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Chapter 8
And More Trouble
John was in a very difficult position. Tabitha had promised to follow his lead, to go with his plan, only—he didn’t have a plan. Even worse, he had no idea how to go about getting a plan. For all John knew plans just popped out of thin air waving their arms frantically shouting ‘notice me, notice me!’
Or maybe there were plan-makers and plan-followers, and he wasn’t the former. (his previous surety that he was intelligent enough to think up a way around the problem facing him was fast fading away into the uncertainty pit that took up most of his stomach). He knew Tabitha would help—of course she would—but he had enough pride to want to do it himself. Somehow.
They both managed to sneak out of the house without attracting her attention before returning to the stables and his loft, where John then spent a sleepless night in which his mind wandered the corridors of the house trying desperately to find a solution to this problem. He found no answers before dawn, and decided to slip out for a walk before Tabitha awoke. The moors were grey and dim when he opened the stable doors, there was a chill wind wending its way across the moors moving westward, away from the sea. John had never seen the ocean, but from what people had said and the books Tabitha had made him read, it seemed like the most awesome thing in the world, marvelous to behold. He inhaled the wind deeply—thinking, maybe…but there was no salt taste in the air. There never had been before, and it was only his imagination that made him wish he could smell it now.
He was facing east when the first ray of sunlight peeked over the horizon, glowing a golden path to his feet and beyond. The moors were no longer grey and intimidating but a fantastic rise and swell of golden grasses swaying in the wind. Other people may think the landscape bleak and harsh with an intimidating nature, but John knew it for what it was: a yearning grandeur. He gave the smallest of happy sighs and began trudging around the house, searching for a solution in motion as most seem to do and have done and will do throughout time. His footsteps brought him no nearer to a solution, although in a way they did. For as he wandered around the outside of the house his eyes idly skipped from window to window naming the rooms behind them (it was a rather large house with lots of rooms and therefore lots of windows to them, but John had lived around this house nearly his entire life so the challenge was not as great as it may seem). Tabitha’s room, the destroyed blue room, the green tapestry room, the gold room, a hallway window, the red room—
For the first time in his life John realized that there was another window, right above the red room. It was small and oddly shaped, easily missed under the eaves of the house, except from the angle John was staring at it. The roof was slightly peaked at that point, as it was at others, but John had never given thought to any attics in the house. No one had ever mentioned them before, and if there was one benefit about living with servants it was that any room in a house is sure to be mentioned sooner or later, unless none of the servants but close-mouthed Roger know about it. An unused attic room—right above where Roger had entered that door last night. That door must lead to a staircase which climbed to that room…the laudanum must be there in that small attic. But was it reachable by any means other than that door?
Oh, his head hurt with all the thoughts he was forcing to race through it at fantastic speeds, considering and discarding more plans in one moment than he had ever thought of in a lifetime. He pressed his hands to his temples as if the immense pressure squeezing his brain would act as a catalyst and crystallize the thoughts within.
Amazingly enough, it did.
John was shocked, really. It was a plan, and it was his. There was nothing safe about it, nothing safe at all, but it was his plan and he knew it could work. He jumped into the air and punched it a few times in his satisfaction (it is a little known fact that air does indeed mind being punched. It’s always left wondering vaguely what it did this time to deserve it) and then proceeded to run full tilt back to the stables and pounce on Tabitha’s bed to wake her up. She came awake all of an instant (as did Wulafric who thought this was an opportune time for a three way wrestling match, made difficult by the size of the bed being much smaller than all three involved) and stared up at John who was grinning down at her in a reckless carefree manner that would one day mark him out as the most dangerous of men.
“I’ve got an idea Tabitha, but I need to know something first.”
“What?”
“How’s your head for heights?”
“Fine, I think. Why?”
“Tell you later?” He grinned down at her, his obvious happiness causing her to grin back.
“All right.” Tabitha managed to say past the large grin that was taking up most of the space. “What’s first?”
“Breakfast. I’m starving.”
