Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
RUE
Istood at the bottom of the stairs and stared up at my bedroom doorway.
I used to love spending time in there until this darkness had appeared.
If only I knew what it was or that it was safe, but somehow I sensed it was dangerous, or at least was the harbinger of danger approaching.
I groaned. I didn’t need magickal powers to know that much, not now the Witchfinder had me within his mark.
I wasn’t sure why this dark mass filled me with doom, especially since we had mould in many areas of the manor house.
This was different somehow. It resembled a black fungus I didn’t recognise; for some reason it had appeared in my bedroom and my parents’, and now it was making its way across the wall between my room and my grandmother’s.
How had it come to be here, and, more importantly, why?
‘What are you standing there for?’ my grandmother snapped from the kitchen door.
I glanced at her, concerned she would think me silly for being frightened to enter my own bedroom and that sleeping in there caused me to have nightmares. Ones I frustratingly couldn’t make sense of the following morning. Were they messages or warnings? Not knowing troubled me.
‘Go and lie down,’ she added, her tone much softer. ‘You look worn out, and the dark circles under your eyes aren’t very fetching.’
My grandmother was teasing me, trying to lighten my fears.
She didn’t worry about a person’s physical beauty, only their nature.
I suspected this began with my mother’s death, because I had heard whispers that it was because of her beauty that the Witchfinder had persecuted her.
I only had to look in the mirror to see how much I resembled her portrait.
‘It’s not surprising, after all you’ve been through,’ she continued. She waved her hands to shoo me along.
I obediently began ascending the staircase.
She was right, I was exhausted, and with her and my aunt here I must surely be safe.
Whatever the entity was that was slowly eroding what was left of beauty in our home, the pair of them had the power to keep watch over me.
They would sense if I was in danger and, if necessary, remove me from the room.
‘That’s it, you rest. I’ll ask your aunt to bring you up a cup of herbal tea in an hour.
Then you can come back down and tell us everything that happened this morning.
’ Her voice quivered as she spoke, and I realised how deeply she must have been affected when Theo Le Cerf whisked me off to his father’s office.
Not wishing to worry her further, I cast a smile at her and continued to the first landing.
I heard her footsteps as she returned to the kitchen, and the door closing behind her.
For a time I stood outside my bedroom, then I took a steadying breath, turned the doorknob and slowly pushed the door open.
As I had taken to doing, I held my breath before I stepped inside. A chill ran down my spine instantly as I closed the door behind me. Whatever the presence in the room, I sensed it was pleased to have me back in there again. It was the oddest sensation.
I stared at the black tendrils of mould and saw they had passed a point I had marked the previous day, when I had accidentally knocked my writing table into the wall, making a small dent where the daub was beginning to crumble.
The fungus must have extended at least another four inches, I realised with a shudder.
It was growing more rapidly than at first and becoming thicker and darker.
‘What are you?’ I whispered. My aunt might have acknowledged that she too found something unsettling about the house now, but my grandmother hadn’t mentioned it and I didn’t want to add to her worries by sharing my fears with her.
I stood at the end of my bed and, as I stared at the blackness on the wall, I realised that the room smelt different too. I took a slow, deep breath. It was familiar but I couldn’t identify it.
I breathed deeply again, and this time I closed my eyes and concentrated.
There was the smell I didn’t immediately recognise, but the texture seemed to be more like peat than fungus. And there was something else. I took a slow deep sniff as close to the mould as I dared and the hairs on my arms stood on end.
I gasped. ‘Roses and lavender?’ My mother’s signature scent? Surely not. I must be mistaken.
No, that couldn’t be right. As my grandmother had observed, I was exhausted.
I was still traumatised by my audience with Elias Le Cerf.
I walked over to the window and opened it.
If I was beginning to be delirious, this thing might be giving off dangerous odours. Was I the only one who had noticed it?
I closed my eyes, relishing the warm breeze as it wafted over my face like a gentle, soothing breath.
