Chapter 30
CAT
Did these statues have people trapped inside like the statues at the masquerades and in Darkmore Manor?
I promised myself we’d help them when we’d found Peach, and ducked inside the dry haven of the bookshop, searching its narrow aisles and buckling shelves.
What space remained on the floor was eaten up by stacks as tall as I was, making the whole room smell like paper and ink.
I didn’t see Orwell anywhere, and with his new stature he was pretty hard to miss. Poppy had conducted experiments on him, turned him into a super soldier with massive shoulders, hands like slabs of meat, and the sunny disposition of a serial killer.
We moved deeper into the shop, scanning the cluttered space and wary of traps.
Tor was probably right that this was meant to lure us away from Ford, but it was too late now to turn back.
If Cruelty was behind this, the door would have locked the moment we closed the door.
Or maybe the bookshop didn’t exist, and this was an elaborate scheme.
We wove through the winding rows of stacks, passing a few shoppers and an ordinary looking teenager on the cash register. Nothing out of place.
Yet.
“Cat,” Death breathed, catching my arm to stop me. He was looking at the rack of newspapers. Today’s, judging by the date.
“What is it?” I asked, frowning as we approached the stand.
Death slid free a paper with the headline, STRING OF UNEXPLAINED DEATHS CONTINUES.
“You think it’s them?”
He shook his head, braids dancing across his shoulders.
“No. This is… me. Or more accurately, us. All of us. We destabilised the domain, and this is only the beginning of the consequences. We’re not the only ones locked out of the realm; the dead are, too.
They remain here, as spirits, and some become vengeful. ”
“These people were killed by ghosts?” I demanded, scanning the story on the front page. It wasn’t a Ford’s End paper; it was the Liverpool Echo, which meant this was happening everywhere. “What can we do?”
“Nothing until Peach is safe,” he replied, returning the paper to the rack. “Then fixing the domain is the first on our list of priorities.”
If we survive, I thought, but didn’t say aloud.