually be a good lesson. So just... just go to your rooms. And try not to get into any more trouble? Please?"

I couldn't imagine how she could possibly be serious about the whole thing, but she was, and she completely ignored any further arguments—the way she always does when she's done. And so there was nothing for us to do but go back to our rooms, Mother watching us, as if to make sure we didn't set the house on fire right then and there just to spite her.

"She's one to talk," said William sullenly when we'd finally left her behind.

And there was really nothing I could say to that. Adults. Lunch had been ages ago, and an unpleasant feeling had settled into my stomach—though it had very little to do with hunger. "That gardener,” I said at last, “Beatrice...what do you think she meant about Father being disowned?"

William paused, frowning in thought. "Well, it would make sense, wouldn't it?" he said.

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, the fact that Dad never talked about Uncle Edward—and also that we never knew about all this—" he gestured to the whole wide house: the cobwebbed ceiling and faded carpets and peeling, ancient walls, and the great doors of the Library standing closed in front of us. "I feel like we should've known," he said. "But you know what is interesting? She said something about places like this attracting ghosts. Do you think that's true?"

I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I don't know, why?"

"I just—well, there's an entire section in the library about Wards and Restings and magic and stuff, and I was wondering... if Dad's spirit wasn't rested... well, then..."

"What could've happened to it?" I said, suddenly wondering the same question myself. The library doors with their carvings of intertwined trees and mysterious words glared down at us. "I don't think it would hurt to try to find out. And since we've got nothing else to do tonight..."

William grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that."

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