Aside from the strange moment we’d shared the last time I’d visited when the women refused to acknowledge the striking similarities between their sister and mine, they had been nothing but open and honest with me. That seemed much more normal than hiding away in dark rooms and not talking to anyone. It seemed a better option than avoiding difficult problems and hoping they went away on their own.
When I reached the fork in the trail, I turned back to the house to be sure it still stood.
The house nearly disappeared in the ominous gray sky. The walls looked pale and lifeless, and each of the windows was like a dark tunnel one could get lost in.
It was not a comforting image, but there were no flames and it remained standing, which gave me some measure of comfort.
When I turned back around, I looked for the carved rock Catherine had said marked the safest trails and followed it through an overhang of trees.
The ground was less wet where the trees had provided some protection from the rain, so my muscles got a small break from slogging through thick, sticky mud. Though, I still had to push aside plenty of branches and climb a number of large rocks. If this was the easier of the two trails, I did not want to know what the other would be like.
My sense of direction had always been woefully poor, so I would trust whichever path Charles had marked without hesitation.
Just as I came out on the other side of the stand of trees, I decided to stop for a rest. The sun had broken through the clouds enough for my skin to feel warm while basking in the light, and I wanted to catch my breath. There was a large rock with a downed tree resting across it, and I perched on the spongy bark like a bench. The back of my skirt was probably getting soiled, but there wasn’t anyone to impress all the way out here in the country. It was nothing like the city where anyone could see one at any moment. My appearance mattered less here than it ever had, and that was one good thing about my visit if nothing else.
I wished I’d brought some water with me. Looking at the gathered puddles all over the ground made me wish I could sip from them directly, but I knew better. I’d tried that exact thing as a child, taking large mouthfuls of standing water, and I was ill for over a week. Besides, if I did become ill here, Nurse Gray would likely oversee my recovery, and that was the last thing in the world I wanted.
I never asked Charles how many nurses he’d seen before settling on Nurse Gray, but perhaps I should have. Margaret and Abigail Wilds had given her a recommendation, but they were not exactly women in tune with modern science. What did they know about nursing and health? Very little. Besides, their sister died under Nurse Gray’s care.
The thought felt cruel, and I pushed it aside. Nurse Gray could not be blamed for one patient’s poor health. It was written into the description of nursing that lives would be lost no matter the quality of the care.
By all accounts, she seemed to care deeply for Catherine. Though, my issue was with how deeply she cared. Too deeply, if anyone asked me. Though, they never did.
I dug the toe of my boot into the soft earth, pushing a large dollop of mud aside, unearthing a long brown worm. I bent to examine it closer, feeling more like a child than I had in years, and I noticed something white in the mud next to it. Using the toe of my boot once again, I sifted small layers of mud away until the object became more discernible.
It was a bone.
A jawbone by the looks of it, though it was small enough with a long curved tooth arcing upward that I knew it belonged to a small animal who had likely met its fate from a predator or a fall from the tall trees above.
I remembered what the Wilds had said about collecting bones on the moor. It seemed a strange way to spend time, but I liked the women and wanted to show them I respected their pastime even if I didn’t understand it. So, I plucked the bone from the mud and banged it lightly against the tree trunk to shake off some of the remaining filth. Then, I dropped it into my pocket.
When I started out on my walk again, rather than looking up, I kept my eyes on the ground. It wasn’t long before I’d found several other small bones without any digging at all. It seemed the heavy rains had softened the ground and unearthed things. I wasn’t skilled enough to know if the bones came from the same animal or from multiple creatures, but I dropped them all in my pocket hoping the sisters would be able to tell me later.
If nothing else, delivering the bones would be another excuse to drop in on Margaret and Abigail. I wanted to ask them more about their experience with Nurse Gray and see if they noticed anything disturbing about her care for Dorothea, and I also wanted to ask them about Dorothea.
It was likely they had no explanation for the physical similarities between their sister and mine, but it seemed too striking not to comment on. Perhaps we shared a distant family lineage. It was rather unlikely that the sisters would have a family genealogy on hand, but it was worth asking.
When my neck began to hurt from looking down at the ground so intently, hunting for bones, I rolled it back and then looked forward. Suddenly, I realized the late afternoon had quickly given way to evening.
I’d been so focused on the ground that I hadn’t paid the sky any notice. The sun was dropping below the horizon, painting
