Then she saw that there were more objects, set in a line all down the hallway, like joints in a long, long finger.
She stumbled back onto a tiny jewelry box studded with sapphires.
“What is this?” she whispered.
Seekatrix was glued against her leg, wagging his tail nervously.
Mayhap began to walk slowly again, picking up the little trinkets as she went. Pocket watches, snuffboxes, little jars emptied of jam.
She picked up a half-empty perfume bottle and lifted it to her nose. And found that the bottle did not contain only eau de toilette. The bottle contained — what was it?
It was . . .
It was . . .
Mayhap was sure that it was quiet.
The sort of quiet that settled into you when you were tucked somewhere warm, listening to the pattering of rain. Peace. Peace from the inside out — that’s what the bottle held. Mayhap placed it back where she had found it.
Then it occurred to her: these must be the things the Mysteriessa had stolen from families. Odd things, like memory, and music, and solitude.
She followed the pathway of treasures until she came to a twisting staircase.
It was narrow. It had boxes and jars and little tins on each of its high, steep steps.
“They mean for me to follow them,” said Mayhap, dazed and exhausted.
Seekatrix seemed nervous, but he scuttled up the stairs.
Mayhap followed him to the third floor of the house.
The floor the girls never went up to.
The old servants’ quarters.
Seekatrix stopped at one of the doors. Mayhap opened it.
Tutto had told Pavonine about the servants — about how Straygarden Place had once had a staff of sixty. Pavonine had shown Mayhap the stairs that led up to the third floor. Winnow, Mayhap, and Pavonine had stood at the foot of those stairs, staring at the wrought iron balustrade that curled its way up alongside them. But Mayhap had never wanted to put her hand on the balustrade, had never wanted to hear her shoes clicking on the rising marble.
The third floor was not for her.
Her bones had known it.
Only now — now that the strewn stolen things had made her come — she knew, somehow, that it was meant for her, that there was something tying her to this place, to this room with its slim, tidy bed and its heart-shaped windows, silvered with nighttime grass.
On the dresser was another, single box. It looked like a ring box.
Mayhap opened it.
It looked empty, but it wasn’t.
It was filled with belonging.
The sensation hit her like a familiar smell. It was like knowing someone had come home — an opened door, fresh air rushing in behind them.
Inside the box was the feeling of speaking and having someone listen — really listen. It was the feeling of someone looking into your eyes and knowing you — every part of you.
Mayhap could have called it belonging, or she could have called it love, or she could have called it family. Whatever it was, it hit her in her stomach, the feeling of it, and she fell to her knees. Tears ran down her cheeks. She retched and sobbed.
She lay on the floor shaking while Seekatrix licked her face.
She remembered how Peffiandra had found a box and chewed the lid off. Pavonine hadn’t been able to stop laughing. Now Mayhap understood that Peffiandra had found a box full of laughter — laughter that the Mysteriessa had stolen from some unsuspecting family.
I need to close that ring box, she thought. But she couldn’t move her hands.
And then the shape of a person clouded her sight, and she knew the Mysteriessa had come.
It was the Mysteriessa who closed the ring box — clapping it shut like the tiniest of doors. “That’s not for you,” she said, as though Mayhap were a toddler reaching for a chocolate éclair. “You should know that’s not for you.”
Mayhap wriggled her fingers. She found that she could open her eyes. She found that she could sit up. Seekatrix crawled into her arms. “You’re a liar,” said Mayhap. The cut on her forearm was stinging. She stood, holding her droomhund, even though her body shook.
The Mysteriessa seemed unmoved by the insult. “You see all these things I’ve taken? I can take more. I can take anything I want from you. If you don’t stop meddling, Mayhap, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“I can’t just pretend that nothing’s happened. Not when you’re making Winnow sick.”
“I did not make her sick!” screeched the Mysteriessa. The next words were softer: “I made her silent.”
“Silent?” said Mayhap. “Why?”
“You don’t understand what it is to lose everything,” the Mysteriessa said.
“So tell me,” said Mayhap.
The Mysteriessa scoffed. “Do you know why these rooms are empty?” she said. “Because they all left. The servants my father hired. Each and every one of them left me, left a girl alone here — can you believe that?”
Mayhap looked at the tidy bed. The windows. The dresser.
“The cook who made our porridge in the mornings, and our nanny —”
“The house didn’t care for you?” asked Mayhap.
“The house only looks after the families who live here because of me,” snapped the Mysteriessa. When Mayhap looked at her blankly, she continued. “My name was Quiverity Edevane before I became the Mysteriessa of Straygarden Place.”
The Collected Diaries of Quiverity Edevane. “Your diaries —”
“Never mind that!” said the Mysteriessa. “I’m trying to tell you a story, Mayhap Ballastian. The grass took my family from me. It snaked around them and pulled them out of the house. They screamed and screamed, but it didn’t listen. It pulled them underground. And the servants all thought it was my fault.” She gestured around the room. “As if a twelve-year-old girl could kill her entire family. They left me, one by one, and I was alone in this big house, with nothing but magic to keep me company. I had so much magic, Mayhap. For the first time in my life. And I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“So you made the house look after you,” said Mayhap.
Tears ran down the
