The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier
Molly grabbed hold of the woman and shook her. “What’s happened?” Constance was ice-cold to the touch. Her eyes were turned up in her head. Her dark lips were parted, and from them Molly could feel no breath.
“Kip! Master Windsor!” she cried. “Someone help!”
olly stepped into Mistress Windsor’s bedroom. “Doctor, I’ve brought more water.” She held up a sort of wineskin made from India rubber. It was filled with boiling water that made it almost too hot to hold.
“At her feet, girl,” the doctor said.
Constance Windsor lay in bed, tossing her head back and forth, muttering under her breath. Molly went to the end of the bed, which was piled high with nearly a dozen blankets. She pulled the blankets back to reveal Constance’s bare feet. Molly felt uncomfortable handling them. They were macilent, clammy, and far too cold. She slid the bag of hot water beneath the feet and retucked the blankets under the mattress.
“Oh, Connie … my sweet poor Connie.” Master Windsor stood by the far wall, wringing his hands. His hair was disheveled, and his face was gray with stubble. It had been two days since his wife had collapsed in the garden. In all that time, he had not left her side.
Doctor Crouch took a measurement of the patient’s head with a pincer tool. “Seems normal enough …,” he muttered, consulting a chart on the bedside table. He wore gold spectacles on the very end of his nose, which forced him to tilt his whole head to look at people—not that he ever bothered looking at Molly. He opened his black leather bag and removed a sort of copper funnel, the small end of which he put into his ear. He held the other end over Mistress Windsor’s chest and listened for a few seconds. “Hrmmmm … very peculiar …”
Bertrand stepped forward. “Wh-wh-what is it?”
The doctor removed a little book from his vest and, consulting his pocket watch, made a notation. He spoke as he wrote. “Heart rate and eye movement lead me to believe that your wife is not asleep. Rather, she is caught in a sort of ether state—something between sleeping and waking. Call it suspended somnambulism.” He made a pleased face. “Yes, that’s just the name for it!” He quickly scribbled another note to himself, chuckling. “Crouch, old boy … just wait until the academy hears of this …”
“Surely there’s a cure,” Bertrand said in a tone befitting a question.
Doctor Crouch finished writing. “Bed rest. And not just for her. The mysterious fever I witnessed in your family before has clearly accelerated. I fear it will only be a matter of time until the rest of you succumb.”
Molly cleared her throat. “You’re not gonna try leeches, sir?” This was what healers had always done in Molly’s village back home. They were supposed to draw poison from the blood.
“Leeches?” The man snorted. “Does this woman look like she has fluids to spare? Next I suppose you’ll tell me to ply her with nightshade or bathe her in quicksilver. My girl, we are on the cusp of a modern age—and with it comes modern medicine.” He dug a fat hand through his bag and removed a small bottle. “Take this laudanum, for example. Wonderful stuff! I have a few drops in my tea each morning to calm the nerves.”
Molly felt her cheeks burn. The man had a way of talking that made her feel stupid. “I’ll go check on supper,” she said. She lowered her head and retreated to the hall. Alistair and Penny were huddled outside the door.
“Is Mummy all right?” Penny asked, craning her neck to see into the room.
“Of course not,” muttered Alistair, his mouth stuffed with peppermints. “That’s why Father called the doctor, dummy.”
“Hush, both of you,” Molly said. She stroked Penny’s hair. “Your mum’ll be fine. Doctor Crouch is the best in England—maybe the world. Why, I heard that when Napoleon got his head chopped off, it was the good doctor who stitched it back on.”
“Napoleon was poisoned,” Alistair corrected. “And that was thirty years ago.”
Molly eyed the bag of sweets in his plump hand. “Perhaps you’ve had enough of those,” she said.
Alistair glared at her, chewing like a cow. “You’re probably right.” He spit out a huge glob of sticky peppermint goo. It landed on the floor with a wet plop. He smiled. “You should clean that up. Someone might slip.”
