Raquel Byrnes (10 page)

The wind picked up, skittering the dry leaves across his shoes. He should get inside, clean up. Simon made his way back to the workshop and found the door ajar. Making sure to close and lock it behind him, he staggered to the bathroom and peeled off his clothes. They were covered with dirt.

He let the shower beat down on his shoulders as he struggled to clear his head, reign in his thoughts. If anyone found out about the blackouts, they’d ask when they started, and that couldn’t happen.

Over two years since the last blackouts. He thought they were over. That they went away. But then the one a few days ago, and now this one; they were back, and the cold grip of fear squeezed his chest. He didn’t know how to stop them.

Pushing the shower curtain aside, he stepped out and held a dry washcloth to his gash. After pulling on spare pants and using the first aid kit in the chemistry lab to bandage the wound, Simon sank into the chair in the living area of the workshop.

A sliver of doubt pushed through him. How long until he had no control over the episodes? How long before he put others in danger? What of Lavender? He couldn’t leave her again. Not before the term at Kane Academy began.

Rosetta’s beautiful face flashed in his mind, and he gritted his teeth. She held the promise of a new life, a chance with someone strong and true, and it was slipping away with every moment lost to him and his addled brain. He couldn’t let this chance go. Not yet. Not while there was still hope.

Why are You doing this to me? If You have any mercy for me…don’t let this happen again.

Holding his head in his hands, he willed the throbbing to go away. He needed to think. He needed to stop this from happening again. Last time, the blackouts had taken more than mere hours. They’d left his life in ruins.

11

At first, the screaming made sense in my dream. Sunning on the beach at home, it didn’t strike me as odd that the gulls should sound like that. But the warmth of the sun faded, and the sky darkened with black scabby clouds. My skin prickled with the gust of icy wind and dread started—the slow cold grip of worry in my gut that I’d lived with for so long.

The cawing tore through me again, and I jolted to my feet, got tangled in my beach blanket, and went down in the sand. A rogue wave rushed into my face as I lay there, burning my eyes and muffling my scream with brackish water. I coughed, drowning on the shore, unable to right myself.

Through the water, a quivering image of Lavender floated just out of reach. Her dark hair splayed out, eyes closed, bubbles snaking out of her pink lips as she sank. Panic rose in my throat. I strained for her, feet kicking through the water that had gone thick. My fingers brushed her white dress, but she slipped through my hands, falling faster and faster. As the dark waters closed in, her eyes shot open. White as marble, they burned a trail of terror through me.

I screamed, clawing for the surface, her words floating to me as I flailed.

“Help me!”

I startled awake, gasping and fighting with the covers tangled around me like swaddling. Blood thrummed through my head, and I staggered out of bed, my hand to my chest. A low rustle in the corner of the room made me jump, and I tried the lamp. It didn’t work.

Panting with fear, I fumbled in the darkness for the flashlight Simon had given me and found it under my pillow. I flicked it on. My eyes strained to find the source of the
whooshing
in the corner of the room. The beam swiped across the wall. Rain and wind flew through the opened window near the bed. Staring at it, chest tight from the dream and the fright, I rubbed my face with a wet hand.

“What in the world?” Confused, I ran a palm along my face and neck.

I was drenched, my face and nightgown soaked with frigid rain. How long had I slept with the storm blowing onto me? A shiver rocked me from head to toe. I reached for the window, pulled it down, and locked it with a loud click. Rain pooled on the floor, rug, and my half of the bed. Outside, wind buffeted the window, rattling the panes in their tracks.

I half-laughed with relief, my heart slowing as the nightmare lost its grip on me.

“Tuttle is going to pitch a fit,” I muttered, eyeing the water.

She’d reminded me to shut the window when I turned in, and I thought I had. Obviously, I had not.

I changed quickly in the private bath and draped my nightgown over the claw-foot tub to dry. Feeling better in my sweatshirt and leggings, I used the rest of the clean towels to sop up the mess on the floor. I couldn’t do anything about the bed except to strip the sheets and blanket. Once finished, I considered the settee near the fireplace for a second before deciding against it. I didn’t know the first thing about starting a hearth fire anyway. The fireplaces back home all came on with a flick of a switch. I sat on the chest at the foot of the bed, played with the flashlight beam across the polished wood floor, and sighed. The adrenaline from the nightmare still pulsed through me, and I held a shaky hand in the light.

