But he might have killed you, if you hadn’t fled, if the door had not vanished.
And yet she could not find it in herself to be relieved. She could not help but fear for him.
She crawled on her belly into the bathroom, and she pressed her ear to the bathtub’s piping. “Augustine,” she whispered. “Augustine, speak to me. Where are you? How can I reach you?”
The metal trembled wordlessly, and then it shrieked. Below, she heard a woman’s scream. Jane stumbled back to her feet, out into the hallway, to the balcony in the foyer.
“The main, the main!” shouted Mrs. Luthbright. “Turn it off at the main!”
The front door hung open, the wind howling through it, rain sheeting inside along the horizontal. Jane saw a flash of skirt, and then heard Mrs. Purl shout, “It won’t budge!”
“Harder! Turn harder!”
Jane hesitated only a moment before she dashed out into the squall, finding Mrs. Purl just around the entrance, hauling on a great metal wheel. Jane joined her, and together they dragged it closed. Inside, Mrs. Luthbright called out encouragement. They staggered together, drenched, back into Lindridge Hall, and into the kitchen, where Mrs. Luthbright was standing ankle-deep in water from a burst pipe in the sink.
“Mercy,” Mrs. Purl gasped, as Mrs. Luthbright made an old warding sign. “Do you think it was the storm?”
Jane thought of Augustine, his voice screaming in the pipes, and shivered.
“Must be,” Mrs. Luthbright said, then turned to Jane. “Mrs. Lawrence! The doctor didn’t say to expect you.”
“There was an emergency,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“Of course, of course. You do him proud.” Mrs. Purl smiled, but Mrs. Luthbright sloshed out of the water with a scowl on her face.
“Well, and now we have our own emergency. No running water until we can fetch somebody to fix it from town.”
“Of course. Can I help?”
“Stay out of the way and watch for the storm to lighten.”
Cowed, Jane retreated up to Augustine’s study. She could see the road more clearly from there. She stared out at the storm and the road, willing herself to wake up. This was a nightmare. This had to be a nightmare. There was no other logic for it, beyond the impossible.
A door could not become stone. A voice could not be imprisoned in the plumbing. And yet …
She was still standing there, two hours later, when a horse appeared in the sheeting rain. Atop it, a broad man in a cap.
The walls closed in around her.
Mr. Lowell.
She was back down the stairs in what felt like an instant, pressed up against the blank stone that had been the crypt door. Her fingers scrabbled at the margins, where the stone met the wood paneling of the hall without the slightest gap, and she whispered pleas to the rock over and over. It did not budge. She wished it open with all her heart, thinking glancing thoughts of magic, but the stone remained, unmoving. Even as she heard the squeaking hinges of the main door, the rain spilling into the foyer, she tried to pry it open.
“Augustine, they need you. I can’t do this. I can’t—”
“Mrs. Lawrence! Come quick!”
She was out of time.
Shivering, Jane stepped away from the door. She marshaled all her poise and tried to drag on a shroud of cool remove, like she’d felt when seeing Mr. Renton for the first time. It came in tatters, but it came, and she emerged into the foyer to meet her fate.
Mr. Lowell’s cheeks were as flushed as if he had galloped the whole way himself, instead of the horse that panted out in the yard, unshielded from the weather. Mrs. Luthbright had gone to offer food to the animal, but it ignored her, stamping impatiently. Mr. Lowell looked much the same, gaze fixed on Jane from the moment she entered the space, ignoring Mrs. Purl at his side.
“The doctor,” Mr. Lowell said. “He is needed. Where is he?”
“Out at an emergency,” Mrs. Purl said, echoing Jane’s earlier excuse, and Jane found herself only able to nod, voice seizing in her throat.
“He is not at Thorndell,” Mr. Lowell snapped, looking away from Jane for just a moment to cast his ire on the older woman. She retreated, scowling. “Mrs. Lawrence, please, the boy is turning more poorly by the minute.”
Jane’s jaw trembled. What could she tell him? How could she give an excuse that would mean this child’s death? “He’s not here,” she said weakly.
The house gave an echoing groan.
“Not here,” Mr. Lowell repeated. “Not here?”