CHAPTER ELEVEN
SIX DAYS LATER
A storm's in the greenhouse. Silvery dust is raining down from the glass sky, and I'm at the center of a gritty cloud that erupts every time I rip another length of dead vine out of this trellis. Across from me is a barely-visible spectre, pulling a mangle of dried root out of an urn.
There's something that's been on my mind and all morning I've been turning over the decision. I wave the cloud away from my face and call to him, over my shoulder.
"Can you ride?" I've tied a handkerchief over my mouth and nose and the spectre can't understand me. He drops his spade and comes over, leans on the trellis.
"Can you ride?" I repeat.
"Ride?" he asks, brow knitting.
I nod. I don't know where I would borrow the horse for him but I can work that out later. I pull the handkerchief down. "There's a meet at Harring in the morning."
His eyes narrow. "Lord Brack requests your presence at the hunt," he murmurs to himself in an exaggeration of my accent. He shakes his head at me. "Wouldn't dream of it," he says, and there's a note of condemnation in his voice. I raise my eyebrows.
"We redheads have to stick together," he explains. I laugh. He jangles the coins in his pocket and mock-frowns at me, but his eyes are weighing me. "Poor wee things," he says.
"It's not what you think," I say. "There aren't all that many foxes to begin with, and they nearly always go to ground." I turn a palm up. "It's just for the sport, really."
"Sport." He shrugs, bends to dust himself off. "Suppose you can't help yourself," he mutters, under his breath.
"What?" My hands curl into claws inside my gloves.
He straightens up. He's grinning, and looks me right in the eye. "I said, 'Good luck, Lord Brack, and thank you anyhow.'" With that he turns and picks up the spade.
I heard him clearly. He is aware that I have heard him clearly. And now his cheery whistle is piping at me through the swirl of dust. Incredible how rude whistling can be. A thought occurs to me and it's one I should've had sooner: it's possible that he somehow arrived here already knowing.
All of my life I have desired to be seen as I am but be treated without fear or pity. Now that I finally have what I wanted I am finding it intolerable. On top of that, he's right about the hunting; I can't help myself. That is the definitive trait of monsters, I believe.
After we've finished I stack the pots under the benches and watch Seamus' back as he sweeps the mounds of dry dirt out the front doors. The push and pull of his broad shoulders. His bent head and the nape of his neck. His careless whistle; the easy movement of his body; the way he nonchalantly turns his back to me. I could strangle him.
At dinner Agnes is mercifully quiet and I don't ask what's preoccupying her. Rosalind sets a roast in front of us, but I have little appetite. Or, more honestly, tonight my hunger is all in my body, while my mind is abashed. My throat convulses as I cut the meat and a red pool spreads beneath it, and I'm ashamed of myself. And afterwards, when Seamus knocks on the library door for our now-customary game, it is only with all my effort that I can meet his eye.