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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Alexander
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the
Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC,
a Penguin Random House Company, New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
Broadway Books and its logo, B \ D \ W \ Y, are trademarks of
Random House LLC.
Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form in the
United Kingdom by Del Rey an imprint of Ebury Publishing, a
member of the Random House Group, London, in 2014
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
[CIP data TK]
ISBN 978-0-8041-40706
eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-4071-6
Printed in the United States of America
Book design by Lauren Dong
Cover design by
Cover photographs by
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
First U.S. Edition
T
he stench of charred flesh hung over the cot-
tage. Jackdaw Hammond had forced the door, swollen
with damp, to enter Ellen’s house. She couldn’t walk
much further than the bottom of the stairs because there were
piles of rubbish stacked almost to the ceiling.
“This is the worst house in the world.” Fourteen-year-old
Sadie took two steps into the hall and stopped. “We can’t live
here.”
and added “. . . bulldozed” under her breath. She tucked her fair
hair into her collar in case it touched anything.
Trying to stop her coat from brushing the rubbish, she
squeezed down the passageway and pushed at the door at the
back of the hall. It was swollen shut and Jack pushed harder
until it creaked, then gave way.
The room was different in style, with two deep-set windows
glazed with small panes of cracked glass and a door barely six
foot high. The ceiling was only a few inches higher. One side
wall was mostly taken up with a wide fireplace, with a pile of
rusty pans sitting on what looked like a Victorian range. Under
the window ran a work surface, swollen open with the damp,
the layers peeling back like a wet paperback. In the middle of
it sat a ceramic sink, a white deposit of limescale sitting under
a dripping tap. Beside the central door an old enamel electric
cooker squatted, covered with opened tins, some topped with
mould or half filled with greasy water.
Standing back, she could see the reason for the lack of light.
Plastered against each surviving pane were wet leaves. Broken
glass had allowed the ingress of ivy branches, which had spread
across the walls, almost reaching the inner door frame. Bram-
bles thicker than her thumb carpeted the tiled floor, squeezed
under the old door as if searching for something. Mushrooms
sprouted along the damp edge of the window frame and seeds
were germinating on the threshold to the garden.
Jack stepped over the brambles, avoiding piles of rubbish,
and found bolts on the door at top and bottom. They were
rusted almost solid and she hit them with one of the heavy pots
from the range. In a shower of rust, she managed to get the
bolts moving, working them up and down before trying to drag
them back. The top one wasn’t too bad but she was sweating by
the time she forced the bottom one. The door sprang inward as
soon as it was released, and opening it further she realized why.
A wall of green was pushing against the door, climbers
a second. She sipped the froth off the top. “Mm. They have a
telly here. I bet they even have broadband and satellite.”
Jack handed her the remote, and for a few minutes the girl
seemed occupied with swapping channels.
“So, what do we do about the cottage?” Sadie looked up,
swamped by the jacket, looking more like twelve than nearly
fifteen, she had lost so much weight.
“Maggie’s the new owner, legally, and she’s made me her
agent. Ellen was her mother’s younger sister, I think. I have to
organize getting the place cleaned up and habitable so we can
decide whether to sell it or live in it. We’re booked in here for a
week but it may take a lot longer.” She started sorting through
Sadie’s clothes from another bag. “We don’t have to do all the
work ourselves. We can get people in to help.”
“I know that.” Sadie turned the television off. “I was just
wondering how Ellen died? I mean, was she dead when the
house caught fire?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” Jack sat on the other bed, and
looked at the girl. “We have a lot to do at the cottage, but we’ll
have time to do other things as well. I know it was too danger-
ous to let you go out in Devon in case someone recognized you,
but you should be OK here. I thought we’d get you to a hair-
dresser. All the pictures in the press have you with black hair,
and you look different now it’s growing out.”
“Maybe get some new clothes?” The girl had added a note of
pleading. “It’s my birthday in a few weeks.”
“I know, your mum told me.” Jack kicked off her boots and
stretched back on the pillows. “We have to get the house hab-
itable because she’s coming up to visit in the summer. Angie’s
been telling friends she’s going on a retreat to grieve for you.”
“Only, I’m not actually dead.” Sadie dragged a music player
from her rucksack. “Well, I won’t be if you pass me some of that
herbal stuff.”
Jack passed over a bottle of the decoction they both used to
Sadie’s energy recharged inside the circles; she slept well and
bounced out of bed the next day, ready to go back to the house.
“I thought you hated the cottage?” grumbled Jack, who was
slow to wake up these days.
