Undertow Read online

  There was something glamorous about the theater, even a small one such as the Undertow. With her love of song, Persephone would adore it. If only I could show it to her.

  The thought brought an unexpected ache with it. How fun it would be, to have her here with me. We’d share a glass of wine and sit together in the balcony, where we could see the audience as well as the performance. And after, we’d laugh and talk until dawn, then find a restaurant serving waffles.

  Or maybe we wouldn’t laugh and talk. Maybe we’d do other things. If she kissed me…

  “Mr. Burton!” Irene called, startling me from my musings. “Excuse me, Maggie, Mr. Young, but I see a friend I need to have a word with.”

  She scurried away, leaving me alone with Oliver. “A nice crowd for opening night,” he remarked. “Don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes,” I agreed, surveying the lobby with him. A bit to my surprise, I spotted the familiar figure of Mr. Quinn. Though on reflection, perhaps I shouldn’t have been shocked. Surely he had a life outside of the Ladysmith museum, just as I did.

  Mr. Quinn dressed much as he did in his role as head librarian, though in truth his costume would have been equally suitable for an undertaker. A somber black frock coat clad his thin body and made his white skin look nearly unnatural in its pallor. He held a small glass of cordial in one long-fingered hand, the liquid inside a dark red that reminded me uncomfortably of blood.

  I hesitated, uncertain whether to offer a greeting. I was only a lowly secretary, after all, even if I did work for Dr. Whyborne. Before I could make up my mind, Mr. Quinn drifted over to us.

  “Miss Parkhurst,” he said in a slightly dreamy fashion. Silvery eyes blinked at me, then fixed on Oliver. “And who is this newcomer to our fair city?”

  “This is my childhood friend, Mr. Oliver Young,” I said. “Oliver, permit me to introduce Mr. Quinn, the head librarian at the museum.”

  “A pleasure,” Oliver said, holding out his hand.

  Mr. Quinn ignored Oliver’s hand. “I see,” he said, the corner of his mouth curling up just slightly. Turning his attention away from Oliver and back to me, he said, “This should be quite the spectacle.” His gaze wandered to the stone ceiling above our heads. “Though not as grand as that which rendered the church empty in the first place, alas.”

  Oliver followed his gaze rather uneasily. “What happened?”

  “First Esoteric,” Mr. Quinn replied. His eyes shone oddly in the electric lights of the chandelier. “The priest here was fool enough to speak out against our city’s finest sect. It could not be tolerated, of course.” Mr. Quinn swallowed the last of his drink. “It’s said no one ever found the priest’s body. Well, not all of it.”

  I cast a sideways glance at Oliver, who looked rather shocked. “How fascinating,” I said hastily. “I didn’t realize you know so much about Widdershins’s history, Mr. Quinn.”

  Oliver frowned in disapproval. “I’d say morbid, and not the sort of story one should relate in front of a lady.”

  I suppressed a sigh. Oliver meant well, of course. “It’s quite all right.”

  “The incident was over a century ago,” Mr. Quinn said, apparently under the impression that Oliver would find old horrors somehow more suitable for my delicate ears. “The other sects learned their lesson.”

  Thankfully, the lights dimmed at that moment. “The play is starting,” I said, gripping Oliver’s arm. “We should find Irene.”

  Mr. Quinn gave Oliver a chilly little smile. “Enjoy the show,” he said. A last drop of red lingered on his lip; his tongue darted out to catch it, before he turned away.

  Oliver’s gaze followed him. “There’s something off about that fellow. You don’t work closely with him, do you?”

  “No, not at all.” Dr. Whyborne usually went to the library himself rather than sending me to fetch books.

  “Good,” Oliver said shortly.

  I shifted uncomfortably. “Mr. Quinn is a bit eccentric, but he means well.” He and the other librarians had risked their lives during the battle last July. But I couldn’t say that to Oliver. Even the denizens of Widdershins only spoke of such things in whispers and innuendo. If I tried to explain it to an outsider, he’d never understand.

