Page 2 of Whispers of Shadowbrook House

Going home shouldn’t feel like walking into a nightmare. Not that Shadowbrook had ever felt much like a home.

When he requested a visit with his uncle Arthur, his letter went unanswered. In a different situation, Oliver might have waited.

Waiting was no longer a possibility.

The driver took the sharp left turn faster than Oliver would have, and he winced as his shoulder slammed into the carriage wall.

This journey would have been more comfortable on the back of a horse.

Seats with springs and walls to keep out wind and rain were all very well, but Oliver wished he’d opted for a mode of travel where he was the one driving.

Being unable to see the road gave him the feeling he wasn’t as in control of his arrival as he wished.

He knocked at the carriage wall and called out, “Stop here, please.”

The driver reined in the horses, and as soon as they’d stopped, Oliver opened the door and jumped out.

“I’ll walk the rest of the way, thank you.” Pulling his cases from the rack at the back of the carriage, Oliver looked ahead. The lane to Shadowbrook twisted through the darkness, overrun with trees and wild branches.

“There’s no place for me to turn about,” the driver said. “I’ve got to go ahead to the house. May as well stay in for the ride.”

Oliver shook his head. “I’d rather not.” There were quite a few things about this visit he’d rather not do. Walking the lane was one element he could choose.

The horses pulled the carriage away toward the house, their hoofbeats and the jangle of tack quickly swallowed up in the edges of the New Forest. Soon, nothing more than the hush of wind through autumn leaves joined the sound of Oliver’s feet on the lane.

Before many minutes had passed, the carriage returned to view, the horses snorting.

The driver raised a hand in farewell, no hint of a smile on his face as he hurried away.

The man must have noticed the tumbledown state of the house.

Oliver understood his eagerness to be gone as quickly as possible.

Occasional flickers of movement in the trees on either side of the lane would have made a younger Oliver shudder with a perfect combination of fear and delight, but he was far too old to believe in haunted forests now.

The woods held no specters. No monsters.

No fairies. Only possibilities for improvement and a path forward into the future.

At the lane’s final turning, the house came into view.

Once a magnificent family home, Shadowbrook now resembled a storybook ruin, and if buildings had feelings, this house would be weeping.

More than simply neglected, Shadowbrook leaned and shuddered, its very foundations seemingly unable to support the crumbling red stones.

Oliver turned toward the western border of the property where a slope led to the river’s edge. How many hours had he spent there as a boy, watching ships sail past and hoping for a miraculous future that would carry him away from this place?

He was no longer that wishful boy. He made his own fate now.

Readjusting his grip on the handles of his cases, he turned to the house.

He took one look at the imposing front door and opted for the kitchen entry.

Much better to walk in as though he belonged here than to chance an encounter with his uncle’s butler.

If he did happen to bump into Jenkinson, Oliver planned to make eye contact and nod at the man.

Maybe even smile. He knew that didn’t seem like much of a plan, but it was more than he’d ever managed before.

Not that Oliver was afraid of the butler; he’d simply rather give himself time to be prepared for their meeting.

The butler’s large stature had a way of making Oliver feel small, even though Oliver himself was quite tall. The way Jenkinson looked at him, though, always reduced Oliver to being ten years old again, late for something, and in trouble.

As far as Oliver knew, Jenkinson had never smiled, but now that Oliver was a man himself, it couldn’t hurt him to extend a bit of friendliness. Perhaps he could warm the butler’s icy heart and bring him around to seeing the wisdom in Oliver’s proposal for the future of the property.

Maybe, in turn, Uncle Arthur would listen to his most trusted servant.

It was possible, if not likely.

As he opened the door to the kitchen, the house seemed to sigh. When he was a boy, Oliver had heard such sounds as voices. Murmurs and whispers. Now he understood a building’s tendency to breathe in and out as doors opened and closed, to creak as stairs and walls shifted and settled.

Everything in the kitchen looked smaller than he remembered it: tables, work surfaces, cupboards. Had he truly grown so much taller in his time away at school and Cambridge and the subsequent years in London?

Though the kitchen fire was banked, the aromas of a meaty stew hung about the room, reminding him of the occasional silent dinners he and his uncle had shared many years ago.

