Chương 25: Chapter 24 - The Name on the Plans

It was late. I had a little bog-monster on my hip, a candle in my hand, and I was heading for the library to find Iset. And if I thought it was late, it was a million years late for Kappa. His head kept bobbing on the long nod toward sleep, but then he'd jerk it back up and scowl.

"Kappa, the kitchen will be warmer," I told him for the eight-hundredth time.

"No!" he insisted for the eight-hundred-and-first time. Warmth was becoming an issue. I knew it was early May and we were up in the mountains, but it still felt unusually chilly. I wondered if it was that cold-snap that Conrad had warned me about. It was bizarre that Kappa was still awake. I guess adrenaline works on everyone.

"Conrad and Igor have boarded up the windows and doors," I reminded Kappa, "and even if zombies do come, Igor says he'll be on watch."

"Don't care!" I sighed, rehoisted the bog-monster, and continued trudging. I stopped when I saw the skewed block of light coming from Jacky's partially open study door. My heart skipped a beat. Was Big Jacky home? Was it all over? That Big Jacky could somehow magically fix everything was an assumption I refused to question. And if anyone could get into this mansion, it would be Jack Noctis.

Even as the frail hope snuck into me, my brain insisted that I was being stupid—that not even Jacky could get in this time (where that certainty came from, I wasn't sure), and that if he had gotten in, he would've announced himself and called us together. With that ugly war between my hope and my reason still going on, I walked over to the study door and nudged it further open with my foot. As it swung wide, I could hear two voices murmuring. It was Iset and Mrs. Park.

They were standing over Big Jacky's desk with a battery-powered lantern between them. The lantern was holding down one of the many piles of papers stacked on the desk's surface. Lying over most of the piles was a thin stack of oversized papers that were large enough to cover the desk from front to back. Hope was slaughtered without a chance to surrender, and the disappointment was keen. Igor would've said, "I told you so," and even my reason, gloating in the background, couldn't dull the ache.

I ignored the emotional drama and walked into the study. Iset looked up when she heard me.

"Emerra? I thought you'd be asleep by now." I frowned and shook my head. I didn't want to say it in front of Kappa, but I wasn't looking forward to sleeping that night. The nightmares would be epic.

"Did you find something?" I asked as I moved closer to the desk.

"We found the mansion plans," Mrs. Park said. She added in a grumble, "Finally." They must have been a modern copy of the original plans. The color of the ink and yellowed paper was dull, and there were white borders around the edges because the scanner had been larger than the documents. Despite the exhaustion and numbness brought on by all the horror that had been crammed into the last few days, a spark of curiosity lit up my mind. I stepped closer and raised my candle.

"What did the old place look like?"

"Different," Iset said quietly. She sounded happy. I looked up at her. There was no expression to read—only bandages—but I thought I could guess why she sounded like that.

"You love this place, don't you?" I said.

"I always get attached to my homes," she admitted. I lowered Kappa to the floor beside me, then flipped through the edges of the plans, counting the pages.

"Shouldn't there be another one?" I asked.

"This is all of them," Iset said. The ground-floor plan was on top. Since there had only been a few changes, it was easy to recognize, but when I lifted the edge of that sheet to see the one below it, I couldn't recognize which floor it was supposed to be until I noticed Iset's room and private study in the east wing. It was the second floor—but most of the rooms had been changed. The smallest ones had been swallowed up so the larger suites could include their own private bathrooms.

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"There was no indoor plumbing," I muttered.

"None," Iset said.

"It took five years before we were able to get water piped into the washroom." My eyes took in the lines and spaces representing rooms that I'd never known.

"What were all these rooms for?"

"I think the architect based his plans off the European mansions that were popular at the time." Iset motioned to the various areas as she talked.

"Bedrooms, a study, a sewing room—""But the sewing room is on the third floor."

"All of those rooms would've been for the servants." Iset rested her hand on the desk.

"Whatever the rooms were for, the owner never used them. The only rooms that had anything in them when we arrived, were these." She pointed to the rooms that were traditionally known as hers. Not that she used them much.

"Everything else was empty?" I asked. Iset nodded. A subtle feeling of sorrow whispered up from somewhere deep inside me. I couldn't pin it to any clear thought.

"Why would he build so many rooms if he wasn't going to use them?" I said. Iset murmured, "I often wondered about that."

"It sounds like he wanted a bigger life than he had." Mrs. Park stood up straight and folded her arms.

