14. Shadows Without Comfort #2
For a brief moment, I glimpse the scared little girl beneath Maeve’s polished exterior, the cousin who was barely a teenager herself when my parents died, who watched her aunt and uncle’s broken bodies pulled from wreckage that should have been survivable.
Who perhaps has her own reasons to fear the estate and its secrets.
Then her mask slips back into place. “I need to freshen up before dinner. Don’t touch the phone.” She retreats to the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind her.
The moment I hear water running, I move swiftly to the window.
My legs still feel unsteady, but urgency provides focus I didn’t have before.
Marta remains in position, her gaze locked on our window.
When our eyes meet, I raise my hand to the glass, tapping out a deliberate pattern, three quick taps, pause, two slower ones, the same rhythm I heard through the clinic wall. Silas’s signal.
Marta’s eyes widen slightly. She gives a single, decisive nod before melting away from the streetlamp and disappearing between buildings, her message received.
By the time Maeve emerges, I’ve returned to my seat, arranging my face into an exhausted mask that requires little acting. My body genuinely aches from the restraints, the sedatives, the tension of our confrontation.
“Room service will bring dinner in an hour,” Maeve announces, all business again. “I suggest you rest until then. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I ask, making my voice deliberately weak, pliant.
“A private facility outside Boston. Very discreet, excellent reputation.” She softens slightly, misinterpreting my tone as surrender. “It’s not forever, Elara. Just until you’re stable again.”
I nod, letting my eyes drift closed as if too tired to argue further. “I think I’ll lie down.”
The evening drags by in tense silence. We eat overpriced hotel food that tastes like nothing to me.
Maeve makes phone calls in the bathroom, speaking too quietly for me to hear.
I pretend to watch TV while I note every exit, where my few belongings are, and how far the fire escape is from our window.
When Maeve finally suggests we turn in for the night, I offer no resistance. She takes the bed nearest the door, strategically, making it impossible to leave that way without passing her. I curl on my side facing the window, feigning sleep while listening to her breathing gradually slow and deepen.
One hour passes. Then another. The hotel settles into night sounds, distant elevator chimes, occasional footsteps in the hallway, and the persistent hum of the air conditioning.
When I’m certain Maeve is deeply asleep, confirmed by the soft, rhythmic snoring she would absolutely deny producing, I slide from beneath the covers, already fully dressed.
My muscles ache as I move slowly, gathering the few things Maeve brought: a change of clothes, my wallet, and my small leather-bound journal. Every movement seems loud in the quiet room, and my heart pounds with every creak or rustle.
The soft tap against the window glass nearly stops my heart. I freeze, eyes darting to Maeve’s sleeping form. She doesn’t stir. Holding my breath, I edge toward the window, where Marta Ellery’s face peers in from the darkness, her thin features ghostly in the reflection of distant streetlights.
The window latch fights me, stiff from disuse in a hotel that prefers climate control to fresh air. I work it gradually, grimacing at each tiny metallic click that sounds thunderous in the quiet room. Behind me, Maeve shifts, muttering something incomprehensible before settling deeper into sleep.
Finally, the latch gives. I ease the window upward, opening just enough space for my body to slip through. Cold night air rushes in, carrying the scent of impending rain and city exhaust.
“Took you long enough,” Marta whispers, balanced precariously on the narrow ledge outside. Up close, she looks even younger than her seventeen years, dark circles shadowing her eyes. “Careful with that step—it’s slippery.”
I pass my small bundle of belongings through first, then move myself onto the ledge with far less grace than Marta’s practised movements.
The metal fire escape groans softly beneath our combined weight, its rusted frame swaying slightly in the night breeze.
Three floors suddenly seem much higher when separated from solid ground by nothing but aged ironwork.
“This way,” Marta murmurs, already descending with the nimble confidence of someone who’s used fire escapes as transit routes her entire life. “Stay close. We don’t have much time.”
I follow her down, wincing as my shoes clang against the metal steps.
The descent feels eternal, each floor bringing new opportunities for discovery—a light switching on, a curtain twitching, a shout of alarm.
But we reach the bottom without incident, landing in an alley strewn with discarded fast-food containers and cigarette butts.
