for her, I would be dead now. Of that I am certain.”
All of us fell silent at this confession, Matilda’s face had gone ashen, for she and Bram were extremely close and shared all. To learn of something this grave, in this way; to realize he had not been willing to confide in her until now—she stood from the table and turned her back to us, her eyes fixed on the door.
Vambéry reached for Bram’s hand. “May I?”
Bram nodded and turned his wrist over, pulling his shirtsleeve back to reveal the punctures.
Vambéry took hold of a lamp and brought the light close. “How often would you say she comes to you?”
Bram shrugged. “It is difficult to say. She only comes at night when I sleep. I am often unsure whether her visits are real or the stuff of dreams. For many years, I thought them all to be dreams. But as I got older, as I realized this wound never quite healed, I came to the truth, the reality of her visits and their role in maintaining my health.”
“And did you speak to her?” Matilda asked. “Have you been speaking to her for all these years and not telling me? How much more have you hidden from me?”
Bram shook his head. “There have never been words adequate enough. I have only faint memories of her visits. They’re dream-like. I would wake and wonder if it had happened at all. I wanted so to tell you, you must believe that.”
“How often, if you had to guess? Once a week? Once a month?” Vambéry pressed.
“Probably five to six times in a given year.”
“And yet you said nothing,” Matilda whispered. “When I told you she came to me, you stared at me as if I were a crazy person. The other night, when Thornley confessed to seeing her, you again said nothing. Why didn’t you trust us?”
“I am truly sorry. I suppose I convinced myself that it wasn’t real. I couldn’t tell you for fear of admitting the truth to myself.”
Vambéry said, “We all confessed secrets tonight, secrets that now bind us together and make us one, secrets we will all take to our graves. I am honored to know the three of you, to trust you, and to welcome you into my life.” He gestured to Matilda. “Please return to the table, join us. I suspect we have much more to discuss.”
Matilda did so with reluctance, and she seemed to find it hard to look at Bram and he to look at her. One of the servants returned and refilled our teacups. I believe we all welcomed the interruption; the silence gave us pause to organize our thoughts.
When the servant left the room, Vambéry turned back to me. “How can I help you, my old friend?”
For the next hour, we told him all we knew. I began with my sightings of Nanna Ellen, as experienced throughout my life. Then Bram and Matilda told him all they recalled from their childhood, and the horrors discovered in the tower of Artane Castle; they also told him about the maps found in her room they transcribed. We then told him of O’Cuiv, my missing coachman, and the items Bram and Matilda recovered from the grave. I concluded with the events at the hospital, the strange man I met in the street, and the black dog that followed me home. Vambéry took all of this in while asking the occasional question. I had never once witnessed him writing anything down, and he did not take notes now, either; instead, he memorized everything. I saw his mind churning, organizing the facts and conjectures into a coherent narrative.
When we finally finished, Vambéry sat back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “This girl, O’Cuiv’s daughter, you think she is somehow responsible for your coachman’s disappearance?”
“We saw no one else that night, only her,” Matilda said.
“You believe her to be one of them, though? Like your Ellen? Like O’Cuiv? But a child?”
“Her movements were not natural,” Matilda explained. “I felt I was in the presence of a predator. Had Bram not returned when he did, I think she may