“You’re such a grump.” Sadie, dressed in pale blue pajamas
decorated with penguins, beat her into the bathroom. “You said
we could go shopping after we’ve made lists in the house.”
Jack laid her head back on the pillow and looked at the ceil-
ing. The top circle of sigils was almost invisible, painted by Jack
standing on a wobbly chair. Her body, which she had ignored
for most of her thirty-one years, ached. Her breasts were un-
comfortable, and when she felt them they seemed bigger. She
ran her hands over her hips, feeling the slight padding that had
developed over the last few months with the resurgence of her
appetite. She was losing her childish figure.
for Felix’s warm arm, the cut skin against her tongue, the slow
pulsing of salt into her mouth, overwhelmed her.
“So, shopping.” Sadie, at least, could keep her focus. Her
eyes narrowed as she stared at Jack, but she didn’t say anything.
“After we look at the house and get some lists written.” Jack’s
throat was dry and she slaked it with a slurp of tea. “And find a
good rubbish clearance firm.”
M
y first view of Venice, of this marvel of man’s
mastery over the sea, was of a line of buildings topped
by a risen dome gilded by the sun. My boatman, who
talked continuously despite my lack of comprehension, gabbled
and pointed.
“San Marco!” he shouted, pointing at the dome. The great
cathedral of St. Mark’s, famous all over Europe. The build-
ings beside it seemed to float upon a sea of fog, tall mansions
squeezed together. The lagoon was calm and the man turned
as if onto an invisible path, then looked across at another island
and turned again. He babbled something that sounded like Ital-
ian, but left me with little understanding. Shoals, I feared, on
which we might ground.
I clutched my bags more closely around me, and he glanced
every move. I trod with care from one flat boat to another to
reach the quayside and grasp one of the wooden piers that sup-
ported it. I swayed more upon the dock than I had on the sea. I
leaned over the black water and spat bile. My oarsman, hopping
nimbly, threw my belongings toward me. I barely caught them
before they spilled into the lagoon. I sat down upon a mooring
block and opened my bags to check the contents. I carried my
most important possessions upon my person, but any educated
man knew the value of books. Lord Robert Dannick, my patron,
had entrusted me with the most secret mission, and promised
enough funds to complete my experiments back in the house
in Prague. In addition, my friend Amyas Ratcliffe had charged
me with a mission to answer a question we had both concerned
ourselves with: the very nature of our animus, our base human
form and its spiritual frailties.
The first I knew of a companion was a pair of long-toed,
polished boots of an oxblood color. I glanced up then stood, for
the fellow who wore the boots was clearly of some importance,
attended as he was by two servants. He was a little round man,
wearing such bright colors and clashing garments that I might
have thought him in motley, like a fool.
“Signor.” I made my best bow. My Italian was rudimentary
at best but my Venetian was worse, so I attempted a greeting in
Latin. “I am honored to meet you, sir.”
The man squinted into the sun, then looked me over in a
fashion which in England would be most rude.
“Ah!” he exclaimed in Latin. He had a high-pitched, musical
voice. “You are German?”
I stepped back, a little nervous at his waving and loud voice.
At least a dozen fellows stopped working on boats or nets to
watch us.
I bowed again, with a flourish of my cloak I had learned in
Prague. “Sir. My name is Edward Kelley, late from England,
and I am come here on business.”
T
he idea of clearing the old house was overwhelm-
ing. Jack prioritised cleaning up the dead cat, slimier and
stinkier after another day, and unbolted the back door
again for air. It sprang inward, if possible with more force than
before, ivy pressing its green gloss into the room as if searching
for something.
“There really are rats!” shouted Sadie. She was wearing
Jack’s old riding boots against the dirt and was rummaging in
the packed dining room at the front of the house. “There’s shit
everywhere—” There was more swearing, which Jack ignored,
followed by a squeaking sound. “I got the window open.”
Jack carried the bagged cat to the open front door. Sadie was
leaning out of the window, probably trying to get some fresh
air. Jack dumped the package into an available bin and closed
the lid on it. “How much stuff is in there?”
Sadie looked back. “I’m kneeling on it, it’s all over the whole
room. Mostly just papers, though, and a few boxes of old tins.
But . . .” She disappeared, then waved a metal item out of the
window. “I found a sword!”
Jack went indoors and fought her way past the damp pa-
pers to the dining room. Sadie met her holding the rusted
thing. Calling it a sword seemed fanciful until Jack made out
the cross guard. “OK, it is a sword. Probably some ornamental
thing.”
