The Curious Case of Mary Ann Read online

  “You can see I have the head right here.” Sir Rufus held it aloft.

  The crowd gasped.

  “Er, yes, quite,” Lord Carmine was still trying to stay on track, “then, come to my arms my beamish —”

  But Sir Rufus waved him off. “Oh, hug yourself, Dad. I want to get out of this armor and have a bath. Got half a bog in my boots.” He thrust Rumbledring’s head at his father and turned. “Tell Mother I’m home and I’ll come in to see her shortly. Squires? Some help, please?”

  Having missed their questing opportunity, they were more than eager to assist with this. Mary Ann heard one of them explain they’d somehow ended up in Yon …

  Apparently, it was very nice this time of year.

  So as the squires and quest fans surrounded Sir Rufus with drink and praise and the chance for dry feet, Mary Ann drew back and went invisible again. It was bound to happen in situations like this, of triumph and glory. And such was the right order of things, she was sure. She slipped up the stairs to the servant’s chamber, washed away her souvenirs of sweat and swamp, and changed straight away for bed. Tonight, hers was a weariness from within and nothing but sleep would satisfy it. She was nearly safely off in blissful slumber, when Emmaline entered the room, bounded onto the bed like a puppy, nudged her and whispered, “Is it true? Were you on that Jabberwock quest with Sir Rufus all this time? Celeste and Mabel say I’ve lost what good sense I had, but now I know I saw you both —”

  But Mary Ann didn’t want to talk about Jabberwock quests and she certainly didn’t want to talk about Sir Rufus. She faked a reasonable snore until Emmaline resigned herself to conversations lost, and did whatever it was she did when she wasn’t sleeping, scrubbing pots or talking.

  6

  Emmaline was still brimming with questions by morning, but Mary Ann found that a bright new day filled with chores had a handy way of swapping the epic for the practical in short order. Mary Ann was grateful for it, because she had more important concerns on her mind than knights and monsters, and who squired for whom. Like: when she could sneak away to her father’s workshop and do a little poking around there. She planned her getaway right after the early afternoon tasks were done.

  When she did approach her father’s workshop, it was with care, wondering if she would ever again set foot on this property without a tinge of fear. She looked for fresh footsteps pressed into the path. She listened for any sounds of movement within, then she slowly pushed open the door, flinching at its shy creak. A quick scan of the room showed no one in wait. She looked down and rubbed at the red stain on the floor with the toe of her shoe.

  Her attention moved from there to the mirror. It was special glass, Mr. Banks had said. An escape hatch to somewhere. “Say the right word and you were there.” She peered into the mirror. It reflected the room behind her like any standard looking-glass. She pressed a hand to the glass and it left five little oval smudges just as it should. She ran a hand along the frame, but there was no trigger, no special lever, nothing out of the ordinary to suggest this was anything but your standard mirror. She peered around the back of it: standard wooden backing, no secret password inscribed.

  She searched the frame for repeating patterns, carefully hidden words in the whirling, twirling, carved vines. She focused and unfocused her eyes, hoping something clever might pop out at her.

  But nothing did.

  Had Mr. Banks been fooling with her or had the glass been swapped by an intruder for something less exotic? She saw no signs of tampering around the inlay. It was all very curious.

  And that curiosity brought her to her feet, which led her to her father’s bench — a wooden piece that no one would ever have guessed he’d made. Stylistically, it was very spare, none of the embellishments he was known for, none of the fantastic pulls and fittings his clients received. But the drawers slid smoothly as Mary Ann examined their contents. And the chair next to it was very comfortable as she sat to examine the items she found.

  She went through bills of sale, which appeared quite boring and unhelpful. She ruffled through commission requests. She spied thank you notes. And she found her father’s accounting books.

  On this last one, she yawned — not wholly due to the dullness of the subject matter, but because there never did seem to be enough sleep lately. She forced herself to focus.

