Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Wanting to hurry this up for her and for myself, I flashed the beam of my light at the spot I thought I’d seen a door. Air rushed out of me. “There it is.”
“Did you see these bookshelves?” Grace said from my right at the same time. She pulled out a slim volume as Aaron went to check the door handle.
“It’s in Latin,” she muttered, sliding it back while I was still digesting the fact that she could make out anything in this light. “I think I recognized the word ‘demon’ from school.”
I wanted to ask what kind of school taught Latin in this day and age, then remembered that she’d been educated at boarding schools in Europe. Answer had to be rich people schools.
I wondered idly if that meant Grace was rich. Be nice for Aaron if she was; if anyone deserved a break in life, it was him. He’d worked all through high school and university, and was currently doing a ton to support his younger siblings through higher education.
“It’s open.” Aaron pushed the door into empty space on the other side.
The smooth transition made me frown. “The door to this room was locked.” I glanced back at the splintered edges that were a silent testament to what it had taken to get in. Ash was going to be paying the price for that in a few hours.
“Darcie must’ve locked it after she came inside.” Grace slid back another book. “Did you check her pockets for a key?”
I shook my head.
Though Grace’s words made sense, I couldn’t understand why Darcie would’ve locked up when she was the only one who knew about the secret passage in the first place.
“This one is in English,” Grace muttered, shifting to catch more of the glow from my flashlight.
The pages blazed a painful white to my eyes.
“It’s a book of spells. Dark stuff. Cursing-your-neighbor kind of thing.” Shuddering, she shoved it back onto the shelf. “Luna, do you mind if I go after Aaron into the passage?”
The weight of the dark at my back was suffocating. “No problem.” I fell in behind her.
“Gah!” Aaron made a jerking motion, paused. “Uh, sorry. Cobwebs.” He sounded so sheepish that it broke the tension, had us giggling. “At exactly the height of my face.”
“It doesn’t count unless a spider sets up home in your hair,” I said.
“I hate you,” he muttered without force, while Grace patted his back and said, “It’s okay, sweetie. Spiders prefer other nesting places.”
Not listening to Aaron’s rumbled response, I ran the beam of my flashlight on either side of me. “Narrow.” Not enough to be uncomfortable, but meant for single file.
“Yeah.” Aaron coughed into the crook of his elbow. “I’ll stay up front—unless you want to swap? You did find this place.”
“No, go on.” A few steps in, I couldn’t help glancing back at the door through which we’d entered, my neck prickling.
“What if it isn’t just us eight?” Grace whispered. “I mean, if there’s one secret room, there could be others, right?”
My entire face went cold, her words giving shape to the primal fear in my gut.
I snapped my attention back to the other two.
“We’d have noticed,” Aaron argued. “We’ve been all over the house. I’d have noticed if a ton of food went missing. Ash and Darcie might’ve stocked it, but they asked me to make the shopping list.”
I hadn’t known the latter, though it made sense. “Place is huge,” I said, wondering why the hell I was adding fuel to the fire when it was the stuff of nightmares. “And one person wouldn’t need a lot of food.”
“How would they even have got here?” Aaron said, his voice a whisper, too.
As if the walls were listening in.
Stomach lurching, I remembered the rustling I’d put down to rats—then later to Darcie. But what if it hadn’t been either of those two? What if the walls were listening?
“Could be a squatter,” Grace said. “Like that case in America where that person lived in someone’s attic for years and only came out at night.”
“That’s an urban legend,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure.
“I’m saying the estate sits empty most of the time, right? Perfect place to stay if you don’t care that you’re in the middle of nowhere. Plus, there’s a pantry stocked with nonperishables.”
“But they’d have to go out sometime,” Aaron said, his tone firm. “I’m not buying that the squatter’s happy to sit in isolation forever. They couldn’t eat out the pantry, for one. The caretaker would notice.”
I didn’t want to say what I did next. “Easy enough to hide a vehicle in the bush at the foot of the mountains. Jim’s got no reason to go out there. He’s only responsible for the house and making sure any fallen fruit is cleaned up.”
“That’s it,” Aaron muttered, “I’m separating you and Gracie the minute we’re out of here. You’re dangerous together.”