Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

W e found ourselves in a large kitchen. Every surface, from the floor to the countertops to the massive fireplace set into one wall, was thick with dust. Large sheets covered several bulky items; I lifted the corner of one of them to reveal a wooden cabinet filled with old crockery and glasses. Swirling motes of dust rose into the air and all three of us sneezed in quick succession.

‘It’s like stepping back in time,’ Hester whispered as she wiped her nose.

I nodded in agreement. I understood why she was whispering: nobody could hear us, nobody was inside this house, but there was a distinct sensation that speaking normally would disturb the sleeping ghosts in this quiet place.

I dropped the sheet back over the cabinet. My eyes were drawn to a strange mark over the door which led outside; there was a large hole in the plaster and a spider’s web of cracks around it. Puzzled, I squinted at it before eventually shrugging. It was an old building that hadn’t been lived in for decades so it was bound to be in a state of disrepair .

I stepped over to a closed door that led deeper into the house. More dust flew up with every footstep. It must have been years since anyone had been inside here.

The door opened into a long hallway with covered picture frames hanging on the walls. Judging from the marks on the old oak floor, there had once been a rug running along it. It had probably been put into storage when all the furniture had been covered with sheets to await the return of Lady Rose. Except she hadn’t returned – and there was nothing to suggest she ever would.

I considered risking a tiny fireball to bob along in front of me and light my way, but if I lost control of it for even a second, the house and all its contents might catch fire before I could stop it. Given my recent habit of losing control, I erred on the side of caution, slid out my phone instead and turned on the torch function. It didn’t cast much light but it was better than nothing.

Holding it up in front of me, I walked forward gingerly, trying not to notice the way each floorboard creaked ominously. Five minutes, I decided; I’d wander around for five minutes and no more.

Hester and Otis flew close beside me; not even Hester appeared willing to overtake me. I didn’t think it was because they were afraid; the sense of awe we’d felt outside persisted, despite the mansion’s somewhat lugubrious and stale interior. Our unwillingness to rush was more out of respect for the building and its history than fear or wariness.

The hallway led to another door that opened into a grand vestibule. Once upon a time it had probably looked similar to the magnificent entrance at Pemberville Castle, albeit on a smaller scale. There were five closed doors, a sweeping staircase and several more pieces of furniture swathed in dust sheets .

I turned to the brownies with a questioning look. Otis shrugged unhappily but Hester pointed at the nearest door. I pursed my lips, then headed over to open it.

‘A drawing room of some kind,’ I said quietly. The air was fusty and the light dim, thanks to the shuttered windows. Despite that, Otis spotted something interesting.

‘Look,’ he said quietly, and pointed at a large painting on the far wall. The sheet covering it had fallen slightly, revealing part of a face. Unable to stop myself, I strode up to it and yanked it down then shone the phone light upwards to illuminate the picture.

‘That’s her,’ Hester said. ‘That has to be Lady Rose, right?’

I swallowed hard as I gazed at the portrait: it certainly could be her. The woman was dressed formally in a pretty cocktail dress with her red hair tied up in an elaborate style that belied her youthful features. The shade of her hair matched mine, but there was no way I could ever tame my unruly curls into a similar style.

The painter had captured a mischievous glint in Lady Rose’s eyes, as if she were planning something exceptionally daring yet highly unbecoming for someone of her status. She looked like a girl I’d have enjoyed getting to know; she also looked painfully young, barely more than a teenager.

‘She has a corsage of pink roses,’ Otis said. ‘And look – there are more flowers in the garden in the background and they’re roses, too. This has to be Lady Rose.’

Hester squinted. ‘There are lots of roses,’ she agreed. ‘But that building she’s standing in front of isn’t this one. It doesn’t look British.’

She was right: Lady Rose, if that’s who it was, had been painted beside a quaint cottage. Something about the quality of the light and the architecture suggested a building in a warmer climate. It might not exist in real life – the artist could have conjured it up from their imagination, along with the blooming rose bushes.

I wasn’t interested in the location – it was Lady Rose who occupied my attention.

I stared at her pointed ears and her relaxed stance. Until that moment, she hadn’t seemed quite real; she’d been a character in a tragic story. I realised I’d been thinking of her like I might think of Anne Boleyn or Joan of Arc or Boudicca, but Lady Rose wasn’t ancient history. If she’d been alive today, she’d have been younger than Sir Nigel, younger than both my adoptive parents. She might have been someone with whom I could have become friends.

The painting brought her to life, at least in my mind, and I couldn’t help thinking of what Gordon had said. She deserved to be found and her story deserved to be told. The longer I looked at her portrait, the more unsettled I felt. I suppressed a faint shiver. Otis had been right: we shouldn’t be here. Breaking into Lady Rose’s house had been a terrible idea.

‘Let’s go,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘But we’ve barely scratched the surface!’ Hester protested. ‘There are lots of rooms. We’ve hardly looked anywhere!’

‘We won’t find anything else we need. I’ve already found what I was looking for.’

Her brow furrowed. ‘What?’

Otis understood and pointed at the painting. ‘Her.’

