Page 50 of The Witching Moon Manor
It wasn’t until she reached the third button that Anne realized the house was warmer than it had been before, the sharp edge of the cold having faded enough from the air that the entryway didn’t feel nearly as brisk as the street.
“I was watching from the window,” Vincent explained. “The house has gotten into the habit of letting you in unannounced, and I don’t want you to wander into any of the rooms without me.”
Anne wondered if that was because he didn’t trust her or the house itself. But then a curious thought struck her.
“Is that not something it normally does?” Anne asked as she watched the candles that lined the hallway slowly flicker to life. “Let people in when it knows you’d rather the door stay shut?”
Vincent’s mouth tightened as he reached forward to take Anne’s coat and hang it on a peg near the door.
“No,” he admitted. “It has been unruly as of late.”
Anne wanted to ask who else it had let in without his permission, but before she could so much as part her lips, Vincent began to speak again, his face turned away from her as he stepped forward to close the door.
“I wasn’t certain that you’d come,” he said, the familiar stiffness of his tone giving way to a hushed murmur thatchanged the texture of his voice, smoothing it out in a way that Anne hadn’t expected.
“I wasn’t certain either,” Anne whispered, the truth slipping out before she could craft a more careful reply, one that wouldn’t reveal just how much she’d wavered.
Vincent grew still, and for a moment, Anne wondered if she’d made a mistake in letting him glimpse some of the vulnerability she’d tried to tuck away on the street. But then he clicked the door shut and nodded, turning to face her with an expression of silent understanding.
In that moment, some of the uneasiness lifted between them, and Anne could have sworn the shadows flickering against the walls grew gentler as well, the harsh lick of the candlelight seemingly dancing to a less harried rhythm.
“Come this way,” Vincent said as he gestured for her to follow him.
As they made their way down the hall, Anne realized that Vincent was keeping his pace even with hers so that they were walking side by side. Before, one of them had always pushed forward, but now they were closer, so much so that her hand nearly brushed his.
The hasty tempo of Anne’s pulse gradually slowed as she listened to their footsteps echo against the walls. But when Vincent came to a sudden stop in front of the same door that he’d pulled her from the day before, her heart started to beat to a faster rhythm, one that matched the music drifting from the gaps around the threshold.
“Surely you aren’t thinking of bringing me in there?” Anne asked as she dug her heels into the floor, trying to resist the urge to lean closer so that she could better hear the chords vibrating through the soles of her shoes.
“That depends,” Vincent replied as he turned around and stared down at Anne, leaning against the doorframe and crossing his arms loosely over his chest.
Evidentially, he expected whatever argument that was about to unfold between them to take some time.
“On what?” Anne asked, her brow creasing as she tried to focus on Vincent over the music that was already pulling at her chest.
“Whether you’re willing to see how powerful you really are,” he said. “To communicate with the spirits, we must call them here and convince them to stay. It’s one thing to draw them close enough to hear the whispers, but in order to get them to share anything concrete, we’ll need to offer something more substantive to grasp on to.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Anne admitted.
“People often associate ghosts with fear and sorrow, but those aren’t the things that they cling to,” Vincent explained. “It’s happiness, suspense, curiosity, wonder, and warmth that the spirits are always searching for. They’re drawn to it like moths to a flame, though there are moments where their grasp for lost things can be too tight.”
Anne thought of the memories that she believed were worth returning to and nodded.
“In order to draw them closer, we recreate the same sensations that they remember from life,” Vincent continued. “But we normally have a better idea of who, exactly, needs to be called upon. This time, we’ll have to convince the spirits to share their memories with you, and in those glimpses, see who might know something about the ring. When they sense what you can do, the spirits will want to pull you into moments that feel familiar.”
“You think that if I start drifting into the past, they’ll guide me in the right direction?” Anne asked, wanting to be certain that she understood.
“It would be like meeting them in the middle,” Vincent said with a nod. “It normally takes weeks to draw out a particular ghost, let alone get them to express anything concrete through a shared sensation. But with your help, it will be different. Once the spirits appear and begin to share memories linked to a particular sensation, you’ll think about the ring, and they’ll pull you toward recollections that strike a chord with them.”
Anne could tell from the firm set of Vincent’s jaw and calculating glint in his eyes that he didn’t have a single hesitation about her abilities, as if it was a surety that her power was strong enough to accomplish such a task.
With a shock, she realized that her magic was already starting to rise to the surface, lured by the excitement rippling beneath Vincent’s suggestion.
“What are we going to do to draw them out?” Anne asked, her eyes flashing toward the door as she wondered what rested behind it.
Vincent must have noticed the note of interest that had woven itself into Anne’s voice because a smile was starting to creep into the corners of his mouth, the sight of it causing a sudden jolt of expectation to shoot down her spine. It felt just like she’d looked up from the cards she’d been dealt and known from a single unspoken look at her partner that they had a winning hand.
“Let me show you,” Vincent answered as he pulled the door open and ushered Anne inside.
