The Watchtower by Carroll Lee

Author:Carroll, Lee [Carroll, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-08-01T22:00:00+00:00

18

A Voice like Leaves

Will arose just after dawn, thick with sleep, and walked to Marguerite’s lodgings. He knocked on the door for a while, until a bonneted woman in the house adjacent raised her second-floor window and shouted down, “Still that clamor, boy, or I’m comin’ at ye with a hammer.” Will desisted, though with a final knock that might have split the door in two had the side of his hand been sharper. His exasperation was understandable. If anyone was inside, they had stayed stock-still since his pounding started; he had not detected a sliver of movement. His intuition and darkening hopes told him no one was there. Marguerite had fled, and to where and for how long he could not guess. Maybe forever, a time span she could encompass!

But he had to know for certain she was gone.

Will circled the house three times, like a wolf scouting out hunting territory. But he still saw no flicker of movement and, at first, no means of access. On the fourth and most forlorn survey, he saw something he hadn’t seen before. A second-floor window overlooking the fenced backyard was now half open, and a propped wooden ladder invited ascent. Will trembled with emotion and irrational hope at the sight. He didn’t ponder much who had opened the window or set up the ladder. Perhaps a workman, resting in the yard with his ladder during Will’s earlier circuits, was beginning his workday now.

Will, pumped with adrenaline, then performed a maneuver he couldn’t have dreamed himself capable of. After a running start he leaped, grasped the top of the fence with two hands, and twirled himself over into the yard with a pinwheel motion. As if he already belonged to the fey, he reflected. He mounted the ladder and entered the house, announcing himself to no reply.

A half hour later Will sat exhausted on the first floor, back against the front door, legs stretched out wearily. He stared dazedly at the blank wall opposite. He’d been around the interior of the house three times and found no one and nothing, indeed no sign that anyone had ever lived in the house. And no workman. Been through every closet, every nook and cranny, stared hard up the chimney, scoured the ancient, stone-damp cellar. Nothing. Clearly she had gone from here, probably from London, perhaps from England. She could be anywhere now. Or nowhere.

As he got up to leave, dead with despair, he caught sight of a fragment of parchment in a corner of the foyer, its color so closely matching the paint’s that he had previously missed it. He went over, saw two torn sheets of parchment, and suddenly fevered over with fresh anticipation. A light was in his eyes. Will picked up the parchments.

The first sheet had the letters te and ve on top of it, with smudges of black ink between the letters, as if more writing had been rubbed away. The second sheet had a detailed ink sketch of a church.

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