9. Chapter 9 #2
“Post office,” I said through clenched teeth.
He tipped his head to the side. “Every letter posted with an address in Meridian is reported to the authorities. Which is me. No such letter has come to my desk.”
“I didn’t say I’ve mailed it yet.”
He hummed, nodding. Clearly not the littlest bit convinced. “You’re free to write to her again. I will make sure the letters are delivered to her.”
“But you’ll read everything I send her.”
“Quite right. Let’s keep it under a page and nothing about the weather,” he said, grabbing his wet shirt off the floor and putting it back on.
“I am staying. You’re not locking me up in some far country house until I go mad from the voices. I’d very much like to go mad here first.”
“To be seen,” he said, picking me up from the table and carrying me out of his study, legs dangling and all.
“What happens if you lose your eyeballs overnight?” I asked, pushing away from him when he set me down.
“Of natural causes, I presume?”
“Of course, of course.”
“Go under your bed, Willow. And don’t let whatever fucking lays under there bite you.”
“Asshole.”
“Witch.”
I gasped.
He stopped at the door, “And Willow? Behave until I’m back.”
Christof had only watched and sighed as I’d unpacked everything. Gowns and garments were tossed all over the room while I laid sprawled on top of it all.
I was nowhere near close to figuring out what had happened to the Crimson Weaver red maidens. But I knew I’d find answers in this mansion. He couldn’t make me leave.
It was near the witching hour that I managed to crawl out of the mess and haunt the corridors since there was nothing else quite as pale and drained as I felt in the entirety of Mortdale.
I was painfully aware of my beloved husband’s presence at all hours of the day, so when the corridors filled with a haunting, cold air, I knew he wasn’t home. Even the shadows seemed to be terrified of him, and now they relished being left to haunt at peace.
Lady Cassandra's portrait stared back at me with so many secrets and all the answers to the questions I had. I could feel it. She knew why my coven sisters had died.
“I’m back,” I said, tapping my foot against the floor as I waited.
Even her death had not made it in the papers. I’d searched every corner of the archives, asked every spirit, evil and not so evil, lurking between the bookshelves, tried to pry it out of every vendor I’d stopped to buy from. But no. No one knew how the daughter of the old Duke of Darkheim had died.
“I’m not leaving him,” I whispered. “Not unless you come out and tell me why.” I knocked on the portrait’s frame, resting my ear against the painting. “Hello?”
The wooden floors creaked under phantom weight again, and I moved back from the painting, lifting the candle at the vacuum of darkness inviting me in.
I studied each and every painting and portrait the deeper into the well of family lineage I delved. His brothers had been nowhere near as pretty as my husband. Considering that his father was their copy, he must have taken after his mother. Like Cassandra.
But his mother was nowhere to be seen on any of the walls.
The wooden floor groaned a few feet away from me again, dipping with invisible footsteps towards a hidden corner farther down the corridor.
Wind stirred the candle flame I held up to the wall, forcing shadows to thicken and take shapes only of nightmares.
The last portrait was covered in a blood-red sheet. There was not a speck of dust on and it smelled like the laundry detergent Christof loved.
My fingers met something wet and cold when I reached for it. My hand remained frozen mid-air as the sheet pulled itself back to reveal a dark mass from under it.
Her pale yellow eyes were hanging out of their sockets, her burnt skin covered in a layer of puss and slimy soot, half of her head hairless while the other half was an ash-stained blond, singed and sparse.
Her nose touched mine, and I breathed in the sickening scent of cooked flesh as she trailing her bony fingers over my face.
“Witch,” the spectre whispered, pulling back until her ghostly back hit the wall, sending the entire corridor shaking.
“Witch!” she bellowed so loudly vases shattered and the windows cracked.
“Leave. Run!” she shrieked, and I flinched back.
What was it with all these women asking me to leave? Where did they even want me to go?
“Please be more precise,” I sighed, tapping my hands on the ground to locate my candle. “Where does everyone even expect me to go?”
She loomed over me, putting her skeletal hand over mine. “Go. Leave.” But the tone was strange. It was weak and sorrowful. Almost pleading.
Reluctantly, I backed away, watching her brace herself against a shadowy wall, sobbing as she dipped her head under her arm and hid.