Marta immediately sets a brisk pace, leading me through a labyrinth of service corridors and narrow passages between buildings. She moves like someone intimately familiar with the hidden anatomy of this town, choosing routes invisible from main streets or traffic cameras.
“Silas showed me all the back ways when I started helping,” she explains in a whisper as we duck through a gap in a fence separating two commercial properties. “Said I needed to know how to move without being seen.”
“Where is he?” I ask, the question I’ve been holding back finally escapes.
Marta’s stride falters for just a moment. “Can’t talk here. Too exposed.”
We emerge briefly onto a residential street of modest bungalows before plunging back into the shelter of unkempt hedgerows and overgrown yards.
The rain that’s been threatening all evening finally arrives, a gentle mist that gradually intensifies to a steady downpour.
Within minutes, we’re both soaked, but Marta seems unbothered, pushing forward with single-minded determination.
After what feels like hours of twisting routes designed to confuse any potential follower, we arrive at a Victorian house set slightly back from the street, its gabled roof and wraparound porch illuminated by a single yellow porch light.
Despite the late hour, warm light glows from behind drawn curtains.
“Nora’s place,” Marta says, leading me up the back steps rather than the front walk. “She’s expecting us.”
The door opens before we can knock, revealing Nora Voss in a faded flannel robe, her usual bubbly demeanour replaced by grim determination. She ushers us quickly inside, securing multiple locks behind us.
The rain drums against the windows as I imagine Maeve still curled in her hotel bed, oblivious. By morning, she’ll find only rumpled sheets and that gaping window, the space where I should be replaced by damp night air carrying the scent of my defiance.
Nora’s house looks like what would happen if a library mated with an antique store and their offspring developed a hoarding problem.
Books and papers compete for space with oddities that should be in a museum—taxidermied birds frozen mid-flight, antique medical instruments whose purposes I’d rather not contemplate, and at least three broken typewriters.
After Maeve’s sterile hotel room, this clutter feels like a breath of fresh air.
Nothing here pretends to be perfect. The mess is real, human, and alive.
I sink into a worn armchair while Nora moves around the kitchen.
“Drink this,” Nora orders, pressing a steaming mug into my hands.
The ceramic burns pleasantly against my chilled fingers.
“Earl Grey with a proper Irish correction.” She winks, and the sharp bite of whiskey confirms her meaning when I take a cautious sip.
The alcohol burns down my throat, spreading warmth through my chest that the rain had leached away.
Across the room, Marta hovers near the curtained windows, one finger pulling back the heavy fabric just enough to create a sliver of visibility. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, never settling, her head cocked slightly as if listening for sounds beyond the patter of rain.
Despite her youth, she moves with the careful awareness of someone who’s learned that survival depends on noticing what others miss.
“Maeve will have called the police by now,” I say, the tea scalding my tongue as I drink too quickly. “Won’t this be the first place they look?”
Nora snorts, settling into her own chair with a creak of ancient springs.
“Oh, they’ll look here eventually. But first they’ll check the bus station, the train depot, and that motel on the edge of town where runaways usually end up.
By the time they think to knock on my door, we’ll have moved you somewhere safer. ”
“Besides,” Marta adds without turning from her window vigil, “Officer Peck is on duty tonight. He’ll make sure the search is thorough but inefficient.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Peck is part of this, too?”
“Not officially,” Nora explains, blowing ripples across her own tea. “But since Garrow threatened his daughter, he’s been… let’s call it ‘selectively competent’ in certain matters.”
The whiskey-laced tea warms me from the inside out, burning away the last of the clinic’s sedatives from my system. With each sip, my thoughts sharpen, the fog of forced compliance lifting like morning mist. “What happens now?”
Nora exchanges a glance with Marta. “Now, you come see what we’ve found.” She rises with surprising agility, leading me through a beaded curtain into what must once have been a formal dining room but now serves as her personal archive.
“I’ve been the unofficial town historian for fifteen years,” Nora explains, moving with practised ease through the paper labyrinth.
“Gives me access to archives most people don’t even know exist.” She reaches beneath a pile of documents, extracting a wooden box inlaid with symbols I recognize from Silas’s collection. “Like these.”