The House of Hidden Wonders Read online

  “What is it?” Zinnie asked. “Tell me. She’s here now. You can look after her. You’re a doctor. You can make her well. Can’t you?”

  Doctor Jex-Blake and Conan Doyle shared another look.

  “Don’t do that!” Zinnie hissed, curling her fists in anger. “I hate it when people do that, as if you think we can’t see you, or are too stupid to notice! Just tell me!” Her heart was thumping fast, and she was afraid.

  “Zinnie,” said Doctor Jex-Blake gently, as she drew her to the other side of the room. “We will do all we can, of course we will. But you must understand – if it is consumption, there will be no cure.”

  Zinnie felt her eyes fill with stinging tears and she dashed them away with an angry hand. “You mean she’ll die.”

  The doctor glanced at the little figure in the bed, her face troubled. “We will do everything we can to prevent that. I promise you, Zinnie. But, if it’s not tuberculosis, it’s bronchitis, and that is almost as dangerous – although, at least with bronchitis there is hope. Do you understand?” Doctor Jex-Blake laid a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “As I said, we will do everything we can. She needs rest, clean air and we must try to clear the mucus from her lungs.”

  At that moment Sadie came back into the room with Mrs Collins at her shoulder. Sadie carried a large bowl of steaming-hot water, while the matron’s arms were laden with white towels.

  “Now I must tend to your sister,” the doctor said quietly. “You are welcome to stay, Zinnie, but—”

  “No,” Zinnie said, feeling useless and hating it. “There’s something I have to do. I’m going to go. I’ll be back later.”

  Sadie looked at her, worried. “You’re going to find Constance, aren’t you?”

  Zinnie didn’t answer – she knew she didn’t really need to. No one crossed Zinnie or her sisters the way Constance McQuirter had. No one.

  Conan Doyle left with her, his face grey and lined with tiredness.

  “Thank you,” Zinnie said. “For what you did for Nell. For trying to help. I’m sorry I got vexed.”

  He smiled slightly. “I quite understand. I have a tendency to get carried away with theories and what-ifs instead of concentrating on what’s in front of me.”

  Zinnie blinked, remembering what Lady Sarah had said about him being better suited to a different occupation. “Not sure that’s the best way for a doctor to be,” she observed.

  Conan Doyle looked at her for a second, shocked by her bluntness, and then laughed outright. “You are probably right, Miss Zinnie. But doctoring is what I’m training for and at this moment I should be preparing to attend a lecture about the workings of the cardiovascular system.” He gave her a brief bow and they parted ways.

  Zinnie hurried back towards the Mile. A weak sun was just beginning to rise above the rain-washed horizon as she reached the mouth of Writers’ Court. Before she could turn into it, though, something caught her eye further down the Mile – a figure she knew well, standing with another she also recognized, though not as readily.

  It was Bartholomew Talbot. He was speaking to the blustering American, Phineas MacDuff.

  Zinnie backed into the dawn shadows, frowning as she watched the pair talk quietly together, heads bent in what looked like conspiracy. Talbot nodded at something MacDuff said and then each man withdrew. MacDuff touched the brim of his hat in farewell and Talbot jerked his chin in answer. Then MacDuff left, marching away down the Royal Mile towards Cockburn Street, swinging the heavy walking stick he carried. A second later, Zinnie realized that Talbot was coming her way, heading directly for Writers’ Court. She fled down the passageway and into the tenement entrance, ducking into the darkness behind the door.

  There came a harsh whistle, which she recognized as Talbot’s, and a moment later his footsteps were joined by four more sets – his men, coming to do his bidding.

  “Look sharp, gents,” Talbot said, as the group passed the doorway inside which Zinnie hid. “We’ve got a job to do and it’ll pay well if we get it right.”

  They moved on into the lessening darkness, heading for Mary King’s Close. Zinnie strained to hear anything more, but could make out nothing of use. She stood still for a second, pondering. She remembered what MacDuff had said at Lady Sarah’s dinner table. It would seem that he’d taken Conan Doyle’s advice and found someone in ‘the underworld’ to help him recover his pilfered exhibits.