I skidded to a halt when she appeared before me again, pointing a bony, dreadful finger in the direction of the stairs. Her voice was filled with anguish now when she repeated, “Witch.”
My attention snapped over the balustrade, down the dark entry hall.
My eyes jumped from shadow to shadow, not recognising a few.
Carefully leaning on the handrail, I leaned over it, catching a fraction of someone’s face. An unfamiliar one.
Piper.
Ditching the slippers, I sprinted down the corridors barefooted, watching the spectre’s reflection on all shiny surfaces still chasing behind me.
Her bedroom door was wide open and her bed was empty.
I tried Logan’s, but it was locked.
Before panicking, I went back to mine. Only to find her tucked into my sheets, under my bed, holding Thomas—whose nose was sniffing the air.
“They want to eat the girl,” he whispered.
“No one is eating anyone,” I murmured, pulling her from under the bed.
She groaned when I pulled her up. “Boo?”
I put a finger to my lips, wrapping her tiny arms around my neck and hiking her against my hip as I dug through my wardrobe for the jar of salt I’d stolen from the kitchen and spread it in a circle around me, sealing the trace of magic.
“Sleep so tender, dreams of surrender,” I muttered against her ear, putting her in a deep sleep spell.
I took a peek out at the gardens from her window.
More shadows stirred.
Logan, where are you?
With a sigh, I pressed my forehead to the door, considering my options.
Which were very few and all revolved around my non-existent running abilities.
When was the last time I’d ran? Let alone from something.
Even walking sometimes was too much. I was all soft in all the wrong places, mainly my legs and arms.
And the child…damn she was heavy for someone obviously still in the toddler spectrum.
The dark spectre from the painting still stood at a close distance, floating on a dark corner while it watched us.
“Where do I go?” I whispered, hugging Piper close to me.
The spectre started backing away down the corridor, and I followed as she led us turn after turn until we reached a small flight of stairs—service stairs.
I glanced back at the spectre when I reached the last step, bowing my head at her.
Wind blew from all sides, sending the curtains flying up in the air and the shadows fluttering all around the narrow service corridor.
Christof’s bedroom was empty.
All of the other rooms were in the same state.
Everyone was missing.
Where were Logan’s soldiers? This place was littered with guards all day and night.
I set Piper inside the laundry cabinet, covering her in every dirty item of clothing I could find, including my own to throw her scent off.
Grabbing Thomas, I shoved him between the layers. “I will find you a big juicy corpse if you keep her safe.”
“Still fresh?” he rasped.
“Blood so warm it will burn your tongue,” I promised, wrapping a few blankets in a swaddle big enough to look like a toddler.
“You have a deal with me, Willow Rose Duncan.”
His hoarse cackling accompanied me all the way out in the gardens, still echoing even as thunder above hailed with lightning.
Wind and sharp rain beat at me as I ran towards the back gardens that led into the woodland, clutching the bundle of blankets.
The pale grey fog was thicker inside the belly of conifers, and a shiver drew down my arms when the cold condensation slipped from my neck and past my chest. Scaly branches whacked against my limbs as I rushed deeper into the thicket, dry needles poking against my sore naked soles.
A warning static coursed through the mist, prickling all the senses in my body, making my fingertips itch to cast magic to dispel it.
Hopefully, someone would have seen me run out of the mansion. Maybe I’d give Logan enough time to come back and fix this.
I slowed when a branch snapped somewhere behind me, and a shadow stretched over mine. “You must be the witch bride.”
I glanced at him over my shoulder. A few others approached us, surrounding me on all sides, poking from behind the wet conifers. Vampires—all tall, broad, and armed. All staring at me as if they wanted to peel me open layer by layer.
“Let me see who you have there,” he said, beckoning me with a hand.
He lurched forward when I dropped the blanket on the ground, sneering when he realised he’d been led out here for nothing. “Stupid bitch!”
His hand grasped my hair and he dragged me across the dry, thorny forest floor and into the estate’s greensward, the skin on the back of my legs scraping against the pebbled garden before he hauled me up to my feet.
My scalp, back, and legs were raw as he dropped me in the middle of the entry hall where Christof, Theodora and the rest of the service staff were lined up against a wall, tied up and bleeding.
Are you alright? I mouthed at Christof, and he gave me a weak nod.