The following letter was discovered among the personal effects of Lizette Bouchard, chambermaid at Hearthorne Manor, following her disappearance in November 1870. It was never sent, and appears to have been hidden beneath the floorboards in the servants' quarters. The paper is of poor quality, the sort available in the village, and shows evidence of having been folded and unfolded many times, as though the writer could not decide whether to post it.

October 16th, 1870
Hearthorne Manor
Near Kettering, Lincolnshire

My Dearest Marie,

I know I should not write to you. I know you worry, and worry is bad for the baby. But I must tell someone and there is no one else. Not Father Donnelly who will say only to pray and trust in God's plan. Not Mrs. Crawford, the cook who has been here twenty years and sees everything but speaks of nothing.

So, I write even if I do not send this. If something happens to me, someone should know I was afraid.

The new nurse came four days ago. Miss Beatrix Chalmers, age twenty-four, from London. She has excellent references and seems very capable. Tall and handsome rather than pretty. Dark hair pulled back severely. Eyes that miss nothing. She reminds me of the governesses we had in Paris before Papa lost the money. Very intelligent, very sure of herself and how the world works.

I should warn her. But what would I say? That the last three nurses left suddenly? That they became ill with strange symptoms, I do not understand. That Jarvis took them away in the night, and we never saw them again?

She would think me mad. Or worse—she would tell Lady Soames, and then I would be sent away with no references, and where would I go?

You asked in your last letter why I do not simply leave and come to you in Kent. You said I could help with your boys until I find other work. You do not understand, Marie. It is not so simple.

The wages here are the best I have ever earned. Four pounds more per year than any London house would pay. Lady Soames pays promptly, in coin, and provides good food and lodging. Where else could I save money to send home to Maman? What other house would hire a French girl with an accent?

But there are other reasons I stay. Reasons that frighten me even to write.

There have been three nurses before Miss Chalmers. Three in eight months since the Professor took ill.

The first was Miss Anne Fortescue. A widow, forty-five years old. She had nursed soldiers for the Army Medical Department. Very strong, very practical. She talked always of her Christian duty and God's work.

She lasted one month.

In her final weeks, she seemed unwell. Not ill precisely, but changed. Her skin took on a strange quality, waxy and damp. She complained constantly of the cold, though I found her room warm enough. I brought extra blankets, but they did not seem to help.

I found strange things in her laundry, Marie. Her nightgowns soaked through, smelling of salt. Not sweat. Salt. Like seawater. But we are eight miles from the coast. And there were other things. Seaweed sometimes tangled in her bed linens. Sand that was too dark, too coarse to be from any beach I know.

She spoke to me once in the corridor, grabbed my arm with cold, damp hands. She told me she was having terrible dreams. That voices called to her. That her skin itched along her ribs, and she could feel something moving beneath the surface.

I thought she had taken a fever. Brain fever, perhaps, from overwork.

Then one night in late November, she was gone. Jarvis said she had been called away suddenly—a family emergency, he claimed. But her trunk was still in her room. Her good shoes were still by the door. And I found her nightdress on the service stairs, soaked through and smelling of brine.

I told Mrs. Crawford. She said nothing, only looked at me with eyes full of pity and something else. Fear, perhaps. Or resignation. She warned me it was best not to ask questions about the nurses. Best to do my work and keep my head down, and thank the Lord I was not a nurse myself.

I did not understand her then. I am beginning to now.

The second nurse was Miss Caroline Webb. Only twenty-eight, from Yorkshire. Too pretty, I thought when I first saw her. Lady Soames does not like pretty women in the house. But Miss Webb had very fine references from a baronet's family, so she was hired.

She lasted three weeks.

I found her one morning when I brought her washing water. She did not answer my knock. I used my key—we are meant to check on the nurses if they do not appear for breakfast—and let myself in.

She was sitting at her dressing table, Marie. Naked from the waist up. Staring at herself in the mirror.

There were marks on her ribs. Twelve of them, six on each side, red and raised. At first I thought they were cuts, but they were not bleeding. The flesh around them was inflamed, and when I looked closer—God forgive me for looking—I could see something beneath the skin. Ridges. Structures that should not be there.

She was smiling, touching the marks with her fingertips as though they were precious. She told me they were beautiful and would let her breathe. Would let her go home. When I asked if I should fetch Dr. Rimbaud, she only laughed and said no doctor could help her now. That only Lady Soames understood what she was becoming.

I ran to get Mrs. Crawford, but when we returned, Miss Webb was gone. Her clothes were folded neatly on the bed. Her shoes were arranged just so by the door. There was water on the floor, trailing from her room to the corridor, down the stairs.

Jarvis found us there. He was not surprised. He simply looked at the empty room and nodded, then informed us she had been taken to receive proper care. His voice was flat. Final. He warned us we were not to speak of what we saw to the new nurse when she arrived. We were not to frighten her with wild stories. We understood what he meant.