  Talbot’s a bad choice, she thought to herself. He’ll likely keep whatever it is for himself if he does find it or else aim to sell it back to MacDuff for a far higher price.

  Still, that wasn’t her problem. It wasn’t as if she were inclined to do MacDuff any favours herself. Zinnie remembered the black look that had passed through his eyes when he’d thought Conan Doyle was laughing at him, his anger when Constance had not been able to give him what he wanted at the seance. Zinnie had survived on these streets by listening to her gut, and there was something about the American she really didn’t like.

  Pushing both MacDuff and Talbot from her mind, Zinnie made her way up into Writers’ Court. The stairs here were crowded, figures folded uncomfortably against the walls as they tried to slumber.

  “What’s going on?” Zinnie asked one old man, whose tired face was lined with more wrinkles than a wizened apple. “Where have you all come from?”

  He shifted and squinted up at her with rheumy eyes. “The closes. Can’t stay down there no more. Not with that spirit abroad. Vicious, she is. Evil.”

  “You’d rather sleep here?” Zinnie said with disbelief. “Just because you’ve heard tell of a ghost?”

  “Ain’t just heard about it,” the old man said. “Seen it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. Never going back down there now. Not for the wide world and all that’s in it.”

  Zinnie shook her head. “That’s daft. It’s just a story. That’s all. A story!”

  “Only one as hasn’t seen it would say so,” the old man said, his jaw setting in a stubborn line.

  “Aye,” said a woman beside him, waking from a fitful sleep. “’Tis true. I seen it too. So have we all here. It’s real, right enough. Real and evil.”

  More murmurs of assent rippled round the mouldering stairwell. Zinnie shook her head and pushed on upwards, wading through people until she reached Constance’s door and banged on it with an unforgiving fist. When it opened a crack, she pushed against it, hard, forcing her way into Constance’s room before the trickster could shut it in her face.

  Constance regarded Zinnie with narrowed eyes. “Ah, so it’s you. Come for your gold coin, I suppose.”

  “Among other things,” Zinnie hissed. “You sold me a bottle of old water as medicine for my sick sister. I want what I gave you for it back and the same again besides. And I want my sovereign.”

  Constance’s lip curled. “Think to rob me, do you? You’ll not get away with that, you little flotsam wretch.”

  “What I’m asking isn’t robbery,” Zinnie said in a low, dangerous voice. “But you know what is? Taking money off rich folks and pretending to conjure the dead as a medium.”

  A shadow passed over Constance’s face. She turned away and Zinnie knew she had the woman beat. All it would take was Zinnie to tell Lady Sarah or Conan Doyle the truth about ‘Madame Khartoubian’ and Constance would be back in Mary King’s Court with all the other destitute of Old Edinburgh in no time, or worse, locked up for good. After all, Zinnie had seen the workings of her tricks first-hand, and it wouldn’t take much to get the likes of Dorcas to spill the beans and back Zinnie up, not if the alternative was the servants ending up in jail for helping to defraud their mistress.

  “What were you doing there last night anyway?” Constance asked. “How does a street rat like you end up in Montague House?”

  “If I were you, I’d be more concerned about my own skin than other people’s,” Zinnie told her. “Give me my money, Constance, and be grateful I’m not asking for more.”

  There was another pause. Then Con
stance went to the clothes laid out on one of her crates and dug beneath them until she pulled out a small drawstring pouch. From it she took a sovereign and a crown and held the coins out. Zinnie opened her hand for Constance to drop them into her palm. She hesitated for a minute, then let go of the money. Zinnie closed her fist round it.

  “Don’t be thinking this is the end, McQuirter,” she said. “I’ve a long memory and a very short temper, especially when it comes to people who cross me. You still owe me. You will for a long, long time.”

  Zinnie kept her fingers wound tightly round the coins in her pocket as she left Writers’ Court and went to buy the first fresh loaf of bread and bottle of milk she’d had in months. She’d never had so much money before, and between her lack of food and sleep, and the feeling of the coins in her hands, Zinnie was light-headed. She would save every penny she had left, Zinnie decided, and when Nell was better – because she would get better – they would stay in one of the hostels on Grassmarket for a whole week and eat at least one hot meal every day. Surely that would be enough to make the littlest of them strong again?