  Odd, how I’d come to think of Widdershins as home, rather than New Bedford. I’d been subjected to strange and frightening incidents since coming here, things I could never have dreamed of before. By all rights I should have taken my leave of the city and retreated somewhere safer. Yet Mother’s letters, pleading with me to return and get married, left me cold. I somehow felt as though I belonged here, in a way I never had anywhere else.

  Irene returned, and we went into the auditorium to find our seats. Tumblers performed on the stage while the audience settled, and Oliver seemed to forget his concern over Mr. Quinn, laughing along with Irene and myself at their antics.

  When at last the audience was seated, the tumblers withdrew, and a man stepped onto the stage. He wore a slightly old-fashioned coat, and his hair and beard were iron gray. Still, he seemed hale, his movements easy as he bowed to us all with a flourish.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.” His voice rang through the theater, his tone oddly authoritative. “Welcome to the grand opening of the Undertow. I am your humble host, Gregory Ayers.” He bowed again, and was rewarded by a smattering of applause. “We have chosen to christen our new home with a play of our own devising. A tale of intrigue in distant courts, of strange visitors welcome and not, of masks and the secrets dwelling in the hearts of men. Tonight, you will see things never before viewed by an audience!”

  Irene leaned over me, pointing at the program. “Look—the character of the siren is played by Miss Joanna Ayers. His daughter, do you think?”

  “Or grand-daughter, given his age,” I replied. Then the orchestra struck up the first chords, and the curtain rose upon the scene of a throne room.

  At first, I was quite swept up in the play. It concerned the struggle for the throne between siblings—two sisters and their brother, the latter having recently returned from a long sea voyage. But after the first act, it began to grow strange. The prince was haunted by visions of a woman, who seemed to have followed him from the sea. She begged him to love her, but he spurned her advances and fled. None of the other characters could see her, and I was uncertain whether she was meant to be a supernatural curse upon the prince, or merely a hallucination.

  “I’m not quite sure I understand this modern theater,” Irene whispered to me.

  “Agreed,” I whispered back.

  The play culminated in a masquerade ball. I’d long since lost the thread of the plot, but the costumes were beautiful, paste jewels glittering in the stage lights. The masks were elaborate fantasies: wolves, doves, deer, and dragons.

  So it was even more of a shock when the siren appeared in the midst of the revelers, wearing a featureless mask that looked to have been carved from bone. The only decoration on her mask consisted of a small cabochon of colored glass set into the forehead, surrounded by a single engraved sigil or rune.

  The other characters fell away before her, save for the prince. Siren and prince faced each other down the length of the stage. The orchestra stilled, and for a long moment, there was only silence.

  Then the siren began to sing.

  I didn’t recognize the language—perhaps it was even nonsense, invented for the play. Her voice seemed to fill the very air with a tangible presence.

  The prince collapsed to the stage and began to dramatically crawl toward her. His doom come upon him.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Oliver whispered.

  It wasn’t. I didn’t want the siren to murder the prince. I wanted him to realize his mistake, to see how he’d hurt her by rejecting her love, and to fall in love with her in turn. But apparently it wasn’t that sort of play.

  I turned to Irene, intending to ask her opinion. She stared fixedly at the stage, her eyes wide, her expression slack. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out, a
nd her skin had gone deathly pale.

  Something was wrong. “Irene?” I whispered, touching her wrist. Her skin was clammy under my fingers. “Are you sick?”

  She made no response, didn’t so much as glance at me. Her gaze remained fixed on the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the prince reach the siren, where he would no doubt come to the most grisly of ends. Had the spectacle proved too disturbing for Irene?

  “Do you need to leave?” I gave her a little shake, but it was as though she didn’t even know I was there. “Irene?”

  The prince flung himself hopelessly at the siren’s feet. The music swelled, the siren raised a knife, and her song reached a crescendo almost great enough to drown out Irene’s scream.

  ~ * ~

  “Is Miss Vale going to be all right?” Oliver asked. We stood on the sidewalk in front of the boarding house. As no men were allowed inside after dark, I’d been forced to see Irene in alone. I’d told Oliver not to bother waiting, but he’d insisted.

