A voice murmured her name,hisvoice, inviting her to join them, knowing all the time that she wouldn’t. She knew that voice. Knew it far too well. She had been sixteen when she had first heard it clearly, the last time they came here, when Dad died. It had haunted her ever since. But she didn’t have a name to go with it.
Alexandra, my beloved…
Her body ached for that darkly beautiful voice, to give in to it, to do whatever it asked. It knew things she did not, and promised her every secret thing she had ever desired.
She couldn’t help but follow it in all her nightmares ever since, down into the shadows, further and further beneath the house, deep underground. The earth pressed in around her. The stone walls and ceiling closed in around her like a tomb.
The air wrapped clammy hands around her, pulling her onwards.
Come on, Lexi. It’s not far. Go on, I dare you.
Was that Theo? It was the kind of thing he would have said. But it didn’t sound like him. And he never called her Lexi. She had been Lex to him. So much so that she had never let anyone else use the nickname. Ever. The voice was girlish, an echo of the past, almost like her own voice but not quite. More than one voice. Sometimes a chorus, taunting her, goading her on.
You’re not afraid, are you? Don’t be a baby! You’re a grown-up now. You can do this.
‘Run, Alex!’ Dad’s voice, desperate and terrified, strangled with shadows. And he was dying. She knew that. He was struggling and he was dying.
Dad’s hands fell still, limp on the rich and hungry earth.
The ground was cold and hard when he hit it, the thud he made dull and echoing. The trees crowded close around her and there was something moving among them, watching her, circling her as if she was prey.
And Dad was dead. He was lying on the forest floor, smothered in leaves and undergrowth, his body cold and unmoving. That was how she had found him. That was how…
The cold arched roof of stones closing over her and the stench of mulch. The darkness pressing in on her, suffocating her…
She caught sight of a gleam of gold beneath rotting foliage, a mouth hanging open, hungry and waiting, and the taste of blood and decay filled her mouth and throat.
Alex woke up with tears all over her face. Sunlight streamed through the gap in the curtains, poking a bright finger through the room and illuminating it in gold. It was a blessed relief after the dark corners of the dream.
Taking a long shower helped a bit and by the time she had dragged on her clothes, she was starting to feel almost human again.
Used to the noise of traffic and neighbours, Alex tried to ignore the quiet of the house, pretending that it didn’t bother her at all.
The portrait on the wall outside her room was still there, of course. She didn’t know why she thought it might not be. Perhaps she had just hoped it would vanish overnight.
The man in the picture was dressed in some kind of Regency garb and wouldn’t have looked out of place in a period drama. He’d probably have all the fans swooning over his looks. A classic rake, she decided. Perhaps the hero, perhaps the villain. Perhaps a bit of both.
He was…familiar. She couldn’t say why. She was sure it hadn’t been here before. But she knew him somehow. Not as a painting but as a…as a person, and that unsettled her. Everything unsettled her about Wildewood Hall.
Alex frowned back at the portrait. She couldn’t decide if his mouth was cruel or amused. Maybe both. It added to the feeling she had looking at him.
Set into the bottom of the frame was a small oval plaque with the name Blaise Chambers, and the dates 1784–1826.
Words ran along the bottom of the picture, painted in the shadows, just above the frame, in black against the already dark colours so you could only see them when the light hit it in acertain way. The script was small and difficult to read. She put the torch on her phone to illuminate it but that didn’t really help.
Instead, she took a photo, brought up the image and zoomed in – an old trick of Eduardo’s.
Omnes contra omnes, quos amabant, convertam, et meam, corpus et animam, faciam.
Latin. Of course it was Latin. It only took a moment for the phone to translate it though.
I will set all of them against all of those they have loved, and I will make them mine, body and soul.
Alex scrunched up her face, as if she’d just tasted something acidic and foul. Charming.
She’d ask Nick and see if he knew who this was. And get him to switch the painting maybe. Something pretty and calming. Anything to get rid of Lord Let-Me-Ravish-You, with his creepy message and watching eyes.
There had to be a perfectly innocuous painting around here somewhere.
