The master of the house was dead. The ‘how,’ was not of great import. Young Rose Cible trudged the cobbled path through the back garden balancing a cherry pie, made with cherries pilfered from the bushes that bordered the late Master Dross’s house and their own, trying not to trip as she bore the conciliatory gift for the surviving servants and cook.


    “Take this straight to Mrs. Kettleburn. She’ll know what to do with it,” Rose’s mother had said, whilst doing the myriad unnamed things that mothers do to keep houses standing. Rose remembered her mother’s anxiousness over something, because she’d been shooed out the door with dishrags biting at her ankles forthwith.


    Dross manor wasn’t much bigger than the large houses in the wealthy neighborhoods across town, but in its time, it had been quite stately. Three stories high—well, if one counted dark attics as a story—the old Victorian home stood, paint peeling, against a dreary sky. Its pointed black turrets might have been striking against thunderclouds or frenzied pipe organs, but as weathered as the vine-covered exterior was, it seemed suitable that on a day like this, all that could be managed was a few gray clouds, and a heavy dusk that seemed late in coming.


    Rose picked her way through the prickly lilac bushes, overcrown with creeping roses this season. The thorns pulled at her hair and threatened to send her and the pie tumbling to the ground. In an act of great irony, Rose hated roses. Their scent, their clawing prickliness, their brevity, and the way they always seemed to reach for her as she passed.


    She circled around the sprawling porch, which as usual, was guarded by still more roses; white, red, and even some green ones whose names she couldn’t recall. At last she reached the side of the house, its large bay windows twinkling dustily as she knocked on the back kitchen door.


    Rap! Rap-rap!


    A bustling murmuring, the sounds of pots and pans clanging, and familiar footsteps clomped across the hardwood kitchen before the door slammed open. Ruddy-cheeked and hair pinned tightly into submission, the cook of Dross manor, Mrs. Kettleburn, was a cheery sight even when she was flustered—which was most times.


    “Rose, dearie! What’s this? What—George! Come and light the lanterns! The garden’s fading already!” Mrs. Kettleburn shrieked over one shoulder. “Come in, Rose! Come in! Don’t just dawdle on the step!”


    Rose hardly had time to comply before George grumbled into the walkway, fumbling with his threadbare cuffs, and grumbling under his breath.


    “Don’t know why I should still be doing this. It’s not as if the old man will put up a fuss,” the old butler tutted as he hobbled past Rose, narrowly missing her and her heavy dish.


    Mrs. Kettleburn scooped the oversized pie from her hands before she could fall back completely, and the kitchen door slammed closed on George who left a scent of mothballs and lighter fluid behind him.


    “Don’t mind George, Rosie,” Mrs. Kettleburn said soothingly, already bustling about to find the pie a home on the counter where it would be seen by the staff. “He’s in a mood. It’ll do him good to spend some time among the roses. Old Georgie has been on the phone with cemeteries and graveyards and even the mausoleums all across the state! Nowhere between Shreveport and Houma will have the Master. I never! It’s just petty, is what it is!”


    Rose tucked herself in a corner between the ancient stove and a rack of copper pans as maid Louise came hurtling in.


    “Another call’s in, Mz. Kettle,” she said, dark curls mussed. “It’s another ‘no.’ That’s the last one in the state that’s not slated for removal.”


    Mrs. Kettleburn said a word that made Rose blush, but she didn’t look surprised.


    “I thought that might be the case. We’ll have to go north, unless you think he’ll let us set him in the old Mayan grounds.”


    Louise laughed, though Rose couldn’t see what was funny. “He’d be back up and after us after one night if we put him there.”


    Mrs. Kettleburn sunk a fist into one generous hip and sighed, at about the time that Louise noticed that Rose was in the kitchen.


    “Oh, hallo, Rosie!” Louise’ smile was forced, the kind that adults wear when they think that children don’t understand what’s happening, which, to be fair, Rose didn’t. “Dear me, that is a gorgeous pie. Your mamma send it to us?”


    “She did, Miss Louise. Um—how are you doing?” Rose ventured from her corner to stand more properly in front of the maid.


    Louise’ tension melted a little at her question, but she clearly wasn’t ready to divulge much more than she already had.