I nodded. ‘Her.’ I turned away. ‘Come on.’

Retracing my steps, I left the drawing room, closed the door then swivelled to the right to return to the long hallway so we could go out through the kitchen door. I’d barely moved in that direction when Hester let out a strangled cry.

I stiffened in alarm. ‘What is it? What’s wrong? ’

She didn’t speak, just raised a shaky arm and pointed. When I saw what she was looking at, my eyes widened. The darkness made them hard to see clearly but, from the small chinks of daylight seeping through the shutters, it appeared that there was a set of footprints trailing through the dust from the front door to the staircase and beyond. A matching set trailed back in the opposite direction.

I looked around and registered the tracks of my own footsteps. We weren’t the only people who’d been here in the recent past. My heart started beating faster, fluttering like a butterfly trying to escape an impenetrable net.

‘Lady Rose.’ Her voice hushed with amazement, Hester flew down to the nearest footprint. ‘Lady Rose has been here after all.’

Not unless she wore size twelve boots, she hadn’t. ‘These almost certainly belong to a man,’ I said. All the same, I looked from side to side, as if the woman herself were about to make an appearance.

Otis was already twitching. ‘Do you think he’s still here? Do you think he’ll attack us? Do you think?—?'

I put up my hand to reassure him before he had a full-blown panic attack. ‘No. Whoever made these was here some time ago.’ I slid a fingertip along the length of the print. ‘Enough dust has settled to prove that.’ I pointed. ‘And look. They came through the front door, walked across the hall and went up the stairs. Then they came back again and left. We’re alone.’

Hester flew towards the front door and used her full weight to tug down on the handle. ‘It’s locked.’ She dipped down and gazed at the heavy lock. ‘Whoever came in had a key. Maybe there’s a caretaker who pops in from time to time,’ she added doubtfully.

‘To do what? Dust?’ Otis asked. He waved his arms around and sent a cloud of tiny motes flying about around his little body. ‘If that’s the case, they’re not doing a very good job.’

‘Let’s not jump to conclusions before we know what’s really going on.’ I sounded far calmer than I felt. ‘It might have been Gordon – I’m sure he’s been here lots of times. He’ll have a key to this place.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Hester’s expression was still doubtful.

‘Or maybe it was someone who used a similar magic tool to fiddle with the locks, like I did at the back door,’ I added. ‘Let’s follow the trail and see where it leads.’ I unsheathed Gladys. ‘Just in case,’ I said unnecessarily loudly.

The brownies nodded gratefully; for her part, Gladys hummed in what I supposed was a sentient sword’s expression of happiness.

We edged towards the grand staircase and started to ascend.

The further up we went, the less distinct the prints became, often appearing to be little more than smudged marks. When we reached the first-floor landing, however, they reappeared as distinct boot marks leading to the next flight of stairs. I glanced at the brownies; despite their taut expressions, they nodded in silent agreement at my unspoken question. We crossed to the stairs and climbed some more.

This was a mansion with a lot of rooms. Yet another flight of stairs stretched up to another floor, but the dusty footprints veered left. Whoever had made them hadn’t gone any further up but had walked to the room at the opposite end of the landing. I was no tracker, but I didn’t think the intruder had hesitated at any point. Whoever had been here knew where they were going.

I licked my lips; my nervousness and my excitement were growing. I pulled back my shoulders and marched alongside the trail of prints to the door, put out my hand and rested it on the handle.

‘Do it,’ Hester whispered. ‘Open it.’

I waited another beat then, with my heart in my mouth, I did as she said. Unlike the squeaky doors we’d opened so far, this one swung open noiselessly, suggesting that its hinges had been oiled. I tried not to allow that to bother me and peered inside the room. Although it was as dark as everywhere else in the house, the shapes of the dust-sheet covered furniture suggested it was a bedroom.

‘Daisy was right.’ Hester sounded relieved. ‘Nobody is here.’ She flew past me to an old light switch and pushed on it with both hands. It clicked down but no lights came on; the electricity must have been shut off years ago.

I edged around the room trying not to disturb the footprints. Reaching the nearest set of shutters, I heaved them open until there was enough light to see properly without using my phone.

This was definitely a bedroom. I looked at the large four-poster bed, unmistakable beneath the large sheets that covered its frame, and shivered. Was this where Lady Rose had slept? Why had the mysterious stranger who’d entered this house before us come into this particular room?

Hester and Otis flew slowly over the trail of bootprints and followed them until they were out of my eyeline. There was a moment of silence before Otis called, ‘Er, Daisy?’ He sounded worried. ‘You should come and see this.’

They were hovering above a dressing table. Unlike the rest of the furniture, this wasn’t covered. I moved faster until I was staring down at it, probably with the same expression as the brownies.

Oh.

The surface was marked in several places where various accoutrements would once have stood. There were circles that might have been made by perfume bottles and a discoloured rectangle that could mark the position of a jewellery box. Those items must have been cleared away a long time ago – but the top of the dressing table wasn’t empty.

Lying in its centre was a sealed white envelope, and written on the front of it in a looping, old-fashioned script was one lonely word: Daisy.