brandbury hall; part 1

I ran through the darkness as fast as I could without

tripping myself. I feared that some foreign object might sneak out and nab my side or trip my feet, slowing me, allowing my predator to gain even more distance on me. It was so dark. Shafts of light snuck through the cracks in the ceiling and between the boarded windows, but it bounced off the dust we created as we ran heatedly—I from him, and he to me. My heart skipped a beat with panic, and I begged my legs to pump faster. Turn the corner gently! I slid a few inches but made up for the lost time once I began the next aisle. Push push push push! I could hear him grunting from the other aisle. He was so close to the corner. My heart skipped again. I pushed harder, but as I feared, my left arm hit something hard, flying me in a swirl to land in front of an old dresser. I heard my attacker slow just enough to take that corner at a nice speed, something that I neglected until it was too late. He’s smarter than me. I’ll never get out alive. My last chance was to hide. Hide and seek. What a morbid thing, to think of this as a game. I slid behind the dresser, pressed against it and some moldy boxes just behind it. I prayed that the sound of my fall would hide my struggle to hide. I prayed that he would keep running, betrayed by the settling dust, unable to see that I wasn’t still running from him. Oh please, please, please.
     He came closer. I stopped breathing. He slowed to a trot and drew to a stop. My heart filled with fear and dread. All was silent.
     He took a step. It sounded like it was near the dresser I was behind. This is it. I closed my eyes in attempt that if he saw me, the whites of my eyes against the black wouldn’t give me away. He took a couple more steps, nearer and nearer. Oh, God. Please, please, please.
     Then it sounded as if he were walking on. Past the dresser. Past me. I stopped hearing his footsteps. I won? Almost. I opened my eyes to get up.
     The silhouette of a man stood just to the left of the dresser, staring right at me. His arm extended to its full length, and in the dimness of the room I could just barely see the gun in his hand. My heart dropped to my stomach. This is it.
     He inhaled slowly, as if to revel in the moment, and whispered ever-so-softly, “Bang. You’re dead.”
     I sighed heavily, releasing the breathe I was holding and tried to calm the adrenaline coursing through my body. “Yes, yes,” I said. “You win. I’m dead. Now, will you help me up? It’s dreadful filthy back here.”
     He chuckled and squeezed between the dresser and nightstand beside it to grab my extended hand. Hand still in mine, he slid back into the aisle of the attic.
     I coughed and fanned the renewed unsettled dust away from my face and pointed to the gun in his hand. “Where the devil did you find that?”
     He chuckled and put it on the nightstand, where the print of a gun lay etched into the dust.
     I did not laugh. I glanced at him cautiously, then to the gun, and started, “On the off chance that that thing was loaded . . .”
     He laughed again, and reassured me, “Don’t worry. It wasn’t. I know the feel of a loaded gun.”
     “You do?” I was genuinely surprised.
     Again, he laughed. Did he really find me this humorous? Or was it my naivety he found amusing? “Even if I didn’t, you’d believe if I said I did.”
     I scoffed at that and tore my hand from his and carefully made my way back to the door.
     “Ari . . .” He sounded apologetic. Or perhaps he was trying to imply that he was simply joking. I didn’t care. He still would never tell me if that gun was loaded, whether he knew what a loaded gun felt like or not.
     “You can stay up here and get a smacking, but I, quite recently, have acquired some chores to do.”
     He caught up with me, and we walked as close to side-by-side as two people could get in these narrow aisles. “You should have kept running. You would have beaten me. You’re a sprinter if I ever saw one.”
     I looked up into his face to see that he was smiling at me. Implying . . .? There was something more in that smile. Was he mocking me?
     “Hmph. You won, yes? I’m doing your chores, yes? What more do you want?”
     “No need to get all snarky about it. I’m being serious. You got some serious legs on you.”
     “Ah!” I looked away so he wouldn’t see my girlish blush, just in case he could even see it in this damp, dark attic. How dare he! The nerve! Mentioning my legs like that.
     “Oh, come off it, you’re wearing pants, for God’s sake! You can’t pretend to be offended when you’re dressed like that.”
     I turned haughtily. “You dare tell anyone, I’ll . . . why, I’ll—“
     He stepped right up to me, hardly an inch between us, stood to his full height, and stared straight down into my eyes, into my soul almost. “You’ll what?”