Before Molly could respond, a door slammed behind her. Master Windsor rushed from his wife’s room, fists clenched. He marched right past Molly and the children, who had to leap aside to avoid being knocked over.
“Where’s he going in such a rush?” Alistair muttered, wiping sticky slobber from his chin.
Molly did not answer; instead she led them both to their bedrooms and instructed them to wash up for supper. When the children were gone, she went to the front hall. Molly knew where Master Windsor had gone. She had seen the key in his hand.
Just as she suspected, the green door at the top of the stairs was open. It sounded like Master Windsor pacing inside. She could hear his strained voice—something between a shout and a whisper. “I said, Make her well!” he demanded. “You’re not listening—I need a cure! Ointments! Medicines! Anything!”
Molly peered into the room. Master Windsor was facing the tree. Sovereigns, shillings, and pennies spilled from the knothole in front of him. The man charged forward and plunged his arm into the hole, digging beneath the coins. “Enough money! I want”—he pounded his fist against the tree trunk—“out!”
He slumped to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “I want out …” He uttered a moan, his body heaving with tight sobs.
Molly watched, unable to look away. She had seen men cry before but never like this. Bertrand Windsor sounded like a lost child, and perhaps he was just that.
She took a careful step into the room. “Master Windsor?”
“Molly!” Bertrand sprang to his feet, wiping tears from his eyes, awkwardly trying to put himself between Molly and the knothole. “I was just t-t-talking to myself about … affairs regarding …”
“It’s all right, sir,” she said, sparing him the indignity of going on. “I know about the tree.”
His alarm crumbled into something resembling defeat. “I s-s-suppose it was only a matter of time.” He sniffled. “I was never much good at keeping secrets.”
Molly knew she was meant to leave, to pretend she hadn’t seen her master in this state. But she knew equally well that she was no normal maid. She was no longer “the help.” She was part of the Windsors’ story now. She removed a handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to him. “You look like you could use it.”
“Th-th-thank you,” he said, wiping his nose. He ran a hand over his pale, unshaven chin. “I must be a dreadful sight.”
Molly pushed her dark hair from her face. “We all are.” She offered a kind smile. “You’re doin’ everythin’ you can for your wife.”
Bertrand nodded, looking down. He creased the handkerchief over and again on itself, as if he could fold it into nothing. For a moment, Molly thought he had forgotten she was there. “It … it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said finally. “I had plans to make something of myself, to prove myself to her—”
Molly inched nearer. “Mistress Windsor told me about how hard you tried to make her comfortable.”
“Is that how she put it?” He made a bitter face. “Connie insisted she didn’t care about ‘being comfortable’—but I knew that she did. She deserved more than what a clerk could provide. And I was determined to give it to her. If I couldn’t earn the money through honest work, I would do it through speculation.”
Molly knew that “speculation” was a sort of gambling men did with imaginary money. Money they did not always have. She stared at the man cowering before her. How many times had she silently defended him—imagined him the victim of a cruel and unloving wife? But now, as Molly thought of Constance unconscious in her bed, she knew who the real victim was. “You mighta done wrong, sir. But you did it for right reasons,” she said, trying to hide the judgment from her voice.
“But I didn’t do it … That’s the problem. Markets turned, inv
estments went sour. I had to borrow more and more just to keep creditors at bay. The banks seized my accounts, our home, everything!”
“That’s when you came here? To the place where you grew up?”
“I first thought of selling the land,” he said. “But when I returned to this house … and I saw the door—I suddenly remembered everything: how my father’s studies brought us here, how he built a house around the tree to keep its secret, and how one night he and my mother …” He shook his head, warding off some horrible memory.
“What happened to ’em?” Molly said softly.
He smiled like he hadn’t heard her. “When I opened this door, I found something else.” He held up a single coin. “My wish.” He clenched his fist around the coin, his expression turning to bitterness. “I thought it could save us. You must understand: we had nowhere else to go.”