  I crossed my arms over my chest against the chill of the night air. Fog had rolled in off the ocean, and I could hear the distant call of the Daboll trumpet. The damp only served to make the atmosphere feel colder. “She’ll be fine,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely certain of it. She’d seemed disoriented the entire way back from the theater. “Perhaps something she ate didn’t agree with her.”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “Though I saw the ushers had to help her friend Mr. Burton out as well.”

  I’d been too focused on Irene to notice. “That’s strange.”

  Oliver hesitated, then asked, “How well do you know Miss Vale?”

  “Well enough,” I replied. “She moved into the room across the hall from me around the beginning of August, and I see her at least twice a day. Why?”

  “Oh, no reason.” He offered me a smile. “Just curiosity on my part. I want to know who your friends are, Maggie.”

  “Oh?” I said faintly.

  “I had a good time this evening—at least, up until the part where Miss Vale fainted.” He looked away, then back at me. “The play reminded me a bit of that old sea shanty about the mermaid. That seeing one spells your doom.”

  Ah—now the play finally made sense. The prince had tried to outrun his doom by returning to land. A shame the playwright hadn’t made it a bit clearer.

  I hadn’t thought of the shanty in years, but I still knew all the words by heart. “Twas Friday morn when we set sail,” I sang, and he joined in.

  “And we had not got far from land,

  When the Captain, he spied a lovely mermaid,

  With a comb and a glass in her hand.

  “Then up spoke the Captain of our gallant ship,

  And a jolly old Captain was he;

  ‘I have a wife in Salem town,

  But tonight a widow she will be.’”

  “Papa used to love that song,” I said wistfully. “He held me on his lap, while we all sang around the piano.” The memory seemed so clear: his weathered face, the warm glow of the whale oil lamp, my brothers on the floor playing with whatever presents he’d brought back for us from exotic ports.

  Then one day he was gone. Taken by the cold sea he’d loved.

  Had I inherited that love from him? What would he have done, if he’d found himself face to face with a woman from its depths?

  Oliver smiled, but the expression had a sad quality to it. “It’s been good to see you again, Maggie. I can’t help but think our fathers wouldn’t have wanted us to drift so far apart. I’d like to call upon you tomorrow evening, if I may.”

  My heart sank a bit. Did Oliver want more than to reconnect with an old friend? He’d never indicated interest in anything more than friendship in our correspondence, but he’d mentioned speaking to my mother before coming to Widdershins.

  And if he did want something more, what would I do?

  I was being foolish. Mother’s letters had me questioning Oliver’s motives, when he’d given me no reason to do so. He simply wanted to spend time with an old friend, before his work took him away again, for who knew how many years.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d be happy to receive your visit.”

  ~ * ~

  A low moan woke me during the night.

  I opened my eyes; the bedroom appeared in shades of dark gray. The waning moon was less than half full, and light leaked through the drawn curtains. I sat up, listening intently. Where had the sound come from? The window?

  My treacherous heart leapt at the thought. But Persephone wouldn’t come here two nights in a row. She was a chieftess beneath the sea, after all, and had far better things to do than visit her brother’s secretary.

  It might be whatever had left the dead squid.

  The sound came again, and this time I could tell it issued from the direction of the hall.

  Still, I wasn’t relieved. Last July, I’d waked to find a horrible rat-like thing emerging from a hole in the baseboards. The experience had made me wary of strange sounds in the night.

  I lit the candle, then pulled on my robe and took the knife from beneath my pillow. Once in the hall, I paused, listening.

  “No,” sighed a low voice. It sounded as though it came from Irene’s room. “Please, don’t. I don’t want to.”

  My heart beat rapidly, and I mentally ran through all the self-defense movements Dr. Putnam-Barnett had taught me. Taking a deep breath, I steadied my nerves and flung open the door.

  The light of my candle revealed only Irene, lying in bed. The blankets were twisted around her, and even as I watched, her head thrashed madly from side to side.

  “The song,” she gasped. “It’s calling me. Make it stop.”

