The Diviners

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.