Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Hadrian.
Haddy.
My mind reeled. As soon as I touched the child’s sleeve when I’d first found the door, the monster had come forward. He’d protected the child, stepping between him and myself.
I struggled for words, swimming in something far heavier than surprise. Guilt? Sorrow? Pity? For myself, or for Hadrian?
No: kinship. Ever so small, no larger than a flutter against the back of my ribcage. I knew nothing of his story, how he came to live in this place, who he was. But I’d seen the rawest part of his life—as he’d said, a memory—just as he’d seen part of mine.
I pressed my finger to my temple, blinking against the onslaught of thoughts. If he was here, just like I was, did that mean he’d existed somewhere else before? Did that make him a real person? What if Aunt Cadence had known about him? What did that make her?
Hadrian’s lips twitched, as if he could sense the shift in tides. “Ah, ah, none of that, now.”
“He—that man—was your father?” I was still reeling.
“No father to me,” he snipped. His teeth glinted in the low light. My instincts urged me to step back. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have matters to attend to that require little company.”
I watched him, paying attention to the tension in his shoulders, the slight curl to his clawed fingers into the floorboards. He slunk to the steps like a cat hunting a canary.
What was so important for him to do in the house alone? Either he was lying about needing to be alone, or he was lying to get rid of me. My money was on the latter.
My hands wrung. “Wait. Don’t go yet. I just—I’m—Are you trapped here?”
A chuff, but he did pause. “No business of yours. I’m afraid you are only a waste of my time, dearest.”
“My name is Landry, not dearest.” I chewed the inside of my cheek. Then, under my breath, added, “But you seem to know that already.”
He tapped a claw to his chin. “Ah, yes. Landry,” he murmured. He started down the steps without a backward glance. “Names grow more and more adventurous these days. I heard that one through the walls and thought I’d lost my hearing for a moment.”
I couldn’t tell if that was a compliment or a snide remark. I started after him.
“And Hadrian isn’t?” I fired back, just as spicy. What he’d said finally sunk in. “Are you saying you can hear everything that goes on in the house, outside of here?”
I could only imagine how we would look to a bystander: me, a woman, trailing after a demon-like beast as he crawled down the steps on all fours. Still, all I could picture was human Hadrian hovering over me, with a throat that swallowed and heart covered by skin and bone.
A man, not a beast. Only a beast when his inner child began to cry, on the hour, every night.
“Sometimes the house is kind to me,” was all Hadrian said.
My hand trailed along the railing as I followed. “What does that mean?”
He grunted, his only answer. We passed the second floor. I stole a peek into what should have been my bedroom. The door hung slightly ajar, the room filled with a charred canopy bed, shredded black curtains from the lick of flame, and a heaping layer of dust to match.
A breeze met us back at the entrance to Harthwait. The door still hung crooked. Stars winked in the distance, clouds long forgotten.
“Where are you going?”
A glare over his shoulder. “You intrude into my home and expect me to answer all your questions?”
Fire sparked in my veins. “On the other side of that door, this is also my house. I don’t know what you expect from me, but finding this”—I motioned around us—“is a little jarring, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d answer my questions like a polite human being. ” My fingers tightened on the railing.
His nostrils flared. “Do I look human to you?”
“Half-human.”
Eyes narrowed. “If I answer, will you leave?”
I mimicked his stare. “If I can. Maybe.”
A grumble under his breath. I took that as a yes.
“Did you live here at one point?” I asked.
“It was my home.” He stopped just inside the parlor, crouched by the rocking chair. His ears twitched, at a noise only he could hear. Tendrils of black hair, so stark compared to the white-blond it had been earlier, hung around his shoulders. “It is home. For the foreseeable future.”
“Lovely choice of decor.”
He stuck a claw through the corner of a rug and yanked.
It split to the trim. “I agreed to speak, not to listen to you smart mouth my decorating skills. And if you must know,” he said, snide, “what you see changes based upon the memory of the day. Come back tomorrow, and you might find something a bit more becoming of your tastes.” He let his hand drop.
“Unless, of course, you’re too frightened. ” He gave a wide, gaudy smile.
I hovered at the banister. “Meaning you can or cannot leave if you want to?”
