Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales (Emily Wilde, #3)(77)
I made a frustrated sound. “Of course! How did I not guess that? Bran Eichorn co-authored several papers with her. But then I have never bothered much with the writings of the spiritualists.”
“Not much value in it, except in tracing the development of dryadology itself,” Niamh agreed. “One might as well study phrenology. Still, my research supervisor—a lovely man, but very much the product of an older era—encouraged me to read Worthington-West. She had some intriguing theories about bogles, or bogeys as they termed them then, but on the whole I found her ideas outdated and rather sensationalist. She presented a paper at a conference in Paris—it may have been ICODEF, before it was called that—in which she claimed to have interviewed a household brownie who had visited the afterlife and spoken with her recently deceased mother. Apparently this matriarch provided her daughter with instructions on what to serve at her funeral reception, including a recipe for lemon scones.”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Where was this published?”
“It wasn’t, unsurprisingly. I only know about it because my supervisor was at the conference. There was quite the backlash.” Niamh paused thoughtfully. “All this is to say that the Lady’s claim regarding doors to some sort of spiritual limbo, your grandfather’s references to ghosts—such things are not entirely without context in the field of dryadology. Certainly the Worthington-West school would not have been surprised.”
I gave a weak laugh and sank back onto the bench, resting my head in my hands. “I had thought that reading the histories of great faerie monarchs would prepare me for whatever Wendell and I would encounter here. Instead I should have spent my time on ghost stories.”
“So it appears,” Niamh said. I could tell that she was skeptical, if not outright disbelieving, but nevertheless her voice held a trace of hope. I noticed for the first time that her eyes were red and shadowed, and I recalled that she had known Wendell from his boyhood.
“And what does this old misanthrope have to say about your theory?” she said, adopting the familial, teasing tone she often used with Lord Taran, which always gave me a shiver of trepidation.
“Nothing whatsoever,” he replied. “I have no use for the arguments of scholars. And I am not so much a villain as to offer false hope.”
“That’s plain enough,” she said, her face falling a little. “How long has the little one been gone?”
Despair settled over me. “Two hours, perhaps.”
“You must eat,” Niamh said, placing a hand on my back. “You are trembling. Come with me.”
“I cannot.”
She sighed. “I will send for breakfast, then. And you will eat it, if I have to force it down your throat myself.”
* * *
—
Despite my weakness, I was sickened by the smell of breakfast when the servants placed it before me on a tray. Still, I made myself eat a few spoonfuls of egg and a piece of toast—I could not countenance the strawberries or spiced porridge—knowing that Niamh was in the right.
The morning turned into afternoon. I sat and watched the dais, or wrote in my journal. More Folk flitted in and out. Lord Taran departed, then returned. I do not think he came to see if I would succeed, but rather how long I would hold on to hope. Not once did he press me, though. Callum came and sat with me, and though I knew he meant well, I found his presence hardest to bear. He looked at me with an understanding I wanted no part of.
Ivy continued to cover Wendell’s body. It was twining about his hair now, too, so thickly that only the odd clump of gold could be seen squeezed between the leaves. Moths fluttered about the flowers, a snail made its slow way across his chest, and I caught sight of the odd cocoon being spun and the dark skitter of a spider. I wanted to brush it all away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t touch him.
As the day slipped into evening, I dozed off, Shadow snoring against my feet. I was startled awake by a cavalcade of flickering lights, which spun once around the room and were gone before I could even pinpoint what variety of faerie they were.
I lifted my head, trying to shake off the nebulous unease that accompanies awakening in an unfamiliar place. The room was empty apart from a solitary brownie upon a ladder, who was lighting the lanterns, but a few Folk were still gathered outside on the stone steps—I could hear the murmur of their conversation.
I reached down to pet Shadow. But at some point, as I dozed, the dog had gone to lie next to Wendell’s body. I felt my eyes begin to sting. But then I noticed that the beast was not dozing—though his head rested on one paw—but gazing fixedly at the corner of the dais.
The hair rose on my neck. And I realized something else.
Shadow had not howled.
I went to crouch beside him, placing my hand on his head. Black Hounds are known for their haunting howl, which they let loose in the presence of death—or, in some stories, around those who are soon to depart. Yet not once since we entered the room with Wendell’s body had Shadow made a sound.
“What, my love?” I murmured. Shadow was not staring at the place where the oíche sidhe had vanished, but to the left, around the other side of the dais. Which was where Wendell’s shadow would have been now, were there light enough to see it.
“The door is in his shadow,” I murmured. I had seen the housekeeper go that way, but it still felt impossible, even amongst the many impossibilities of Faerie. “Isn’t it?”