  This thought buoyed Zinnie up as she went home, although she was so tired that she didn’t even light a fire in the grate. Instead, she ate a bit of the bread and drank some of the milk she’d bought, changed back into her old trousers and shirt and then huddled up in the blankets, all the while missing her sisters. Zinnie fell asleep almost straight away but kept being woken up by noises from outside the curtain. The room beyond was so crowded that no one could move without jostling someone else.

  Still, she slumbered fitfully, dreaming in fragments of worry and fret. She saw Nell’s fevered, tearful face looking down at her from a high window she couldn’t hope to reach. She saw Sadie, starvation-thin, standing on a bare black crag beneath a sky full of snow, shivering and alone. She saw Lady Sarah holding a curved sword as big as her arm as she hacked her way through a jungle of gigantic leaves, oblivious to a gleaming jewel-green snake that was winding itself round her neck, jaws open, fangs dripping venom as it readied to strike. She saw Conan Doyle, kneedeep in severed ears, shouting at her that she had failed him. Shouting, he was, shouting, shouting—

  Zinnie jolted awake with a start and realized that the shouting was real. It was coming from the room beyond the curtain, along with the heavy sounds of a brawl. She scrambled up and threw back the drape to see two men grappling with each other, onlookers trying to get out of the way. A candle stood on the floor near their scuffling feet, the flame stretching and guttering every time they came close.

  “Stop!” Zinnie shouted. “This is stupid! If you knock a candle over…”

  Neither the men embroiled in the fight nor the onlookers took any notice of her.

  Zinnie felt a pit of despair open up in her chest. Living in Mary King’s Close had been hard even before this so-called ghost arrived, but now – now it was unbearable. Everyone was packed in so close together and they were all so on edge that it was like living in a powder keg. Sooner or later, something terrible would happen.

  I can’t let Sadie and Nell come back to this, Zinnie thought hopelessly, watching the men try to tear each other apart, and over what? A patch of filth no one in their right mind would want. But where else could any of them go? Zinnie’s new-found wealth was temporary and there was nowhere else, not for the likes of them, not unless they went to the poorhouse. Nell was more likely to end up in an orphanage. If that happened, the sisters wouldn’t be together any more and Zinnie wouldn’t be able to look after them. And she’d promised Nell she’d always be with her – there was no way she was going to break that promise. Especially not because of some ridiculous ghost that didn’t even exist.

  I have to go down there, she thought. I have to find whatever’s causing all this fuss. If I can stop the noises – free whatever it is making them – then eventually people will start to spread out again.

  Decision made, Zinnie reached out and plucked one of the candles from the wall.

  “Oi,” said a woman crouched below it. “What do you think you’re doing, you thieving wretch?”

  “I’m going to get rid of the ghost,” Zinnie told her. “Once and for all.”

  The woman made a rasping sound in her throat that Zinnie belatedly realized was supposed to be laughter. “Oh aye,” she croaked. “Scrawny street rat against an evil spirit from the beyond. You’ll be eaten alive, girl.”

  Zinnie ignored her, pushing her way towards Mary King’s Close and out on to the narrow passageway. She could hear the noise of those crammed in behind her, but the close itself was deserted. There were no echoes of footsteps stirring on the uneven flags that sloped away from her, no whispers or shouts or laughter, no sounds of fighting. It was the quietest Zinnie had ever known it. She shivered slightly. The abandoned street was creepy, no doubt about that, with its crumbling skeleton buildings, towering shadows and strange roof overhead. The sun had risen higher in the sky now, but barely any light filtered down to her, even once she’d stepped out from beneath the overhang of the Royal Exchange.

