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)
“Sorry, sweetie.” Grace patted his shoulder again. “It’s this house. It’s getting to us.”
I allowed the topic to drift away, but I wondered if part of the reason Grace and I had clung to it was that it’d be less of a horror to have it be a stranger behind the odd occurrences. Because if there was no squatter . . . then it had to be one of us.
23
Do you see anything?” I asked Aaron after several minutes of walking. From what I could tell, we’d turned the corner, but that was it. This place had no other markers, no helpful arrows on the wall.
My jaw ached, my neck stiff.
“Nothing.” Thirty seconds or so later, our breathing loud in the silence, he said, “Hold on. I think I see a sliver of light. Switch off your flashlight.”
Sweat broke out along my spine. “Grace, you okay with that?”
Grace’s voice was unsteady as she said, “If it’s only for a second or two.”
“Here, take my hand. There you go. You’re good, Lu.”
With no escape hatches left, I forced myself to press down on the button that turned off the beam of light.
Spots flickered in my vision, fiery flashes of fading sight, and I had to place my hand against the wall to keep from screaming. But it did nothing to stop the mental babbling: Oh God. Oh God. Oh God!
“Oh, I see it, too!” Grace’s hand brushing my shoulder as she reached back. “Look!”
I could see easily enough over her diminutive height, but Aaron had to duck down to clear the sightline. And sure enough, there it was, a thin line of light beneath what had to be a doorway.
Air returned to my lungs in a stagnant rush.
Neither Aaron nor I turned on our flashlights as we headed toward that light. I still couldn’t see anything except for when I caught a glimpse around Aaron, but just knowing that the light was there, that we were getting closer to it, stopped me from panicking.
A voice at the back of my brain whispered that I was a fool, that I had to accept that there would be no light in my future, nothing but the cold embrace of the dark.
Get used to it, it said. Or you’ll go stark, raving mad.
Unable to deal with that while stuck in this damn passageway with its flat, stale air, the dust grit under my teeth, and no doubt a new crop of cobwebs in my hair, I focused on Grace’s scent. She used either a body spray or shampoo with lavender as a base ingredient.
It was a scent I knew to the bone after growing up with masses of the blooms in our yard at home. Mum had always had grand plans to dry them and make potpourri, but two active kids and a joyous social life kept her too busy to ever quite get to the task. So the lavender thrived unchecked, our yard abuzz with bees who loved the tall purple stalks.
The birds had brought other seeds, and I’d mischievously sprinkled a packet of wildflower seeds through the yard one spring. Over time, Mum’s wild garden had become a thing of stunning beauty, until the neighbors believed she’d planned it that way on purpose. Some of my first photographs had been of the garden in bloom as my parents sat on our little porch with cups of tea in hand and Cable zoomed around with his toy airplane.
Dad had hung one of those photographs in the hallway after having it professionally framed. It was still there, in among my brother’s sports certificates, the little shrine of trophies he’d collected over the years—and all the other photos of mine that my mum and dad had framed.
My parents knew how to love both their children, and I’d never appreciated the true gift of that until just now, when I thought of how Bea’s mother hadn’t been able to accept her daughter’s divergence. If there even had been a divergence.
Again, I had only Darcie’s word for Bea’s problems.
“I hope that door’s unlocked.” Grace’s voice wobbled. “Otherwise, fair warning, I’m gonna scream.”
I hadn’t even thought about that, but she was right. It would be a bit much to come this far and then find the door locked and have to make it all the way back . . . all the while trying not to think about the phantom squatter who might’ve decided to somehow block us in on that end, too.
My heart beat so fast it hurt.
But when we reached the light at last, the door swung smoothly open under Aaron’s hand . . . to a clanking rattle of sound.
“What the—”
The three of us stood in the pantry. The sounds we’d heard had been cans falling off the shelf attached to the back of the door we’d opened. Chickpeas, tomatoes, beetroot, corn, spaghetti, baked beans, more baked beans, mackerel in red sauce, sardines, and beside it, a can of black cherries.