The back corridor behind the dining room smelled dank and slightly moldy like an unaired cellar. Haidée had accidentally stumbled on the place after Renaud had left her to go about his own research, and she had ducked into an archway which she had thought would lead her to the library. Apparently, her memory of the observatory layout even after one day was unreliable.
She would have retreated back into the main part of the observatory if it wasn’t from the faint light up ahead. There was still enough light from behind and in front to illuminate the place in shades of gray, reminding her of that strange place between alertness and sleep—when things weren’t so clear. She quickly walked forward and the light grew to reveal a small indentation in the wall holding a candlestick with an unlit candle. The light itself came from a wall sconce. Haidée took the candle and lit it before continuing on her way.
The corridor narrowed until it was only the width of one person and then there were a flight of stairs leading upward. Haidée counted twenty steps before it stopped on a small landing. There was a door across the stair, a narrow one made of stained wood. Where there was supposed to be a knob, there was only a hole. She put her candle up near the hole and tried to peer inside. There was only darkness.
“Should I open the door?” she asked, mostly to herself.
The marten on her shoulder gave a soft chirp which she interpreted as a “yes.” Of course, it could have been her own wishful thinking. She was more curious than apprehensive. She hooked a finger through the hole in the door and pulled. It came away easily and soundlessly. The door must have seen regular use.
Holding up the candle, the flickering flame illuminated a small, cramped space that was empty except for a rough wooden ladder leading up into the ceiling. She was reminded of those trap doors on the stage in the theatre. There were quite a few times that she had to make use of them when a particular play called on for sudden disappearances or reappearances. She didn’t like using that part of the theatre very much—the holes underneath the stage were usually as narrow and dark as the space she had found herself in now.
There was no way in which she could have climbed the ladder and held on to the candle at the same time so she left her light source on the floor and started up the rung, hiking up her skirts so she wouldn’t trip over them.
The marten chattered and dug its paws into her shoulder.
“I know, I know,” she winced. “This isn’t one of my brighter ideas but what else do you want me to do, mope around the place like a spoiled lady? There’s only so much acting I’m willing to put up with in real life.”
At the top of the ladder, Haidée discovered that the ceiling wasn’t solid at all but there was a faint outline in the beams indicating a door. Bracing herself with her left arm on the topmost rung, she reached up with her right hand and pushed.
The overhead door groaned as it gave way and a fine shower of dust rained down on her making her cough. The marten sneezed. Cold, damp air wafted over her face as she leveraged herself up into the darkness. She could hear rain. There was lightning that briefly illuminated the small attic room and then ear pounding thunder.
It took her eyes a few moments to adjust to the gloom, but she could make out the dark shapes of various pieces of furniture and the maw of an empty fireplace. There were windows on either side of the room. None of them had curtains which allowed the dark gray day to filter in. One of the windows was open, the pane swinging eerily with the motion of the wind.
The first thing that Haidée did was to go over to the open window to close it. The storm outside was in a fine temper as it spat rain in her face as she tried to slam the pane closed. Before succeeding, she noticed a long dark mark on the window ledge as if someone had scuffed something upon the stones. She looked past it and saw nothing but the ground.
She shook her head, feeling somewhat puzzled, and then turned back to the rest of the room. She found a battered tinderbox and a stubby candle on the mantle of the empty fireplace. After a moment, a small pool of light bathed the area. She left the candle on the mantle and looked around for any fuel for the hearth, but there was none. She rubbed her arms and proceeded to explore the rest of the place.
The floor held a thick coating of dust, undisturbed except for her own footprints and that of someone else with larger feet—someone else had visited this room recently. On the far side of the room was a long work table covered in star charts and calculations. There was a dull copper compass and a couple of other astronomical instruments that she vaguely knew about—a t-shaped quadrant, an intricately decorated astrolabe, and a wrought iron armillary sphere. There was also a lacquered box about the size of her hand. When she flipped the latch and opened the lid, she found two round pieces of glass, one thicker than the other. She took out the thinner of the two and held the edges with her thumb and forefinger and looked through it—everything in the room seemed larger and muted. She put it away and continued her examination of the table.
There was a bottle of ink on this table as well, but its shape was that of a vial with a long thin neck. It was closed with a stopper that was topped with a round glob of clear glass. Next to the vial lay a pen and an abandoned piece of foolscap with a couple of symbols hastily drawn. But even with the small sample, she could immediately tell that whoever had written on the foolscap had a different hand than the person who had written the astronomical calculations. She could also deduce that the foolscap was more recent—it didn’t have the dull film of dust that coated the rest of the papers on the table.