With no sign of a cook or a serving maid in the kitchen, Oliver moved through to the main floor’s maze of hallways lead ing to rooms of questionable structural integrity and far more questionable original intent.

Whatever they’d been meant for, Uncle Arthur had left his mark on many of the rooms. The room to Oliver’s right housed a collection of human figures sculpted in white marble, many of them covered in draperies as if several ghosts had gathered.

There was more space between the figures than there used to be.

Perhaps Uncle Arthur had begun selling off his collections.

All the better, as that meant less for Oliver to get rid of when he took over the house.

He closed his eyes for a moment and imagined Shadowbrook completely empty.

Echoing halls. Cleared corners. No rooms full of centuries of ignored collections, no crates and trunks piled against walls, no stacks of unused serving platters that wouldn’t fit in the kitchen.

It was hard to imagine it, but the vision was rather pleasant.

Clean. Unburdened. Oliver smiled at the impossible thought.

With the wind whispering through cracks and seams, Shadow-brook was never silent, but now it came close.

There was no sound of movement or household conversation as Oliver made his way past a few more rooms with boarded windows and draped furnishings.

The echo of his quiet footfalls and creaking beams followed him.

He refused to slow his steps enough to hear the music.

Not that he believed in the music.

It was a childish ghost story he’d shared with his friends. Now that he’d returned after so many years, it was easy to believe he’d invented the strains of violin music floating through the halls of Shadowbrook on dark nights. He focused on the shushing of his own shoes’ soles against the floor.

Finally, he arrived at the entry hall, his arms protesting the weight of his bags.

Shadowbrook’s main staircase was a showpiece, lovely even to Oliver’s jaded eyes.

Majestic gray marble stairs rose from the entryway up to a high-ceilinged upper floor, each wide step covered with a thick, velvety carpet.

Even after all these years, Oliver could remember sinking his toes into the soft warmth of that rich carpet.

At the top of the first landing, he turned right, heading toward his childhood bedroom. He hoped he’d be allowed to take that same room for the duration of his visit.

Before he arrived at the bedroom door, he set his bags down and felt along a blank stretch of wall. His fingers acted by memory alone, locating the small gap in the paneled wall. He pressed his finger into it, and the hinge opened silently.

Oliver smiled at the memory of many solitary hours spent drawing pictures in this secret, hidden space.

Before he was able to pull the door fully open and step inside, a flurry of arms and skirts and hair tumbled from the cupboard, and a laughing voice exclaimed, “Well done, young explorer! You’ve found me far earlier than I expected you to. ”

Her hands gripped his elbows, and he stared down into a sweet, smiling face that quickly shifted into astonishment.

A woman who did not appear much younger than Oliver’s own twenty-six years blinked at him from beneath a fan of eyelashes as black as her hair, her lips parted.

His voice, rusty from disuse, cracked as he replied, “Yes, I’ve found you. And I didn’t even know I was looking.” He smiled in natural amusement at the situation.

“How very fortunate for us both,” the angel with a mane of black curls said, the startled look melting into a smile of what Oliver hoped was true pleasure.

He felt his smile grow even larger. “Indeed. Although I think it only fair to confess, I’m not at all sure what I’ve found. A sprite? A specter?”

The woman laughed, a sound like the tolling of bright silver bells. And was that a dimple in her porcelain cheek?

“Nothing quite so interesting, I assure you. A governess and nothing more. Hardly the stuff of fairy stories.” She looked down at her hands, still pressed to his arms.

Oliver had no complaints about the way she held on to him. He noticed her unpretentious gray-blue dress, clearly made more for function than fashion, though the simplicity of her uniform didn’t dim the sparkle in her eyes nor the brightness of her smile.

She seemed to notice they were standing very near to each other, and she removed her hands from his arms, taking a small step backward. Oliver forced his legs to hold still and not close the distance between them immediately. He didn’t want to appear as though he was chasing her.

“Are you Mr. Waverley, then? The heir?” She pronounced each syllable distinctly, as if his name was an important word.

Someone had mentioned his name to this woman. Perhaps that was a good omen. Perhaps he was welcome and expected after all.