Molly did understand. She remembered being alone on the streets with Kip. She had been willing to do anything to get him away from that—including bringing him to a house that her every instinct told her was not safe. She folded her arms, warding off a shudder. How well the tree had known just what Master Windsor had needed. Just what she had needed. They had, both of them, come to the tree in desperation. But had they just traded one evil for another?
“No matter what I do, things only get worse,” he said absently. “The debt, the loans … It’s like an anaconda, coiled around me, squeezing tighter and tighter.”
Molly stared at a thin branch protruding from the wall—it was indeed snakelike. “We dinna got snakes in Ireland,” she said, a thought forming. “A good saint chased ’em off long ago.”
Bertrand nodded, looking a little confused. “I’d heard that.”
“What we do got is lizards.” She peered out the window, remembering. “Lizards aren’t snakes, but they can still bite. Worse, they’re bad luck in a garden. So folks have an old trick for gettin’ rid of ’em. What you do is wait till just before sundown, when the air’s cool but the lizards ain’t yet gone into their holes. You take a red-hot rock from the fire and set it in the middle of your garden. The lizards—why, they hate the cold, and they’ll come runnin’ straight for that rock and curl up right on top o’ it. Come mornin’, you’ll wake to find ’em still on that rock, their bodies cooked alive.” She turned back. “You see: the rock saves ’em from chill only to kill ’em in its own way.”
Down the hallway, Molly heard a faint moan. She took a step toward Master Windsor and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sir. What your wife needs isn’t jewels or money or even medicine.” She nodded toward the open door. “She needs the same thing as that lizard—to get out of the cold.”
She fixed her eyes on him, hoping the meaning of her story might sink in.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re right.” But Molly still wasn’t sure he had understood her. Bertrand bent down and collected the remaining coins from the floor. He stuffed the money into his pockets. “F-f-for the doctor,” he said apologetically. He lowered his head and retreated into the hall.
Molly felt a flood of emotions eddying inside of her—an overwhelming mixture of regret and shame. These were not just things she felt about Master Windsor; they were things she felt about herself.
A light lapping of water broke the silence, and Molly caught the familiar smell of salt air.
She turned around and saw that the knothole was no longer empty. It was filled with dark water. And floating on the surface was a new letter with her name on it. Molly took a step closer, seeing the careful script written in her mother’s loving hand. It bobbed up and down, waiting for her …
he mood at supper was grim. Even Alistair, who usually spent his meals happily taunting Penny, was silent. However, when Molly appeared in the hall with Kip behind her, he spoke up. “What’s he doing here?”
“N-n-now, Alistair,” Bertrand said. “With all the chaos in the house lately, I could hardly expect Molly to prepare a separate meal for herself and her brother. He’ll eat with us tonight.” He smiled at Molly. “No need to stand on ceremony.”
Molly led her brother to an empty seat beside Penny. “It’s very kind of you, sir.” She nudged Kip with her foot.
“Very kind,” he repeated, though his attention seemed to be on the platter of steaming mutton on the sideboard, purchased courtesy of Hester’s special discount.
“Quite right!” declared Doctor Crouch, tucking a serviette into his collar, indifferent to the mood of the family. “I’ve always said the only real difference between an Englishman and the most savage foreigner is their place of birth … That and brain size, of course.”
“Just ignore Alistair,” Penny whispered, scooting her chair closer to Kip. “He has a stomachache from eating too many chocolates.”
Molly rested Kip’s crutch against the wall and set to serving the table. Since Mistress Windsor was too sick for travel, it had been decided that Doctor Crouch would remain at the house for a few days to monitor her condition. This meant more work for Molly, who had to manage a guest while still playing nursemaid to her mistress. It was a miracle that she had been able to pull off even a simple roast.