     I was frozen. I’d never actually been this close to a boy, other than my brother, before. True, we had just been holding hands, but that was just to help me up. He’s so tall. The lighted dust was playing with the colour of his hair, making it seem much darker than its natural dirty blonde. I could only see highlights of his face: the bridge of his bony nose, the left side of his angular jaw line, his blue-green left eye blinking slowly down at me. I tried to unfreeze myself. Think, think, think! What would he not want Madame to know? What faults does he have? I could think of none. Come now! He must have something up his sleeve. I subconsciously glance at his wrist, where his sleeve would have been, had he not rolled them up for their game. I came back to myself and found something useful. Almost.
     “I’ll tell Madame that you have dirty magazines hidden in your room!”
     It didn’t even faze him. “I don’t have dirty magazines. Never have.”
     I stuttered, “Well, then, I’ll buy them and stash them in your room!”
     He chuckled at me. “You wouldn’t even know where to buy them. Or what to look for, more likely.”
     “Oohh . . .” I turned back around and continued even faster toward the approaching door.
     “Ari . . .”
     I didn’t turn around to address him. Let him know I think he’s lower than scum. “Don’t you ‘Ari’ me, Mister Brand,” I said as I quickly and deftly opened the door to the downstairs and flowed fluidly down the steps. “I’ve had quite enough of this foolishness, and I have had quite enough of you—“
     “What is that?”
     Without thinking, I turned to him and dumbly asked, “What?”
     He was frozen at the top of the staircase, staring straight ahead of himself. He nodded toward the thing he was obviously so entranced with, and I followed his gaze. Directly above the door leading down to the third story of the house was another door, in line with the door to the attic. There could have been a perfectly straight bridge leading from where he stood to this new door.
     “What is it?” I repeated him.
     “We didn’t see it before because we weren’t facing it. It was right above us.” He continued to stare, hypnotized.
     I felt irritated again. “Yes, but what is it? What does it lead to?”
     “It must be the other side of the house. We were only in one half. The half over my room and the library and finally the ballroom on the first floor. That side would be where Madame’s room and your room and the dining room would be. How very fascinating.”
     I turned my gaze from the new door to him, and back and forth until my gaze finally caught his eye. He blinked rapidly and half chuckled, probably at his humorous frozen state he was just in. I gave him a look that asked if he was ready, and he began his descent down the staircase. As I reached to open the door, he stopped me with his hand on my shoulder.
     “What now?” I was through with games at the moment.
     “Get on my shoulders.” He was looking at the new door again.
     “What?!”
     He looked at me. His expression was the same as when he suggested we start this little escapade, full of curiosity and excitement.
     “Check if it’s unlocked. If it’s not, then some other day we can come back up here and discover that side.”
     “Yes, yes,” I grumbled, switching his spots on the staircase. “Because Madame will be gone this long again.” He crouched just a bit so I could climb onto his back, then I shifted myself up onto his shoulders. As he stood up, my view of the world grew smaller and smaller. I balanced myself by placing my hands on each side of the stairwell. Oh, please, please, please, don’t let me fall.
     Even at his full height, I couldn’t reach the door knob. I’m so close! I was afraid to tell him to move anymore. The ascent up here was horrifying enough. But luck wasn’t with me.
     “Can you reach it?” he asked. He only sounded half-winded. My legs were, after all, squeezing all the air out of his lungs.
     “No. Nearly. Can you—ah, can you go up another step?”
     My hands were just fast enough to balance myself with the walls again when he went up a step. I felt—as did he—that I was about to fall off backward.
He inhaled sharply. “Are you alright?”
     “Yes.” My breath came in gasps now. I tried not to think of the ground so far below. The door. Can you reach the doorknob? I removed my right hand from its position carefully, sliding it across the wall to the door, moving fast around the corner that I couldn’t reach. I wanted my hand touching something to steady myself at all times. I slid it up and to the left ever so slowly. Almost there . . . and . . . “I’ve got it!”
     “Good! Now see if it’s locked.”
     Turn to the right, left, back and forth. “Ah. It’s locked.”
     “Nuts.”
     “What did you just say?” I asked as I was safely lowered to the ground.
     “Nuts. Fiddlesticks. Blast. Damn.”
     “Jeremy Brand! There’s no need for language like that! Now if you keep that up, I’m a-gonna hafta take you out back and whoop that sinnin’ hide o’ yours. Now, git!”
