The Secrets of Roan Island

2. Noah

2

Noah

P rofessor R. Rose isn’t what I expected. She doesn’t look like the middle-age professor I imagined after reading her very in-depth, albeit unconventional, treatise. She’s also not a man, as I had presumed. Though considering the stance she takes in her work advocating for women, I should have known. She’s beautiful, tall, and alluring. And clearly in shape, a fact I note as she hikes her skirt in a very unladylike fashion, revealing long, beautifully curved legs. Her brown hair, a rich color that stands out amid the dull colors around her, is piled on her head with curly tendrils brushing her shoulders and flowing around her neck in a style that indicates she wanted to make an impression.

She’s definitely making an impression. An impression of an entirely different kind than she probably intended.

Obscured from her gaze by the thick growth of forest, I watch her take hold of the iron rungs with her white gloves. She’s a butterfly climbing into a spider's web with no idea how easily she could be devoured.

“You could have opened the gate for her,” I mutter.

“And rob us of this view?” Jafeth chuckles, amused. He’s leaning against the balcony trellis like a rake the gardener left behind, except his grin hints at an entirely different kind of rake. “What would be the fun in that?”

I want to glare at my youngest sibling but I can’t take my eyes off the indelible Professor Rose. She hitches her foot up onto the first rung of the gate, and her skirt slides even higher. That glimpse of ankle has both my hearts slowing like the climb of the two moons in the dead of winter. The rusty metal streaks her white shirtwaist, but strangely she doesn’t seem to mind. The fact that her blouse isn’t covered by a thick coat makes me irrationally angry. A shawl isn’t nearly warm enough for this time of year.

She goes on to find another foothold and climbs higher. I can’t help wondering if a man in her position would be so audacious and struggle to imagine a stodgy professor in tweed climbing the gate. It’s equally difficult to picture her behind a stuffy university desk.

“You’ll greet her,” I command, turning away from the gate and the beautiful woman clinging to it, leaving Jafeth to his fun.

There’s work to do. Winter Solstice is less than four weeks away, and if I fail, yet again, there will be consequences I don’t wish to pay.

With renewed urgency, I leave the balcony and enter the cold recesses of the house. Some say the Roan Estate has the feel of a graveyard, but I don’t mind the dark emptiness. This house is a comfort to me, familiar and known. Gas lamp sconces light the hallway in intervals, offering an ambient glow against the dark green wallpaper and works of art that meet the dark wood wainscot. The lamps, candelabras, and chandeliers throughout the house exist for the few servants, the visitors who come for the monthly new moon parties, and the women brought over for the biannual goddess celebrations—though calling what happens at the Solstice ceremonies celebrations is as morbid as dancing on a grave.

As I make my way down the corridor, I notice the open doorway next to my bedroom and the housekeeper changing the bedding. I mutter a vile curse under my breath at my father for opening Zarah’s room to a guest. Especially since it’s the room next to mine. I don’t need the distraction. Not now, when there’s so much on the line.

I make my way to the dead-end of the hall where a painting of a woman in ceremonial white stares back at me. The hint of her familiar smile taunts me, along with the shadowy suggestion of a dimple in her left cheek. Her dark hair is sleek but for the ringlets that frame her heart-shaped face.

Gritting my teeth, I swing open the gilded frame and step into the dark passageway beyond. The weighted secret door swings closed behind me with a soft thud. The spiral stairs curl down through stacked stone like a black ribbon. Around and around I go, the air growing stranger and heavier until a jolt of energy zips across my skin, the stairway flips upside down, and I’m now winding up the curving steps into an underground mirror image of the mansion above. Since I spend most of my time in The Gate House, the transition barely affects me. This time, however, I won’t be able to linger. I’ll be expected to attend dinner with our guest.

When I reach the library, I walk through the room to the heavy doors of my laboratory. An odd yet familiar aroma assaults and welcomes me. Rot. Waste. Astringent. Chemical compounds. The noxious fumes of bunsen burners.

And blood. A necessary evil.

The room is blindingly bright, and I blink as my eyes adjust. The last person I want to see is sitting on a thin metal stool, surrounded by beakers, medical journals, and the half- dissected corpse of a fox. His legs are crossed casually, as if this is his favorite parlor. Even here, Hammish Roan looks as he always does. Tall and lean, poised and severe, a presence that dominates every space he enters.

Smoke from his cheroot swirls around him like the thick fog clinging to the trees outside. The smell will linger for hours, mixing with the other foul scents.

“Father.” I offer a curt nod and carefully avoid looking at the metal door in the back of the room. “What brings you to the laboratory?”

He takes a slow drag from his cigar before stubbing it out on the exam table. “Keep an eye on the professor while she’s here. Understood?”

“I can’t exactly do my other job”–I lift a hand to indicate the room around us–“while babysitting your little problem.”

“She’s all of our problem.” His fist slams the table, knocking a bottle of formaldehyde on the floor. The pungent liquid pools on the polished concrete.

He stands and straightens his jacket, his expression smoothing, ignoring the mess he’s made at his feet. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

“Well, then, shall I sleep in her chambers or bring her to mine?”

“Don’t be insolent with me, boy.” His black cane snaps on the concrete like the crack of dueling pistols at dawn. “Stay aware of her movements. Misdirect her. Placate her. Keep her contained. I want her to stay.”

“For how long?” Anger flares in my veins. Of course I have to clean up my father’s mess. It’s always been that way. Hammish invited the woman here, against my explicit recommendation, and now I’m stuck with her.

He hooks his thumbs in the pockets of his vest and gives me a stoney look. He won’t be answering my question. There’s too much menace in his expression for anything but punishment.

Pain floods my body, every nerve ending burning as my father’s power washes over me. His voice is a dangerous whisper in my head. Did you think I wouldn’t find out?

Sweat gathers on my brow as the force of his patriarchal will intensifies. The patriarchs of old never used their power the way my father does. It makes me hate him all the more.

My own sons plot against me, and think they can get away with it. There’s false hurt in his voice. As if he feels anything for us. He did the same thing to his own father, after all, killing him the moment he got a chance. He circles me like a shark. On your knees.

The command is impossible to ignore. My body is no longer my own to control. My knees hit shards of glass as I fall, but I don’t flinch. Pain is nothing new for me.

The look in his dark eyes speaks of vicious things that make my stomach twist. Hammish Roan has always had a temper, but lately it’s been close to the surface, like a shallow grave. I hold his gaze, having learned a long time ago not to show fear or pain in front of him.

“If you even think of stepping out of line, you’ll have another woman’s death on your hands. Is that what you want”–the pointed tip of his cane comes to the middle of my chest, piercing through my shirt and drawing blood–“son?”

The desire to grab his throat and tear him apart overcomes me, but I’m helpless, unable to move from the position he’s put me in. I control what I can, my gaze, focusing on the anatomy sketches nailed to the wall behind him as I take slow breaths.

One day, my father will pay for every one of his crimes, especially for taking my sister away from me. But today is not that day. Not with a guest in the house. Not with the new moon party just around the corner. But soon.

“Keep her distracted. ” With that, my father jabs his cane into my chest, then removes it with a flourish and a cordial smile, as if he didn’t just maul his own son. “Be sure to change before dinner. We wouldn’t want your bloody shirt to scare away our guest.”