And that was all he’d say. Tabitha tried to pester him but they soon descended the ladder and she could say no more in front of the rest of the servants. They ate a large breakfast in the house kitchens (honey biscuits and scrambled eggs and fresh sausages) before going to Tabitha’s room on the second floor where John revealed what he had discovered that morning about the attic room that no one knew about. Tabitha was very properly amazed and admiring of John’s deductive reasoning skills and told him so. His smile at this was much less reckless and much more pleased, as Tabitha only gave compliments out when she meant them. (she had given him four so far, and he treasured each and every one of them. The first had been given when she admired how fast he could get all his chores done and still have almost all of the day left for anything he pleased. The second compliment had been for his incredible skill at picking up on the accents of both French and German. The third had been for his strong grip which kept her from tumbling headfirst into an unexpected cleft filled with boulders, the fourth had been for his surprisingly good singing voice, and this one made the fifth). He then went on to explain the difficulties involved in getting to the attic room, and how there was really only one option open to them.
“What is it then?”
“If we can’t get into the room from below, we’ll have to get into it from above.”
Tabitha had the same ‘aha!’ moment that had occurred to John. “The roofs!”
“We’ll have to go over the roof and try to open the window from the outside. It doesn’t look that big, but I think both of us can fit through. We’ll need some rope, though, to tie to a chimney to make sure we don’t fall.”
“Good. I don’t especially like the idea of falling.”
“Neither do I.”
They smiled at each other.
“I think your plan will work,” Tabitha said.
“And I won’t have to steal the keys from Roger.”
“You’re right. You found a way to do it without stealing anything, it’s a good plan. When should we go?”
“Tonight. Today we’ll find a way onto the roof, and we’ll go up right after she has her tea. She’ll never see us, and neither will anyone else. I’ll go find us some rope, and you go find us a way up to the roof.”
They both nodded solemnly, shook hands, and parted ways.
It took longer for Tabitha to find a way up to the roof than it did for John to find some rope, but he joined her in her search and they eventually found an appropriate window that had a wide ledge of roof right under it that made for easy access to the rest of the roofs. They then waited in Tabitha’s room for the light to dim and all the servants to leave the house. They both were extremely bored but neither wished to be anywhere else. John amused himself for a while by wrestling with Wulafric, but Wulafric had reached such a size that nearly any match ended with Wulafric sitting happily on top of his opponent, licking his face. Tabitha watched for a while but lost interest and instead tried to concentrate on a book of flora and fauna of the Gobi desert.
Time passed slowly, but it did pass, and eventually John and Tabitha left the room, reluctantly shutting Wulafric in as he could not be expected to climb the roofs with them and then dangle by a rope into a small window. He made piteous whining noises and a loud whuffing noise that was almost a bark, but he kept quiet, only looking at them mournfully as they shut the door on him.
The window with access to the roof was in the blue tapestry room, high up on the wall opposite from the outside of the house, reachable only by standing on a chair on top of a desk, and pulling oneself through the narrow casement. Tabitha was first, finding the fit tight but manageable, while John was next, although there was a false start when he realized that he should pass the rope through first as he couldn’t fit with it slung around him. His was a tighter squeeze than Tabitha’s, but she pulled on his arms and he wiggled his legs and soon they both fell onto the roof. The sun was still relatively high and it would be several more hours before it was dark enough to proceed, but John declared that they should find the appropriate window now, rather than wait till dark, as it would be much more difficult then.
Now they ran into a slight problem. On top of the roofs, all rooms looked the same, and without the windows to guide him, John was unsure of where to start. But Tabitha closed her eyes and told him in no uncertain terms that the red room was 10 paces to the left, and 10 forward—and since the attic window was right above the red room, that was where they needed to be. Not quite willing to believe that she was correct, John nevertheless followed her instructions and carefully peered over the edge of the roof (after making sure no one was looking up) to find the window in question. To his great surprise, it was only a few feet away from where he lay. Tabitha merely smiled her small smile (although this time John thought he could detect a hint of smug satisfaction in it). He got up and tied one end of the rope around a nearby chimney, checking to make sure the chimney was in good enough condition to hold it (fortunately it was, although a bird objected to his getting so close to its nest). He lay the rope down next to the chimney and he and Tabitha settled in again to wait. The increasing chill caused the two to lean together for warmth, with John’s arm tucked tight around Tabitha’s shoulders (for her warmth, of course) and she nestled into him (for his warmth, of course).