My eyes smarted as a memory came to me of my mother blowing gently into my face, one day when we were in a grassy field not far from the manor.
I must have been about five or six and had complained of feeling too hot.
I shivered. For a moment I felt as if she was still here with me.
I wondered whether she might come to me in my dreams. Yes, that was it.
She was trying to send a message to me. Or maybe let me know she was close by, now that I needed her more than I ever had since her death.
I should do as my grandmother had insisted and sleep.
I went to my bed and lay down turning my back to the wall.
My entire body felt heavy. I closed my eyes wearily and immediately found myself in a meadow. I couldn’t see my mother, but I sensed her behind me and relaxed.
‘Tell me what you need, Rue.’ Her voice was so quiet that I struggled to hear it.
‘I need your help, Mama. The Witchfinder wants to do to me what he did to you and I don’t know how to stop him. Not really.’
‘You need help.’ Her voice was like a gentle breath.
‘But Grandmama, Aunt Sorrel and Pierre are already doing all they can.’
‘Not from them.’
‘Who then?’ I thought of her trusted coven members. ‘The coven will be casting their individual spells to help me when they hear what’s happening to me.’
‘Not from them, sweet Rue. From another source. A strong one who doesn’t realise they have the power to help you.’
Without thinking, I turned to face her, but she wasn’t there; only a coolness remained that hadn’t been behind me a second before.
Who could she possibly mean? I knew everyone with the power to cast spells and couldn’t think of anyone more powerful than the Witchfinder.
I lay back on the long grass and spread my arms, gently brushing the daisies, buttercups and violets with my bare skin.
I woke with a start, my meadow disappearing and my dream vanishing.
Disorientated and frustrated to have woken before I had deciphered my mother’s words, I rubbed my eyes.
What could have woken me? Then I heard the sound of hooves on the drive and tensed.
Who could that be? We rarely had guests and most of them arrived by foot.
Surely Theo wasn’t back here again.
‘Easy, boy.’
My spirits sank as I recognised the rider’s voice. ‘No,’ I groaned, close to tears. What could he possibly want now?
‘Whoa, Warrior.’
I ran over to the window and looked outside.
The magnificent stallion was rearing. Something had spooked him, evidently from the house, because that was the direction he was facing.
Staying half-hidden by my curtains, I watched Theo stroke the horse’s powerful neck and calm him, his voice soothing.
I felt a pang of loss to see such gentleness in the tall muscular man who so clearly loved his steed, then reminded myself who he was and stepped back from the window.
As I did so he looked up in my direction. I winced, annoyed at my carelessness, then I noticed his eyes weren’t upon me but were fixed upon the floor above. The attic. I shivered. Could something up there have spooked the horse?
I heard Warrior snort, but from the sounds of his hooves on the ground he seemed to be calming.
I took another peek outside. Theo was walking him slowly in a large circle, still stroking the horse’s neck.
If Warrior was calm, there would be no reason for him to delay entering the house.
The thought spurred me into action. I didn’t want my family to speak with him without me present.
‘That damned man and his family,’ I grumbled.
Not wishing him to see me dishevelled or assume I was distressed by the morning’s events, I smoothed down my hair, pinched my cheeks to give them colour and straightened my skirts.
As well prepared as I could be to face him once more, I left my room and hurried to join my family.
Before I reached the bottom of the stairs there was an unfamiliar knock on the front door. My heart pounded, my tiredness forgotten as I went to open it.
‘Who the devil is that?’ my aunt asked, coming into the hallway, frowning.
‘Allow me, Mistress Rue.’ Pierre immediately made for the door. ‘I’ll see who it is.’
Dear Pierre, protective as always, I thought gratefully.
We watched as Pierre opened the door to reveal Theo Le Cerf. He at least had the decency to appear embarrassed at making yet another unexpected visit. He stepped forward. No one spoke. We stared at him as he looked from one to the other of us.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ he said, removing his hat and revealing his untidy hair.
My grandmother appeared at the kitchen door. ‘Why are you here again? What could you possibly want from us this time?’