Mallow slipped back into the school just as the bell rang for morning prayer. She waited for the flood of students to slip past, then climbed the back servants’ stairs to her attic room, wondering if Darcy’s weekly reading would go unread or if another member of the staff would step in. She imagined the stretching silence, the craning necks, as the room wondered why Darcy wasn’t slouching her way up to the podium.

Mallow changed into her grey service dress. She slipped into her apron and tightened the knot of fair hair at the back of her head. She wouldn’t be missed. She had no podium, no speech to give. Not anymore—she’d given it to the birds. Perhaps they’d carry that on their wings—take her curse up to heaven with Darcy’s soul.

Joseph might notice them missing. Both gone. And he might know, then, that the thing was done.

She pulled white gloves over the ragged scrapes of her palms—rope burns and rock gouges. They’d burn in the dishwater. But no one cares what’s under a housemaid’s gloves.

***

Chapel ended in a parade of chesty coughs. A river of pale young women with their hair tied back in austere ribbons, all hacking a deep baritone through their consumption-rattled frames. Sucking desperately at the mountain air that was meant to do them so much good, to prolong their fragile lives. They came to die as slowly as possible, and to live out their last days in rote luxury.

Mallow kept her eyes down, sliding over the textured shine of their satin slippers. Mustn’t shock the sick young ladies by—what? Reminding them that I exist? That it isn’t a ghost that scrubs the bloody phlegm from their pillowcases?

Joseph’s gleaming leather shoes followed the procession of dainty slippers, and Mallow let her eyes dart up his figure to his thin face. His green eyes held forward, focused on the tied curls of the girls in front of him. Look at me, she willed, but he didn’t. Later, then. He would look later—in his office, maybe, or in the library as she scraped the ash from the hearth.

By the time Mallow had swept the crumbs of tea cakes out from under plush chairs, the school hummed with the search for Darcy. Mallow gripped the broom handle till her white gloves were dotted red from her torn hands. They’ll come clean in the dishwater.