And let no man disparage them for being too young for what they felt for each other, for love is not convenient and does not wait for the best time when one has the greatest use for it or ability to appreciate it. John had loved Tabitha for some time, but it was only recently that Tabitha had started to love John. Love did not come easily to her, understand, as she had never experienced much of it. Yes she had been cared for, cared for very much, but loved? John had been lucky enough to have been loved—even briefly—far more than Tabitha had ever been loved by her parents. Tabitha had found it easier to look at the world through cool eyes and with a calm head, as there was no pain to be found in it. But now, sitting on a rooftop with John, realizing the scope of their planned adventure, Tabitha felt the first stirrings of worry for another person. They might have been small, but to a person who had never worried for someone else, they felt like mallets to her heart.
“John?”
“Yes Tabitha?”
“Will this be all right?”
John was astonished. Tabitha was always so sure, so certain of everything. Until this moment he would have sworn that Tabitha had never doubted herself in her life, and would never doubt herself for the rest of her life. But he managed to find his voice to reassure her, “Of—of course it will. We’ll get in, destroy the laudanum, and everything will be back to the way it was. You’ll see. I mean, I don’t really remember what it was like before, but the servants all tell stories about how it was, about the way the house looked and, and everything. It’ll be much much better than it is now! Couldn’t really get any worse.”
They both snorted at that.
“John?”
“Yes Tabitha?”
“I don’t like being worried.”
“I don’t think anyone does. It just happens.”
“It never happened to me before.” She grumbled a bit.
“What are you so worried about?” John tried to close his mouth on the last word as if to take it back, but it was already said. He waited anxiously for Tabitha to speak, afraid of what she would say, and afraid that she wouldn’t say anything. There was a long pause during which John’s heart pounded and he could scarcely breathe for fear.
“I—I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”
John nearly passed out in relief. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me.”
“Yes, I know that, but—but,” Tabitha struggled to find the words to express what she was feeling—another first. “But I’m still worried.”
John tightened his arms around her. “I don’t want anything to happen to you either, Tabitha.”
So as they sat there on the roof they started talking to one another as they had never talked before. They said nothing of games and frolics with Wulafric, or of swimming in the millpond or even her antics, but they started telling each other secrets they had never told anyone else. Thoughts of the future, and the past. They bared their souls to each other as the sun set to their faces, and it seemed to them that it would be better if the sun never set at all, if it could just stay in the sky where it was and let this twilight never end.
The sun set, as it always must, and Tabitha and John made ready to continue with their plan, as there were no more options and no desire to delay the finish of it. All the world was dark except for a faint light shining from a couple of rooms in the house, as well as the stable. Blessed with good night vision, both the children crept to the edge of the roof again to verify the position of the window.
“I should go first,” said John.
Tabitha didn’t agree. “You might be too heavy for the chimney, or too large for that window. I’m a better choice. I should go first.”
“Tabitha, please. Let me go first. The window will be large enough for me, and if the chimney holds, then it’ll be safe enough for you. I just couldn’t bear it if you got hurt. I want to keep you safe—”
“Keep me safe?”
“That—that’s not what I meant. I just—“ he took a deep breath, and realized that there was no good way to tell Tabitha that he wanted to do this for her own good. So John took the easy way out. “It’s my plan. I should be the one to do it.”