Molly served mutton to everyone around the table. She noticed that Kip looked a little ashen—perhaps ill at ease about being inside the house—and made sure to give him an extra-big piece with plenty of fat around the edges. Master Windsor, usually talkative during meals, was apparently feeling more somber tonight. Instead, the silence was filled by Doctor Crouch, who droned on in an almost ceaseless monologue on the finer points of his profession.
“The thing that troubles me most,” he said, already on his second helping, “is how many of my esteemed colleagues are still taken in by superstition and nonsense.” He was one of those people whose speech could not be stopped by something so trivial as a full mouth. “Why, just recently, the academy announced it would host a symposium on the existence of the spiritual plane—can you imagine such a thing?” He rapped his wineglass, and Molly rushed to fill it. “I simply cannot understand—a little more, my dear—how in this modern age, forward-thinking men get hoodwinked into believing the unbelievable. Psychics and mediums? More like swindlers and mountebanks.”
Kip had apparently been listening more closely than the others. “So you dinna believe in spirits?” he said from his plate.
Doctor Crouch glanced up, looking equal parts amused and annoyed. “I believe in the natural world and empirical facts, my boy. Superstition is merely the reaction of a weak mind confronted with what it cannot fathom. Primitive man found spirits in every blade of grass and bush. Take that unusually large tree in front of your house, for example—”
Penny perked up. “Oh, it’s a magic tree.”
“P-p-preposterous!” Master Windsor cut her off. He smiled at the doctor. “I don’t know where she would get such an idea …”
“But the child proves my point!” Doctor Crouch rejoined. “In a less enlightened age, people would call the tree magic and make up a story. It would likely receive the same treatment as Homer’s lotus blossoms or the proverbial garden of paradise—which, coincidentally, archaeologists now place in the outer regions of Persia—hardly paradise, if you ask me.”
“Not all stories are made up,” Kip said.
Molly was unnerved to see that he was looking not at the doctor but at her. She shot him a glare, warning him to watch his manners.
“Of course stories are made up, my boy—otherwise, they’d be called ‘facts.’ We in the modern age should know better than to believe in such flimflam. Returning to our magic tree: clearly the surrounding soil provides a unique balance of nutrients that perfectly suits its nutritional needs.” He popped a slice of roast in his mouth. “Much as this mutton suits mine!”
Kip seemed undeterred. “What about good an’ evil?” he said. “Are they just made up, too?”
Doctor Crouch gave an amused chuckle. “It seems we have a little philosopher among us!” He put down his knife and fork and folded his hands over h
is belly. “Young sir, please don’t think me unreasonable—indeed, I am a slave to reason. The curious mind investigates all possibilities. I only ask for scientific rigor. If you say, ‘The spirit world exists,’ I say, ‘Show me your proof.’ And if one could produce such proof? Why, he would find his name emblazoned alongside the greatest minds in history—Euclid, Plato, Copernicus …” He stared above the table, his eyes shining at the thought of achieving such immortal glory.
Bertrand clapped his hands together. “All right, then,” he cried, apparently keen to change the subject. “Who knows any good corkers?”
The remainder of the meal was unremarkable. Kip finished eating and retired to the stables to tend to Galileo. Molly cleared the table and set to preparing Doctor Crouch’s room for the night. She made up the sheets, eyeing the portable medicine chest he had brought with him from town. It was filled with a vast array of notebooks and jars and shining scientific instruments—a traveling laboratory. She stared at the strange tools, wondering how they worked. Surely such marvelous equipment would be able to cure Mistress Windsor’s sickness. She wondered if they could do more …
Molly dropped her work and rushed to Mistress Windsor’s room. She found Doctor Crouch at the bedside. He had a special glass tube called a thermometer inside Constance’s mouth. He took it out and examined some numbers at the end. “Well, that’s not right,” he muttered, frustrated, and put the glass back in her mouth.
“Any luck with the patient?” Molly said from the hall.
The doctor sighed. “I’m afraid not. Crouch Fever seems to be incurable.” It took Molly a moment to realize that he had taken the liberty of naming Mistress Windsor’s illness after himself. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, with no success.”
