The Trembling Hills by Phyllis A. Whitney

Author:Phyllis A. Whitney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media Romance
Published: 2017-09-28T16:14:20+00:00

16

Sara sat up in bed at the touch of Comstock’s paw, sharply, clearly awake. The look of the sky against her windows was somehow terrifying. It was steel-blue in the dawn, glittering. If you tapped it with a metal rod it would surely ring. The utter quiet was ominous. It seemed the quiet that must surely precede chaos.

She had a few minutes in which to think of getting out of bed and going to her mother’s room. But it was too early to waken her mother for a foolish whim. At least she could get up and start the fire, begin to dress. Painful realization swept back upon her. This was the morning when she must pack and leave the Renwick house. Whether Miss Hester Varady liked it or not, she would have to take her niece without further delay. And that meant Sara would have to tell her mother. This would be a difficult day.

She had just pushed back the covers in order to get out of bed when the underground roaring began and the room commenced to shake. The sound was like express trains tearing at full speed through the earth beneath her feet. The room rocked so that she was flung across the bed. As if waves rolled beneath it, the floor moved and the furniture danced about. All through the house there was a multitude of crashings. In the tower a vast shattering of glass sent jagged bits down the stair shaft. And all the while the rocking and roaring of the earth went on. Once or twice it lessened, only to commence again.

Sara and Comstock clung together, the cat yowling in terror. The underground monster would surely have its way, Sara thought; the entire Renwick mansion would be swallowed by the earth. Nothing could withstand this force that shook the world.

The span was only seconds—forty-eight, she learned later, but it seemed a lifetime. The final crash of a falling chimney, shattering against the roof near her windows, was merely one more noise in a disintegrating world.

Then the movement stopped. Vibration and sound ceased. From the ceiling across the room a great path of plaster slithered down the wall and crumbled into bits while Sara watched it. This time Comstock leaped spitting and snarling out of the bed and landed in the middle of the floor, every hair abristle. Only later did Sara find how badly he had scratched her arms.

She sat up and put on her slippers, because that was the thing you did when you got out of bed. Her clock lay face down on the floor, its face broken. The hands had stopped a little after thirteen minutes past five. This, Sara thought, must have been one of those real shakes that Allison had spoken of. She must go at once and see about her mother and how the rest of the house had fared. But when she tried to pull open her door it would not budge. It wasn’t locked—she tried the key and it turned easily.

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