In the Night Wood. Dale Bailey
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He peered closer. “We are, are we?”
“Down to the King, you are,” she said. Then: “Feel free to have a look. We don’t have much, I’m afraid.”
“It looks to me like you have quite a lot,” he couldn’t help saying.
“A lot of rubbish. That’s what I’m here for, to excavate it all and figure out what’s worth keeping.”
“I thought you were the docent.”
“That, too. Listen, give me a minute to finish up. I’m sorting papers in the back here. Papers, papers everywhere and nary a drop to drink.”
Suddenly he liked her, this shadowy stranger at the far end of the hall.
“Then I’ll show you around a bit,” she said. “I’ll want to wash my face first, if you don’t mind.”
“And if I do?”
Was he flirting? An image of Ann Merrow’s taut rear end, muscles flexing as she climbed the stile, flitted through his mind. And then, worse yet, an image of Syrah Nagle —
He shunted the thought away.
“I’ll wash it anyway,” the woman said dryly, and with that she was gone.
Charles wandered into the adjoining room. He glanced at a set of photos — the high street from some distant era — picked up a stiff, yellowing copy of the Ripon Gazette, put it down again without bothering to read the headline, and ran a finger across the dusty surface of a glass display cabinet, leaving a long, clean snail’s track in its wake. He paused before a case of medals and fading ribbons. A yellowing index card pinned to the wall above it read, in faded typescript, Yarrow has contributed its share of young men to the conflicts of —
Charles turned away.
What on earth was he doing here, in a museum dedicated to a place where almost nothing had ever happened? Even Caedmon Hollow was an obscure figure in the annals of Victorian lit — a footnote, nothing more.
He’d hung his future on a footnote.
A wave of doubt swept over him. The scholar-adventurer indeed, he thought, turning to the next display, another constellation of fading black-and-white photographs: lean, grim-looking men posed beside farm animals and antiquated tractors, a young boy holding a prize ribbon against his chest. Black and white. Nobody smiling. The Yarrow Agricultural Fair began in the early 1800s and remains an institution —
Sighing, Charles drifted to the far end of the room. More photographs, he thought — but no, that wasn’t quite right. The images predated modern photography: daguerreotypes, and more than that, daguerreotypes of Hollow House. The first showed the place in ruins, roofless, the great rectangular stones of the exterior blackened by fire. The ones that followed — there were six of them, marching in a straight line across the wall — showed the house in various stages of reconstruction, culminating in an image of it in pristine condition.
Charles leaned forward to study the central image more closely: the roof framed with great beams, stacks of lumber and stones in the front yard below.
“Probably our best thing, that,” the woman said at his shoulder. “So far, anyway.”
Charles turned to face her, high-cheekboned and pale-complexioned, with a cap of close-shorn blonde hair, hazel eyes, a scattering of freckles across the bridge of her narrow nose. There was a smudge of dust over her right eyebrow. Apparently she hadn’t washed up after all. Or not very well, anyway.
“I’m Silva North,” she said.
“Charles Hayden.” He took her outstretched hand.
“Well, Mr. Hayden —”
“Charles.”
“Charles, then.” She nodded at the framed images. “The construction occurred between 1844 and 1848, following a fire that consumed most of the original manor house. The library and part of the salon survived, though badly damaged. Hollow’s wife, Emma, was not so fortunate. Tradition holds that Hollow set the fire himself, though why he might have done so is unclear. The book came out —”
“In 1850, to little fanfare,” Charles said. “Hollow committed suicide the next year.”
Silva North smiled. “I see that you’ve developed an interest in Hollow House since you’ve taken up residence.”
“Before that, actually. I’m working on — that is, I’m contemplating — a biography.”
“Rather limited audience for that, I should think.”
“I hope my book will change that.”
“Well, you’re in the perfect spot. There must be tons of stuff buried in that old pile.”
“I’m hoping so.” He hesitated, surveying the rat’s nest of boxes and papers. “I don’t know what your collection —”
And now Silva North laughed out loud, a rich, throaty laugh, not unkind. “Our collection,” she said. “Is that what brought you to our humble historical society?”
“I take it you are the society.”
“In a manner of speaking. The village pays me a modest stipend — all too modest, I’m afraid. And I get to live in the upstairs flat rent-free.”
“In return for?”
“In return for going through boxes. I decide what to keep and what’s rubbish. Mr. Sadler, who used to live here, died. Quite a hoarder, he was, with an eye to local history. That must have been twenty years ago. I was a girl. He left the house to the village, and they’ve been shoving boxes in here ever since. I volunteered to clean it out and put it in some order, open it to the public. A deal was struck, and here I am.”
“But why?”
“I have about half of a master’s in history from the University of York. And I’m interested in the village’s past. Unfortunately, it has produced no one of any great significance aside from our eccentric author. Strange book. Not quite right for children, is it?” She raised her eyebrows. “No white rabbits checking their watches.”
“No indeed.” Charles hesitated. “I was hoping that if you ran across anything about Hollow, you’d be willing to share. Have you?”
“The daguerreotypes, obviously. They were stashed away in a box of Mr. Sadler’s gas bills. God alone knows how they got there. Nothing else so far, I’m afraid.” She studied them. “They’d make splendid plates for your book, wouldn’t they?”
They would, Charles was about to say, but just then he heard the door open at the end of the hall, the patter of small feet in the corridor. The high, sweet voice of a little girl interrupted them, saying, “Mummy, I’m thirsty.” Charles turned, reeling when he saw the child, maybe five years old, six at the most, with blonde curls and blue jeans and an elfin and expressive face. The earth slid away beneath his feet. Subsidence, old ghosts rising up inside his mind: Lissa, he thought.
Charles stepped backward, Silva’s hand steadying him as the world came once again into focus: the musty smell of the place and the child in the foyer, the labyrinth of boxes.
Jesus, was this what Erin —
“Are you okay?”
“No, I” — deep breath, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes — “yes, of course, I —”
No words came.
Then Silva’s hand was gone. He could still feel its warmth on his back. “Who’s Lissa?”
Had he said it aloud?
He shook his head. “My daughter. She’s my daughter.”
Was, a malicious inner voice put in. Was your daughter.
“Still