Page 41 of Bane Bloom

“Why are you asking me this?” He wasn’t angry, at least not that I could see. His expression was serious, troubled even, and in fact gentler than usual.

Nervous, I chewed my lip. “Because of things you’ve said about Pine Cottage and the glasshouse, for one. But also because of some things I’ve . . . observed. Things that, to be honest, have begun to haunt my thoughts. Even make me question what’s real at times.”

It was difficult to discuss this with him. He had denied knowledge of the Bane Bloom, and mentioning the daphne seemed likely to result in more warnings about the glasshouse and Carroll. I couldn’t speak of the mandrake, of course, or how I thought I’d seen his grandmother on the beach.

“There’s the horse, for one,” I finally said.

“The one you met by the lake.”

I nodded. “He behaved strangely, as I told you. And he . . .” I looked away. “Well, he was a comfort to me in a moment I needed it. And then reading about Mary Robson’s fairy horse, I couldn’t help connecting the two of them in my mind.”

I was struggling to explain myself, but he apparently followed well enough. “You wonder if he was real.”

I met his gaze. “Do you think he was?”

His broad chest expanded with his breath. “I do, lass. Could be that the horse in the story was one of the fell ponies, maybe an ancestor of the one you saw.”

I frowned. There was a point we weren’t quite connecting on. “You mean a real horse inspired the one in the story? Or . . . do you mean that Mary’s horse was real, too? That Mary’s story is real.”

We were nearly out of the wood, and Thomas gave the reins a slow tug and murmured to Daisy. The cart halted, and he angled toward me, causing my heart to bounce.

“Catherine.” For a moment the world stopped. There was no birdsong. No breeze whispering through the leaves. No chuckle from a nearby stream. Only the echo of my name on his lips, at once shocking and intimate.

Bluebells

“I think the house is unsettling you,” he continued, “as I warned you it might. I believe you want to be reassured, and I wish I could do that. If you want to know what’s real and what’s not, you’ll have to ask yourself. The way I grew up, those kinds of questions weren’t asked.”

This was a typical Thomas answer—one that said much and little at the same time.

“You weren’t allowed to question?”

He gave his head a firm shake. “There was no need. I wasn’t schooled not to believe things.”

I stared at him. What an assertion! And yet, based on what I knew about his family, I had no trouble believing it. I was still turning it over in my mind when he clucked, and the cart bumped forward. Slowly it was dawning on me that in coming here, I had left London in more ways than one. And that I might not be the same when I got back there.

“Have you ever heard of a ‘nokken’?” he continued.

“I don’t believe so.”

“It’s a kind of water horse. Since you live on the Thames, you may have been warned about them as a child. They’re said to drown people.”

This revived a memory I hadn’t thought of in many years. “Oh, yes. Only, our maid called them kelpies.” My childish imagination had turned her warnings into nightmares, and I’d finally asked Papa whether kelpies were real. He’d muttered something about “Scottish rustics” and told me to pay no heed to such tales.

“Same sort of creature,” said Thomas. “Though a nokken will sometimes lure people, they’re usually more curious than murderous.”

I chuckled dryly. “Well, that’s a comfort.” As I digested what he’d said, my brows dipped in confusion. “But a kelpie is a fairy horse, isn’t it? Are you suggesting the horse I met was a fairy?”

He shrugged. I wasn’t schooled not to believe things. “It might explain the swimming, and his interest in you.”

“Thomas,” I said, my tone pleading. “Will you tell me plainly? Have you ever seen a fairy?”

He looked at me. “Aye.”

We’d arrived in town, and the cart rolled to a stop. At last a plain answer, one that raised many more questions. Yet, frustratingly, it seemed best not to be overheard having such a conversation. But his answer brought me genuine relief, and it showed his warnings about the house in a whole new light. It might well be that the house didn’t unsettle people by causing them to see things that weren’t there, but rather the things that were in and around the house were themselves unsettling. Thomas wasn’t affected because he had no need to persuade himself that these things were or were not real. I might be easier in my mind during my stay here if I tried to follow his example.

He got down and secured the reins, then came around and gave me a hand down. A memory of him taking hold of my waist to lift me out of the rowboat came unbidden to my mind, and I felt heat climb the back of my neck.

He stood over me, gazing down into my face, and the heat crept around my ears to my cheeks.