Coates, Darcy - Black Winter 04 - Silence in the Shadows by Coates Darcy

Author:Coates, Darcy [Coates, Darcy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Owl Books
Published: 2020-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

“We should choose one priority room,” Dorran said. Clare led the way out of the garden, and he locked the door behind them. “Somewhere with food, running water, and warmth.”

“The upstairs bedroom?”

“That’s what I was thinking. As long as the hollows left it untouched, at least. We’ll go there first, see if we can secure it, then consider our next move.” His glance was tense. “Stay behind me. If we’re confronted—”

“Retreat instead of engage.” She pressed him into a brief hug. “I remember.”

“I need you to be safe, above all else.”

“You know I will be.”

He matched her smile. “Sorry. I worry.”

“Yeah. I do, as well.”

They turned towards the hallway. The upstairs rooms were silent. Clare didn’t trust the quiet, though. The stench in the house was too strong and fresh for how little confrontation they had encountered.

She took up the candleholder in one hand and the crowbar in her other, and shadowed Dorran as he led her back into the foyer. A wooden support beam to Clare’s left creaked, and she swung towards it, but Dorran didn’t flinch. He’d lived in the house long enough to know which noises came from the building’s age and which were foreign.

The entered the foyer from the back. Light shone through the snow-caked windows, breaking through gaps in the statue’s bones and hair lashings. Dorran spared the statue only a glance before skirting around it to reach the stairs.

Dust had coated most surfaces in their absence. When Clare first arrived at Winterbourne, the building had been nearly pristine, having recently been tended by dozens of maids. They had left their duties behind, along with their humanity, though. The dark wooden railings had seen their shine dampened, and the gilded frames around the paintings were coated with a thin layer of grey, much like snow had coated the building.

They reached the top of the second flight of stairs. Clare had made this journey often enough to remember it. Ahead, partway along the dim hall, was their bedroom. If she continued onwards, the passageway branched into four, each terminating in a window overlooking the field surrounding Winterbourne. She and Dorran stood at the top of the stairs just long enough to listen for noise, then they began moving forward.

A sigh echoed from behind them. Clare turned, and the candle flickered from the sudden motion. She stretched it ahead of herself, willing it to pierce through the shadows clustering around the passageway’s innumerable side tables and display cases. She could have sworn Winterbourne hadn’t been this dark when she and Dorran left.

They closed the curtains, she realised. At the end of the hallways were windows, but the thick cloth shades had been drawn down to block them.

She wondered how much they had used the building in her and Dorran’s absence. Maybe they had treated it like their own castle, sleeping in the beds, crawling through the rooms, staring out of the windows once night fell. Maybe the hallways had been full of them right up until the bus’s engine cut through the cold air.

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