“You’ve not tried everything,” Molly said. “I been thinkin’ about what you said at supper. ‘The curious mind investigates all possibilities.’” The man showed visible pride at the idea of hearing himself quoted thus. “Well, what if it’s some kind of magic that’s done this?”
“Kip! Master Windsor!” she cried. “Someone help!”
olly stepped into Mistress Windsor’s bedroom. “Doctor, I’ve brought more water.” She held up a sort of wineskin made from India rubber. It was filled with boiling water that made it almost too hot to hold.
“At her feet, girl,” the doctor said.
Constance Windsor lay in bed, tossing her head back and forth, muttering under her breath. Molly went to the end of the bed, which was piled high with nearly a dozen blankets. She pulled the blankets back to reveal Constance’s bare feet. Molly felt uncomfortable handling them. They were macilent, clammy, and far too cold. She slid the bag of hot water beneath the feet and retucked the blankets under the mattress.
“Oh, Connie … my sweet poor Connie.” Master Windsor stood by the far wall, wringing his hands. His hair was disheveled, and his face was gray with stubble. It had been two days since his wife had collapsed in the garden. In all that time, he had not left her side.
Doctor Crouch took a measurement of the patient’s head with a pincer tool. “Seems normal enough …,” he muttered, consulting a chart on the bedside table. He wore gold spectacles on the very end of his nose, which forced him to tilt his whole head to look at people—not that he ever bothered looking at Molly. He opened his black leather bag and removed a sort of copper funnel, the small end of which he put into his ear. He held the other end over Mistress Windsor’s chest and listened for a few seconds. “Hrmmmm … very peculiar …”
Bertrand stepped forward. “Wh-wh-what is it?”
The doctor removed a little book from his vest and, consulting his pocket watch, made a notation. He spoke as he wrote. “Heart rate and eye movement lead me to believe that your wife is not asleep. Rather, she is caught in a sort of ether state—something between sleeping and waking. Call it suspended somnambulism.” He made a pleased face. “Yes, that’s just the name for it!” He quickly scribbled another note to himself, chuckling. “Crouch, old boy … just wait until the academy hears of this …”
“Surely there’s a cure,” Bertrand said in a tone befitting a question.
Doctor Crouch finished writing. “Bed rest. And not just for her. The mysterious fever I witnessed in your family before has clearly accelerated. I fear it will only be a matter of time until the rest of you succumb.”
Molly cleared her throat. “You’re not gonna try leeches, sir?” This was what healers had always done in Molly’s village back home. They were supposed to draw poison from the blood.
“Leeches?” The man snorted. “Does this woman look like she has fluids to spare? Next I suppose you’ll tell me to ply her with nightshade or bathe her in quicksilver. My girl, we are on the cusp of a modern age—and with it comes modern medicine.” He dug a fat hand through his bag and removed a small bottle. “Take this laudanum, for example. Wonderful stuff! I have a few drops in my tea each morning to calm the nerves.”
Molly felt her cheeks burn. The man had a way of talking that made her feel stupid. “I’ll go check on supper,” she said. She lowered her head and retreated to the hall. Alistair and Penny were huddled outside the door.
“Is Mummy all right?” Penny asked, craning her neck to see into the room.
“Of course not,” muttered Alistair, his mouth stuffed with peppermints. “That’s why Father called the doctor, dummy.”
“Hush, both of you,” Molly said. She stroked Penny’s hair. “Your mum’ll be fine. Doctor Crouch is the best in England—maybe the world. Why, I heard that when Napoleon got his head chopped off, it was the good doctor who stitched it back on.”
“Napoleon was poisoned,” Alistair corrected. “And that was thirty years ago.”
Molly eyed the bag of sweets in his plump hand. “Perhaps you’ve had enough of those,” she said.
