Read Chapter 3: Lessons from the Past

The morning light came thin and grey through the nursery windows, the storm having spent itself in the night. Evelyn stood before the small chalkboard, the twins seated before her with their backs straight and their hands folded—postures Mrs. Coyle had clearly drilled into them. Clara watched her with wide, expectant eyes, while Thomas studied the dust motes floating in the pale sunbeam as though they held the secrets of the universe.

"The River Thames," Evelyn said, tapping the board where she had written the words in careful script, "rises in the Cotswold Hills and flows through London before meeting the sea. Can either of you tell me why rivers matter to a nation like ours?"

"Because they carry ships," Thomas said quickly, with the air of a boy who had memorised the answer without understanding it.

"And because they bring water to the fields," Clara added, quieter, her voice carrying the hesitancy of a child who feared being wrong.

"Both excellent answers." Evelyn smiled, and something in Clara's face softened—a crack in the careful armour the girl wore. "But rivers also carry people. Ideas. Letters. They connect us to places we've never seen, and they bring us news of the world beyond our own windows."

Thomas snorted. "Nothing comes to Blackwood. Father says we're at the edge of the map, and that's exactly how he likes it."

"Your guardian," Evelyn corrected gently, though the boy's words planted a seed of curiosity she tucked away for later. In her experience, children who repeated their parents'—or guardians'—phrases were often parroting fears they didn't fully understand.

She moved through the morning's lessons with a practised rhythm, noting the twins' strengths and weaknesses as she went. Thomas grasped sums easily but grew restless with literature. Clara excelled at reading and composition but froze when asked to calculate, her eyes growing distant and fearful. Evelyn made small marks in her own notebook, already planning tailored exercises for each child.

When the clock on the mantel chimed eleven, Evelyn set down her chalk. "You've both done well. Shall we have a bit of poetry before luncheon?"

Clara brightened. "Oh yes, please. Miss Reeves used to read us poetry in the afternoons—"

"Clara." Thomas's voice came sharp, a warning that seemed far too old for his years. "We're not to speak of her."

Clara's face crumpled and she looked down at her hands, suddenly mute. Evelyn felt the weight of the silence press against her. This was the second reference to Miss Reeves she had heard since arriving, and the second time it had been shut down with fear.

"Your brother's right that we should focus on our present lessons," Evelyn said carefully, keeping her voice light. "But there's no harm in remembering a teacher fondly. What sort of poetry did she read you?"

Clara's head lifted slightly, and she risked a glance at Thomas before whispering, "Wordsworth. She said the daffodils were her favourite because they reminded her of a girl she once knew who loved yellow things."

A girl she once knew. Evelyn filed the detail away, trying to keep her face neutral even as her pulse quickened. "Lovely. Shall we read some Wordsworth together this afternoon?"

Thomas shifted in his seat, looking torn between suspicion and the undeniable appeal of escaping arithmetic. Finally, he nodded. "Wordsworth is all right."

Evelyn dismissed them for a brief recess in the schoolroom, where toys and books were kept in neat bins that spoke of an organised but little-used space. As the twins settled into a corner with a set of wooden soldiers, Evelyn returned to the teacher's desk at the front of the room—a heavy walnut piece with a worn leather surface and drawers that had clearly seen better days.

She had found the ledger tucked inside one of those drawers the night before, wedged between old copybooks. Miss Reeves, whoever she was, had left it behind with evident haste. Evelyn had read only fragments before sleep had claimed her—enough to know that Annabel's name appeared more than once, and that something in the east wing demanded silence.

Now, in the daylight, she pulled the ledger out once more, keeping it low beneath the desk so the twins would not see. The handwriting was small and precise, the hand of a woman who had been schooled to conserve paper. Evelyn flipped through the pages, scanning entries about lessons and schedules, the ordinary minutiae of a governess's life.

And then she found it.

A pressed flower, faded to a dusty purple, tucked between two pages. The stem was fragile, the petals barely clinging to their shape. It had been flattened with care, preserved like a relic. Evelyn carefully lifted the page beneath it and read the note written in the margin:

*27 April. Annabel's garden blooms early this year. The violets are her colour. She pressed one into my hand and said it would keep secrets if I whispered them close. I wish I had understood then what she meant.*

Evelyn's breath caught. Annabel again. Named and real, not a ghost from a ledger's margins but a child who pressed flowers and whispered secrets.

"Miss Hartley?" Clara's voice came from across the room, small and anxious. "Why are you reading Miss Reeves's book?"

Evelyn looked up. The twins had abandoned their soldiers and stood before the desk, Clara's face pale with worry, Thomas's narrow with suspicion.

"It's not hers anymore," Thomas said. "She's gone. Father said we weren't to keep any of her things, but Mrs. Coyle said it was only lesson notes, so we kept it. But you're not supposed to read it."

"I wasn't reading it," Evelyn said, gentleness in her tone even as her mind raced. "I was looking for her lesson plans, to make sure I don't repeat anything she already taught you. It's common practice for a new teacher to review the last one's work."

Clara's eyes flicked to the pressed flower, now visible on the open page. Her face drained of colour, and she took a step back as though the flower itself had bitten her.

"That's from Annabel's garden," she whispered.

Thomas grabbed his sister's arm. "Clara, stop—"

"Who is Annabel?" Evelyn asked, keeping her voice even, though her heart hammered against her ribs. She had come to Blackwood with a purpose, a name given to her in the strictest confidence, a promise to discover what had become of the girl. She had hoped for clues, for oblique hints, not for a child to confirm that Annabel was more than a ghost.

But Clara shook her head, trembling now. "I can't tell you. She said—the lady in the attic said we were never to speak her name aloud. She gets angry."

"The lady in the attic told you not to speak Annabel's name?"

Thomas stepped in front of his sister, his small frame suddenly seeming to brace for battle. "We don't know any Annabel. Clara's confused. She's only a girl."

Clara began to cry, silent tears streaming down her cheeks as she pressed her hands against her mouth. Thomas wrapped an arm around her, guiding her away from the desk, his glare directed at Evelyn with a fury that seemed far too large for such a small boy.

"You should burn that book," he said, his voice shaking. "That's what Father should have done. Then maybe she'd leave us alone."

"Who would leave you alone?" Evelyn asked, rising from her chair.

But the door behind her opened, and Mrs. Coyle stood framed in the doorway, her face pinched with an expression Evelyn couldn't parse—fear, or warning, or both.

"Lessons are meant to be taught, Miss Hartley, not questioned." The housekeeper's eyes moved to the ledger in Evelyn's hand, and her mouth tightened. "The children will take their luncheon now. And you—" she paused, as though weighing each word—"would do well to mind which gardens you stroll through, even in your own imagination."

She held out her hand for the ledger.

Evelyn hesitated, the weight of Miss Reeves's notes pressing against her palm. Every instinct screamed that handing it over meant losing the only thread she had. But Mrs. Coyle's expression brooked no argument, and the children were still watching with those terrible, knowing eyes.

She passed the ledger to the housekeeper, who tucked it beneath her arm without a word of thanks.

"Come along, children," Mrs. Coyle said, her voice flat. "Leave Miss Hartley to her thoughts. I'm sure she has much to reflect on."

As the three of them filed out, Clara glanced back over her shoulder, and Evelyn caught the girl's lips moving silently.

*Be careful.*

The door clicked shut, and Evelyn was alone with the echo of a warning—and the memory of a pressed violet, faded but unmistakable, shaped like a secret that refused to stay buried.