Chapter 6 - The West Wing.
Clara did not show the note to Silas.
She showed it to Elias before the ink had fully dried.
He read the sentence twice, then looked toward the locked corridor as if he could see through two floors and a stone wall.
"If Jonah is alive, someone is keeping him close."
Clara nodded.
"And someone believes Silas wants the west wing opened."
Elias folded the note.
"He has asked for the key three times since my father died."
"There is a key?"
"There was."
Ruth, standing near the fireplace, answered before Elias could.
"Mrs. Mercer kept it on a blue ribbon."
Clara turned to her.
"What happened to it?"
"It disappeared the morning she died."
Elias looked at Ruth sharply.
"You never told me that."
"You were nineteen and grieving."
"That is not an answer."
Ruth's mouth tightened.
"Your father told me the wing was to remain closed forever."
Clara held up the note.
"Forever appears to have ended."
They waited until night.
Silas dined alone in the library.
Doctor Pike had gone to town, claiming he needed additional supplies.
Ruth sent the remaining servants to the kitchen with instructions to prepare preserves for the next day's market.
At eleven, Clara and Ruth met beneath the west staircase with a lantern.
Elias insisted on coming.
Clara refused.
He insisted again.
She pointed to his crutches.
"You have stood twice since the operation."
"Three times."
"The third time you fell into a chair."
"The chair was badly placed."
Ruth almost smiled.
Clara did not.
"If someone is holding Jonah in there, I will not carry you out while fighting him."
Elias's expression hardened.
"I am tired of surviving in a bed while everyone else decides what happens in my house."
The words stopped her.
His frustration was not vanity.
It was the terror of a man whose body, property, reputation, and future were being negotiated by others.
Clara softened her voice.
"Then help us from here."
He looked away.
"How?"
"If we are not back in twenty minutes, ring for the sheriff's deputy sleeping in the guest room."
Elias hated the compromise.
He accepted it.
Ruth led Clara to the bricked servants' entrance outside.
The note had pointed there for a reason.
Near the bottom, one brick shifted under pressure.
Behind it was a narrow iron lever.
Ruth pulled.
A section of the wall moved inward with a low scrape.
Clara stared.
"You knew about this?"
"No."
Ruth looked offended by the accusation.
"If I had known, I would have used it to avoid polishing the front staircase for thirty years."
They entered.
The passage smelled of damp stone and old dust.
Their lantern revealed a corridor barely wide enough for two people.
At the far end, wooden steps rose into darkness.
They climbed into the west wing.
The rooms had been preserved under sheets and silence.
A cracked mirror reflected their lantern flame.
A child's rocking horse stood in one corner.
On the wall hung a family portrait Clara had never seen.
Gideon Mercer stood beside Marian.
A teenage Elias stood to one side.
And behind him was an older boy with the same dark eyes.
Miles.
Clara lifted the lantern.
The boy in the painting wore the Mercer signet ring on his right hand.
Ruth whispered.
"He looked more like his mother."
Clara studied the painted face.
Something about the shape of the mouth felt familiar.
Before she could place it, a muffled thud sounded below them.
They followed it to a narrow stair leading under the wing.
The basement door was locked from the outside.
Clara found a heavy fireplace poker and forced the old latch.
The door opened.
A man lay against the far wall with his wrists tied.
"Jonah."
Clara ran to him.
The stableman opened swollen eyes.
"Quiet."
His voice was barely a rasp.
Ruth cut the rope with a small kitchen knife.
"Who did this?"
Jonah shook his head.
"Not here."
Clara helped him sit upright.
"Can you walk?"
"If I must."
A door slammed somewhere above them.
Footsteps crossed the west hall.
Ruth extinguished the lantern.
The three of them froze in darkness.
A man's voice called from upstairs.
"I know you are in here."
Silas.
Clara felt Jonah grip her sleeve.
"Do not answer him."
Silas's steps moved closer.
"Clara Vale."
His voice was calm.
"You have no idea what you have opened."
Jonah leaned toward her ear.
"He is not the man who locked me here."
Clara stared into the darkness.
"Who was?"
Jonah whispered one name.
May you like
"Pike."
Then a key turned in the basement door from the outside.