“I assure you, if leaving were an option, I would be long gone.” His expression turned haughty. “Need I spell it out for you in the dust on the floor, or can you not read, either?”
I crossed my arms in front of me. What a one-eighty from the first time I’d come through that door. I would have had to wipe tears from laughing too hard had I told myself I’d come back and start bickering with this creature.
“I can read just fine, thank you. Excuse me for making conversation—or would you rather me leave you to your dust and termites? I’m sure they’ll make extraordinary company—or did you bore them to death already?”
He snickered. “Ah, so there is a bit of fire on that tongue after all.”
I shifted my weight. I didn’t know why I was standing there. What exactly I was waiting for. But if he was here, alone—and stuck—I’d have been lying if I said the thought didn’t make me a bit sad.
“I never had a mind for other people,” he said, flinty. He slunk across the parlor and found a spot by the closest window. He crouched there, half the height of the window, even relaxed.
“I think that’s obvious.”
He shot me a look.
“If you left, where would you go?”
He stretched his neck. Stared at the ceiling. It was such a human, impassive thing to do, I almost smiled. But I didn’t.
“I have little clue.”
“Where’s home, exactly?” I leaned against the opposite wall. An idea started to bloom.
If he left, surely that meant Haddy would stop crying every night? It could be a win for both of us. But he didn’t even know the logistics—or where he would go—would there be a point?
“Here, as I said.” He flicked invisible dirt from underneath his inky, stiletto nails.
They were as thick as a bear’s. “I do not understand why you need to know, dearest. Leaving might never be an option. Besides, perhaps I prefer it here, and I doubt you have the resources to help me.” He gave a wistful sigh.
My arms fell to my sides. “You suck at lying.”
“Says the human that tells me she knows nothing about entering that door,” he groused.
I couldn’t help it—I stepped forward, pointing a finger at him. “I could walk out right now, board up that stupid door, and leave you here. I’m trying to be nice to you.”
“Nice to me? What did I say about pity, dearest?” he said, glaring at me.
“So you don’t want help?”
He flipped the script. “And I should believe you would follow through on a promise, why, exactly?” He leaned against the wall, temple in his palm.
As if I was trying to drag him away from a day spa, but a shadow lurked in his eyes while he watched me.
Followed me across the entryway and against the wall where I leaned.
A cruel sort of entertainment. “Ah, but alas, me coming with you would help no one. Two can be stubborn, but only one is smart about it. I would be very, very careful about what you offer me.”
“I didn’t say to make a deal.”
“I did not agree to make one.”
My fingertips started to tingle. I knew I teetered on the edge of a precipice, something unknown, and the longer I stared at it, the more likely I would be to take a step. To take the leap, just out of curiosity. And maybe he was right—out of pity, too.
“Tell me why you’re here in the first place and how to get you out. If it will help Haddy, or your memories or whatever, stop … Then that’s enough for me.”
His pupils contracted, then dilated. A slow grin peeled his lips.
“I’m afraid it’s not so much why, as how. I have tried to open the door before, but it will not change from the darkness I see on the other side, so I know little of what she … I’m stuck here, in this alternate place, until it changes.”
She.
So someone had locked him here. In that moment, I thought of a rabid animal being trapped right before euthanasia. Was I offering to help something, someone, that was locked up for a purpose? Was I being blinded by a child’s echo into helping someone that didn’t deserve it?
The thought made me hesitate. Could my own aunt have put him here?
I shifted tendrils of hair away from my face, making sure the door was within eyesight. As if he wouldn’t be able to catch me if I tried a second time to bolt.
“What do you promise me in return? I need collateral,” I said. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Still, if I changed my mind, I could leave and lock the door.
I could never come back. That was my leverage.
And he couldn’t leave without me. I just needed to be prepared—do a little research, if I could find anything—before I figured out a way to release him.
Because if I released him and he didn’t leave, and I was supposed to get this house ready to sell—
“Oh, Landry, I am certain I can offer something in return.”
My name on his lips sent a hummingbird through my chest. I gave my blandest expression, because if he saw it, how that affected me, he could use it.