But I saw Ben the next morning, standing by the fen edge, and his face was gray. He would not meet my eyes.

The third nurse was Miss Helena Price.

I will not write much of her, Marie, because it hurts too much to remember. She was kind to me. She taught me to read better. She said I was clever enough to be more than a chambermaid. She treated me like a younger sister.

She lasted five weeks.

Near the end, she changed. Her skin took on that same strange quality—damp, cold, not quite right. She stopped eating. Only drank water, glass after glass. Her hands were always cold, like touching a corpse.

Two days before she disappeared, she pulled me aside in the corridor, gripping my hands tightly. She told me that if something happened to her—if she left suddenly, or if they said she had been taken away for her health, I should not believe them. She said she did not want this, did not choose this, but felt herself wanting it more each day and did not know how to stop.

She frightened me. I asked what she meant, but she only shook her head and told me to watch what happens to Miss Chalmers. To watch and remember. Someone must remember who we were before—though before what she did not say.

That night, she was gone. I saw from my window—a figure in white, walking barefoot across the frozen ground toward the fens. Walking steadily, purposefully, as though called.

In the morning, Jarvis told us Miss Price had been taken to a private sanatorium. Her family had been notified. We were not to discuss her condition with anyone.

But her family never came for her belongings. Her trunk is still in the storage room. And Ben placed a stone by the fen edge, though when I asked him about it, he would not answer.

Now there is Miss Chalmers.

She has been here for four days. Already, I see small signs. She complains of the cold, though her room is warm. Her sheets smell of salt when I change them, though I cannot explain how. This morning, I found sand in her washbasin—dark, coarse sand that I swept away quickly before anyone could ask questions.

Lady Soames watches her constantly. I see her in the corridors, her dark eyes following Miss Chalmers with an expression I cannot quite read. Satisfaction, perhaps. Or anticipation.

The Professor tries to warn her. I hear him when I bring his meals, making those wet, choking sounds, trying to form words. Lady Soames is always there, always watching, ready to silence him if he manages actual speech. But sometimes a few words escape. I have heard him say marked and danger, and once, clearly, run.

Miss Chalmers does not run. She is a nurse. She thinks she is here to heal.

I do not know what happens to the nurses, Marie. Not truly. But I know they arrive healthy and capable, and within week,s they become strange. They develop marks I cannot explain. They smell of salt wate,r though we are miles from the sea. They speak of dreams and callings and home, though this place is not their home.

And then Jarvis takes them away, and we never see them again.

Mrs. Crawford told me once, when she had been drinking, that the house takes what it needs. That the Soames family has always provided it. She said we who serve here are safe enough, as long as we keep our heads down and our mouths shut.

I asked her what the house needs, but she would not answer. Only crossed herself and told me to pray for the nurses' souls.

Ben knows something. He has been here forty years—since he was young. He has seen this pattern repeat again and again. Sometimes I catch him watching the new nurses with such sadness in his eyes. Such terrible, helpless sadness.

Once I asked him why he does not warn them. He said what could he tell them—that they will fall ill with symptoms no doctor can name? That they will be taken away in the night. That there are twenty-nine carved stones by the fen edge? He said they would not believe him, and even if they did, Lady Soames would simply send him away and hire someone who knows better than to speak.

I do not understand what happens here. Not fully. But I am afraid.

I am afraid of Lady Soames and the way she moves through the house at night, her footsteps soft as water.

I am afraid of the smell that clings to everything—brine and something else, something organic and sweet that makes my stomach turn.

I am afraid of the sounds I hear from the Professor's room late at night—wet sounds, like someone speaking underwater.

I am afraid of the way Miss Chalmers' door unlocks itself each night, though I lock it myself before retiring.

Most of all, I am afraid I will wake one morning and find that I too smell of salt. That I too have marks I cannot explain. That I too will walk barefoot toward the fens with that look of terrible joy on my face.

Ben says the servants are safe. He says Lady Soames only needs the nurses. He says if I keep my head down and do my work, I will be overlooked.

But Miss Price was right about one thing: I am afraid I will forget who I am. Forget who any of us were, before this house claimed us.

If something happens to me, Marie—if you hear I have left suddenly, or fallen ill, or had an accident—know that I did not go willingly. Know that I fought, even if my body betrayed me.

Remember me as I am now, your loving sister who is afraid but still herself.

Lizette

Written in the margin, in the same hand but shakier, as though added weeks later:

November 12th

The dreams have started. I wake with my nightgown damp. My sheets smell of salt. There is sand beneath my fingernails that I do not remember touching.

Last night I dreamed of water. Deep, cold water. It felt like coming home.

I am afraid I am becoming like the others.

I am afraid it is already too late.

[Final addition, barely legible:]

December 19th

She comes to my room now. I pretend to sleep. She whispers. I cannot understand the words but my body understands. When I wake, I am wet and aching and I do not know if I want to run or walk toward the fens with the others.

Two days until the solstice.

I will try to leave before then.

I will try.