Chapter 1 - THE VOICE BEHIND THE WHITE DOOR
The floorboards beneath my knees were cold, carrying a draft that seemed to leak directly from the foundation of Blackwater House.
I leaned closer to the white door on the third floor, pressing my cheek near the silver keyhole. The air coming through smelled faintly of lavender, lavender-scented disinfectant, and something old—like paper that had sat in a dry room for decades without being touched.
"What question?" I whispered back, my voice barely stronger than a breath.
Inside the room, there was a soft rustle of bedsheets, followed by the quiet, uneven thud of something small being dragged across a rug.
"Why did you come up here?" the little girl asked. Her voice was thin, fragile, like glass that had been exposed to too many winters. "The dark man tells everyone I’m a ghost. Ghosts don't need company."
"I heard you crying," I said, my bandaged hand resting against the painted wood. The cuts on my palm from the blue crystal bird still throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache under the white linen gauze. "And I don't think ghosts cry like that. Ghosts sound cold. You sound lonely."
A long silence followed. For a moment, I thought she had turned away, returning to whatever solitary corner she inhabited in that vast, locked space. But then came the soft, metallic clink of a brass latch being touched from the inside.
"If you stay here, Mr. Hayes will make you leave," she said quietly. "He made the last girl leave. She brought me a yellow ribbon, and then he took her bag and put her in a car before the sun came up."
Mr. Hayes was the head butler—a tall, bone-thin man with eyes like polished gray stones who had handed me my gray uniform three hours ago. Never go to the third floor, he had said, his voice flat and absolute. Mr. Vale’s personal quarters and private family areas are off-limits. If your feet touch the third-floor landing, your employment at Blackwater House is terminated without reference.
"I won't let him see me," I promised.
"Everyone sees everything here," the girl replied. "The walls have eyes. Mr. Hayes puts copper wires in the wainscoting so he can hear where the floor creaks."
My heart gave a sudden, hard thump against my ribs. I looked down the long, dim corridor behind me. The hallway was lined with portrait frames—dark oil paintings of stern-faced men in high collars and women with tight, unsmiling lips. In the moonlight filtering through the arched window at the far end, their painted eyes seemed fixed on the back of my neck.
"What is your name?" I asked, turning back to the keyhole.
"Juliet," she murmured. "Juliet Vale."
The name hung in the cold air between us. In the servant quarters near the kitchen, the older staff had talked in hushed tones while polishing the silver. They spoke of Adrian Vale’s power, his ships in the harbor, his warehouses along the river, and the vast political empire he commanded with a flick of his wrist. But when it came to his family, they fell silent. Some said his wife had died in a fire six years ago; others whispered that she had simply walked into the sea. None of them had mentioned a child.
"Juliet," I said, letting the name settle. "Why can't you open the door?"
"It locks from the outside," she said simply. "And my legs don't work anyway. They haven't worked since the fire night. Six years."
Six years. She couldn't have been more than three when it happened.
"Do the doctors come to see you?" I asked.
"Dr. Vance comes on Tuesdays," Juliet said. Her voice carried a sudden, strange flat tone, like a child reciting a lesson she had been forced to memorize. "He gives me the bitter water in the brown bottle. He tells my father that my nerves are broken. He says the fire burned the paths inside my back, and if I try to stand, my heart will stop."
I frowned in the darkness. The bitter water in the brown bottle.
Before I came to Blackwater House, I worked for two years as a laundry girl at Saint Jude’s Infirmary in the lower district. I wasn't a doctor, and I certainly wasn't a nurse, but I had washed the sheets of hundreds of paralytics, accident victims, and children with fever. I had carried the apothecary trays for Dr. Miller, the old charity physician who took pity on my lack of education and taught me how to read the labels on the amber jars.
"Does the bitter water make you sleepy?" I asked softly.
"It makes my legs feel like cold lead," she replied. "And my head feels full of feathers. I sleep until the sun goes down again."
Before I could ask anything more, a faint, rhythmic sound echoed from the far end of the second-floor gallery below us.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
It was the sound of leather-soled shoes striking hard marble. Not the hurried, rustling step of a maid, nor the heavy, shuffling gait of old Mr. Hayes. It was a firm, deliberate stride.
Adrian Vale was awake.
"I have to go," I whispered quickly, pressing my palm flat against the white door. "I'll come back, Juliet. I promise."
May you like
"Don't bring a ribbon," she whispered back, her voice barely audible. "Just bring yourself."
I stood up silently, slipping off my soft-soled slippers and holding them against my apron. Moving like a shadow, I darted down the dark hallway toward the narrow spiral staircase meant for the house staff, my heart pounding violently against my ribs as the heavy footsteps below grew closer.