“The newspapers go back to the nineties. Twenty years.
That must be when she started to go mad.”
Jack smiled, and leaned in to estimate the amount of clutter
in the room. There were sagging cardboard boxes filled with
china, glass and empty tins. “That’s a whole skip-full, just there
by the window. It’s a miracle the floor’s held.”
“There’s one place where the floor is rotted right through. I
think that’s where the rats get in.” Sadie dropped the sword and
brushed past her into the hall. “Let’s try upstairs.”
Jack made a note about the floor, and followed Sadie up
the creaking, uncarpeted steps. There were four rooms off
the landing, all closed up, and several piles of boxes in front of
two of them. Sadie tried the nearest door, to the room over the
kitchen, but it was stuck. It took all of Jack’s strength to force
the door open.
The room was like something from Miss Havisham’s house.
It looked hundreds of years old, but Jack recognized a plastic
radio and an aluminium walking frame from the modern era.
The bed was Victorian brass, and the room had a huge ma-
hogany chest of drawers in one corner and a marble-topped
table under the window. Everything was covered with dust and
stank of mildew. But that wasn’t what caught Jack’s eye after a
second—when it moved.
It was a rook, cowering but defiant, its gray beak switching
direction as it looked first from one eye, then the other. Before
Jack could say anything it launched itself at them, forcing them
to duck, and flapped over their heads toward the doorway, caw-
ing loudly.
“How did it get in?” shouted Sadie, over the screeching.
Jack pointed at the window, where a corner of the glass of
the bottom sash was missing. As her eyes adjusted to the low
light—the rest of the window was covered with leaves, like the
downstairs room—she could see the mess over every surface.
She went back onto the landing. The bird was now walking with
its rolling gait toward the back of the house. Jack chased after
it down the landing. Just when Jack thought she would have to
catch it, it opened its wings and glided over her head and down
the stairs. She could hear its squawks diminishing as it flew out
of the open front door.
Sadie pulled at the bedclothes and wrinkled her nose. “This
room isn’t too bad. If we strip it right out and start again, obvi-
ously.”
“I’m going to clean up the furniture,” Jack said. She ran her
eyes over the piles of papers on the table. “These look like bills.
Legal papers, vet invoices, utilities.”
“Maybe the cat was ill.”
“Maybe.” Jack peeled one disintegrating sheet from the
next. Everything was wet. “This is a letter from Blackwell and
Whist, the solicitors who managed Ellen’s will. They wrote to
Maggie telling her she was the sole heir.” She squinted at the
blurred characters.
Sadie had wandered off, and after some banging managed to
squeak another door open.
“There’s a bathroom,” she shouted back. The sound of run-
ning water was reassuring. “And a sink.”
Jack checked the nests but none had eggs in yet. “Maybe
Ellen liked them being here. They would make a fuss if anyone
broke in, like guard dogs.”
Water had eroded and darkened the floorboards by the win-
dow, underneath a hole in the ceiling that gave access to the
loft. A few holes between the slates allowed daylight in. From
the middle of the room, piled high with more rubbish, there
was a fantastic view through the shattered window over the
nearest fell. The light purpled what Jack guessed was heather,
over a whole hillside.
A man’s voice made her jump.
“Hello! Is anyone there?”
His words echoed up the hall and stairs. Jack struggled
through the mountains of paper to look down the stairs. The
man, in his late forties or early fifties she judged, was smiling up
at her. “Ah. The lady of the house, I presume? Mrs. Slee?” He
was wearing a suit, incongruous against all the rubbish.
“No. I’m acting on her behalf.” Jack negotiated the piles
of rubbish on each step with care, and took the offered hand.
Strong fingers, warm. Close up, he could be older than she first
guessed. “I’m Jack Hammond.” Sadie was keeping out of sight
upstairs, yet he cocked his head as if he heard something.
“I’m Henry Dannick. And your companion?”
She ignored the question and released the hand. The hairs
on the back of her neck were prickling. She looked past him to
a long, expensive car and a uniformed driver. “I’m just here to
decide how to clear and empty the house.”
“I was hoping to speak to Mrs. Slee but if you are close to
her perhaps you can help me.”
“OK.” Jack stepped away from him, feeling some unnamed
alarm but also the pull of the man. He was very charming. He
spread out his hands, palms up, as if to say “I’m harmless.”
“My family and Ellen Ratcliffe’s have had a long association.
But recently—”