The White Horse by Rebecca Harrison

Author:Rebecca Harrison [Harrison, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Spooky House Press, LLC
Published: 2023-01-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

There is a moment like a quaver stretching into a semibreve, a moment that makes me wonder if I have spoken at all. His eyes widen, and I hear the book drop to the floor. Then he is panic and footsteps and a shape I am following through the dark, the dark that clutches and misleads me. I am buffeted by wood and wall and corner. I lose sight of him. He calls me and I follow his voice. And I feel half underground, half ghost, until finally, I see a doorway of candlelight and silhouette. He grips my hand, and we are running and fear and clamour. At the top of the great stairway, he lets go and starts down without me, taking the steps two at a time, three at a time. I rush behind him. Drellop looks up at us, her face stewed worry. Servants stand in whispering groups.

“You didn’t find Prudence?” Drellop asks. I am surprised at the feeling in her voice.

“She’s gone to the White Horse. I am certain of it.”

“But it’s been hours since anyone saw her. She…” Her words hang, and the silence that follows is made of the cold that beats at the windows, the pale faces that watch, and a fear like fangs.

“There’s no need for alarm. Prudence has her mother’s constitution. A bit of snow cannot do her much harm.” He speaks in G Major, his countenance pride, but he summons Drellop near and I hear his low words. “Send for the doctor.” He looks at me. “Miss Chant.”

And then I am with him, in stride and purpose, my steps in time with his. Drellop’s stare prickles my back until we round the corner out of her sight. He leans like tumbling against the wall.

“Charlotte, I…” And he says no more, but I meet him in the unspoken. And when he lifts his head, I am with him, I am with him. His hands in my hands. His pulse in my pulse. Then he is upright and resolve and fast and we are a hurry in the corridors. We bundle into boots, and he wraps my cloak around my shoulders, his fingers brushing my neck. The air is urgency and clamour, but we don’t wait for the men. I take a lantern. The door swings wide. And then we are plunged into the night. A star shatter night. That’s what Ma called them because ‘even the stars are going to freeze and crack into bits, and we’ll be picking the shards out the fields for a week.’

My heart pangs. My breath puffs. All is ice and bright. The moon flashes white on the hills. The sky is bitter with stars. The snow is unmarked by fox or robin or foot. It is like a taunt. I want to dent it, ruin its serenity.

“There are no footsteps,” he says. “Yet, it stopped snowing hours ago. Prudence has been out in it all that time. Why? What if she’s fallen on

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