Next to the table was an odd contraption that looked like a stand stacked with a large glass globe filled with water connected to a spout stoppered with cork, a rotating wheel like one would find on a mill next to the river in the country, and an empty bucket. On the inside of the bucket were numbered marks. It was a rudimentary water clock, she realized. She had seen more grand versions of it in the homes of wealthy theatre patrons. She wondered if this one worked—although she had no inclination to pull out the stopper and test it herself.
A telescope screwed onto an iron stand stood next to the window that had already been closed. Haidée could tell that it was a fine instrument. The barrel was made of ebony wood and lined with gleaming brass. She looked through it and saw only the dark rain outside and another tower on another part of the observatory. The window of that tower was alight and she thought she could see a shadow moving within. Perhaps it was one of the other astronomers working in his laboratory.
She remembered Davenport telling her that the telescopes had a slot in which a round card, like the one she had found in her room, would be placed. She examined the telescope’s barrel and found a thin slot at the center of the instrument where a small bit of white was sticking out of it. She pulled out the card—which she judged to be about the same size as the one in her possession—and noted the similar marks on it. They were in the same style as the other one but there were some different symbols—to calibrate the telescope, she guessed. On the other side of the card, there was the name Nicolas Bisset again. She reached out with her senses to the card and felt nothing. Like the other, if it had been activated, it would have been a long time ago.
Haidée tucked the card into her pocket when the marten jumped off her shoulder to the table and skittered across the star charts. One of the charts slid off the table with a loud rustle.
“Now look what you’ve done!” Haidée exclaimed. She bent to the floor to pick up the chart when she noticed that the fallen chart had been hiding something underneath it. A thin book. After putting back the chart, she picked up the volume, noting the leather cover that was unmarred by titles. She opened it, revealing pages upon pages of symbols and their meanings. A reference book. She tucked it underneath her arm. “Come on,” she called softly to the marten. “There isn’t much here. I’m leaving.”
A moment later, the animal crawled back out from underneath a corner and shook itself of the dust coating its fur. Once the marten had perched back on her arm, she noticed that there was something in its mouth that looked like a golden key. It dropped the object into her palm and squeaked, pleased with itself.
In the dim light, the object did look golden although it could have been brass. It was shaped vaguely like a key but then again it wasn’t. The end was a semi-circle. From the flat part, a short rod extended outward and ended, blunted. There were no teeth on this supposed key. Frowning, she put it in her pocket along with the telescope card that she had found.
“I suppose it was just a shiny object that caught your eye?” she asked the marten. “I have no idea what it is. Do you?”
The animal responded by draping itself over her shoulder and yawning. Its breath smelled of apples.
“You’re a lot of help,” she remarked. She walked over to the fireplace to blow the candle out. Immediately, the gloom descended onto the room, heavy and almost stifling. Carefully, she made her way back to the trap door. Wanting both hands free, she stuffed the slim book into her bodice and grabbed her skirts so she could make her way down the rungs.
Just as she took hold of the door, she heard a fierce rapping upon the panes of one of the attic windows. She paused as a nervous shiver took her. Did someone know that she was in the room? The rapping continued and bit by bit, she made her muscles relax. It was nothing, she told herself. Perhaps the sky had started spitting out hail instead of rain. But just before she wedged the overhead door closed, she heard a crash of thunder and the splintering of glass.
The marten let out a frightened squeak.
She made her way down as quickly as she could and grabbed the candle that she had left on the floor of the small alcove. Once she reached the top landing of the stairs, she closed the door and half walked, half ran down the stairs back to the corridor behind the dining room.
Once back into familiar territory, she stopped and breathed hard. She could have been imagining things, she thought. Perhaps she was over dramatizing things. Her fingers felt cramped and she looked down, and realized that she had a white knuckled grip on the candlestick.
Then she heard footsteps coming down the main corridor. She froze.
The cook, Madame Boulanger came around the corner with her broom and dust pan. The woman came around the corner and catching sight of Haidée, she paused for a moment to give her a mean tempered stare.
“Out of my way, Mademoiselle.” Madame Boulanger drawled out “Mademoiselle” as if it were something distasteful. Then she turned sharply away to go back into the kitchen.
Haidée let out a sudden nervous laugh. It was just the cook with a grudge. She could handle that.