Inheriting Her Ghosts by S.H. Cooper

Author:S.H. Cooper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ghost story, Haunted House, Horror, Victorian Gothic, Victorian England, Occult, Strong female lead
Publisher: Sleepless Sanctuary Publishing
Published: 2021-07-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

I coaxed a fire into life within the hearth and pushed the armchair close. The ball into which I tucked myself was small and tight with a nightmare’s dread that slithered through my blood and encircled my bones. I pressed my fists against my eyes and let prayers fall in a murmured flurry from my lips. Only when Black Shuck laid his head upon the arm of my chair was I able to unfurl, but even then just enough to reach for him. Cerberus lay beside me, head raised and ears lifted, listening.

High Hearth breathed in muted whispers, its cracks and crevices dolefully inhaling the sea air. Night made a labyrinth of the house and it seemed to build itself further in shadow. Rooms doubled in the dark, hallways pressed in and pointed on, longer than they had before. It was a restless place in a way I had not known a building could be; unsatisfied, hungry, the very air thick with its disquiet.

And as it grew, I could feel myself shrinking, if not in body, then in mind and spirit, becoming a mouse scurrying from hole to hole while the cat hunted. Had it not been for my pair, and that I sat beneath the watchful gaze of my late parents, I fear I might have disappeared altogether in that chair, consumed by High Hearth and its secrets.

I shut my eyes again, endeavouring to drive the house from my head with the feel of the fire’s heat and the weight of Black Shuck’s chin upon my knees. Things I knew to be real.

The firelight dancing upon my lids dimmed.

Black Shuck pulled away.

My chest constricted, as if cinched by an over-laced corset, and my teeth sank into my lower lip. The dogs’ claws clicked across the floor, away from my side, and I wanted to cry out for them to remain with me, but words abandoned me, so I sprang upright, desperate and fearful.

They had seated themselves before the far corner of the room, their tails sliding back and forth across the floor with unperturbed delight, the way they might when greeting a welcomed guest.

Before them, shrouded and featureless in shadow, a figure stood against the wall.

Neither myself nor the other moved, but I knew it to be regarding me with the same intensity I was watching it. As my sight adjusted to the darkened room, details became more prominent, its petiteness, the long hair, an outline of a dress, and the initial shock waned into an apprehensive curiosity reinforced by my pair’s receptiveness.

“Morwen?” Her name came from me as a whisper.

Her movement was stilted and slow, but she nodded once.

My throat bobbed painfully. “You were the one singing earlier, weren’t you? You wished me to find those letters.”

Again, she made the laboured motion and my dogs whimpered impatiently, bowing their heads in an invitation to be pet, but she made no move to comply.

“Why? What can I do?”

She tried to answer then, but spoke in a low rasp

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.