Page 65 of Once Upon a Midnight Dreary
At the doorway, her father scooped her up and turned from the room.They headed down the hall, to the stairs.As they did, she heard the girl’s whimper and looked over her father’s shoulder to see the young girl standing in the hallway.
The walls were crusted over with ice.
The fog swirled along the floor.
And Victoria’s mother emitted a choked sob as they quickly descended the stairs.
Out the door and into the balmy night.The carriage waited.The lantern lit to light their way.The footman held the door.The driver waited on the seat with the reins in his hands.Moments later, they were inside.She was cradled on her father’s lap.Her mother sat across from him.And then they were away.Leaving everything behind.
There was a moment of silence and then her mother said, “I don’t care what you do with it.Sell it.Burn it.Tear it down.Just get rid of it.I never want to return.”
But her father knew the manor would not suffer such a fate.
Victoria startled awake, bolting upright, her heart racing.It was early evening.
She slid from the bed, her feet hitting the floor, much like that night when they fled Ravenfell for the city.When her mother insisted on disposing of the manor.
But her father hadn’t.He’d kept it.She wondered at that.Did he not want to sell it because it was part of their heritage?If he knew the manor had a sordid history, why keep it?And, furthermore, why pass it down to her?
There were no answers to her questions.No one to give her those answers.
As she perched on the edge of her bed, she thought of Lenore.She still did not know how she died.
She glanced at her bedroom door, an idea forming.There were rooms she had not explored.Rooms that remained dormant for years.What if the answer to how Lenore died was somewhere within those rooms?If she found the answer, would it lead her to a way to put the wandering spirit to rest at long last?
There was really only one way to find out.
He was a coward.
He’d left Victoria in the kitchen, sprinted up the stairs to his room, and sealed himself inside.As if that would shut away the terror spreading through him.
Why did he not destroy her father’s journal?Why did he let it languish in the locked cabinet all this time?He was a fool to leave it there, ready to be found.
He sat in the chair next to his bed, his heart throbbing a mad beat and his stomach clenched into a tight knot.Slipping his hand into his waistcoat pocket, his fingers brushed the key to the cabinet, confirming he still had it.
Victoria was more resourceful than he gave her credit.She must have found a way to pick the lock.And now, she had all the damning evidence she needed.
Gabriel raked a hand through his hair, blowing out a heated breath as he admonished himself once again.He should have destroyed it.
What had Abner Ravenwood written in that journal?He’d never stopped to read it.Only flipped the pages with the careful script.He hadn’t read it because he feared what he might find, what Abner might know about him and the ghostly presence of Lenore.
A shudder went through him.When he thought of how close he came to telling Victoria… He pushed aside those torrid thoughts.He couldn’t bring himself to tell her.He couldnevertell her.
He tried to stop Lenore from her dark desperation driven by her unrelenting grief.
Tried and failed.
Back then, had he known Lenore was skulking through the village asking questions and gathering information on sorcery and the dark arts, he would have done all within his power to stop her.But it was too late the moment he found her standing over the body of her dead daughter, a bloodied dagger in hand, the black candles burning with an unworldly green light.
Thinking of that now made his stomach twist.He shot to his feet, prowling the room, pressing his hands against the sides of his head as if to push out the ugly memory.And Lenore shouting,you cannot take my child from me!
Recalling the cold desperation in her voice made his blood chill.Even now years later.
Victoria was dangerously close to the truth.He tried to avoid her questions.Tried to keep the truth locked deep inside him.Tried to push her away.
But she was getting closer.
He did not know how much strength he had left within him to conceal the truth from her.