There was very little Tabitha could argue against that. Hadn’t she used the same logic many times herself? So she stopped arguing and tried to pretend that everything would be just fine. John got a good grip on the rope and prepared to step off the roof but before he could, Tabitha tugged him back and tied one end of the rope around his waist to keep the worst from happening. He hugged her close, then let her go with a flush of embarrassment, hiding it behind a reckless smile as he lowered himself over the edge and down off the roof. Tabitha was crouching on her knees with her arms well braced, leaning over the edge, watching his careful progress as he let out the rope bit by bit. It didn’t take long for him to reach the window, and carefully wrapping the rope around one arm, he used the other to fetch a knife from his pocket to ease open the window latch and swing it open. He looked up at Tabitha smiling his success, then let out a bit more rope to swing into the room. A half a minute passed in which Tabitha could not see him, then he appeared at the window and motioned for her to take up the rope. It was her turn.
Now, Tabitha was not afraid of heights (as she had gratefully discovered) but it was still a matter of difficulty to lower herself off the roof without anything supporting her feet. She clutched her courage close to herself and whipped the fear into a tiny corner where it couldn’t do anything buy wince, and then let go of the roof. She dropped a few feet before she could tighten her grip on the rope, her breath coming very fast in and out of her lungs, but she carefully, ever so carefully kept lowering herself, and it wasn’t too long before she felt a hand on her ankle, guiding her into the attic room where John was waiting to help her. Soon his hands were at her waist and he lifted her off the rope and set her feet on the floor. They had both made it.
The interior of the room wasn’t very large, and it had a peculiar slope to one side that corresponded with the roof above. There isn’t much you could say about the room: except for the five large crates of laudanum taking up one corner. John and Tabitha could scarce believe their eyes. They had been expecting one or two crates, but five? They realized with trepidation that that was a lot of laudanum to dispose of.
Happily, Tabitha was not without a plan for more than a few seconds. But since this was supposed to be John’s endeavor, she at least tried to introduce the idea diplomatically.
“How do you want to get rid of them all?”
John’s face was rather blank. “To be honest, I never thought ahead that far.” He gave an incredulous laugh. “What do you think? That’s a lot of bottles…”
“Yes.” Tabitha also laughed. “I—have an idea of what we could do—“
“Spit it out then, I’m fresh out.”
“Well, I had given thought to just smashing them, but—“
“The noise—“
“Yes, and there are so many…and they’d leak dreadfully and be noticed right away, so why don’t we pour them out the window and then put them back?” she finished in a rush.
John liked this idea. It had the benefits of being both easy and fitting. “Good plan. Let’s go, then.”
They dismantled the boxes one by one and poured each bottle out the window, grateful that there was no one below to wonder at the sudden shower of liquid from above. One by one by one by one the bottles were emptied until there were only a few left (for many years afterward the particular patch of ground below this window proved troublesome to the gardeners. It refused to grow much of anything, even weeds, no matter how much manure and new dirt was place on top. The only thing it did grow was an odd prickly bush with green berries that caused anyone who ate them to have an immediate desire to lie on their back and watch the sky change colors. One memorable summer saw three ferrets, one dog, five wrens, and one undergardener all lying together looking at the sky change from fuchsia to mahogany, to red, and a strange tinted gold). On his way to the window John surreptitiously sniffed at an uncorked bottle.
“John!” Tabitha was outraged.
“I was just smelling it! Smells awful.” He added in an undertone. (then as his back was turned to the room Tabitha also sniffed at an open bottle, recoiling at the odor).
And although their plan had worked flawlessly until that moment, fate had other plans for these two intrepid explorers and destroyers. As Tabitha was crossing the floor to empty one of the last bottles, she tripped, and the bottle went flying to smash against the floor. They both froze.
“D’you think anybody heard that?” John whispered.
“Shhhh!”
As if from far away they heard an approaching sound, one which both of them quickly interpreted to be Roger the Butler shuffle-stepping his way up the stairs. Their eyes were wide as they stared at each other for the barest moment before—
“Hurry!” Tabitha whispered loudly. John raced for the rope, and looked back to see Tabitha carrying the rest of the bottles over to the window.
“No time for that!” he cried urgently, but she shook her head and started pulling corks as fast as she could.