“There’s no way I’m going back to sleep,” I said to the empty room.

A thud overhead made me jump. I froze, listening.

The long plaintive squeak of a door, followed by footfalls, heavy and uneven, sounded across the ceiling. I held the flashlight upward as if would help me see what made the noise.

Then the moan started, like the one I’d heard in the library. A guttural wail of pain. I stood, my heart racing again. Licking my lips, I stared at the ring of light trained on the ceiling. There, again. The sound sent a ripple of fear that clenched my gut. I sprinted for the door of my room. Out in the hall I stopped, listened again.

More footfalls overhead, hurried this time, racing across the ceiling, and I ran with them down the hall, my beam bouncing along the carpet. I reached the door to the stairs that led to the third floor, the ones I’d followed Mrs. Tuttle up on my first night at Shadow Bay Hall. I yanked the knob. Locked.

Frustrated, I jiggled the door in its frame. Everything stopped. The wailing, the movement, all of it went silent. I stepped back from the door with a scowl. What was going on? I gave the door one last pass with my light, and then headed towards the grand staircase. I was tired of being scared. There had to be a logical explanation, and I was going to find it.

This all started in the library.

The night I’d first been in here, the library had appeared unused, but tonight with the lights out and the wind raging outside, the vast room seemed foreboding. Cavernous, with dark corners, the lack of fire left the room with a chill I felt immediately. I swept the flashlight across the floor, picked up the edge of one of the leather wingback chairs, and started towards it.

The noise I heard the other night had come from the bookcase. I looked closely this time, scanned the books, and squinted at the corners of the wood. Nothing seemed out of place. I put my ear to the wallpaper. Its musty scent whirled up my nose. A violent jolt shook the wall against my face, and I jumped back, a startled yelp escaping my lips.

The low wail, deep and pain-filled, floated through the walls.

Fear vaulted into my chest, and I held my breath, listening. Hollow knocks, like heels on a wood floor, sounded from behind the wall. I shined my light there, my hand shaking the beam across the floorboards.

In the corner of the room, at the base of a sculpture of a faun half hidden by a ragged tapestry, I put my hand out and felt a slight breeze. There was something behind there. Tapestries rested flush against walls. How did this one get draped over the sculpture? Heart hammering, I got to my knees, and brushed my fingertips along the edge of light, felt space and pushed my hand under the base of the statue. Wind wafted over my fingers.

“Huh.” I sat back on my heels, thinking.

I felt my way up the wall behind the tapestry and found a long crevice. Flush with the wall, the panel was nearly invisible, hidden behind the tapestry and shrouded in shadows, but my flashlight beam pierced the dark room, revealing the secret door. I set the light on the fireplace mantel and aimed the beam at the panel. I pushed aside the tapestry and dug into the gap, trying to pull the door, straining. I gave up, breathless and with stinging fingers. The door must have some way to disengage it.

I rested my hand on the sculpture. Waist high, it seemed out of place. I planted both hands on it and tried to move it, but it wouldn’t even shift. Grasping the tiny horns on the faun’s head, I tried to tilt the statue to no avail. With one last idea, I grasped the faun by either outstretched arm and turned it on its base like a dancer twirling a partner. The statue moved with me, spinning to face the fireplace, jarring with a mechanical grind of gears. A cloud of dusty air puffed out from sides of the door panel as it popped ajar.

An icy draft fluttered out of the shaft with the musty odor of years gone by.

What if I found what or who I was looking for in that darkness? I grabbed the fireplace poker as a weapon and pushed the door open wider. I peered in with the flashlight. Wispy webs dangled and danced in the breeze. They hung from the dark sconces that lined the stairway. My breath came in hitches from both the fear and excitement of my find. I stood on the first step, debating what to do. The sound of movement overhead propelled me into the hidden stairway.

