2024 by Amy Cross

Author:Amy Cross [Cross, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

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1800...

Patience opened her mouth to reply, to tell her that perhaps she might like to relax after all, but at the last second she heard a sudden fizzing and snapping sound. Turning, she looked back at the boxes and saw that the flames had persisted, spreading into some of the other boxes and starting to grow again. She watched for a moment, wondering whether she might be about to succeed, and then – at the last moment – she turned to Fanny again.

“Oh, Fanny,” she said, as her mind cleared and she felt as sharp and confident as she had as a twenty-one-year-old girl stepping into Hadlow House for the very first time, “I'm afraid your time as housekeeper here at Hadlow House is very much over.” She took a deep breath. “I'm afraid, Mrs. Baxter,” she added, “that your services are no longer required.”

In that instant, she saw that Fanny finally understood.

Suddenly the boxes exploded, ripping not only the room but one entire side of the house apart, blasting wood and bricks and fabric far and wide, tearing Patience's frail human body almost to atoms and even blowing the roof away. As millions of shards of wood somersaulted through the air, one of the chimney stacks crashed down, bringing several of the bedrooms with it in the process and causing an immense rumbling sound as half the house slammed against the ground and caused the entire clearing to shudder. Debris was blown clear into the forest, and a huge cloud of dust rose up toward the snowy night sky as the initial explosion began to subside.

An ominous creaking sound rang out, and seconds later the vast gaping hole on one side of Hadlow House was closed by the upper section buckling and falling down, ripping away entire walls and casting bricks across the grass. When this was done, silence returned and the cloud of dust was even larger; snow was still falling, and after a few minutes the dust began to clear slightly to reveal the fragmented ruins of what had once been – but was now barely recognizable as – Hadlow House.

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