"One with more people in it." Iset and I looked at her. She went on without noticing: "Or maybe he thought he was a grand man and wanted a grand house. Grand on the outside, empty on the inside." She clicked her tongue.

"There was a reason I moved when Walter died. The happiest houses are the ones that are perfectly full." A house, perfectly filled with people I loved. My home, for however long I could keep it. When I thought about all those rooms being empty, that subtle feeling of sorrow became a lot less subtle.

"But the guy who lived here," I said, "he was the one who made the zombies, wasn't he?

"Probably," Iset said. I scowled.

"What is it, Emerra?" I shook my head, trying to clear it of…something—some thought or feeling. I didn't have words to frame it, but it was odd, uncomfortable, and sticky.

"He shouldn't be like this," I said.

"Who?" Mrs. Park said. Iset added, "Like what?"

"The man who built this house," I said.

"I don't want to feel sorry for him, but I do."

"Because he wanted a house that was too big for him?" Mrs. Park sounded incredulous.

"I guess?" The man had had a small life and he thought he could build a bigger one without people. It certainly looked grand, but it was empty. So he'd filled it with corpses. What a charmer. Iset said, "We have a habit of wanting people to be simple, so it's easy for us to cast them as friends or villains. But real people are never simple. You have to see that before you can see anyone properly." I was overcome by a weird sense of auditory déjà vu.

Someone had said those words to me before—or ones like them—but, for the life of me, I couldn't remember who or when. Whoever it had been, they were right. But I didn't have the energy to think about it. I lowered the ground-floor plan back to the desk.

"Iset, Kappa insists on staying with you. He wants to protect you." Iset and Mrs. Park leaned over the desk so they could see Kappa. He was curled up on the floor near my feet, asleep. Mrs. Park covered her mouth so her laugh wouldn't wake the loyal guardian.

"I feel safer already," Iset said fondly.

"You can leave him here, Emerra. I'll carry him back to the library when I go. And you…" She walked around the desk and put her bandaged hand on my shoulder.

"Try to get some sleep. It's been a long, hard day." I gave her a halfhearted nod. It was good advice, and I knew it. Sometimes I really hate good advice. As I turned away from the desk, the light of my candle shifted over the plans. The corner of my eye registered a tiny change. I turned back.

"What is it?" Mrs. Park said. I raised my candle and moved it slowly from side to side, hoping to spot the difference again. There, in the corner, the ink was a different shade of black. I walked around the desk to get a better look.

"I think someone's written on the plans." I put my finger down on the paper, below the off-colored ink. Mrs. Park bent over the desk.

"I think you're right. Funny—I never would've known. The handwriting looks like it belongs to that century, doesn't it?" It certainly did. The high slopes and tight letters of the cursive could've come right out of a history book. If I hadn't seen the difference in the ink, I would've assumed that the architect had made a mistake, scratched it out, and written the correction himself. Iset walked around to stand beside me.

"That's Big Jacky's handwriting." I lowered the candle as much as I dared.

"What does it say?"

"It's the name of the house." Mrs. Park squinted, trying to decipher the word that had been slashed out by Jacky's two thin lines.

"The North House." She straightened up.

"I guess that makes sense. It is north of town." Iset leaned over the plans. When she spoke, her voice was low and detached.

"North wasn't the direction. It was the name of the man who commissioned it."

"And Jacky scratched it out?" I said.

"Names matter to Jacky. He would've felt compelled to correct it." Mrs. Park glanced at the word above the scratched out name.

"Then the man who built this house—""Northrop." Iset straightened up.

"I know that name." Her voice sounded light and distracted. Her small body was rigid, and when she looked up from the plans, she stared off into space. Mrs. Park and I glanced at each other.

"Mrs. Park," Iset said, turning toward the housekeeper, "would you mind helping me with some research for another hour or two?" I felt bad about assuming that Iset had only asked for Mrs. Park's help to keep her away from the zombie gore. Mrs. Park had, apparently, managed to make herself useful.

"Not at all," she said.

"I wasn't looking forward to sleeping alone tonight. With luck, I'll fall asleep next to Kappa." I couldn't help wondering if Iset's newfound interest was a harbinger of yet more doom.

"Is there anything I can do?" I asked.

"No, but thank you, Emerra." Iset rolled up the plans, handed them to Mrs. Park, then turned to me. She laid a hand on my cheek. It was as cool as the room around me.

"Those amazing eyes of yours. You've been more than enough help already."