Page 15 of Blackwicket (Dark Hall #1)

I stayed on the cliff side as long as I dared until my teeth rattled together so forcefully I thought they might break.

Emptied, I made my way back to Blackwicket House, the skin on my knees tight, feet aching, and the awful light of those lamps glowing weakly from the front windows.

This place should have been beautiful, and maybe it had been when I looked at the world the way a child does, noticing the blossoms but never the thorns.

Everything was hushed when I entered, but not still, and this was all the comfort I could ask for.

To whatever extent it would help, I locked the bolt.

It gave me some satisfaction to imagine the Inspector forced to stand outside in the cold, filled with impotent rage and driven by the snow to search for a proper hotel in town.

Muscle memory guided me up two flights of stairs to the third floor, glass sparkling on the runners.

I didn’t bother to avoid the debris, crushing it underfoot as I approached the small suite that had been my family’s haven, positioned across the hall from the room Inspector Harrow had chosen.

I wondered if he’d somehow known when he picked the keys.

The key. I’d forgotten again, too strange a thing to try and remember after years of never needing one.

With fatigued desperation, I took the handle and begged mercy.

The magic had barely gathered in my fingers when the lock turned, and I was granted access without dramatic consequence. I murmured my gratitude.

The anteroom was unchanged, a modest semicircle of three doors.

The rightmost lead to our mother’s room, the left, Fiona’s and mine.

The center door opened to a washroom shared by the three of us, the smallest but most private.

The other four bathrooms, once intended for guests, had fallen into disrepair, their pipes frozen and rusted, with nobody willing to come and replace them.

Blackwickets have never lacked money, yet generations of amassed wealth delivered a hollow promise of comfort.

Money meant little if there was no one to help, no workers to hire, no local shop willing to sell their stock to the house on the hill where children went to die at the hands of Curse Eaters hungry for the innocent.

That was one rumor, anyway. The favorite of the town.

Exhausted, I entered the bathroom, its black and white tiles resembling a chessboard.

Not content with just the floor, the tiling climbed the wall, reaching halfway to the ceiling before giving way to cream plaster.

I’d expected stains, perhaps cracks in the tile, the porcelain worn to the iron in the tub.

But here seemed untouched by the ravages of neglect, and I was grateful.

I stripped out of my skirt, heavy from the slush and dirt of the cliff, the cuffs of my shirt blackened with the same.

My underthings were the nicest I’d ever owned, a cream silk set purchased at employee discount at Galton’s.

I’d planned to wear them for Ben, but never had the opportunity.

I prodded at this wound of losing a companionship I’d begun to feel secure in. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. Ben hadn’t been a great love of mine, merely a comfortable one, but for Curse Eaters in hiding, pickings were slim.

I prayed for hot water and received the answering knock of the pipes, with blessed steam rising from the basin in mere minutes. Sinking in up to my ears, I savored the soothing, muffled silence, my hair drifting around me like summer seaweed.

The rhythm of my heart and welcome warmth began to lull me to sleep, until a metallic clang reverberated, throbbing through my skull, as if the side of the tub had been struck with a mallet. I emerged, sending water sloshing, soaking my skirt, which lay in a jumble.

I scanned the ceiling, peering into the dim corners high overhead, but saw no movement.

I was too tired, too broken, for whatever games the house was playing tonight.

Still, I placed my hands on the rim and looked over, expecting to find a shape or shadow staring up at me from beneath the basin, but there was nothing.

Knowing there’d be no solace here after all, I submerged myself again and used the soaps and shampoos belonging to Fiona, all infused with the soft scent of honeysuckle, to wash away the horrors of the last few days.

Despite my scrubbing, the memories clung to me, oily and uncomfortable, but at least feeling had returned to my limbs.

My heart remained numb, but that was a blessing, and I hoped I’d feel no more in it for the rest of my life.

I refused to don my soiled clothes, but my bags were downstairs.

I rejected the idea of that journey and removed a satin robe from its hook.

Putting it on was like slipping into my sister’s life, filling the void her absence created.

I considered staying in my mother’s old room, but Fiona had likely claimed it in the years since, and I couldn’t bring myself to intrude.