     We both were howling at we crossed the doorway onto the third floor. I was imitating our head cook, Mrs. Loraine Nettleby. Her father was a real slave in the south, giving her a nice twang in her speech. The other day, we had been helping out in the kitchen with the servants when Jeremy had burnt himself on the stove top. He let loose some horrible language, and Loraine let loose all hell on him for it. He didn’t want her to tell Madame, so he let her give him some of her broom instead. I was dying with laughter the entire time. Such a commotion! I thought perhaps bets were placed that day on whether Jeremy would cry for his mother. He didn’t, and there were many a disheartened sigh that supper from our servers.
     It took him a while to get himself together after all that laughing. My sides were aching by the time we got down to the garden. I found that extremely humorous and encouraging. I made him laugh. Not just from my naivety, but because I had made a joke. An inside joke. We shared an inside joke. Does that mean we’re friends?
     Even though I had lost the game and therefore had to do his chores for the day, he still helped weed the garden. At first he sat back in the potatoes and watched me fight with the potato bugs, but after a bit he joined in too. Little conversation was had, but for the occasional request for the wheelbarrow or some other tool. Among these niceties, however, was this:
     “We need to find the key,” he said, sitting back to take a bit of a break.
     I stopped as well, and look him honestly in the eye. “And where do you suggest we start looking? Three stories, not including the servant’s quarters and the other part of the attic. What, a hundred or so rooms?”
     “Not that many . . .”
     “But still! Jeremy, one tiny little key; it could be anywhere! It could be in Madame’s room for all we know.” I was determined to be the voice of reason in this situation.
     “And perhaps it is . . .” he mused. He looked serious. I was scared.
     “No.”
     He glanced up to see my stubborn expression.
     “But—“
     “No.” He wasn’t going to sway me on this.
     “Ari—“
     “No! I will not be kicked out of this house. I like it here. And I’ll not do anything that will cause Madame to think me unsuited for this place. I’m staying, and out of trouble. That’s that.”
     He had that look again. The half smile and the mocking eyes. I hate that look. I could feel my blood pressure rise.
     “And what do you have to say, Mister Brand?”
     He grinned when I said his name. Every time. “Mister Brand.” Grin. It got on my nerves.
     “Stop smiling at me, and tell me what you have to say.” I was going to get my way.
     “Now you’re going to make me stop smiling? Woman, you misunderstand your place in this world.”
     “I beg your pardon!” I stood on the spot and turned to leave the garden.
     “Let’s not start this again. I was simply pointing out that you indeed found trouble today. And you’re going to continue to find it, especially with me around.”
     I swivelled, my feet still planted and sure and stubborn but my torso facing him, unsure and scared, curious and excited. He was standing now and began toward me, slowly so as not to frighten me off like I was some skittish rabbit. He kept coming closer and closer, and I was afraid he was going to just brush past me and keep walking. He stopped short, again not an inch away, and spoke softly, so softly after all my yelling, “If you want to stay here, you will. I’ll make sure of that. Madame listens to me. She trusts my judgement. If you want to stay here, and if I want you here, you’ll stay. You don’t have to leave home again. I promise.”
     I was not expecting that.
     I blinked a few times, forcing myself to look away from his face, forcing myself not to cry. What he had said hit a strong nerve. “You don’t have to leave home again. I promise.” Obviously, he can’t promise anything. Not really. Not to it’s full extent. No one can promise anything. No one. They don’t know what the future holds, and they have no way to control what they promise. Only God has that kind of power. No. I won’t believe him. But I can at least thank him for his kind words.
     “Thank you, sir,” I breathed, disguising the tears in my voice. He bowed slightly, and as he did, I grabbed the opportunity to show him the attitude of a true English lady. “I accept your apology,” I spoke with full volume and my natural royal class accent I was taught as a child. Just for effect, I extended my right hand to him, just as daintily as Her Majesty herself, and waited.
     I didn’t actually expect him to kiss it. To scoff and holler about the place of women and “My father . . .” as he did when we first met, but no. He actually kissed my hand, and muttered a humble “m’lady,” and turned to continue working. Well, well, well.
     As I hunched back over to continue also, he dared to mutter one last thing, “Shall we begin our treasure hunt tomorrow?”
     I scoffed, rolled my eyes, and threw up my hands in surrender and exasperation. “Oh, why the hell not?”