Page 65 of The Silence of Hell

“You did,” Jinx said with a frown.

“No, that was not me. I heard a bang and woke up. There was a scream, so I came outside, and then there was a second. It wasn’t me,” Lavender gasped.

Footsteps pounded inside the house as Jinx shouted, “The girls!”

All five students appeared and were swapping glances.

“What happened? Why did you scream?” Harriet cried.

“I didn’t. I thought one of you had,” Lavender denied.

“No, that wasn’t us!” Emory replied.

“Then who the hell was it?” Chatter asked.

“The Lady in White!” Harriet exclaimed.

“What?” Chatter demanded, exasperated.

“One of the ghost stories Callie found was that there is the ghost of Margaret Bloodsworth, who was the wife of Thomas in seventeen fifty. A jealous sibling who wanted the Manor murdered her. Descendants have claimed seeing her whenever the true heir to the Manor is in danger,” Harriet explained.

“So, what changed tonight?” Lavender muttered.

Jinx had gone back into the house and reappeared. “I think you better see this,” he said grimly.

Chatter burst through her bedroom door with Lavender on his heels. He tried to turn her face away, but Lavender had seen it. Sticking out of her bed as a warning was a knife. It had been stabbed into the mattress and left.

Chatter growled under his breath. Whoever was behind shit happening here had just stepped up their game and sent a very threatening message.

Lavender

Somehow things were coming to a closure. I could feel it in my bones. Ravenberry was about to give up some of its secrets.

Today began with a discussion of last night’s events, and Sin showed me the passages she’d uncovered so far where Margaret had appeared to warn heirs of danger.

It was all interesting, but someone wanted to hurt me. And right now, I was looking at three of them.

Mom, Dad, and Janice had arrived, in breach of their bail terms, no doubt. I’d called the police before going outside. With their luck, they’d escape before the officers arrived and claim I was off my head or something.

“What do you want?” I asked, with Chatter and Jinx at my back.

“To tell you to drop this ridiculous suit,” Dad said, looking at me sternly.

“And then what?”

“Then we’ll consider compensation from you for the embarrassment you’ve put us through and discuss future options,” Janice snapped.

I began laughing. “All you did was marry into a rich family. You weren’t born to this; you don’t have a blood tie, just greed in your corner!”

“Don’t talk to your grandmother like that!” Dad shouted at me, and I spun on him.

“Let me make things very clear. You had a child because Aunt Aggie lost her children. Oh yeah, I overheard that conversation, too! You did not want me, but I was a means to the end and the end being the estate and its wealth.” Bitterness rose in me as I poured out the secrets I’d been hiding.

“I was nothing more than a meal ticket. When it became clear Aunt Aggie wouldn’t have an heir, you all hatched the plan. What you didn’t realise was Aunt Aggie and I would be close. You saw me as a meal ticket to get all of this, and then when Aunt Aggie died, you kept all this hidden from me. For years, you went behind my back and tried to break the trust. The lot of you disgust me. Tell me, did you ever have any love for me?”

My voice broke on the last, but I drew myself up and held their eyes, looking for something, anything, to prove they cared.

“Why on earth would we care about you?” Janice sneered.

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