Chapter 32
Nin dug his heels into the mare as we left the carriage house, leaning low in the saddle to keep snow out of his eyes—a nearly impossible task.
I clung to his waist as the mare jumped over a low fence, and when we landed, I looked back and spotted Filomena and Mr. Hoffman galloping out of the carriage house and turning to head in the opposite direction. Good. They’re okay.
But they weren’t the only ones I was leaving behind. Bethany! I called inside my head. Follow us!
She didn’t answer, though I hadn’t expected she would. For all I knew, she was gone for good this time. But if she wasn’t, I couldn’t stand the thought of her stuck at Riverbend, and I spared her a small prayer as we galloped toward the aegis border.
I felt Nin’s muscles tighten under my arms. I squeezed my eyes shut, silently praying until I felt Nin relax.
We’d cleared it! We were free of Riverbend!
Nin slowed the mare and circled back around to the obelisks where I’d met Kesh both times, and that made me nervous all over again.
Nin lifted his head. What was he doing? Trying to catch Kesh’s scent?
Whatever it was, he abandoned the idea and pulled the mare back around to face north.
Then he called out a command to the horse, and we galloped forward.
Time to ride. Hard.
My family could never afford a horse, but next to my grandfather’s tenement were stables owned by the city, where one kind elderly taxi driver had taught me to ride in his spare time. I would help him brush the horses, and he would let me ride in slow circles around the stables.
This wasn’t the same kind of gentle riding.
Nin was flat out racing the horse, and I was grateful he was a skilled rider.
Even sitting behind him, the snow was driving so hard, it pierced my clothing like tiny daggers.
In mere seconds, we’d gone so deep into the snowstorm that I couldn’t see the path in front of us, nor the manor behind us.
In minutes, we were lost. Nin had been urging the mare toward the bluffs, to follow the river north, as Hoffmann had suggested. But I couldn’t see the river, and that worried me. Bushes scratched my legs as the mare galloped through the snow, into howling wind that threatened to blow us all over.
I just held on to Nin for dear life.
And I prayed.
Please, Mammy, don’t let us fall off the bluff.
We rode like that for several minutes, until we crested a small hill.
The horse slowed a little to a canter, nostrils steaming in the cold, and as she circled the hill, Nin gathered the reins in one hand and used the other to shield his eyes, attempting to get our bearings.
But neither of us could see much of anything in the whiteout conditions.
I couldn’t even find the nose on my face.
All we could do was blindly keep going and hope.
But the further we went, the colder I got. Stressed muscles shivered as I pressed hard against Nin for warmth. We couldn’t talk; the storm was too loud. We just… endured.
Endured and moved forward.
We rode until my thighs ached, gripping the horse. We rode until the snow turned everything white and I could no longer feel Nin’s body heat. Until blood from his neck saturated his jacket collar and froze. Until my arms were so cold and weak, I feared I couldn’t hold on to him much longer.
We needed to stop somewhere, if not for our sake then for the horse’s, but where would that be?
All I could see was white, and I’d never been north of the manor.
I had no idea if we were near any farms or estates, but it was getting dim.
Night would fall soon, and then we’d be battling darkness and snow.
“We need to stop for the night,” I shouted at Nin’s back.
“Trying” was the only reply that came.
After a time, a dark shape appeared in the distance, like an ink blot on a white page. Hope rose in my breast when Nin steered the mare in that direction. And as the swirling wind blew open a gap in the snowstorm, I spied where we were headed.
Another country estate sat on the banks of the Hudson. This wasn’t half the size of Riverbend, nor was it as grand. In the city, this house might have belonged to a banker, perhaps a factory owner. Maybe someone who’d offer us shelter for the night.
But as we galloped closer, heading through a large gate at the edge of the property, I got the feeling no one was at home.
No lights in the windows, not a single one.
A barn sat near the right side of the home.
Nin guided the mare there and came to a halt before dismounting and helping me down.
I held the reins while Nin worked to get a barn door open; snow had already piled up several inches.
But as the mare huffed out white clouds from her nostrils, the door came open, and we went inside, escaping the storm.
“No horses stabled,” Nin noticed as he shook snow from his clothes and led the mare into a stall.
“Is this home abandoned? Where are we?”
“Jansen Hall,” he said, breaking up the icy water inside the horse trough. “I collected memories of the dead here early this year.”
