The House Without a Summer by DeAnna Knippling

Author:DeAnna Knippling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gothic horror novel, ghosts and haunted houses, supernatural, occult, gothic tale, gothic fiction book, historical horror novel
Publisher: Wonderland Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19 – This Cursed Place

Marcus ascended the stairs of the church cellar, backing carefully away, and holding both pistols at the ready. As he reached the last of the stairs and backed into the church, Westin slammed the door.

Marcus felt gorge rise in his throat. “We must leave this cursed place.”

“Where is Howe?” Abbott asked.

“Dead or worse.”

Mr. Abbott was a wiser man than even Marcus could have anticipated, and asked no more, but accepted one of the pistols from Marcus and checked that it was still fit to fire. Then the three of them fled the church.

Once outside, the three of them paused with dismay at the view before them. Although the sun had not yet set, the air was so thick with snow as to be generally blinding.

Marcus pulled up the collar of his coat, de-cocked the pistol, and tucked it into his pocket. ’Twere better not to allow the firing powder to become damp.

“What now?” Mr. Abbott asked.

“We must flee!” Westin shouted. “We must warn the mill, we must flee!”

Marcus quickly drew a small knife from his coat, and used it to nick a finger. What oozed from the wound was red blood. Mr. Abbott grimly accepted the knife and did the same. Blood also flowed.

The two men turned to Westin. Mr. Abbott commanded, “You must nick yourself with this knife and show us what comes of it.”

“Why?”

“It must be done.”

Westin accepted the knife and held it to his finger, but did not cut.

Mr. Abbott raised his pistol. “If you will not, I will shoot you where you stand.”

Westin groaned. “I know that I must. And yet I fear to. For I have eaten of that meat. God! My soul is already forfeit!”

Marcus and Mr. Abbott looked at each other: they, also, had eaten.

Then, swiftly, as if to deceive himself of his own intentions, Westin cut himself, then turned away his face. A red drop of blood flowed from his finger and dripped to the snow, a bright flash of red against the white.

“That is blood,” Mr. Abbott said. “If you were not a man, you would have no need to eat.”

Westin groaned again. “Then why did you make me…?”

“There is no idea that should not be overturned upon evidence to the contrary,” Mr. Abbott said sternly. “Sewell, it is as this man has said. We must reach the millworks and warn the others.”

Westin coughed. Smoke was beginning to add its haze to the air. The fire in the cellar had spread with surprising quickness for a windowless room underground, whose only door they thought tightly closed.

Marcus turned in a slow circle, searching the heavily falling snow for signs of movement. He wished to have the pistol in his hand, but knew that drawing it out of his coat before it was needed might lead to his being unable to use it at all.

“You set fire to the church?” Mr. Abbott inquired approvingly.

“Yes, but I thought it would smother itself, in that closed cellar,” Marcus said. “This is an ill circumstance.

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