Alistair glared at her, chewing like a cow. “You’re probably right.” He spit out a huge glob of sticky peppermint goo. It landed on the floor with a wet plop. He smiled. “You should clean that up. Someone might slip.”
Before Molly could respond, a door slammed behind her. Master Windsor rushed from his wife’s room, fists clenched. He marched right past Molly and the children, who had to leap aside to avoid being knocked over.
“Where’s he going in such a rush?” Alistair muttered, wiping sticky slobber from his chin.
Molly did not answer; instead she led them both to their bedrooms and instructed them to wash up for supper. When the children were gone, she went to the front hall. Molly knew where Master Windsor had gone. She had seen the key in his hand.
Just as she suspected, the green door at the top of the stairs was open. It sounded like Master Windsor pacing inside. She could hear his strained voice—something between a shout and a whisper. “I said, Make her well!” he demanded. “You’re not listening—I need a cure! Ointments! Medicines! Anything!”
Molly peered into the room. Master Windsor was facing the tree. Sovereigns, shillings, and pennies spilled from the knothole in front of him. The man charged forward and plunged his arm into the hole, digging beneath the coins. “Enough money! I want”—he pounded his fist against the tree trunk—“out!”
He slumped to the floor, burying his face in his hands. “I want out …” He uttered a moan, his body heaving with tight sobs.
Molly watched, unable to look away. She had seen men cry before but never like this. Bertrand Windsor sounded like a lost child, and perhaps he was just that.
She took a careful step into the room. “Master Windsor?”
“Molly!” Bertrand sprang to his feet, wiping tears from his eyes, awkwardly trying to put himself between Molly and the knothole. “I was just t-t-talking to myself about … affairs regarding …”
“It’s all right, sir,” she said, sparing him the indignity of going on. “I know about the tree.”
His alarm crumbled into something resembling defeat. “I s-s-suppose it was only a matter of time.” He sniffled. “I was never much good at keeping secrets.”
Molly knew she was meant to leave, to pretend she hadn’t seen her master in this state. But she knew equally well that she was no normal maid. She was no longer “the help.” She was part of the Windsors’ story now. She removed a handkerchief from her pocket and offered it to him. “You look like you could use it.”
“Th-th-thank you,” he said, wiping his nose. He ran a hand over his pale, unshaven chin. “I must be a dreadful sight.”
Molly pushed her dark hair from her face. “We all are.” She offered a kind smile. “You’re doin’ everythin’ you can for your wife.”
Bertrand nodded, looking down. He creased the handkerchief over and again on itself, as if he could fold it into nothing. For a moment, Molly thought he had forgotten she was there. “It … it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he said finally. “I had plans to make something of myself, to prove myself to her—”
Molly inched nearer. “Mistress Windsor told me about how hard you tried to make her comfortable.”
“Is that how she put it?” He made a bitter face. “Connie insisted she didn’t care about ‘being comfortable’—but I knew that she did. She deserved more than what a clerk could provide. And I was determined to give it to her. If I couldn’t earn the money through honest work, I would do it through speculation.”
Molly knew that “speculation” was a sort of gambling men did with imaginary money. Money they did not always have. She stared at the man cowering before her. How many times had she silently defended him—imagined him the victim of a cruel and unloving wife? But now, as Molly thought of Constance unconscious in her bed, she knew who the real victim was. “You mighta done wrong, sir. But you did it for right reasons,” she said, trying to hide the judgment from her voice.
“But I didn’t do it … That’s the problem. Markets turned, inv
“That’s when you came here? To the place where you grew up?”
“I first thought of selling the land,” he said. “But when I returned to this house … and I saw the door—I suddenly remembered everything: how my father’s studies brought us here, how he built a house around the tree to keep its secret, and how one night he and my mother …” He shook his head, warding off some horrible memory.
“What happened to ’em?” Molly said softly.
He smiled like he hadn’t heard her. “When I opened this door, I found something else.” He held up a single coin. “My wish.” He clenched his fist around the coin, his expression turning to bitterness. “I thought it could save us. You must understand: we had nowhere else to go.”
