The Diviners (The Diviners 1)

Evie stumbled across the basement searching for a way out and practically cried with joy when she found the staircase at last. She bolted quickly up the rickety basement stairs and banged on the door until Mabel came to let her out. Arm in arm, they barreled through the front door and into the reassuring sunshine, not bothering with the latch, and not stopping until they reached the subway platform and could see the train rattling down the tracks of the city’s long metal spine.

Evie knew Will would have a fit when she told him of the day’s exploits at Knowles’ End, but she hoped he’d be swayed when she showed him Ida’s diary, which she had managed to wrest away from Mabel with the promise that they would read it together after she’d shared it with Uncle Will. Now she settled herself at a table on the second floor of the museum library, beside a green banker’s lamp, and read the few entries at the end.

September 7, 1874. Tonight was an evening of wonders! In the darkened parlor, my dear Mary communed with the spirits of my departed mother and father. We joined hands, and Mary and Mr. Hobbes spoke in strange tongues. There came a rapping sound and the candle flame flickered above its wax shroud and went out. We were pitched into darkness.

“Do not be afraid, dear pet,” Mary said in a trance, and I knew at once it was my dear papa speaking to me through her. Oh, to hear his words to me from such a mysterious distance, the veil lifted for the most precious of moments, was a balm beyond any I have known!

“How do my lilacs fare?” Mother asked, as she had in life. Her darling lilacs! I could scarcely speak for the longing in my breast.

“Beautiful as ever,” I replied, and though it was unseemly, I could not stop the flow of my tears.

Too brief was their sojourn on this plane, and I hope to try again as soon as possible.

October 3. Mr. Hobbes is a most peculiar man. He wears the oddest pendant, a round medallion upon which are imprinted a constellation of curious symbols. Mary says that it is a holy relic of a secret order. Sometimes I see him sitting in the cool of the library, studying an ancient text, which he claims the Good Lord directed him to find hidden in the knothole of a twinned oak. The book is a mystical text filled with keys to the next world, which cannot be shared with the uninitiated, he said with apology, and locked the book in the curio cabinet and pocketed the key. I found it rather brash that he would appropriate my curio cabinet so. But Mary tells me that Mr. Hobbes is a spiritual man unbothered by earthly concerns and proprieties, though he is kind enough to oversee, at his own expense, repairs to the house, which is a great comfort to me as I wish Knowles’ End to be returned to its former glory.

October 28. Such a clamor! Mr. Hobbes’s hammers disturb us night and day. I have moved to the old attic room to avoid the dust and unholy noise.

November 22. Mr. Hobbes would not allow me into my own cellar. When I took umbrage at this, he told me as kindly as possible that there had been a terrible misfortune in the cellar and the old furnace must be replaced, along with most everything else. He smiled as he said this, and I noted that his smile is never quite mirrored in his eyes, which are the coldest shade of blue.

January 15. I am not well and am confined to bed. Mary says I am overwrought by grief at speaking with my dear mother and father so often and by the assessor’s continued letters for payment of taxes. I haven’t the money. “Sell Knowles’ End to me, my dear, and I shall pay the taxes and you will live on as before, with none the wiser that you are not the sole owner of the house. Your good standing need never be in question,” Mary said to me. I cannot bear the anguish of selling Knowles’ End, but how much worse to lose it to the auction block. I shall think on it. Mary offered me sweet wine and insisted I drink it all to soothe my nerves.

January 20. My sleep is disturbed by the most terrible dreams.

April 21. I found him in the dark of the parlor, naked. “Look on me and be amazed,” he growled. And his eyes burned in the dark like twin fires. I remember nothing after but that I woke in my bed well after noon with a headache and Mary insisting that I did not need a physician, only to rest and let her care for me.

May. I know not what day it is, for the days run together as currents in a stream. They hold odd séances below. I can hear them, but I am too weak to go downstairs, and too afraid.

August. It is terribly hot. A foul stench permeates the house, turning my stomach. The boarder has gone, I know not where.

September 1. The beast skulks the halls of the house, frightening all within. The servants, the few remaining, fear him. He tells the most fantastical tales. Once, he claimed to be the last surviving member of a lost, chosen tribe, when I know he was poor as a church mouse, common as dirt, raised in an orphanage in Brooklyn. Every time it is a new tale, until it is impossible to know what is truth and what folly.

September 20. I will have no more of that woman’s sweet wine.

September 28. The lack of wine has made me terribly ill. For a week, I have lain upon the bed, writhing and vomiting, attended by our last remaining servant, Emily, the dear girl. She has confessed that she is as frightened as I. It seems she chanced upon a locked room left unlocked and nearly plummeted to her death through a trapdoor and a chute that she surmises can only lead to the cellar.

October 3. I was awakened in the night by screams, but I could not tell where dreams left off and waking began.

October 8. Emily has not come for six days.

October 10. With effort, I roused myself from bed and went downstairs. The shutters were sealed and the house had the feel of a tomb. “Where is Emily?” I inquired of Mr. Hobbes, cool as you please though beneath my dressing gown my knees shook. “She has gone rather suddenly to be with her sister, who was in childbirth,” the beast answered. “Strange that she did not mention it to me or collect her wages,” I said. “She did not wish to trouble you with such petty concerns,” he answered. “Then why has she gone without her purse?” I asked, for I had gone to her room first and found it there, untouched. Mrs. White materialized then at his side, drawn by the tone of my voice, no doubt. “We shall see that it is returned to her, the poor dear. So worried was she about her sister.”

What woman leaves behind her purse?

October 13. Once again, I was stopped from entering the cellar by Mr. Hobbes. “It isn’t safe,” he said, and something in his tone, the cold blue of his gaze, had me scurrying back to my room.

October 15. I hear whispers in the very walls. Oh, some terrible calamity is surely at hand!

October 17. Mrs. White has gone to the country to perform her services as medium. The charlatan! I am alone in the house with him.

October 19. Today, when I saw Mr. Hobbes’s carriage pulling from the garage and into the street, I hurried downstairs and, with a hairpin, worked at the lock of the curio cabinet until I heard it give. Then I read his terrible book. Profane! Obscene! Filled with degradation and filth! It was all I could do not to pitch it into the stove. Oh, I am in danger! I have written to my dear cousin once more and told him as much. Why oh why did I consent to selling the house to that terrible woman? Trickery and deceit! Lies and more lies! I shall take it back. I am Ida Knowles, and this is my house, built by my father. But first, I mean to discover what is happening in the cellar. I must see it for myself.

er 28. Such a clamor! Mr. Hobbes’s hammers disturb us night and day. I have moved to the old attic room to avoid the dust and unholy noise.

November 22. Mr. Hobbes would not allow me into my own cellar. When I took umbrage at this, he told me as kindly as possible that there had been a terrible misfortune in the cellar and the old furnace must be replaced, along with most everything else. He smiled as he said this, and I noted that his smile is never quite mirrored in his eyes, which are the coldest shade of blue.

January 15. I am not well and am confined to bed. Mary says I am overwrought by grief at speaking with my dear mother and father so often and by the assessor’s continued letters for payment of taxes. I haven’t the money. “Sell Knowles’ End to me, my dear, and I shall pay the taxes and you will live on as before, with none the wiser that you are not the sole owner of the house. Your good standing need never be in question,” Mary said to me. I cannot bear the anguish of selling Knowles’ End, but how much worse to lose it to the auction block. I shall think on it. Mary offered me sweet wine and insisted I drink it all to soothe my nerves.

January 20. My sleep is disturbed by the most terrible dreams.