  Her father’s accounts were meticulous, she discovered, everything tallied forward and backward and even sideways. He had every item he’d ever crafted logged in this book, from the cost of materials to detailed specifications of the piece, to special features, color and price. It was only toward the end of the book that there were half a dozen items that were circled in red ink. She recognized the hand as her father’s. “Check with Banks” was the phrase next to them, also in red. It seemed the down-payment had been received for each. The final payment column was blank.

  So Mr. Banks either hadn’t yet collected the money from the sales or he never distributed it to her father. It didn’t seem like much motive for murder, but the discrepancy was worth noting. She set this log aside.

  She went through receipts for his general household expenditures, food, supplies … Nothing seemed particularly odd there. There were no potential magic words scrawled down anywhere that she could see, and nothing seemed to connect him with Jacob Morningstar or the Neath Royal Family at all, beyond the commission of that mirror for Mr. Rabbit.

  And what to do about that mirror? She turned to face it. Originally, she’d thought she might get the piece to Mr. Rabbit in time for Queen Valentina’s Unbirthday celebration in nine days hence, but now she wasn’t sure how she’d manage. It was such an awkward position in which to be—witness to the Who, When and What but not the Why. Stuck between lands and invisible in both. Missing but not missing at the same time. In danger but possibly not in danger … Pursued and forgotten … Makeshift squiring and maid-shifts tiring …

  Monsters who weren’t entirely monsters. Monsters with names: Rumbledring.

  Murderers who were very much killers. Killers with names: Jacob Morningstar.

  Magicless magic mirrors and no instructions to be found.

  Nothing amiss. Just those missing final payments …

  Well — she stood and sighed, grabbing the accounts book —there was nothing for it. She would have to take a quick jaunt to Mr. Banks’ home and ask him about the payment situation. With the money owed on hand, she could buy a new nightdress and replace the other essentials she’d had to leave behind. It would be a welcome resolution. It would be nice to have one thing that did not lie Between.

  But when she reached Mr. Banks’ lovely abode, there were no lit lamps by the windows of the little cottage and his boat was absent from the dock. Off on a sails call, perhaps? Trying to earn the most from that back catalogue of finished projects? Or undertaking the unpleasant task of notifying clients that their commissions were canceled due to tragic circumstance?

  She supposed she would be in charge of her father’s part of the business now, at least for a while, wouldn’t she? She would get a cut of the remaining stock that sold. This would be her inheritance.

  The front door to Mr. Banks’ cottage, she saw now, was ever-so-slightly ajar. Perhaps the man was here after all and someone had just borrowed his boat. “Mr. Banks?” She knocked and poked her head inside. “It’s Mary Ann Carpenter, again … Mr. Banks?”

  Silence.

  She moved through the house to the back porch, that tranquil spot with the view of the river. Up the river, down the river, there was no sign of the fellow’s boat. Their teacups, however, were just as they had been the day before. Though now the teapot was cold and the tea leaves clumped, moist on their way to mold.

  Mary Ann stepped from the porch into the house, a sick feeling forming in her stomach. She ventured into the bedchamber. The bed was made. She threw open the wardrobe doors. That was empty … No, wait, not entirely empty. One cravat had escaped, trailing across its floor, wrinkled and forlorn. It seemed Mr. Banks had
made a grand exit.

  Mary Ann Carpenter did the same.

  She was almost back to the manor house, wrapped up in thoughts of boats and bookmaking, business partners and buggering off, when she heard a voice say, “Very rude of you, you know.”

  “Beg pardon?” She turned.

  “Begging isn’t necessary, but a brief apology would do.” Sir Rufus was leaning on the Vorpal sword. There was no trace of expression that suggested he was joking. He assessed her coolly.

  “I apologize, Sir,” she said, with no sincerity whatsoever. “Please apply it to a topic, as necessary.”

  “Very well, miss. I thank you,” he said, and she turned back to the path. “Wait: where are you going?”

  “To the Manor, Sir. I’ve chores to do.”

  “Then who will help me with my Jabberwock training?”

  This seemed to be the maddest question in what already was turning out to be a rather mad day. She wondered how she could answer it and still be at all polite. “Well, the squires, Sir, I’m sure would be most happy to —”

  “Of course they’d be happy. But this isn’t about pleasing them. We don’t all go round trying to figure out how to please the squires, do we?”