I climbed the narrow step, the feel of grime and dust under my bare feet. Stairs rose behind the wall and angled until I was sure I was three stories up. I saw no footsteps in the dust on the stairs, nothing to indicate anyone had been here for decades. The stairs narrowed until I was forced to walk with my back against the wall, the steps only two feet across. They stopped abruptly at a dead end. Another panel door was set into the wall. I struggled to control the rising worry. I did not see a statue to move here. Only narrow stairs, closed-in walls, and a door with no knob.

I planted my palms against the wall and pushed. A gasp of relief shook me when the door gave, and I walked into a small room no bigger than a bathroom. The door swung back into place behind me. It was lined with shelves, appearing to be the far wall of a storage room. Scanning with the flashlight, I spotted a few thick pillar candles on a workbench. A box of matches lay next to them.

The match scraped to life, and I lit the candles and shut off my flashlight. The sound of the storm outside was muffled. I didn’t see any windows.

“Must be in the center of the house, maybe the attic,” I said aloud.

I felt a tickle on my cheek and I jerked, brushing at skin as I imagined a venomous spider caught in my hair. I pulled away the silky strands of spider web with a shudder.

“What am I doing?” I grimaced, eyes adjusting to the warm candlelight.

I’d expected to find something or someone causing all the bumping, but the undisturbed dust on the floor told me I hadn’t found where they’d been. I listened for a few minutes for the moan or the footfalls, but they had stopped. I shook my head, disappointed. Had whoever it was heard me? Maybe it was a good thing I didn’t run into them somewhere in the dark bowels of this old mansion. Shaking off the chill that skittered up my spine, I took in the dusty shapes.

Battered wood crates sat atop a workbench butted up against two of the walls. Remembering similar boxes in Simon’s workshop, I wondered if they contained any intriguing artifacts. I peered inside the closest one and found it filled with files.

“Not exactly King Tut’s treasure,” I muttered and grabbed a handful of the files.

Pulling a candle over, I found a stool, sat at the workbench and flipped through the old records. The file contained bills of sale and receipts for a place called
The
Lamplight Lodge
. When I read the address, I realized that this house, Simon’s home, was a working hunting lodge in the 1800s. The dates of the receipts ran to 1910 and then stopped. That must have been when Simon’s grandfather converted the lodge to a home.

“That explains the pictures on the stairwell walls,” I said out loud, remembering the strung up deer carcasses and hunters with pith helmets.

Another file had letters from guests securing lodging for the summer months, requests for information, and bills of sale for everything from milk to tobacco imported from Europe.

I stuffed everything back into the file and pulled another from the crate. A cascade of yellowed clippings fell from the folder. They fluttered to the floor, and when I bent to pick them up, I spied a black-and-white photo of Davenport next to a yacht. It was an article written by the Seattle newspaper. The photographer had captured Davenport as a young father tossing a fair-haired boy into the air. The two faced each other, Simon’s arms and legs splayed out mid-air like a skydiver, pure glee on his face. The shot was snapped a second before he fell into his father’s waiting arms. The caption below read:

Davenport Hale and son at the inaugural voyage of The Lotus as it sets out for the dark continent. Hale, along with his wife and young son, mean to expand the reach of the Hale Exploration Conglomerate. Known for taking the privileged elite on legendary ventures into the unknown, Hale intends to push further than ever before.

I stared at the photograph, my mind churning. In all the stories Davenport told me about his travels, he’d never mentioned Simon being with him. Intrigued, I dove back into the files, the strange noises I followed up here forgotten. I found a pack of photos, the thick white edges yellowed with age. In them, I followed Simon through years of travel with his father and mother. I found one with him on an elephant, a jungle in the background. He smiled confidently at the camera, his small frame draped in a billowing white tunic, a fez on his head. Another snapshot: Simon sitting on his father’s knee, pyramids as a backdrop, and a camel crouched in the sand to his right.

In every photograph, Simon looked excited, at home amid settings I’d only read about in books. The last one in the stack showed Simon now older, the angle of his jaw stronger, more masculine. He stood next to another man on the shore of a body of water, an overturned boat like a canoe in the foreground. Shirtless, holding a spear, Simon’s piercing glare held the camera.