Chapter 4 - THE SHADOW IN THE HALLWAY
I didn't have time to run back to the servant stairs.
The yellow beam of a bullseye lantern swung across the dark portrait frames, illuminating the polished floorboards just twenty feet away.
Desperate, I pressed myself back into the deep alcove of a marble bust representing some long-dead Vale ancestor, holding my breath until my lungs burned. I pushed the small amber medicine bottle deep into the inner pocket of my apron, wrapping my skirts tight around my legs so the white fabric wouldn't catch the light.
A tall figure stepped onto the third-floor landing.
It wasn't Mr. Hayes.
It was Dr. Evans Vance himself.
He was a thick-set man in a heavy fur-collared overcoat, carrying a leather doctor’s satchel in one hand and a brass lantern in the other. His face was round, red-cheeked, and sweating despite the cold draft in the corridor. Behind him walked another man—a tall, broad-shouldered figure wrapped in a dark woolen cloak.
Adrian Vale.
"I tell you, Adrian, it is purely a matter of clinical maintenance," Dr. Vance was saying, his voice low but sharp in the quiet night. "The trauma to her central nervous system following the fire at the wharf house is permanent. If we cease the sedative treatments, her muscle spasms will return with violent intensity."
Adrian stood motionless in the middle of the hallway, his dark cloak falling straight to his polished boots. In the dim lantern light, his face looked like iron.
"She cried again last night, Vance," Adrian said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, low, and heavy with an understated threat. "I heard her from my study."
Dr. Vance shifted his satchel from one hand to the other, wiping his damp brow with a handkerchief. "That is merely a residual neurosis, my dear friend! The brain searching for memories that no longer exist. I assure you, as the chief physician of the district board, the current regimen is the only thing keeping the child from living in perpetual physical agony."
"She has lived in that room for six years," Adrian said, staring down the dark corridor toward Juliet’s door. "My wife burned to death trying to drag her out of that nursery, Vance. If I am keeping my daughter locked in a room like a tragic ghost, it had better be because her body cannot survive the open world."
"It cannot!" Vance insisted quickly, stepping closer to Adrian and tapping his silver-headed cane against the floor. "I stake my professional reputation on it! If she were to be exposed to stress—if she were to attempt physical exertion—her heart could fail within minutes!"
Adrian stood silent for several seconds. The tension in the hallway was so thick that I felt as if the air itself were turning to stone.
"Check her pulse," Adrian commanded flatly. "Adjust the dosage if necessary. But if I hear her weeping like that again, Vance, I will bring specialists from London."
Dr. Vance’s hand visibly twitched against his satchel handle. "London? That... that won't be necessary, Adrian! London physicians do not understand the specific environmental toxins she was exposed to during the industrial fire! Trust me—I have cared for your family for fifteen years!"
"Then do your job," Adrian said coldly.
He turned on his heel and walked back toward the grand staircase, his heavy cloak billowing behind him like the wings of a dark bird.
Dr. Vance stood alone in the hallway for a long moment, watching Adrian disappear down the stairs. Once the sound of Adrian’s footsteps faded, the doctor’s posture completely changed.
He didn't look worried or sympathetic.
A cruel, frustrated sneer twisted his round face. He pulled a heavy silver key from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked the white door to Juliet’s room, and stepped inside, letting the door swing half-shut behind him.
From my hiding spot in the alcove, I could hear his harsh, muffled voice speaking to the little girl.
"Still awake, little bird?" Vance’s voice drifted out into the hall. "Your father is getting restless. We can't have you making noise at midnight, can we? Drink this. All of it."
"I... I don't want it," Juliet’s tiny voice quavered. "It hurts my throat."
"Drink it!" Vance snapped, the sound of a glass bottle clinking against a cup echoing sharply. "Do you want me to tell your father that you're being rebellious? Do you want him to leave you in this room forever?"
May you like
A heavy, suffocating anger exploded in my chest. I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted blood to keep myself from rushing out of the shadows and shoving that silver-headed cane down Dr. Vance’s throat.
I stayed hidden, my knuckles white against the cold marble bust, watching as Dr. Vance emerged five minutes later, locking the white door securely behind him. He hurried down the stairs, wiping his forehead once more, completely unaware that a humble laundry maid was watching his every move from the dark.