  She thought it was probably best not to respond.

  He exhaled in frustration. “My squires weren’t with me when I slayed the Jabberwock, were they? You were. You were invaluable at every step. So you’re the one to help me with my training. It’s simple sense.”

  Sense doesn’t enter into it, she thought. “Regrettably, Sir,” she began carefully, “I don’t know anything about sword training.”

  “Well,” he sniffed, “not knowing about something hardly prevents a person from doing it. Lots of people teach things about which they haven’t the slightest inkling. You can learn it afterwards. There’ll be plenty of time then.” He held out a sword to her, a non-Vorpal one. “Come on …” He shook the weapon impatiently, waiting for her to take it.

  She sighed. She decided she would go along with the plan for now. He would change his mind and give up on the folly once he discovered he was trying to get blood from a stone. “If you wish, Sir,” she said and accepted the weapon. It did have a nice weight to it. Not too heavy, but well-balanced.

  She wasn’t sure how she knew that.

  But the maddest thing of all was, an hour sparring with the sword and Sir Rufus proved that she did, indeed, know more than a little something about swordsmanship. Ideas and very good advice flowed from her like rain through a downspout and it was clear that this was some serious backwards training she’d gotten.

  Surely, it must be a mistake. Whoever would care to train a housemaid in sword fighting? The whole thing was absurd.

  They were right in the middle of a Reverse Pass (it was startling how the term popped into her mind), when she noticed some movement out of the corner of her eye. The object in question was yellow, low to the ground and coming on fast. It was so peculiar that both teacher and student paused, breathless in their work, to further examine it.

  This thing was sprinting through the yard and it had no business sprinting at all. The creature was the skin of an exotic fruit; Mary Ann believed it was called a banana. Yet, on its face — if you could call it a face, for it was only a few face-implying brown spots below the black top of the thing — were spectacles. And these were attached to a papier-maché nose and moustaches. Mary Ann had to admit, it wore the whole ensemble quite successfully for not having any ears to keep it in place. She burst out laughing. “Whatever is that?”

  “Absolutely no clue,” frowned Sir Rufus. Now he turned the blue-eyed scowl on Mary Ann. “Why are you laughing?”

  Having to explain it drained away some of her own mirth, she found. “Well, it’s quite funny, isn’t it, Sir? How it runs on the flaps of its own fruit peel feet?”

  But Sir Rufus’ long face just grew longer as they watched the creature continue on down the path and vanish. It was making excellent time. “I wouldn’t know.” Sir Rufus sighed. “I lost my sense of humor several weeks ago, and I can’t find it anywhere. Without it, everything has seemed rather bland, irritating and pointless. Wouldn’t have even done that Jabberwock business, if all of Red Turvy weren’t relying on me.”

  “Ah …” Suddenly, this explained so much about her interactions with the knight. “Where do you recall seeing your humor last?” Mary Ann asked.

  “Oh, around my Unbirthday,” he said. “It feels like ages ago. I remember laughing at a joke my mother made. I’ve not had so much as a snicker since then.”

  “Perhaps I can help you search for it,” Mary Ann offered, wondering why she was adding another obligation to her to-do list. “What does it look like?”

  He shrugged. “Never seen it. It’s humor. Sneaks up on you, doesn’t it? Strikes you when you’re not looking. But I’d know it if I saw it. That’s for certain.”

  “Then how can you be sure it’s even gone?” she asked.

  His expression was defiant. “Okay. Tell me a joke.”

  Mary Ann blinked. She hadn’t bothered to learn many jokes. She’d never had anyone to tell them to. She thought about it a moment. She had heard this riddle once … “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

  “I don’t know,” said Rufus, “why is a raven like a writing desk?”

  “Because Poe wrote on both,” said Mary Ann.

  Rufus raised an eyebrow. “And who’s Poe exactly?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” said Mary Ann.

  Rufus squinted. “Not a very good joke then, is it?”

