Julia Vanishes by Catherine Egan Page B

the king’s brother’s newborn baby smuggled out of the country to return one day and claim the throne. But most people in Mount Heriot aren’t holding their breath for a Lorian prince to come marching back to Frayne and take revenge. They are just getting by, like the rest of us. More than hoping for things to get better, they are praying things don’t get worse.
    It is easy enough to find the Ry Royal Pub. There is a large poster of the now infamous Marianne Deneuve on the wall outside, offering a substantial reward for her capture. I stop and look at her for a moment—this imperious, fair-haired beauty. I wonder if it’s true about the monkey tails, and what kind of creature would think up such a thing. Then I shrug it off and go inside. There is a thin girl with straw-colored hair and a sharp chin behind the counter. I recognize her from Wyn’s sketch, so I go and order a coffee and pastry and wait for things to die down a bit. It’s mostly young men on their lunch break at this hour, and I am drawing a lot of stares but I ignore them, and nobody bothers me, which says something about Lorian manners.
    “Busy day?” I ask the girl when things are quieter and she is wiping down the counter.
    “Much as usual,” she says. She is a raggedy-looking thing, with sunken cheeks and the glassy-eyed expression people get when they are bored too often. The kind of girl who reminds me why I do what I do for a living and why I’ll never take an honest job.
    “How long have you worked here?”
    “About a month.”
    “You’re Clarisa, aren’t you?” I say. “You used to work for Mrs. Och in the Scola?”
    She looks merely surprised when I say her name, but when I mention Mrs. Och, she becomes more guarded.
    “Yes,” she says.
    “I’m Ella,” I say. “I’m working there now.”
    “Ah.” She keeps wiping the same spot on the counter methodically. “Going well?”
    “I suppose, well enough,” I say. “I came to talk to you. Perhaps you can guess what it’s about.”
    She gives me a blank stare. This is a bit risky, but I don’t think she has any contact left with anyone in the house, and I doubt there’s a great sense of loyalty there—at least I hope not. So I say, “This is a secret, but my brother’s a policeman. He got me the job there. He said I just had to work there a few months, have a look at the place. Something’s up, he says, with the houseguest.”
    Clarisa blanches. She stares down at the counter, wipe, wipe, wipe.
    “Mr. Darius,” I press. “There’s something horribly wrong with him. And I heard that you know something about it.”
    “So why don’t the police come talk to me about it?” she says.
    Fair point.
    “I haven’t mentioned you to them,” I say. “No need to get you involved; I just want to know if my hunch about him is right. Can’t you tell me what you saw, the night before you left?”
    She frowns hard at the counter, her knuckles white around the rag.
    “Something horrible,” she says. “I don’t like to think about it. I still have bad dreams.”
    “You poor thing,” I say. Nameless One, give me patience. “If you can tell me, it would help so much, and then we’ll be done with it.”
    “I heard a sound,” she whispers, leaning over the counter toward me, though the pub is nearly empty now, and there is nobody close enough to overhear. “Florence and Chloe were frightened. I thought it sounded like an animal or some such thing, and I am good with animals, so I told them I would go to see. I thought perhaps a fox had got into the house. I don’t know why I thought that. It didn’t sound like a fox. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before, but somehow I decided it must be a fox.”
    “Had you not heard any odd sounds at night before?” I ask.
    “Mr. Darius hadn’t been there long,” she says. “Barely a week. I’d heard some strange sounds and told Mrs. Och. She said it was a broken door in the cellar and the wind. But I know