“We have to finish. You go up the rope first, I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You don’t have a minute, Tabitha!” But John wouldn’t abandon her. He grabbed a bottle from her hands, in his haste spilling as much of the liquid on himself and her as out the window.
Roger’s steps were much nearer. Frantic with urgency, John insisted that Tabitha go up the rope first. She tried to argue but he would hear none of it. He hoisted her up as high as he could reach and she scrambled like a monkey up the rope. John wasted no time in following her, pulling the window shut after himself and tucking his legs up out of sight just as Roger the Butler entered the attic room.
Now, as both Tabitha and John were in no condition to say what exactly happened in that room, your curiosity must be assuaged as to what Roger the Butler saw: nothing. At least, at first. Thinking that his brain had manufactured an idle fancy of a sound, he was preparing to leave when he noticed a certain smell in the air. Thinking to himself that a bottle must have leaked, he went over to the boxes and immediately noticed their state of disarray (it might have been the children’s intention to leave the boxes looking like they found them, but they certainly looked gone through at the moment). Roger the Butler then went over to the window where he noticed the one shattered bottle and the other empties scattered nearby.
He inhaled very sharply at this moment, for the idea of what might have happened came to him, but in order to make absolutely sure this idea was true, he went through every single box and discovered the same thing: each bottle was empty.
Now, it must be said that while Roger’s greater part was taken up with horror at the theft/destruction of all of Mistress Hilsida’s laudanum, there was a small honest part that wondered if this might not be a good thing. But Roger the Butler had been following his sense of duty for so long that he would not allow himself to dwell on that honest thought for more than a half-second, and even that was too long.
Poor Roger. His duty was very stern in this instance. Someone had either stolen or destroyed (destroyed being the most likely) her entire laudanum store. There was only the one bottle left which he had taken out that afternoon—and that wouldn’t last more than a week—and it would take at least two for any more laudanum to be shipped up. There was no way he could avoid telling Mistress Hilsida, and she would likely be irrational and incoherent with rage for some time. He could only put off telling her until tomorrow, and pray that she was in a state of mind to understand.
What he must do now, however, was very clear. He must rouse all the servants—check to see that no one was missing—and have them all search the house for the way the thief (although the term wasn’t strictly accurate, the ‘destroyer’ was a bit melodramatic for Roger) had entered the locked room.
Roger did wonder if someone had picked the lock, but that was such a fanciful thought more befitting the pages of a lurid gothic tale that he immediately dismissed it. There was only two other ways, either the thief had stolen his keys (which he hadn’t, as Roger still had them), made a copy of them (unlikely, but possible), or had entered the only other way possible: the window. (that actually made three ways, but Roger wasn’t too concerned with proper math skills at the moment). Roger the Butler walked to the window and found it unlatched, although pushed closed. He opened it and stuck his head through, looking all around but seeing nothing of note. He firmly latched the window and left the room to waken the other servants.
All this time Tabitha and John huddled on the roof above the room, not daring to move for fear of making any noise which would alert Roger to their presence above him. They heard his walking back and forth across the room, and they could guess what he was seeing, but they had no idea of his thoughts. If they had, things might have turned out differently, but they didn’t, so they didn’t.
Even after Roger left the attic room they still sat on the roof, unsure of when to move for the lingering fear that he may hear them. But eventually their shivers of cold became too much and John knew they had to leave now, or else their cold-stiffened bodies might not make a safe return by the way they came. It was very difficult clambering down from the window back onto the chair and off the chair onto the desk, and off the desk onto the floor. John went first to secure the way for Tabitha, and it was a good thing he did, as she slipped coming off the chair and would have hurt herself and made a very noticeable noise if she had hit the floor, but he was able to catch her in time.
