“Why would she run off?”
McKenna sighed with worry. “The mistress trusts Valentina, but if you ask me, there’s always been something off about that girl. Don’t get me wrong; she cares about this place. But there’s a darkness in her she’s never been able to shake. I worry that darkness has come to haunt her.”
A shiver ran through me, and McKenna hugged her arms as well.
“Perhaps it’s come to haunt all of us,” she whispered.
FOURTEEN
WE WAITED ALL DAY for Valentina to reappear, but there was no sign of her. By the following night even Elizabeth was worried enough to stop our Perpetual Anatomy lessons until she was found. The entire household mounted a search for her. I took the south garden, afraid to venture anywhere near the bogs.
“Valentina!” I called, but there was no answer.
After another hour, nearly frozen to death, I stomped back to the stairs, where McKenna and Elizabeth kept watch. McKenna handed me a cup of hot cider.
“Any news of her?” I asked.
McKenna shook her head, lips stitched together in worry. “No, though Moira admitted she heard Valentina crying a few nights ago when she found out you’d been named heir, Miss Moreau. None of us have ever seen Valentina cry, not once.”
“You think she ran off because of me?” My stomach twisted with guilt. Did Valentina truly care that much about the manor? Perhaps when we found her, we could put aside our differences and come to an understanding. She could be my advisor, like McKenna was to Elizabeth. I’d own the manor, but she’d be the heart of it.
McKenna hugged her arms tighter. “Don’t blame yourself, little mouse. Let’s just hope she turns up soon.”
The front door creaked open slowly, and a little face peered out with mismatched eyes. Hensley. He caught sight of Elizabeth and slipped his hand in hers. A white rat perched on his shoulder, nose sniffing the warm air. I exchanged a glance with Elizabeth.
“Can’t you sleep, darling?” Elizabeth asked.
“I want Lily to read me a story.”
“Lily’s busy right now, my dear. All the girls are. Someone’s gone missing and everyone’s out searching. You’ll have to wait for a story, I’m afraid.”
He looked up at her with that one white eye, then out to the moors. “Who went missing, Mother?”
“Valentina.”
He knit his face together in confusion. “She isn’t missing.”
Elizabeth frowned. “What do you mean?”
He huffed, petting the rat extra hard. “I don’t want to talk about her. I want a story!”
Elizabeth and McKenna exchanged a worried look, and I knelt down to face him. “Hensley, I shall read you a story if you like, but first tell us what happened to Valentina.”
“She went away. I saw it.”
“But her room is locked. How did you see?”
He gave an exasperated sigh. “I saw it from the narrow rooms.”
Elizabeth let out a small sound of surprise, then turned to me. “That’s what he calls the passageways. But there aren’t any passageways in the servants’ wing, are there, McKenna?”
The old maid ran a wrinkled hand through her hair, trying to think. “I can’t rightly say, Mistress. The passages were mapped in 1772, but the papers are so old and damaged they’re practically useless. If there are any passages there, they can’t be but a few feet high, with that sloping attic. I daresay Hensley or one of the little girls are the only ones who could fit through them.”
“And you, Juliet,” Elizabeth said, seizing me on the arm. “You’re thin as a reed. You take the passageways and see if you can unlock the door from within. We’ll wait outside her bedroom in the hallway. Hensley, can you show Miss Juliet where you saw Valentina go? And then she’ll read you a story, my darling.”
His little hand, stronger than I expected, grabbed my wrist. “Come, Miss Juliet. I’ll show you the narrow rooms.”
“Be careful!” McKenna called. “Remember the passages are dangerous!”
Before I could scarcely catch my breath he tugged me back into the manor and through the hallways to the kitchen pantry. He twisted a hidden latch beneath the pickled beets and swung open the door. He crawled on hands and knees, with the rat settled on his shoulder. He stroked it with one finger and then looked at me very solemnly.
“Stay close, Miss Juliet, and you won’t die.”
THE LORD WHO HAD built Ballentyne Manor might have been mad, but he had been a genius when it came to engineering. As I followed Hensley through the walls, crawling over dirt floors and through spiderweb-covered tunnels, I marveled at the clever architecture that made the passageways possible: hidden rooms under staircases, secret doors built into the wood paneling. I quickly learned what McKenna meant about the dangers: twice we passed wooden beams fitted with metal spikes, rusty now with disuse, that I imagined were some sort of trap.
“Do you have all the narrow rooms mapped in your head, Hensley?” I peered down a side hallway. “Where does this way lead?”
He spun on me and grabbed my arm, making me jump. He pointed half a pace in front of me, where I’d very nearly stepped. A chasm gaped. I cried out and scrambled backward. It would have been a three-story fall.
“Yes, Miss,” he said calmly. “I know everything about the narrow rooms.”
My heart was still racing as he led me up a stone staircase as narrow as my shoulders and back down another one I had to stoop to pass through.
“Hensley, slow down!” I clambered over some ancient brick ductwork. He tossed a grin over his shoulder but didn’t slow. I caught up to him at last, and he pointed to a metal grate that was dusty with soot except for a single clean patch. It must have been recently used. I fumbled with the grate until I found a small panel that slid open. Flames roared on the other side. I jumped back in shock.
Hensley snickered. “It’s the fireplace in the library.”
I peered through again, and realized the grate looked out from the rear of the fireplace into the stately library, empty now, with a few open books resting on the green velvet couches. He pointed to the passageway’s floor, which I could make out in the firelight. There were footprints slightly larger than mine in the dust.
“Are those Valentina’s?” I asked.
He nodded, and then tugged on my dress. “This way.”
He darted down another turn in the maze of passages, and I gave up on trying to memorize the map. I followed him, letting my fingers trail on the walls, hoping not to get snagged by one of those rusty metal spikes. Even with the traps, I had to marvel at the wonderful strangeness of it all. Lucy and I would have adored playing hide-and-seek in passageways like this, when we were his age.