The Ghost of Winn Peterson

31. Winn

6 December

Breakfast was an obnoxious affair. I wished to communicate my ideas for coding my speech with Atticus, but the doctor returned from a lengthy absence (aside from his mysterious depository of the desk in my room, unseen in either the night or an early breakfast) and was proving exceedingly bothersome. Every second I turned around, he was staring at either me or busying Atticus with some task in the kitchens or outside. How certain I was that he had been using the servants around the house to spy on me! They were like ghosts themselves, always disappearing at the corners of my vision, but never out of sight. I couldn't be sure what they would have reported, unless they lurked outside of my doors when I spoke with Atticus or Evie. I was glad I whispered my plans when not in my room, but still, the doctor had found out somehow.

I was only able to spare one look at the harried cook's son before he was enveloped in a cloud of steam from the kitchen's heat and the frost of the outdoors. Whatever the doctor wanted to eat, it apparently required the entire faculties of the kitchen and left no room for anyone else. Even the benefit of assistance from his father was impossible - the elder cook was indisposed with a nasty bought of coughing and chills, brought on from the devious winter.

As the morning whirled away, Evie and I clung to one another in front of the fireplace, staring wistfully into its cold, lifeless depths. The doctor was a sworn enemy of fire (even the heating of the kitchens was a carefully monitored affair that he never stood near) and had forbidden the use of the kindling of logs before us. Why there were logs in it at all, we couldn't say. Instead, we wrapped ourselves in spare blankets and sipped feverishly at the tea Atticus had been able to spare us. Each shiver brought on a tightening in my lungs and bade me wonder where the doctor had received his license from, if he seriously believed the best way for me to maintain my health was in a house colder than his heart. After some dull hours had passed, Evie, looking around to ensure we were out of earshot from anyone other than the stuffed creatures, grasped my hand in hers and pulled me closer.

"How are you going to leave in this weather? You'll die if you step one foot out there."

"It's not as bad as it was yesterday," I sniffled in response. My upper lip had gone numb from the moistness of my nose. No amount of wiping it with a cloth could cure the dripping, and I could feel my skin burn at the effect.

"No," said Evie sternly, "but you also didn't go waltzing around out there for hours on end."

"And what makes you think I'll be waltzing around all the way to Whitecombe?"

Evie made a sound at me and looked back at the kitchens for a moment. The clattering of dishes sounded out over the whistling of my nose. Judging by the thumps, I was sure Atticus was in as foul a mood as I felt. "Where are you going to find a carriage?"

Suddenly, the answer seemed to smack me in the head. I didn't want to admit to Evie that I hadn't thought about how I was going to get to the little church where she'd described meeting the doctor for the first time, but now I had an answer that would spare me the embarrassment of being so shortsighted. "Lord DeCourt, obviously. If I can trust anyone to be sympathetic to my cause, it would be him."

"Your cause?" Evie raised an eyebrow. Her features had grown more taut since the cold had settled into the Radcliffe house, pulling her eyebrows up in an almost permanent look of skepticism. She had grown up immeasurably - I was convinced she was lying about her interactions with the doctor. Surely, simply living with him hadn't forced her to be so shrewd, sad, and sceptical. Then again, who knew how drastically I would react if my life were torn apart so quickly? "Never mind that; how are you going to contact your darling Lord without alerting my husband?" How sorrowful did those words sound!