Grace’s mouth fell open, her rage evaporated. “What?”

“She stands about four feet eleven inches, which may be taller than when you saw her last. She likes to sing and seems to have a particular affinity for ‘Oh Promise Me’ at the moment. As for the new hat, it is indeed quite pretty. The men I’ve been paying to watch your house for months even said so.”

Grace gaped, her tongue searching for words. “Doctor, I . . .”

He carefully folded Alice’s letter, newly stained with Grace’s tears, and handed it back to her. “Alice is important to you, which makes her important to me. She will not suffer needlessly. We will think of something, Grace. I promise you.”

Grace took the proffered letter, her hand still shaking with emotion. “I’m sorry for what I said. I had no idea—”

Thornhollow shrugged. “Once I learned you had a younger sister I knew it was only a matter of time before his affections transferred to her. Your presence shielded her for some time, but with you no longer in the house she became vulnerable.”

Grace’s hands went to her head. “I should never have left. I should’ve taken what life had dealt me so that it would never land upon her.”

“Nonsense,” Thornhollow said. “Actions such as your father’s are driven by power, nothing else. He seeks to dominate everyone around him, and he’ll use any tool in his arsenal to do so. Even if you’d stayed, Alice would have fallen victim to his need for control eventually. You being there would only result in a shared misery.”

He handed her a handkerchief and she wiped her face. “These men you have watching? What can they do?”

“Little more than watch, I’m afraid,” Thornhollow admitted. “But I thought having eyes there would be beneficial. If nothing else, it can bring you some comfort to know that your sister is still happy enough to sing.”

Grace smiled through her tears. “It does. Thank you, Doctor.”

“Am I to understand that your mother cannot be looked to for help?”

The smile vanished. “No. Our mother is a jealous woman. Once we become women we are no longer her children but competitors for his attention.”

Thornhollow sighed. “All right. I will think on it. We have weeks before your father returns home. In the meantime, you’re in dire need of distraction and I have just the thing.”

“My mind is latched on to it rather firmly,” Grace said. “I’m afraid it won’t let go easily.”

“Perhaps. But I considered your thought that the doctor may have had an elder sibling who died, thrusting the responsibility for the family legacy upon him. And while I still don’t agree, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t look into it.”

“How would I do that?”

“Obituaries,” the doctor said, rapping his knuckles on the table. “Assuming that the possibly fictitious brother’s death occurred in the months or weeks leading up to his first kill, reading the obituaries from each paper in the city from that time period might turn up something.”

“And how many papers does the city have?” Grace asked, her heart sinking.

“Four. I took the liberty of visiting their offices this morning and found that their unsold copies are bought for a pittance by the fish and meat shops to wrap their wares in. I was able to find quite a few papers from the right time by wading around in their back rooms, which I can tell you was quite unpleasant. I brought the lot back here for you to go through, but they’ve rather taken on the smell of their last residence and I couldn’t bring them into the women’s wing without Janey tearing into me. You’ll have to work out in Ned’s stables.”

“Quite all right. I wouldn’t mind the walk, and if it affords me the chance to prove my point, all the better,” Grace said, wiping the last of her tears away and offering the kerchief back to Thornhollow.

“You keep that,” he said. “You’ll want to cover your nose.”

THIRTY-ONE

“He wasn’t lying about the smell, was he?” Elizabeth said as they pushed open the door to the stables.

A few explanatory lines on Grace’s slate had been enough to lure her friend out to Ned’s stable to help scan obituaries. Lazy motes of dust drifted through the air in the winter sunlight, the smell of hay not quite taking the sting out of the reeking newspapers.

“It’s like a wharf in here,” Lizzie said, balling her handkerchief more tightly to her nose as they ventured past the stalls. “Poor Ned.”

Grace craned her neck, looking for the stable’s human resident. The asylum horses nickered as they walked by, sticking their noses out for a scratch, which both girls happily gave.

“Ned,” Lizzie called out. “It’s Elizabeth and Grace. We’re here to look over those nasty newspapers Dr. Thornhollow dumped on you.”

A door at the end of the stall corridor opened, and Ned stuck his head out. “Hello there, girls. I’ve got mince pie on the mind today.”

“Mince pie is lovely,” Lizzie said, voice slightly muffled by her handkerchief. “Do you know where the doctor put the papers?”

“I’ve got an empty stall here to the left,” he said, herding them into it. “My Helen died not so long ago and we’ve not replaced her.” His wide eyes immediately filled with tears. “I kept her tail. The doctor said that was all of her I could have, but I’ve got that much, at least. I put a couple of chairs in there for you along with the stinkers.”

“Thank you, Ned,” Lizzie said as the girls settled in, wobbling piles of newspaper surrounding them. “We apologize for invading your space.”

He shook his head. “I don’t mind you girls so much. When I say the things that don’t make sense you answer me anyway. It’s like having green in your shirt.”

“Green is my favorite color,” Lizzie said.

“I’ll be across the way in my quarters,” Ned said. “I’ll leave the door open so that the stove can heat you a little. I’m whittling today. She’ll be my five hundred and sixty-seventh horse when I’m done.”

“Very nice, Ned,” Lizzie said. “And thanks again.”

The girls looked at the papers piled around them as the steady snick-snick of Ned’s whittling filled the air, along with his humming of “Yankee Doodle.”

“I guess we should start by weeding out the pages with the obituaries and tossing the rest,” Lizzie suggested.

Grace nodded and the two girls started sifting through the piles, delicately handling pages that were moist from the humidity of their former residence. Some pages disintegrated in their hands, some had wetly adhered to one another and ruined their print. An hour later their fingers were stained black. They draped wet pages on the stalls around them to dry as they pored over readable pages that had obituaries. Elizabeth fanned a page open and pulled a face.

“Every time I think I’m accustomed to the smell I get a fresh whiff that sets me back,” she said, rummaging in her pocket. “I brought the last of my mother’s perfume with me. A dab under the nostrils might do the trick.”

She tipped the little glass bottle onto her finger pad, then rubbed the dimple above her lips. “Here,” she said, offering it to Grace. “Take a drop.”

Grace waved her off, pointing to the bottle and then her friend’s heart. Lizzie pulled Grace’s hand toward her and put a drop of perfume on her finger. “There’s nothing wrong with giving something precious from my past to someone special in the present,” she said.

The delicate scent of rosewater wafted through the air, a fine, pleasant thread among the stable smells and heaviness of the molding, fishy newspapers. Grace dabbed above her lips and the rosewater filled her nostrils, reminding her of the basement in Boston, Falsteed, and Thornhollow cutting into her temples to deliver her from everything. A smile crossed her face as she rubbed her fingers together, strengthening the scent.