I chose the leftmost instead, leaving the light switch untouched. The gloom was thick, the wood shutters closed tight to block the glow of the moon off the sea, but I could discern the shape of two beds—Fiona’s near the high, far wall, and mine tucked neatly under the slanted dormer.

Bypassing my corner, I stumbled to Fiona’s, collapsing onto her coverlet, which rustled as I wrapped myself in it.

I anticipated crying a bit more, but as I prepared myself for the deluge of emotion, I was waking, startled from the sleep that had borne me under without preamble.

I’d dreamed of chasing Fiona through the halls, missing her with every turn.

Scuffling drew my attention, a deliberate movement along the floor as though something were crawling near. I strained to see, but the dark was absolute. I sat up.

The air pulsed with a vague energy, a confounding, befouled power humming with an undercurrent of organic magic. My sudden action resulted in an almost profane vibration that settled low in my body.

“Who is it?” I was wide awake now, the unusual sensation encouraging curiosity over fear.

Whatever lurked retreated at the sound of my voice, its sudden exit creating a vacuum, stealing my breath.

I surged from bed, eager to discover the thing responsible for such strangeness.

The door to the anteroom creaked, and I pursued the anomaly into the dim hallway, remembering the glass too late.

I braced for the sting of slivers in the soft soles of my feet, but the carpet was clear of debris, every shard absent.

I stared down the long stretch of corridor, with nowhere for a person to hide unless they were the size of a child, and listened to the unsteady breathing of the foundation.

Making a tedious procession, I began testing doors.

They were all locked. In my weariness, I’d let Blackwicket House get the best of me.

When I reached the window at the end of the hall, I wilted against it, taking a moment to glance out at an expanse of bare branches, the blanket of hills rolling to the valley where Nightglass sparkled, even at this hour.

It was both a foreboding and enchanting sight, a realm of fairies—beautiful, treacherous, and full of secrets.

This strange tenderness urged me to lean my head against the windowpane, my inhibitions lessened by fatigue.

I opened my magic, offering peace, but when I brushed the cool curve of darkness, it convulsed.

Its convergence was swift as an unexpected wave, filling your nose and mouth with brine.

I snapped my defenses shut, and the house moaned.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Forceful thuds reverberated within the wall like the desperate fists of prisoners, growing louder.

“I can’t help you. You need Fiona, and she’s gone.”

The pounding came faster, overwhelming me. I covered my ears, opened my mouth to scream, but there was no need. Silence fell.

Tired of being bullied, I turned to beat a hasty retreat, only to collide with a solid figure.

My shriek was stifled by a large palm pressed to my mouth, an arm encircling my waist, preventing me from falling as I struggled to break loose.

I urged the curse within me to rise, but it was too weak to hurt anyone but me.

With no other choice, I raised my hands to claw at the eyes of my attacker, only to recognize the moonlit face of Inspector Harrow.

He was disheveled, clothes rumbled, hair unkempt. I might have assumed it due to being abruptly awoken, except that his right cheek bore a fresh cut at the pinnacle of bone, skin mottled with fresh bruising.

“Don’t wake the dead, Ms. Blackwicket,” he intoned, voice silky in the dark.

I slapped his hand away.

“Lunatic!” My voice rang in the hush. “What are you doing wandering around in the middle of the night?”

“Heard something interesting,” he replied.

He hadn’t yet released his grip on my waist, and I pushed him back. Harrow retreated the barest of steps, but I remained cornered. There wasn’t nearly enough space to slip by without bodily shoving past, and I was reluctant to make contact again .

“You told me this place was empty,” he said. “But I doubted a single Curse Eater could make all that racket by herself, so I had a look around.”

It’s true he appeared to have dressed hastily, his trousers beltless, ever-present revolver in a shoulder holster he’d shrugged on over a white cotton undershirt.

I eyed the weapon with no modest amount of disdain.

“The things in these walls aren’t afraid of your gun, Inspector.”

It was a weak attempt at frightening him, but the narrowing of his eyes and the slight tilt of his head revealed it did the opposite.