ES Chapter 15

"We have arrived. This is my study."

They had spent time talking while looking at the paintings, then spiraled up another floor, then passed through the long corridor winding this way and that—and only then, finally, arrived.

Perhaps because she had just glimpsed the Etheldore history from within, even the manor's staircases no longer looked ordinary to her. All of Langfield Manor's stairs were spiral, and all of them turned clockwise. She recalled having heard, somewhere, that clockwise spiral stairs are advantageous in siege defense—because the overwhelming majority of soldiers are right-handed, a descending defender has the sword arm free. Many such remnants of history still remained inside these walls.

The topmost floor, which Cyrix used alone, required passing through floor upon floor of maze-like passages to reach. This complex structure must have been designed to protect the royal family from external invasion.

"The corridor is rather dark up here."

"As I am here alone, there is little need to keep it brightly lit."

Was it for that reason. The air here was far quieter than the other floors—and denser. As though she were being drawn into the depths of deep night.

The temperature was lower, too.

It was as though she were walking step by step, parting cold water around her as she went. Her legs felt heavy. Several times she looked down to check the floor beneath her feet.

"Did you know that the first fountain pen was developed by House Etheldore?"

With his hand resting on the door handle, Cyrix opened the subject without particular preparation.

It was news to her. Ayesha shook her head.

"No, I didn't know."

"More precisely—rather than the fountain pen as it exists today, it might be better described as the kind of object that, had it been properly developed, could have been its origin. An unofficial invention, of course. Our family are descendants of a nomadic people who built their nation through countless wars—we tend to be larger-bodied and stronger than most, with a grip to match. Delicate quill pens would break after only a few uses.

Ayesha glanced sidelong at his hand where it rested on the door handle. The bones ran straight and clean, the build generous. Even holding something lightly, the tendons rose at his knuckles. Ordinary objects, she thought, would not last long in that grip.

"So that was why you needed a stronger pen."

"Yes—a simple enough intention. The shaft and nib had to withstand a grip trained on sword hilts and bowstrings. There are records of sharpening a stone to a point, boring a narrow channel through the centre, and allowing ink made from charcoal and oil to flow down through it." A pause. "It is recorded. But the history itself has been lost—a name that outlasted the thing."

He pressed the handle down.

Squee-grrk.

The study door opened—and in the same instant, a dense fragrance hit her from beyond it. She looked around for the source.

A desk. Chairs. A bookcase. All sandalwood.

"You must like sandalwood." She breathed it in—clean, forest-cool, opening across the chest.

"Rather than a preference—there is a folk belief that sandalwood wards off ghosts."

There's a belief like that.

She swallowed wrong and almost—kuh-huk—caught herself. Bit down on her tongue. Barely stopped it.

And it was not merely that he knew the folk belief. To have replaced every piece of furniture in the study where he spent the greatest portion of his day with sandalwood—that meant Cyrix's daily life was already governed by the evil spirit. Or more precisely: by fear of it.

Cyrix followed her in one step behind and closed the door.

"On the subject of fountain pens—given our family's long history of interest in writing instruments, I happen to have a few pieces made somewhat thinner and shorter, fitted to a woman's hand. Allow me to give you one suited to you."

"A fountain pen?"

"I am certain it will suit you. Now—where did I put them."

He opened three or four drawers in succession.

"Ah—here."

He handed Ayesha a long case. She opened it and took out a fountain pen that looked as though it had never been used.

Even to an eye that knew nothing about such things, it had an extraordinary quality of worth. Made with gold and amethyst used without reserve, it was less an object to be held and written with than a treasure to be carefully preserved and passed down through generations.

Whether to marvel at his nerve in casually giving it away, or at the Etheldore wealth that rendered a pen of this quality unremarkable—she genuinely could not determine which.

And meanwhile she herself was afraid of so much as grazing it with a fingernail, in case she left a scratch. Just holding it, her hands trembled.

"Try it. One must write with a pen to know it."

Urged on by him, she found herself opening the cap before she had quite decided to. The curvature was perfect—delicate, precisely calculated for comfort in the hand.

And the nib—slender and sharp and gleaming—was in a different class entirely from a quill's, which went blunt almost immediately and leaked. Writing with this would produce clean, fine strokes. It was the kind of object that would refine one's handwriting simply through reluctance to waste the nib.

That was how it ought to be. It certainly would be like that...

She stood there blankly, staring down at the nib.

Her heart struck against the cavity of her chest—thunk, thunk, thunk—uncomfortably.

Without warning her breathing shortened. Her eyes ached with a sharp, stinging cold.

'Why again. What is this.'

Someone else might fear heights, or fear water. She had once wondered whether she simply had a phobia of sharp objects, and tested herself. She had taken a knife and cut carrots into rough cubes—nothing, except her own inadequate coordination announcing itself. She had threaded a needle and made clumsy repairs to a torn garment—nothing, except uneven stitches. No symptoms in either case.

Only fountain pens were the problem. Soft, refined, their curves nothing but gentle—this fountain pen, specifically. The one that was, impossibly, as though made to fit her hand.

Chills kept rising through her without reason.

The pen was trembling in fine, thin oscillations—up, down. She pressed both hands together over it and bore down with force, so the movement would not catch his eye.

"Ah—it seems this one does not suit you. Then how about this one?"

As she stood there without moving, the pen held in both hands, Cyrix reached for another case.

"No—no."

Hoping it wouldn't show too badly, she assembled a smile with everything she had.

It would be the same with any other pen he offered. The agitation beating through the centre of her chest was not going to settle easily. She held the fountain pen back toward him.

"It isn't that I don't like it—the kindness is appreciated, but it's too precious and too valuable for me. I've never used one before. I'm perfectly content with a plain quill pen."

Who would dare refuse a kindness offered by Cyrix Etheldore. She might be the first.

She chose and re-chose her words with care, afraid her refusal might offend him.

"...Is that so."

His voice dropped—slightly, precisely one degree. Her heart gave a single lurching drop.

But almost immediately he drew back whatever had been there, and without further words quietly took the fountain pen from her hands.

"Then as it is late today, I will arrange with the butler in advance so that you may go out tomorrow afternoon."

Oh, good.

The strength went out of her all at once—her shoulders settling frictionlessly down.

She had not known she was this tense. Quite surprised at herself.

She wasn't even a rabbit thrown before a hunter. What was this.

Above all, this man treated her softly and kindly to a degree that made the gap in their standing seem almost irrelevant. And still she had frightened herself entirely alone, for no reason at all.

Stupid.

It was probably because too many people had died or been hurt in this manor.

Hadn't those women on the carriage gossiped about it thoroughly enough.

'What can you do—the family line is odd. Honestly, however much I think about it, I feel like there's something wrong with that manor's land.'

She had heard spine-chilling rumors before she ever set foot in the place. Of course she felt unsettled. Even the most courageous person would naturally shrink back somewhere like this.

Everyone in this family was said to have come to a wretched end. The madness running across generations. And beyond that—Cyrix's grandfather and father trying to destroy each other, arriving finally at catastrophe. Cyrix himself, barely come into his inheritance, already tormented by an evil spirit. Even the Rottweiler he had raised turning on the spiritualist who came to exorcise it, and holding until the life left.

It seemed as though misfortune and ill luck followed every being that had grown up under the name Etheldore—the way a shadow follows.

And Langfield Manor, where they had made their home across all those generations, was the most beautiful haunted house in the world.

Ayesha shook out her faintly chilled shoulders.

For no particular reason.