Ghost in the Canteen (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 1) by Rasmussen Jen

Author:Rasmussen, Jen [Rasmussen, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-10-29T18:30:00+00:00

I came down for breakfast a few hours later, feeling guilty as well as scared. How could I have spent an evening relaxing at Tom’s table, eating and laughing, while Charlie and Warren were back at home worried sick?

Not Warren, I reminded myself. He won’t be worried. Charlie will have made up a reason for me to be gone. And they are home. Safe at home. A few days without you will be an inconvenience for Charlie, that’s all. It won’t actually hurt Warren. The memory of Roderick’s cries, the banging on the front door, turned over in my stomach along with the tea and toast Tom gave us. The only one who isn’t safe right now is you. So think about them, sure, but don’t let it distract you from doing what you need to do to get out of here.

Easier said than done, but I did my best. Tom spent most of that next day cleaning up the mess Helen and Roderick had left behind, including restoring the blank pit to its proper state, which turned out to be a fish pond. He walked us around it afterward, and I agreed that it was beautiful, but I didn’t mention that if I came too close to the green-tinged water, I could still smell sulfur. Of course, that might have just been my imagination, but in this place that was irrelevant. I hoped he wasn’t going to serve carp at dinner.

While he was working on his plot, Gemma was working with me, trying to teach me to start a fire with nothing but will to fuel it. By lunch I’d given up in frustration, and spent the afternoon learning the incantation backwards instead, while Gemma wandered the plot, reinforcing the boundaries. We regrouped in the parlor before dinner, where once again Gemma played the piano while Tom and I drank rye (straight for him, mixed with soda water for me—I wished I had switchel).

On our way into the dining room I heard the thud of Garm jumping off his chair upstairs. I looked at the staircase, half expecting to see him on the landing, the perpetual canine question written in his wagging tail and big doggy smile: Are we eating something now?

Garm wasn’t there of course, but I was suddenly struck by the simplicity of that staircase. Not particularly steep, its curve elegant and smooth, not sharp. Looking at it, I finally put it all together, Tom’s story, his apparent vices. “Tom,” I said. He came to stand beside me. “You’re a pretty graceful guy when you’re not flying.”

He followed my gaze and, it seemed, my train of thought along with it. “Everyone slips sometimes.”

“They do,” I agreed. “And sometimes it doesn’t take another person to push them.”

He looked down at me, but he wasn’t frowning. His face was expressionless while he waited for me to finish.

“You were drunk when you fell, weren’t you?”

His eyes slid away from mine. He bent his head to rub the back of his neck.

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