Page 69 of The Curse of Redwood

Chills having nothing to do with the draft spread down my arms and legs. Great. My choices were to go back and face a mad man or to continue forward and meet some woman William was clearly afraid of.

I grabbed one of the candlesticks and ventured forward. The flame cast light on the walls, and I ran my hand over the wooden boards. About a minute later, I reached the end of the corridor. I held the light to the wall and saw a handle, which I grabbed and turned. There was aclick, and the door swung open. I stepped into an open area, thankful for the tall windows that let in the daylight.

Even though it was stormy, the faint light was still better than the blinding darkness of the corridor.

White sheets covered some of the furniture; what looked like a chair and some kind of tall object. Maybe a coat hanger? A harp almost as big as me stood in the corner, and there was a cello beside it. A vase holding dead flowers sat on top of a baby grand piano.

I saw no one… yet I felt a presence. Someone watching me.

I closed the door—which was a large portrait of a colonial man riding a horse—and advanced farther in the room. A single note on the piano rang out. I halted in step and looked over at it. A key was pressed again. Then, the lid slammed shut.

And the tall sheet, which I had thought covered a coat hanger, began to drift forward.

“Hello?” I asked.

The floating sheet snagged on the end of a side table and slipped from the object beneath it, revealing a woman with her black hair pulled back in a low bun. She wore a corseted dress with a high collar and long sleeves. The woman’s pale face was stretched into a sinister smile, and her dark eyes were wide. She came at me faster, and I ran for the exit.

Heavy steps thumped behind me as she yelled in delight.

I jumped through the doorway and landed in the hall, flipping around just as she reached the edge of the room where the soft carpet met hardwood floor. She didn’t say a word as she stared at me, but her smile widened in an unnatural way.

I took off down the hall, nearly falling a few times as my shoes slipped on the slick floor. I wanted to check on Zeke, but I couldn’t chance staying in the mansion a moment longer.

As I finally reached the patio doors, I heard Jasper’s laugh echo from down the hall. There was also a flurry of other voices. Whispers and creepy giggles. I burst through the door leading to the backyard and didn’t look back as I ran for the fence.

Redwood Manor reallywasa mad house, each room holding a different horror.

Chapter Thirteen

I was still shaking when I got home.

After grabbing a beer from the fridge, I sat down at my kitchen table and popped it open to take a drink. I needed something much stronger to steady my nerves, but Taylor and I’d drunk all my vodka last time he’d come over. And to make matters worse, my head was beginning to ache. It had started as soon as I’d gotten in my car and left the mansion.

I was so shaken up that I screamed when my phone vibrated on the table.

“H-Hello?” I answered.

“Hey, C,” Rich said. “What’s up?”

I breathed out and took another drink. “Not much. Just got home.”

“You okay, man?”

Jasper’s maniacal laugh echoed in my head, followed by the visual of that woman in the music room charging at me. “Yeah. I’m good.”

“T and I were gonna go out tonight. Wanna come?”

“Where y’all going?”

“Probably to the bar, then maybe to a club. Just go wherever the night takes us. It’s been a while since we went out. You sound like you could use a drink.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong there.” I rubbed at the back of my neck. My muscles had tensed up big time. “Give me a few, and then I’ll meet you guys.”

“Cool. See ya.”

The last thing I wanted was to be left alone. I’d had several incidents with ghosts at Redwood, but nothing like I’d experienced that afternoon. I knew in my gut that Jasper would’ve chopped me into pieces if I hadn’t been fast enough.

My mouth salivated and my stomach quivered. I leapt out of my chair and barely made it to the kitchen trashcan in time before I puked. And then I slunk to the cold tile floor and curled into a ball.