They cracked the door to the blue tapestry room and listened with their hearts in their mouths for any noise, but they heard nothing (Roger the Butler was still out of the house rousing the servants, but there wasn’t much time before he reentered the house with them all, despite their fears of her walking the halls). They crept like timid mice back to Tabitha’s room where they shut the door and locked it, relieved at reaching a point of safety. Wulafric was overjoyed to see them, although he whined at the smell of the laudanum that had spilled on them both. After comforting him for a moment, Tabitha spoke.
“Oh, John, I’m so sorry, I’m so very sorry. If I hadn’t dropped that bottle—“
He took her in his arms and held her tight. “Don’t worry about it, Tabitha. Roger knows that all the laudanum is gone, but he doesn’t know who did it. We’re fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”
It would be the nicest thing in the world if we could believe John, as Tabitha did—that it was all finally over, that nothing was going to happen even though their plan had been discovered a little earlier than they liked. It would be a wonderful thing to say that this was the last they ever thought about the laudanum and Great-Aunt Hilsida and tricking Roger the Butler.
It would be a wonderful thing indeed, but it would not be a true thing.
At this moment Roger the Butler had discovered that John was not in his loft and none of the servants had seen him for a while. This was not cause for immediate concern, as Tabitha was also not in the loft and on occasion the two of them had spent a night in her room, although that was a rare occasion. Roger the Butler now put the second part of his plan into action, chivvying the servants until they entered the darkened house with lamps and started to search every room, each servant hoping desperately not to discover where she was.
The honor of that discovery actually goes to Ustin—whose name should have been Justin, but had been written down wrong at his birth and then never corrected—one of the remaining footmen who found her in the cellar digging a hole through the floor in an effort to find the gnomes that were living there. Poor Ustin was co-opted into digging for her and was unable to return to the search for many hours.
The servants searched every room on the bottom floor with Roger the Butler standing guard on the main exit—with the Cook at the kitchen entrance—to keep the possible thief/destroyer from escaping. When the search of the lower level was completed, Roger moved the search upstairs, insisting that every room be checked thoroughly. There was some commotion when the piled chair and desk were discovered in the blue tapestry room—along with the window that Tabitha had forgotten to close when coming down—and Roger the Butler felt vindicated that here was extra proof that someone had broken into the attic room, and had in fact come over the roof and through the only truly possible means of entry: the window. But there was something that troubled him about the chair placed on top of the desk. A regular sized man or even a woman would not require the added height of the chair to reach the upper window, and would in fact be able to climb through it without much difficulty.
Now, Roger the Butler could not be called a great thinker, and had in recent years striven mightily not to think of much at all, in order to blind himself to the reality in which he lived. But the shock of the destruction of the laudanum had woken him up and now all sorts of wheels and doors and passages in his head were turning and opening up and providing direct paths to thoughts he would much rather not think. For what that chair indicated Roger did not want to think about—only he had a sneaking fear of what it meant, and he did not like it at all.
Eventually every room had been searched on that floor as well: except for Tabitha’s locked room. Roger the Butler found himself in front of it, trying to master the shaking in his right hand as he raised it to gently knock on the door. There was a scuffling noise beyond it, and he knew someone was in there. He knocked again, accompanying it with a terse, “Tabitha, open up. I need to talk to you.” There was more scuffling and some faint whispers that indicated to Roger that John was indeed in there as well. He heard the lock click and stepped back as the door opened. Both Tabitha and John were at the door, staring up at him. Must I go through with this? Roger thought desperately. Must I do this? But his duty stomped over his conflicted interests until only one remained.
“There was a problem tonight. Someone broke in and destroyed something that belonged to Mistress Hilsida. Did you hear anything?” Roger was watching closely and although Tabitha’s expression of worried curiosity didn’t even flicker, John’s eyes had a guilty cast to them.
“No,” Tabitha answered calmly, “I don’t think we heard anything unusual. When did it happen? We were wrestling with Wulafric and weren’t paying attention to much else. I don’t know if we could even have heard a scream, much less something breaking.”
Roger the Butler swallowed heavily. “If you didn’t hear anything, how do you know something broke?”
