The Dark Volume

RAWSBARTHE'S PLAINTIVE cries (“Celeste! Celeste!”) penetrated the door to Miss Temple's back, but she did not pause. She followed Mrs. Marchmoor's path, the smell growing more bitter and the stains more bright until she finally emerged in a far part of the garden, lined with hedges. Crushed on the threshold was a broken chocolate biscuit.

The glass woman's journey to Harschmort had yielded nothing. In the absence of the book, and the Comte's machines, and Vandaariff, was Mrs. Marchmoor in flight? Or did she follow some desperate strategy? One thing was sure: since the children had been taken out this way, not back through the house, Mrs. Marchmoor did not intend a return via carriage or train…

So much pointed to Charlotte Trapping. Yet if the children were only hostages to their mother's cooperation, what could one make of the vials and bloodstained cotton wool? With a grimace Miss Temple opened her mind to the memories of the Comte d'Orkancz—the three children, their mother, the vials—but was rewarded only with bitter retching and tears in her eyes. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She must rely on her own wits. The children had been brought here… and now they were being taken away. Why?

WHEN SHE ran out of lawn—the house now a darkening shadow behind her—Miss Temple tumbled into the beach grass without a break in stride. Another two minutes of ru

Tackham stood sca

From behind him came a call.

“Captain Tackham!”

Tackham wiped his mouth with dismay. “In a moment!”

He threw his shoulders back and staggered from Miss Temple's view. Quietly, she slipped after him. She could hear bootsteps on planking and creaking ropes… another few yards and she could see the canal itself. To either side of a long barge scurried shadowed figures—soldiers on deck and others, actual bargemen, readying sails and coiling the ropes that bound the craft to the canal side. Miss Temple saw nothing of the Trapping children, nor of Mrs. Marchmoor, but the glass woman had just inhabited Tackham in order to search the dunes. She must be in a cabin belowdeck. Tackham strode up the gangway to a knot of men. She recognized Mr. Phelps, Colonel Aspiche, and—his forehead wrapped with gauze—the ambitious engineer, Mr. Fochtma

Captain Tackham saluted the Colonel, gave some minimal report, and then stood back from the others, who talked on. Tackham's gaze was restless, studying the sailors, sweeping the dock, then returning to the grassy dunes. He raised a hand and the other men at once followed his gaze. Miss Temple plunged her head down to the sand, too terrified to move.

“Where have you been?” Mr. Phelps called directly toward her. “We have been waiting!”

Miss Temple pressed her body closer to the ground, hoping it was all a mistake, fighting the urge to leap up and run.

“Did you find Rawsbarthe?” called Phelps again.

“I did,” gasped a voice right behind her. Miss Temple nearly yelped with surprise. Not inches away, his feet kicking grass into her face, appeared the young Ministry man, Mr. Harcourt.

“My apologies to you all!” Harcourt was out of breath as he stumbled down to them. Phelps turned to the others.

“I suppose we can rendezvous with Rawsbarthe tomorrow.”

“I ca

“Lord preserve us,” muttered Phelps, and rubbed his eyes.

“What happened to this girl—this Miss Stearne?” asked Colonel Aspiche, his voice low.

“I questioned Mr. Rawsbarthe—but to be frank, he was no longer lucid.” Harcourt's voice was heavy with concern.

“Miss Stearne indeed!” snapped Phelps. “We have all been fools—”

Phelps stopped speaking, for Harcourt had suddenly begun to weave on the gangway, dangerously near to pitching headfirst into the water. Tackham took a step away, but Phelps caught Harcourt's arm. Harcourt tottered, then slowly spun, surveying the canal side and the darkened dunes. He seemed to stare directly at her. Miss Temple did not breathe.

“Gentlemen…” a

“We were only waiting for Mr. Harcourt,” replied Phelps.

“Has he seen Miss Stearne?” asked Fochtma

“Mr. Harcourt has not,” said Harcourt, a phrasing that made the men visibly uncomfortable.

“She is dangerous,” said Fochtma

“Perhaps some soldiers could continue the search here,” offered Phelps.

“She is nothing,” a

“May I suggest that Mr. Harcourt remain on deck?” offered Phelps delicately. “I expect he will feel… unwell.”

“As you like,” intoned Harcourt. “It makes no difference.”

The younger man staggered again and Phelps rushed to catch his arm, guiding him off the gangway. Tackham hovered, but Phelps turned to him sharply.

“You have your orders—get below! I will follow in a moment.” Tackham went with a curt nod. Phelps looked at Harcourt—dazed and distractedly sniffing—and then shouted at the bargemen, startling them back to duty.

“Cast off at once! Barge-master! Make sail!”

MISS TEMPLE knew very well that she could stay where she was, allow the barge to go and walk back to the house and then to the train station—that her journey could end in a suite at the Anburne, with a proper bath and a proper pot of tea. Yet when she pushed herself up and drove her body on, it was toward the canal. The bargemen pulled the gangplank onto the deck, but Miss Temple kept ru

The bargemen ran back and forth around her, their hard bare feet slapping the deck, gathering lines. She could see the pale hair above Harcourt's stiff collar. The knife was at hand and the ease of his murder fluttered atop her thoughts, a rippling pe

MISS TEMPLE slipped from her shadow to a hatchway at the rear of the barge. She stuffed the knife into her boot, and pushed the hatchway wide, wrinkling her nose at the stink of bilge water below her in the dark. She slid the hatchway closed above her, perched in pitch black, listening. Footsteps thumped above… but no cries of alarm, nor was the hatch flung wide. She groped around her—boxes, bales of moist cloth, coiled rope—and then wormed her way behind the ladder so that anyone looking down would not see her, no matter that they had a light. Shifting her buttocks and shoulders made room between the bales where she could sit and Miss Temple did so, leaning back, Lydia's case on her lap.