  Zinnie pulled her knife out of her pocket with her free hand and flicked it open, steeling herself. Then she began to walk down the steep hill. Overhead it was raining again. She followed a rivulet of water as it trickled along by her feet, catching the light of her candle like a ribbon of pure gold in the gloom. She kept expecting someone to come the other way or to appear out of one of the rooms on either side of her, but all was quiet, until her toes struck a loose piece of brick. It skittered away from her foot, bouncing and rolling, the sound echoing off the walls and into the deeper darkness beyond.

  A shriek started up somewhere in the maze of deserted rooms ahead of her, that awful demon screech that was driving everyone down here to madness. It tore at Zinnie’s ears and rattled her insides. She dropped to a crouch, looking up into the mizzling rain, half expecting to see a hideous spectre coming for her. But there was nothing above her but ruin and the faint swell of dim afternoon light.

  Zinnie got up, willing her heartbeat to return to normal as the shriek faded. She wished Sadie were with her – having her sister by her side always helped her to be courageous. Zinnie swallowed hard and forced herself to carry on. Candle in one hand, knife held out in the other, she reached the bottom of the slope. Whatever the sound was, it had come from the mass of rooms that stretched out in a tangle to her left. She stood beside the gaping dark of an empty doorway, trying to peer into the black. The yellow flicker of her light barely penetrated beyond the first two or three feet of broken floor.

  Another volley of frantic demon shrieks echoed towards her off the walls, followed by a faint sound that she could barely make out. Zinnie’s blood was pounding in her ears but she strained to listen, to hear around the bright noise of the screams. Was it … footsteps?

  She gritted her teeth against her fear and ploughed into the room, holding the candle low to light her way round any holes in the floor. This part of the close was the most dangerous – there were many places into which a person could fall and never find their way out, even if they survived the drop. Ahead of her, more shrieks burst through the darkness.

  Zinnie forged on, stepping over rubbish and filth, climbing between fallen rafters and piles of crumbling brick. The screams stayed ahead of her until they didn’t. Suddenly they were above her. Zinnie raised the candle, knowing what she would see. The ceiling of the room she was in had collapsed completely, as had the one above that, so that she was standing in a void that stretched up and up, the last remaining broken planks and beams of the disintegrated floors jutting out from the tattered walls.

  The shrieking came again. Zinnie searched the darkness but saw nothing. From her previous explorations of this room, she knew she could go no further. The floor had collapsed, just like the ceiling above – if she went any further, she would step straight into a gaping hole, below which was nothing at all but thin air and death. She lowered her candle and checked her footing. She’d tried several times before to find a wa
y round the void to the rooms beyond, but she’d never been able to get across. To her right was a wide spur of floorboards that still stood firm, but they too had crumbled into nothing before reaching the other end of the room.

  Another shriek, this time so close it felt as if the thing making it were right beside her. Zinnie gasped and dropped the candle. It rolled amid the debris and went out.

  Silence.

  Then there it was. A ghost. A real ghost.

  Zinnie’s breath froze in her lungs.

  The spectre floated just an inch or so off where the floor should be, in a patch of darkness no human could reach. It was shrouded in a cloak with a heavy hood, but the figure lifted its arms and the hood fell back a little. Zinnie saw part of a white face, the mouth working into the shape of a scream as that horrible shriek came again.

  The apparition glowed. Zinnie stared at it across the hole in the floor, afraid but fascinated at the same time. Had Conan Doyle been right, after all?

  The shriek came again, a sound so cold and inhuman that it curdled Zinnie’s blood. Then the apparition vanished, the scream dying as if it had been sliced in half with a knife. Everything was silence and darkness. Zinnie snatched up her fallen candle, but was shaking too hard to light it. She held her breath, afraid to make a sound in case doing so told the spirit where she was.

  It felt like an age that Zinnie crouched there in the dark, growing stiff with cold. She was just beginning to think that it might be safe to move when she heard a new sound. It was little more than a whisper, the voice hoarse and rough.

  “Ruby,” it said. “Ruby, Ruby.”

  There was an answer, not in words but in little chittering noises, and then the sound of too many feet. The hairs on the back of Zinnie’s neck stood up as something pattered down the wall, dislodging dust and fragments of loose brick and stone that showered down from above.

  “Safe now,” said the grating voice after a moment. “Gone.”