    “I’m doing just fine, Miss Rosie, just fine,” she said, her smile a little more real. “And goodness knows we could all use the sugar. Funerals are just tricky sometimes, that’s all. We want to give the old master a proper send off, see.”


    Rose nodded. “The cemeteries are giving you trouble?” she asked politely.


    Mrs. Kettleburn coughed, and she and Louise shared a quick look.


    “Well, everything is going alright, sort of,” Louise said carefully, checking with Kettleburn as she did. “We’re just having complications with the funeral planning. Everything’s set except for finding him a plot of land.”


    “You can’t bury him here?” Rose asked, confused. She’s seen graveyards and cemeteries before, but had never put any thought about how people actually got into them. It seemed to her that really anyplace was as good as any other as long as it was out of the way, and the manor had plenty of land…


    It would be a better use of land than the roses, she thought piquishly.


    “Well, there are laws and things like that over where we can put graves, sweet thing. Although at this point, I’m halfway tempted to just do the deed myself and leave it unmarked! It would serve him right!”


    “Mrs. Kettleburn, you don’t mean that,” Louise said firmly.


    “Yes, but I’m starting to!” The cook produced a ladle from her apron, and waved it about as she was wont to do when matters in the old house were pushing her ‘to jitters.’ “Here I’d thought there was at least one place in the state that didn’t know the master’s name, and here I thought wrong! That naughty boy’s gone and put all of us in this mess. ‘Won’t let him be buried in consecrated ground,’ my hat! I—oh, sorry, Rosie dear.”


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    Rose shook her head, eager to distract them before they got the idea that her being there was a nuisance and asked her to leave.


    “It sounds nonsensical to me. And stressful. Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Kettleburn? Miss Louise?”


    The two servants chuckled, sharing another of those ''looks.''


    “Where’d you go and learn a word like that? You’re hardly past ten, Miss Rosie,” Louise laughed.


    Rose tried not to scowl. “Fourteen, Miss Louise. But even if I was ten, l’d be old enough to help you sweep the side rooms.”


    “You must really want to see what’s going on up here, if you’re offering to go through those dusty old corners, Miss Rose,” the cook leaned on the counter, eyeing Rose like she could see right through her.


    “So, you want to sweep them yourself?” Rose asked innocently.


    Louise rolled her eyes. “Oh, she’s fourteen alright. Got some ginger in her tea, too.”


    The doorbell saved them all from what any of them would have said next.


    “Oh, that’ll be the local minister,” Mrs. Kettleburn straightened her hair, and gave her already-ruddy cheeks a good pinch. “I’ll talk to him, Louise, thank you. I might be able to at least convince him to let us have a backyard plot. A familiar face, and such—”


    “Yes, Mrs. Kettleburn,” Louise backed out of the cook’s path, giving her chest a pointed sort of smirk. “Familiar faces indeed.”


    “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!” Kettleburn tutted, already making for the swinging kitchen door. “Rosie, dear, if you want to stay, you’re welcome to go and pay your last respects to the old master. He’s in the drawing room. Once I’m done chatting with Reverend Collins, it’ll be a done deal for us all, and we’ll have Master Dross in the ground before day’s out tomorrow.”


    Kettleburn was gone in a flurry of skirts and hairpins before either of them could utter another word. Louise pulled the apron from her head where Kettleburn had tossed it.


    “Hope this works,” she sighed. “If it doesn’t we really will have to go upstate to some big city where they don’t believe in any of this anymore. Go on, Rose. I know you didn’t know the master well, but, if you have anything to say, here’s your chance. Wait around a bit and ole Kettle will fix you up a slice of pie when she’s done, too—although—” and then there was that pointed smirk again, “—she might take her time, the old fox.”


    Rose waited a few more seconds to leave through the swinging door after Mrs. Kettleburn, until the sounds of her boisterous laughter and Reverend Collins’ answering snivels could be heard down the hall. The inner foyer boasted an empty sweeping staircase with dark green carpet, which led to a labyrinth of rooms filled with antique furniture, lace curtains, and the faint scent of old books. Dimly lit electric candles that replaced their original wax versions lit the walls and hallways every few feet. Rose picked her way down the hall, nodding to the other two maids, who avoided her, gossiping under their stacks of laundry, until she reached the drawing room door.