  She was hoping it would make more sense to him. “I could come up with another one,” she suggested, trying to help.

  “No, don’t bother.” He was so crestfallen. “The point is, that it appears my humor is gone forever. Imagine, living here in Turvy with no sense of humor. What will become of me? I’ll be an outcast. I’ll be shut away in the Manor Tower just like —” And his face reddened, as if all of his freckles had finally bandied together to form a unified front.

  “Like …?” The word hung on the air. Mary Ann waited, almost afraid to move and disrupt it.

  “Never mind.” He cleared his throat. “It’s almost tea time. I’d best let you get back. Will you train with me again tomorrow?”

  “Sir, I’d love to but —”

  “I’ll clear it for you.”

  And Mary Ann walked back to the Manor wondering at many things, not the least of which being how she’d somehow ended up teaching knight school.

  

  The tea preparations were well underway when Mary Ann arrived. “Why, there you are!” said Cook. “Mrs. Cordingley was looking Nowhere for you. She’d looked Everywhere first and then gave up.”

  “Oh dear,” the housemaid said. “I’m so sorry. Sir Rufus had asked me to help him trai —”

  The woman thrust a platter into Mary Ann’s hands. “Well, you can help me tray now. Take that into the dining room.”

  Mary Ann sighed. She imagined Emmaline was somewhere close-by to handle the thing, but it was going to be quicker and easier to simply do as requested. She performed the task and as Mary Ann returned, she noticed Mrs. Cordingley coming down from the back circular steps, carrying another silver platter of empty plates. These steps, it dawned on her, were the very ones that led to the Tower.

  “Is someone up there?” she heard herself ask aloud. It was a terrible thing when one spent so much of one’s life in one’s own head; too often and too late, one discovered thoughts had inadvertently oozed into the open.

  “What business is it of yours?” snapped Mrs. Cordingley. “Remember yourself, miss. You’re the housemaid.”

  “There’s house in the Tower,” said Mary Ann hopefully.

  “No house with which you’re welcome to concern yourself. Now off with you! Go fetch washing from the line before the dew gets on it!” she shouted. Mary Ann scrambled away, though down the hall she could still hear the lady add, “And stay away from the Tower!”


  

  The Tower was very dark now that evening had fallen, a weak candle the only companion Mary Ann had dared on this excursion. She’d been thinking about it all day, and the question was not so much, “To defy or not defy orders?” as it was, “When is the perfect moment to do so?” Mrs. Cordingley and the rest of the women staff were in their quarters, having been dismissed for the night and settling in for some quiet time. Mrs. Cordingley and Mabel were darning the items that were still too proper for a full damning. And Cook and Emmaline were both pouring through recipe books, making notes, stomachs rumbling a duet with dreams of future dinners.

  From this placid scene, Mary Ann had stepped out, invisible, wearing her borrowed nightdress and on bare feet. It was so easy to slip away when others’ minds were occupied. Yet, now that the opportunity had presented itself to ascend the Tower stairs, the housemaid’s legs felt heavy. The day of sword-fighting, crime scene investigation, walrus-tracking and even a fair share of housemaiding had clearly taken its toll.

  Mrs. Cordingley was right, of course: whoever was up here, living in the Tower, it really was no business of hers. A proper housemaid would respect the wishes of her employers and stick to the basics of flustering, fetching and folding. But Mary Ann was also aware that with knowledge came critical opportunities for self-preservation. In fact, oftentimes it was the only power someone in her position was likely to have. So she’d found making the extra effort to pry into the depths of her various employment situations was an added assurance of her continued survival.

  There was but one door at the top of the Tower stairs, she discovered, and as secret things tended to be, there was a padlock on it the size of the palm of her hand. Mary Ann assumed the key was on the large ring carried around by Mrs. Cordingley. She examined the shape of the lock. Quite large, with a hole roughly the size of a small coin; that would help narrow it down, at least. Perhaps there would be future opportunity to slip that key away and give the room a proper investigation. But for now, Mary Ann settled for pressing an ear against the wood.