Page 31 of Darkest at Dusk
Isabella waited her out. Either the girl would say what was on her mind or she would not.
Finally, Peg said, “It’s this house, this place. You feel it, don’t you? The strangeness of it?”
“Strangeness?”
“It isn’t right. You walk down a corridor or carry something up the stairs, and the walls feel odd, like they’re closing in. Mary and Em don’t feel it, but I do. I feel it so strong sometimes I think I might retch. And at night, I hear things. Knocking from inside the walls. Or moans. Or cries.” She pressed her lips together, then whispered, “I hear them. And as soon as I saw you, I thought you might hear them, too.” She hesitated, then added in a rush, “And if you wake to find the door open when you know for certain you closed it—” She stopped, blanching and shook her head. “Best not to say more.”
Isabella stared at her. Never before had she encountered someone who saw the things she saw, heard the things she heard. For a brief, shining instant, she considered trusting this girl with her confessions, sharing the burden of the wraiths that haunted her. The words rose to the back of her teeth, Yes, I hear them.
But a level head and years of caution won out. She held her silence and only waited for Peg to say more.
“I don’t tell you this to make you upset or afraid,” Peg hastened to reassure. “That isn’t it at all. I tell you because when you hear it, I want you to know I hear it too, and I’ve been here nigh on a year and nothing bad has happened to me. Sometimes it does scare me.” She shook her head and offered a small smile. “But my mam always said that ghosts aren’t really here and even if they were, they couldn’t hurt you. Only being afraid of them can do that.”
The girl fell silent and after a moment, bobbed an awkward curtsey and edged toward the door.
“Peg,” Isabella said.
The maid stopped in the doorway and looked back at her over her shoulder.
“Thank you for telling me about…” Isabella pressed her lips together. “I won’t be afraid.”
Peg offered a wavery smile, nodded once, and slipped out, closing the door with a soft click.
The quiet that followed felt heavy, leaden. The fire’s embers glowed in the hearth, battling the cold and the creeping dark that pooled in the corners like black treacle.
The armoire loomed, its polished surface reflecting a smudgy, distorted version of Isabella’s face, the warped image bending and swaying with each flicker of the flames. Her gaze slid to the dark gap between the doors. She could have sworn something shifted within.
Pansy’s words slid through her thoughts. Keep your wits about you… Harrowgate has a way of taking things.
From somewhere deep within the house, carrying through the walls, came a faint, deliberate knocking. Three measured beats, then silence.
Isabella turned a slow circle, trying to determine the direction of the sound.
It came again, closer now, a little louder. Knock. Knock. Knock.
Her skin prickled, the fine hairs on her arms lifting. She strained to hear it again, but the silence was heavy and absolute, thrumming in her skull.
Still, she felt it, the certainty that somewhere in this vast, cold house something had stirred, something that knew she was here.
Chapter Eight
Isabella lay still, her breathing shallow, her eyes open to the heavy dark. Something had woken her…
There. A sound. A deep, resonant scrape of metal across stone.
The sheets, which had been warmed by the pan when she had climbed between them, cocooned her in the scent of clean linen and lavender. At some point, her candle had guttered out and the fire had burned low, leaving only a scatter of glowing coals in the hearth. Shadows pooled thick in the corners of the room, shifting with the uneven flicker.
The sound came again, harsh and grating, reverberating through the house.
She pushed back the covers. The cold in the room felt wrong, unnatural, piercing her skin and muscle, surging deep to scrape at her lungs. Her wrap hung over the end of the bed, and she drew it tight around herself as she rose, tying it at her waist with stiff fingers.
Crossing the room, she then pulled back the heavy drapes, allowing silvery moonlight to spill across the bed, the armoire, the dark-paneled walls. The shadows sharpened their teeth.
There, again…the sound, harsh and grating.
Don’t listen. Don’t answer. Her father’s voice echoed in her mind.
Isabella’s hand froze on the edge of her wrap. How many times had Papa warned her? How many times had she feigned blindness, feigned deafness, while the wraiths brushed her skin with fingers of frost and whispered their spider silk words in her thoughts?