  “Irene!” I crossed to the bed and shook her. “Irene, wake up.”

  Her eyes flew open, accompanied by a cry of horror. She stared at me, no recognition showing in her gaze.

  “It’s just me,” I said. “You’ve had a nightmare.”

  “Maggie.” My name came sluggishly from her lips. Her tense muscles relaxed beneath my hand, and she sagged into the bed. Her thrashing had pulled her nightgown tight across her breasts, and I glanced away, feeling my cheeks redden slightly.

  “I heard you cry out in your sleep, loud enough it woke me,” I said. “A good thing I’m a light sleeper.”

  “Yes.” She sat up, her face pale in the candlelight. Gooseflesh showed on her arms, and she tugged the covers higher. “Thank you.”

  “Are you ill?” That would explain her earlier faint. I put a hand to her forehead. Her skin felt clammy, but cool rather than warm. “Should I have Mrs. Yagoda send for a doctor?”

  “No.” A shiver wracked her. “It was just a nightmare, like you said.”

  “Did you dream about the play?” I asked. “When I came in, you were moaning about a song. You said it called to you.”

  Alarm flashed across her face, startling in its intensity. “No,” she said, then caught herself. “I mean, that must have been it,” she went on, pasting on an unconvincing smile. “How silly of me. This modern mode of theater must be too much for my poor brain.”

  I wanted to ask her why she’d seemed so worried, but it was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it. “Would you like some tea?” I asked, helpless to do anything more. “Something to settle your nerves, perhaps?”

  She shook her head. Her dark hair, unbound, whispered against her bedclothes. The sound reminded me of a wave retreating over sand. “Thank you for the offer, but no. I’m perfectly fine, really. You should go back to bed.”

  Dismissed, I had no choice but to obey. But it was a long time before I fell back asleep. I couldn’t help but feel she had been lying. That she hadn’t been fine at all.

  I should have gone back into her room. I should have insisted she tell me the truth.

  Because in the morning, she was gone.

  Chapter 3

  When I arose the next morning, I went to Irene’s room to check on her as soon as I was dressed. My knock went unanswered.
/>   Maybe she hadn’t been able to get back to sleep after her fright, and so had arisen early. Perhaps she’d already gone down to breakfast, even offered Mrs. Yagoda a hand in the kitchen. I should go downstairs first.

  But it would only take a moment to peek into her room. I wouldn’t set foot inside, just look. Maybe she had fallen back asleep, so deeply she hadn’t heard my knocking. If so, she’d appreciate being waked in time to go to her job at the department store.

  “Irene?” I called, cracking open the door. “Are you in there?”

  Only silence greeted me. I pushed the door farther open and peered inside.

  Irene’s bed lay unmade, the sheets thrown back in an untidy heap. My first, foolish thought was that Mrs. Yagoda would be furious; we were meant to keep our rooms as neat as possible, to give less work to the maid. Then I noticed Irene’s shoes standing ready beside the bed, along with the clothes she’d laid out for today. Her pocketbook sat on the table.

  She’d only gone downstairs for a cup of coffee, I told myself. Perhaps her faint and her nightmares last night had indeed been the first signs of illness. She’d gone down dressed in her nightclothes, because she was too sick to do anything but nibble on some toast.

  I closed the door behind me and went downstairs. Mrs. Yagoda was in the process of laying breakfast on the sideboard, and my stomach grumbled at the smell of bacon and scrambled eggs. Several of the other boarders were already at the table, sipping coffee and eating biscuits slathered in butter.

  Irene wasn’t among them.

  “Has anyone seen Irene?” I asked, my voice trembling slightly.

  The other boarders shook their heads. Mrs. Yagoda paused while filling her own plate with eggs. “She hasn’t been down yet. Why?”

  I swallowed. “She’s not in her room. And her things are still there—her pocketbook and shoes, I mean. Her bed’s not made, and I thought…” I trailed off. “We should call the police.”

  ~ * ~

  “Now, Miss Parkhurst, was there a young man in Miss Vale’s life?” asked Detective Tilton.