Molly did understand. She remembered being alone on the streets with Kip. She had been willing to do anything to get him away from that—including bringing him to a house that her every instinct told her was not safe. She folded her arms, warding off a shudder. How well the tree had known just what Master Windsor had needed. Just what she had needed. They had, both of them, come to the tree in desperation. But had they just traded one evil for another?
“No matter what I do, things only get worse,” he said absently. “The debt, the loans … It’s like an anaconda, coiled around me, squeezing tighter and tighter.”
Molly stared at a thin branch protruding from the wall—it was indeed snakelike. “We dinna got snakes in Ireland,” she said, a thought forming. “A good saint chased ’em off long ago.”
Bertrand nodded, looking a little confused. “I’d heard that.”
“What we do got is lizards.” She peered out the window, remembering. “Lizards aren’t snakes, but they can still bite. Worse, they’re bad luck in a garden. So folks have an old trick for gettin’ rid of ’em. What you do is wait till just before sundown, when the air’s cool but the lizards ain’t yet gone into their holes. You take a red-hot rock from the fire and set it in the middle of your garden. The lizards—why, they hate the cold, and they’ll come runnin’ straight for that rock and curl up right on top o’ it. Come mornin’, you’ll wake to find ’em still on that rock, their bodies cooked alive.” She turned back. “You see: the rock saves ’em from chill only to kill ’em in its own way.”
Down the hallway, Molly heard a faint moan. She took a step toward Master Windsor and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Sir. What your wife needs isn’t jewels or money or even medicine.” She nodded toward the open door. “She needs the same thing as that lizard—to get out of the cold.”
She fixed her eyes on him, hoping the meaning of her story might sink in.
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re right.” But Molly still wasn’t sure he had understood her. Bertrand bent down and collected the remaining coins from the floor. He stuffed the money into his pockets. “F-f-for the doctor,” he said apologetically. He lowered his head and retreated into the hall.
Molly felt a flood of emotions eddying inside of her—an overwhelming mixture of regret and shame. These were not just things she felt about Master Windsor; they were things she felt about herself.
A light lapping of water broke the silence, and Molly caught the familiar smell of salt air.
She turned around and saw that the knothole was no longer empty. It was filled with dark water. And floating on the surface was a new letter with her name on it. Molly took a step closer, seeing the careful script written in her mother’s loving hand. It bobbed up and down, waiting for her …
he mood at supper was grim. Even Alistair, who usually spent his meals happily taunting Penny, was silent. However, when Molly appeared in the hall with Kip behind her, he spoke up. “What’s he doing here?”
“N-n-now, Alistair,” Bertrand said. “With all the chaos in the house lately, I could hardly expect Molly to prepare a separate meal for herself and her brother. He’ll eat with us tonight.” He smiled at Molly. “No need to stand on ceremony.”
Molly led her brother to an empty seat beside Penny. “It’s very kind of you, sir.” She nudged Kip with her foot.
“Very kind,” he repeated, though his attention seemed to be on the platter of steaming mutton on the sideboard, purchased courtesy of Hester’s special discount.
“Quite right!” declared Doctor Crouch, tucking a serviette into his collar, indifferent to the mood of the family. “I’ve always said the only real difference between an Englishman and the most savage foreigner is their place of birth … That and brain size, of course.”
“Just ignore Alistair,” Penny whispered, scooting her chair closer to Kip. “He has a stomachache from eating too many chocolates.”
Molly rested Kip’s crutch against the wall and set to serving the table. Since Mistress Windsor was too sick for travel, it had been decided that Doctor Crouch would remain at the house for a few days to monitor her condition. This meant more work for Molly, who had to manage a guest while still playing nursemaid to her mistress. It was a miracle that she had been able to pull off even a simple roast.