They always used it. “Okay. I’ll see if I can find a way to help you—but only if it means the crying stops.
And whatever else is going on in the house stops, too. ”
His attention snagged as I said it. The faintest, barest flicker in his jaw, but it vanished as quick as it came. “Oh, not this place, dearest. I mean this curse upon me.”
I blinked in confusion. “Letting you out wouldn’t break this … trap?”
“If you believe I turn into a beast upon my own volition, you would be sorely mistaken. I have … inklings that it would not cease, no.” He pushed to stand, his horns surpassing the height of the window.
If I hadn’t been paying attention, he would have blended in with the wall, they were so close in color.
Casual, languid, I walked to the door. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Hadrian trailed after me like a shadow. I kept my pace even, unhurried. I didn’t need to look guilty or scared.
Slip out, leave him here for a while longer, then maybe come back.
“Pray tell … What do you mean, whatever else is going on within the house?”
I stopped in front of the door. It sounded ludicrous out loud; I didn’t look at him when I said, “There are things happening in Harthwait that I can’t explain. Besides hearing your crying at night.”
“Go on.” His expression remained placid.
“I was worried it my aunt may be haunting the place.” I didn’t realize how much that worried me until I said it.
“She passed not long ago. She’d always said I couldn’t stay overnight in Harthwait as a child.
” I nodded to him. “Maybe it had to do with you … or maybe it was something else.” After all, Hadrian seemed to be confined to this one space, though his memory wasn’t.
I didn’t feel comfortable assuming everything was connected, not yet.
But it made sense: something like him, trapped inside, slowly seeping out from its confinement.
“I fear you place a great deal of your faith in me,” he said, teasing. He stopped a few feet short, just enough for his body heat to be palpable.
I shrugged. “Even if I let you out of this room, it sounds like you can’t leave Harthwait, right?”
His cheek feathered. “I am unsure.”
I shifted my weight from one side to the other. My hand searched for the doorknob behind me.
“You grow nervous. You do not want me to be anchored here.” Another head tilt. “Do you? You fear me. Or do you fear what this room does?”
I fumbled until I finally felt the cool metal of the doorknob. “I want to help—”
“You will not return,” he said, his voice unnervingly calm. “Not for a while. Will you? Your heartbeat is loud.”
“I will,” I assured. I twisted the knob, and thankfully, the lock released.
He chewed on those two words. Outside, bugs started to hum, and the crisp sound of lapping water echoed from somewhere far away. A light breeze drifted through an open window.
“I will help you remove me, if you desire,” he offered, creeping closer. Closer. “And if you leave me out to dry? I could make things hellish for you, you know.”
I knotted my hands together so tightly that my nail nearly broke the skin of my palm. That was fair enough. I had threatened him. He threatened me. Now we were even.
“I thought you weren’t in the nature of making deals?” I breathed.
His teeth snapped together twice. “Tread carefu—” Hadrian’s sentence broke. His attention trailed behind me, down the gap in the wall, over the floor, which was still littered with my tarp and pile of sheetrock. I had the strongest urge to back away.
My nerves started to quiver. “What?”
That flicker in his jaw appeared again. It reminded me of a cat watching birds through a window and that sharp, mechanical clicking that ensued, the way their eyes didn’t leave their prey. Like he could see the other side.
“The …” He sidled himself against the wall to my right and inched forward, the floorboards protesting against his weight.
One clawed hand grabbed the doorframe. The wood groaned.
Hadrian’s eyes drifted to the floor and stopped.
Right at the broken section I had pulled off earlier.
Slowly, thoughtfully, he bent down and picked up the broken piece, then ran a claw over the hole it had left.
Then he flipped the piece of wood over. The underside revealed carved markings, which I wouldn’t have seen unless I had been looking for them.
As soon as his claw touched them, they shimmered silver—like liquid metal, catching in the light—before fading away.
He’d just put his hand through the door.
He’d said before that he’d tried to open it but couldn’t get through, couldn’t see anything on the other side, and now he was—
He grinned up at me, all sharp points glimmering in the dull light.
“See you on the other side,” he murmured. Then he stepped over the threshold—and vanished into the hallway.
Nothing more than a shadow in an already haunted house.