Tabitha looked startled, then confused. “I—you said someone destroyed something, I just assumed—“
The relief hit Roger in a wave. “Yes, something broke, something important. We’re searching for who did it. Are you sure you didn’t see or hear anything?” At their headshakes of denial he inhaled for a deep sigh but—
What was that? Roger sniffed the air. He was fairly conversant with the smell of laudanum as no other servant in the house was, after years of personal service to Mistress Hilsida, and just now there was a faint odor of—
No.
But there was. And it was coming from John and Tabitha. He pulled the door from their grasps and shoved himself into the room with them stumbling before him. He took hold of both their shoulders with a heavy grip and leaned down to sniff at each of them in turn. They both smelled of laudanum. And before it had all been destroyed, there were only two places where they could have acquired that smell—either from the bottle that was in Mistress Hilsida’s possession (an unlikely chance that smacked more of the impossible), or directly from the source. And there had been a broken bottle in the attic, which had potentially spilled over the destroyer. Destroyers. Roger the Butler’s hands clenched until both of the children squirmed in his grasp.
“Why did you do this? Why?” His words slapped their faces and turned them pale.
“Wh-what do you mean, sir?” John tried gamely. It was of no use.
Roger abandoned Tabitha and used both hands to shake John. “Don’t you lie to me! Don’t you lie to me! How could you have done this? Why would you do this? Answer me!” He was shouting now, and all the servants still on the upper floor hurried to the room to learn the cause.
Tabitha sped like a bullet to John’s rescue, pounding her fists against Roger the Butler’s strong arms and chest. Breath heaving in and out she finally stopped and shouted at him, “Let him go, let him go! You’re hurting him. Stop it!” Startled by her words as he hadn’t been by her blows, Roger the Butler released John and took a step back.
“John had nothing to do with anything,” Tabitha quickly lied. “It was only me, so don’t you dare lay a finger on him. I wanted to destroy the laudanum, so I—“
“Missy, don’t lie to me. I can smell it on the both of you, the laudanum you spilled when that bottle broke, both of you were in that room—“
“John wasn’t there! I—I hugged him after I got back, that’s why he smells of it. He—“
But now John stepped in between the both of them. “No Tabitha. No more lies.” He faced Roger. “Yes, I was there. I helped destroy the laudanum. Can’t you see how it’s killing all of us? This used to be a great house, and look at it now, look at all of us now. Forced to live in the stables and Gatehouse for fear of our Mistress. She walks the halls like an angry ghost, destroying everything she can find, even people. And why? Why does she do it? The laudanum! That’s what’s really keeping all of us like this, keeping her like she is. Can’t you see, Roger? This couldn’t keep going on. It couldn’t.”
All throughout John’s impassioned speech, the first he had ever made, Roger the Butler stood silent and still. The words might have hit his heart with the deadly accuracy of arrows, but he stood as firm as the mountains themselves. And as he stared at John, there was pride mixed with a terrible pain that slowly faded away to nothing, a terrible empty nothing that moved his mouth and made it speak terrible words.
“John, did you destroy the laudanum?”
Tabitha tried to interrupt, “It was my idea, I—“
“John, did you destroy the laudanum?”
“Yes.”
“Get out. Get out of this house. Tonight, now, get out!” Roger roared and waved his arms at the boy who stood dumbly, unable to understand the awful command. “Get out of this house, and if I ever see you again, if you are still here in ten minutes, you will regret it! Get out!”
Tabitha shoved at John. He looked at her in a daze but she kept shoving him until he stumbled into a run. But at the moment Tabitha would have followed him out the door Roger the Butler rudely grabbed the back of her dress and yanked her until she fell backwards. Wulafric barked at him and tried to bite his leg but Roger kicked him hard enough to send him sliding to Tabitha’s side. She stared up in fear at Roger as he crossed to the door and turned back to look at her.
“You’re not going anywhere.” The door was shut and Tabitha could hear it being locked from the outside, the sound of the key scraping the metal not half so chilling as the sound that Tabitha’s soul made as she realized that this was all her fault.
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
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