    It was the only door in the house that wasn’t in need of a good repaint or polishing, because Master Dross had never let it fall into disrepair. It was also the only room which Rose had never been allowed into. She felt a thrill of other-ness as she pushed it open, and walked in, alone.


    If she had been expecting the old master to be dead in some elaborate coffin in the middle of the room, she would have been drastically disappointed. The room was still lived-in as it likely had always been when Master Dross was alive, and there wasn’t a coffin, or eerie piles of funeral flowers anywhere.


    Instead, the same plush green carpet and faded cherry wood as decorated the stairs covered the floors, giving the room a warm, homey feeling. A faded, plush settee had been arranged around a marble fireplace, in the room’s center, but other than that, every single wall was lined with shelves for books, dusty knick-knacks, and portraits—not printed canvas, or photos, or even old film shots, but actual painted portraits that could have been at home in a castle, if that castle had dwellers that looked like faeries, and giant lizards. One wall had a shelf somehow less crowded than the others, with nothing but glass water-globes full of scenes from different landscapes and terrains. One contained an underwater palace. Another, a desert plain whose dunes looked as though they would fall any moment if the glass were knocked. Still another contained a maze, tiny and detailed, with levels and turns that spanned all the way around the globe so that she couldn’t see into its center.


    “Beautiful…” Rose whispered, reaching out to touch a sphere that contained a perfect copy of a Babylonian garden, but thought better of it, snatching her fingers back before they could make contact. These were not her things, and they had been so obviously treasured.


    She paced the room, reading a title or two from the books on Master Dross’ shelves.


    How to Prevent Explosions, Dueling for the Drastically Dunderheaded, Jared’s List of Things that are Inedible, How Not to Die at Dinner, and on one particularly worn tome that looked handwritten: Dreams of Her.


    Another shelf contained a row of mirrors, all too scratched to be properly reflective anymore. In a glass case in the corner, a pristine bow and quiver of at least twenty types of arrows was on display. Tucked between books there were fish scales, and placards with award in languages she couldn’t read, a stack of wires with teeth marks in the steel, and a jar of dried pumpkin seeds displayed like a trophy.


    Odd…


    “So many things. So many memories,” Rose found herself saying out loud as she reached the sooty fireplace.


    On the mantle itself, sat an old crystal ring, side by side with a pearl box, a clamshell so monstrous it could have been used as a coffee table, an arrow with a red ribbon on its tail, and an opaque glass mask, in a box of snapped piano keys. None of the items fit together. It was as though Master Dross had selected them out of attachment rather than for actual decor.


    Then, unable to stare any longer, Rose found the old Master Dross.


    The old gentleman sat peacefully, in an ornate, antique chair, his posture relaxed and dignified. Dressed in his best tailored suit, his lap was draped with rabbit furs and sable. His posture was sunken, but calm, as though he had just taken his last breath.


    Curiosity pulled Rose forward. She had never seen a corpse, and it was so much different than she’d imagined. So ordinary. So very… other. Master Dross was perfectly still. No breath escaped his lips. His eyelids were pale and glistened with slight condensation. His white hair had been combed to sit how it should, but had obviously been done by someone other than himself. Most of all, his skin was waxy and lifeless. It was very clear to Rose that this person—this shell—in front of her, was a man no longer. The soul that had been here, that had filled this room with such wonderful stories, was completely and irrevocably gone.


    A ticking sound reached her ears, though she couldn’t say from where, and each second passing was carrying her further away from the time that she could have asked him her questions, and perhaps, he might have answered.


    “I wish…” she breathed, sitting across from the corpse on a faded antique divan, and paused. The air was heavy, and stagnant, and oh, how she hated that sound.


    Tick, tick, tick.


    But she didn’t have any last regrets or emotions to express to the old master, because they had hardly ever met. She had no final words for him, or parting sentiments…


    “I wish I could have known you,” she said to the shell in the chair, and to her surprise, she found that she meant it.


    The sound of the ticking stopped, and the room descended into true quiet. Rose stood to leave, but the man in the chair held up a hand to stop her.


    “I thought you would never ask,” he said.