Molly served mutton to everyone around the table. She noticed that Kip looked a little ashen—perhaps ill at ease about being inside the house—and made sure to give him an extra-big piece with plenty of fat around the edges. Master Windsor, usually talkative during meals, was apparently feeling more somber tonight. Instead, the silence was filled by Doctor Crouch, who droned on in an almost ceaseless monologue on the finer points of his profession.
“The thing that troubles me most,” he said, already on his second helping, “is how many of my esteemed colleagues are still taken in by superstition and nonsense.” He was one of those people whose speech could not be stopped by something so trivial as a full mouth. “Why, just recently, the academy announced it would host a symposium on the existence of the spiritual plane—can you imagine such a thing?” He rapped his wineglass, and Molly rushed to fill it. “I simply cannot understand—a little more, my dear—how in this modern age, forward-thinking men get hoodwinked into believing the unbelievable. Psychics and mediums? More like swindlers and mountebanks.”
Kip had apparently been listening more closely than the others. “So you dinna believe in spirits?” he said from his plate.
Doctor Crouch glanced up, looking equal parts amused and annoyed. “I believe in the natural world and empirical facts, my boy. Superstition is merely the reaction of a weak mind confronted with what it cannot fathom. Primitive man found spirits in every blade of grass and bush. Take that unusually large tree in front of your house, for example—”
Penny perked up. “Oh, it’s a magic tree.”
“P-p-preposterous!” Master Windsor cut her off. He smiled at the doctor. “I don’t know where she would get such an idea …”
“But the child proves my point!” Doctor Crouch rejoined. “In a less enlightened age, people would call the tree magic and make up a story. It would likely receive the same treatment as Homer’s lotus blossoms or the proverbial garden of paradise—which, coincidentally, archaeologists now place in the outer regions of Persia—hardly paradise, if you ask me.”
“Not all stories are made up,” Kip said.
Molly was unnerved to see that he was looking not at the doctor but at her. She shot him a glare, warning him to watch his manners.
“Of course stories are made up, my boy—otherwise, they’d be called ‘facts.’ We in the modern age should know better than to believe in such flimflam. Returning to our magic tree: clearly the surrounding soil provides a unique balance of nutrients that perfectly suits its nutritional needs.” He popped a slice of roast in his mouth. “Much as this mutton suits mine!”
Kip seemed undeterred. “What about good an’ evil?” he said. “Are they just made up, too?”
Doctor Crouch gave an amused chuckle. “It seems we have a little philosopher among us!” He put down his knife and fork and folded his hands over h
Bertrand clapped his hands together. “All right, then,” he cried, apparently keen to change the subject. “Who knows any good corkers?”
The remainder of the meal was unremarkable. Kip finished eating and retired to the stables to tend to Galileo. Molly cleared the table and set to preparing Doctor Crouch’s room for the night. She made up the sheets, eyeing the portable medicine chest he had brought with him from town. It was filled with a vast array of notebooks and jars and shining scientific instruments—a traveling laboratory. She stared at the strange tools, wondering how they worked. Surely such marvelous equipment would be able to cure Mistress Windsor’s sickness. She wondered if they could do more …
Molly dropped her work and rushed to Mistress Windsor’s room. She found Doctor Crouch at the bedside. He had a special glass tube called a thermometer inside Constance’s mouth. He took it out and examined some numbers at the end. “Well, that’s not right,” he muttered, frustrated, and put the glass back in her mouth.
“Any luck with the patient?” Molly said from the hall.
The doctor sighed. “I’m afraid not. Crouch Fever seems to be incurable.” It took Molly a moment to realize that he had taken the liberty of naming Mistress Windsor’s illness after himself. “I’ve tried everything I can think of, with no success.”
“You’ve not tried everything,” Molly said. “I been thinkin’ about what you said at supper. ‘The curious mind investigates all possibilities.’” The man showed visible pride at the idea of hearing himself quoted thus. “Well, what if it’s some kind of magic that’s done this?”