The Ghost and the Machine by Benny Lawrence

Author:Benny Lawrence [Lawrence, Benny]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, lesbian, romance
ISBN: 9781934452899
Amazon: B00AKIZQUG
Barnesnoble: B00AKIZQUG
Publisher: Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company
Published: 2012-12-05T22:00:00+00:00

THERE WAS A narrow hall leading to a set of back stairs. Rush made me walk in front of her, and I had to take two steps for each one of hers. She hadn’t bothered to bring a candle. Rush knew I didn’t need light to see in the dim passageway, after all the time I’d spent in the dark.

The boards underfoot were creaky as an old man’s bones, and the walls creaked too, buffeted by the shrilling wind. I thought I could still hear the whipping of rain through thick leaves. Then I heard the shriek from the attic.

And were those footsteps overhead, making the rafters shudder, or just branches banging against the roof?

“Why, in the name of God, have you stopped?”

Rush’s voice was dangerously calm. It made muscles prickle all the way up my back. “I was just—”

“Don’t just. Walk.”

“But the screaming—”

“Did I tell you to think about the screaming?”

“No, Rush.”

“Then do you need to think about the screaming?”

“No, Rush.”

“Walk.”

We descended the winding, rickety staircase, and I was so close to Rush that I could feel her chest tremble in time to her heartbeat. Twice I stumbled, she was moving so fast. The first time she just hissed impatiently, but the second, she seized the chain of my bloodstone necklace, winding the slack twice around her hand. She led me by the chain down the last two turns of the stairs, and I had to bend almost double to keep myself from being throttled.

Von Hausen was waiting for us at the bottom of the steps, holding the side door open. Her dress was even more drenched than Rush’s, and yet she seemed to only barely be awake. Her eyes—glass globes with a little grey mist swirling in them—flicked over me as if I wasn’t there.

“Did you see anyone outside?” Rush asked, handing over her riding crop.

Von Hausen shook her head, no.

“Then I won’t be needing you for a few minutes. Stay here until I call.”

Von Hausen nodded, and then, just for an instant, she did look at my face. We knew, both of us, why Rush wanted her to wait. If things went the way they normally went, then someone would have to carry me back inside.

Rush led me out past the stable yard, past the gravel path, into the gloomy depths of the grounds. She was moving more slowly now, as if savouring something, some wonderful taste or strain of music.

And then we were outside. Outside.

The rain was still sluicing down, and I was soaked already but even so, there was sweat pooling under my arms, running down my back. The vastness outside, the space and the air, the sheer hugeness of it all, were gigantic hammers pounding on my chest. If I stayed out here much longer, my lungs would be crushed. The sky, that great void, would suck me up, swallow me, and I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t, I couldn’t.

The only thing connecting me to earth was Rush’s hand, the one that held my chain.

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