Just when I was about to doze off, I heard the man’s voice. “More wine!” he was screeching, somewhere in the front hall. “I say, you’ve all stopped giving me my wine! Well, I know where the old turkey keeps the key to the cellars, and I’ll get the wine myself, don’t you know.”

I shuddered, wondering how much wine it would take before he decided to go to sleep for the night.

But I was not in luck, for he did not appear to have attained the wine he was searching for. I recalled that the servants’ quarters were locked to him, and that they were probably told not to give in to any of his demands.

And then I heard his footsteps on the stair. They were slow, and when I looked out I could see that he was clutching the railing with one hand and a candle in the other.

I knew enough of elderly people to be sure that their ability to see in the dark was generally severely curtailed by old age. In fact, one of the reasons I had been able to get rid of the old man the night before was that he stood no hope of finding me in the darkness.

So I clutched a shawl about me, opened my door as quietly as I could, and set off down the hall.

There must have been too much moonlight, because the old man could tell that something was amiss.

“Oi!” he cried. “You there! What are you doing?”

For a moment, I froze, but I forced my feet to keep moving. When I was young, I used to get scared, but my older friend Victoria told me that I was lucky to be afraid.

“It’s how you know when something isn’t right,” she would tell me, after we had run off from a scary-looking tradesman or a neighbor with an odd ring in her voice. “If we weren’t afraid, we’d all be in danger all the time.”

So I tried to remember that I was fortunate. After all, I somehow knew that I should be wandering down a dark hall in the cold, clutching my shawl to me, not waiting in my bed for an attack. But it was hard to think of myself as a fortunate woman.

I had already passed all of the Barlow bedrooms when I reached the end of the hallway. Miss Courtenay’s bedroom was in a different wing of the house, ostensibly so that she could “enjoy the best light.” In actuality, I realized, Miss Courtenay must have been put in the North Wing because it was somehow possible to block the old man’s access, or perhaps because someone could be installed to guard the only staircase that went to those rooms.

Not so in the East Wing, but I was determined to find some escape. The old man was now out of sight, so I opened a door that was blessedly unlocked and found myself in the smallest bedroom that I had yet seen in the house.

It suited my purposes perfectly. There was only a cover on the bed, no blankets or pillows, but I found some linens in the chest and began to see how I should make it up.

Then I heard the singing. “Oh, the bonnie lassies,” it warbled. “And the pretty valleys!”

I closed my eyes in terror. Nobody was trying to keep the old man in check, and at night he only grew more crazed. I was going to require something more than an alternative room to be safe from him.

The bed was quite high, so I could tell that this at least was not a sickroom. And it was the height of the bed that finally gave me my best idea.

Placing a cloth over my nose for the dust, I burrowed down under the bed, on the cold floor. Using most of the blankets I had found in the chest, I endeavored to make my hiding place suitable for sleeping. Since the only possible weapon I could find in the room was the poker, I kept it by my side, hoping that if the old man happened to force his way into that room he would not find me.

It was not easy to sleep underneath a bed, rather than on it, but the fear that had crept into my bones gradually left as I began to listen to the wind and the rain on the roof, which soothed me. When I did finally sleep, my dreams were vivid. Mama always told me that too many dreams were a sign that a body needed to find more rest, and I certainly found that to be true. After a dream in which I was nearly crushed alive by an enormous carriage with a hundred people and twice as many horses, I had one about my father.

I didn’t recognize him at first, but eventually I saw that he had a long neck like mine, something that I knew I had not gotten from my mother. It had not occurred to me that my father must also have had a rather long neck, though that was only logical.

When I finally realized where I was, I went to sit across from him. He was setting up a chessboard.

“Papa,” I said to him, vaguely aware that I had never met him, and wondering why he wanted to play a game with me. But he hushed me.

“This game is important, my dear,” he said. “I’m sorry that I never taught you before.”

I looked down at it. “Please, papa,” I told him. “I want to speak with you. I have no interest in this.”

It was as if he could not hear me. “Now, this side is all set up,” he said. “So these pieces are out. What will be your first move?”

I did not respond, and he smiled. “Can’t make one without your pieces, can you?”

I shook my head. My side of the board was empty, and I knew just enough about chess to be sure that this was not the optimal arrangement.

“Now,” said my father, pulling me a chair. “You’re going to need an army. See, we will put these pawns out. They can’t move far, but they are best for the foot soldiers out in front. And here is our queen, the most powerful, and the king, the most vulnerable.”