That name sounded so familiar. “Isn’t this where Mrs. Culpepper worked before she came to Riverbend?”
He paused, thinking. “Yes, I’ve seen her briefly in memories here. Nothing remarkable about her.”
And if there was, we wouldn’t know now. I tried to block the image of her bloodied body from my head as Nin tied up the horse and pulled down a bale of hay from the loft above. “Why are there no horses stabled?” I asked him as he worked. “Can you… tell how many souls are inside the main house?”
“It’s a summer home. The Jansens spend the winters in New York City, and there is no one alive here right now. If Lavina is anywhere around us, I may be able to pick up her trail if I concentrate hard enough. I need to rest for a moment.”
Of course he did. We were both shivering and icy wet, and I needed to see about his wound. But I was also wary.
“What about Kesh?” I asked.
“He’s still in this world, but I don’t know where exactly…” He considered this. “Might be for the best right now. If I can’t see his location, he can’t see mine. We’re safe.”
“Are we?”
“For now,” he corrected, unhooking my nursing lantern from the mare’s saddle and handing it to me. “Come, let’s get inside the house.”
I hated leaving the barn and going back into the storm.
The trek to the main house wasn’t long, but the wind was blowing snow so fiercely that I could barely see, and the ride here had taken more out of me than I’d realized.
I slipped in banks of snow, and Nin lifted me out—several times—until we both stumbled onto the front porch.
“We have no key!” I shouted.
Nin was already breaking a window. He used his coat sleeve to brush away shards of glass and peered inside before stepping over the window ledge, then held out his hand to help me do the same.
I wobbled on my boot heels upon standing.
He momentarily steadied me with his hands around my waist, and our eyes met.
“Are you—?” he started to say.
“Are you—?” I said at the same time.
We both chuckled; then I said, “Me first. How is your neck?”
“It’ll keep.” He pulled a thin icicle out of my hair. “You’re shivering.”
“I feel like I’ve been racing through Antarctica,” I admitted. “But guess what?”
“What?”
“We’re free of Riverbend,” I said, heart soaring a little, despite everything we’d just been through.
He nodded slowly. “Mostly free. I won’t be able to rest until I have my pendant.”
“We’ll get it,” I assured him, though I had no idea how. Or what might happen after he did have the pendant and was truly free to leave.
All I knew was that we weren’t riding through that awful storm anymore. And I’d be happier if we weren’t in a room where snow and cold were blasting in through a broken window. I lit my nursing lantern with numb fingers and looked around to get my bearings.
Unlike Riverbend, this house had no grand foyer. We stood inside a parlor. All the furniture was covered with sheets—for the winter, I supposed—so it was hard to get a feel for the style of the place, though many fine oil portraits hung on the walls. “Are there ghosts in here?” I asked him.
“Not a single one,” he assured me.
I thought about Bethany, and my heart hurt a little. Wherever she was, I hoped she was safe.
Silver eyes flicked toward my face. When I looked up at him, Nin held out his hand. “Let’s get you warm, find a place to dry off.”
“Yes. Please.” Fingers frozen and trembling, I grasped his hand as we walked through the manor’s rooms, finding that all the furniture was covered in sheets and the kitchen practically empty.
The style of the home was conservative, though plenty of finer things were hidden beneath the dustcovers, cabinets full of bone china and silver.
Gilded mirrors sat above polished wood console tables. And even…
“A library,” I said, gaze flicking over built-in bookshelves that lined three walls of a long room that ended at a cozy seating area surrounding a large fireplace.
I checked some of the titles. No guides to demons.
No handbooks for trapping beings from other worlds.
No witchcraft, occult, or books about devils. “How marvelous.”
“Not as unusual as Lavina’s books back in Riverbend,” he said.
“Thank goodness. Give me boring books about cooking vegetables and raising cattle in upstate New York.”
Nin made a noise that was almost a laugh. “Boring it is, then. This is a good spot to camp in. There’s quick access to the back door if we need to leave in a hurry.”
Would we? I looked around and felt anxious. The shivering didn’t help.
“It’s safe for now. But we need to get you warmed up.” He gestured toward the fireplace. “No wood here, but I saw plenty in other rooms. I’ll fetch some and get a fire started. You stay here.”