Kit turned to the right, looking down the long corridor that stretched out in front of him. It was a walk he’d done so many times before, the familiarity an unwelcome visitor in his mind.
“His bedroom is down there,” he said, pointing.
Kit held his head high as he walked, this side of the house relatively intact. Paintings had once decorated the walls. Kit couldn’t recall if Lawrence took them with them when they left. There had been a couple he’d enjoyed looking at. One was a twee country landscape of a farm, but Kit had liked the simplicity of the farmstead depicted in the early morning light. Another, hung up right outside of Lawrence’s bedroom, had been of a storm-damaged ship with a broken mast and ragged sails on choppy waters. Kit had looked at the drowning sailors in the water and wondered if it would be better to drown in minutes than to do it second by second in the company of Lawrence.
“Kit?”
He turned, realising that he’d been staring at a bare spot on the wall instead of moving.
Quin pointed to the closest door. “Is it in here?”
Kit shook his head. “Last room at the end of the hall.”
The rest of them were quiet as they approached the door. The doors of the other rooms on the floor—one a study, and the other a washroom—were closed.
“This is it,” he said. The door was a dark, aged wood with a burnished yellow-gold handle. One wooden panel had come off, and so he could squint and see in. It looked how it always had; dark and uninviting.
He pressed a careful hand to the knob, almost expecting that it would still be hot from the fire all those years ago. But therewas no heat, only cool brass, so he turned it and pushed. The hinges shuddered, but the door opened.
The ceiling looked like it could collapse in on them at any moment, sagging with the weight of beams fallen from the roof. Dusted plaster covered the floor, and the bed that dominated the room was half-buried under a pile of rubble. He gave the bed a lingering look and then focused his attention on where he might find something of Lawrence’s.
The bedside tables were overturned, their contents spilling out over the floor. The doors of the antique wardrobe hung open. Anything left was destroyed, littering the room with detritus.
“Looks like people have been here and taken anything of worth,” Shaun said. Kit hadn’t even realised he’d followed them into the room. He’d only known Quin was with him: his pulse fluttering in a staccato beat that filled his ears.
“Let’s try somewhere else,” Quin said. His fingers twined with Kit’s, and he was relieved to be led out of the room. They popped their heads into the washroom, but half the floor had fallen away, so wrote it off.
The study was their next stop, but as they walked through the dark hallway, Quin turned to him. “Did you hear that?”
Kit raised his brows in question, but it was Rake who asked, “Hear what?”
“Voices. Coming from there.” Quin gestured with his thumb to the washroom over his shoulder.
“Oh, fuck no,” DJ said. “That’s full-on horror movie shit. I’m not going back in there to check.”
“We’ll all look in,” Shaun said, though he sounded far from sure.
“Shaun, I can’t go following the creepy voices only one of us can hear!” DJ whisper-shouted.
“Why not?”
“I’mBlack,” DJ said, as if it were obvious.
“What are you talking about?” Rake said.
“Someone hasn’t been spending enough time onTV Tropes,” Kit said dryly.
“Actually, I might be all right,” DJ mused, “given we’re ahead of the curve in terms of burying your gays. You know, because most of us are already dead? Or am I exempt from that because I’m bi?”
Kit got distracted from DJ’s devolving series of questions when Quin turned his body towards the closed door of the study.
“I take it none of you heard that either?” Quin asked, though he sounded like he knew the answer himself.
“Isn’t a whispering room the sort of thing we should avoid?” Kit said. “What if we go in and you get possessed?” He’d thought bringing Quin here might tempt fate, but he hadn’t wanted to do it without him. He was also pretty sure he’d have had to chain Quin to the bed to stop him from coming, and that wasn’t something he was interested in making a habit of.
“I should be okay. I’ve got the ring on,” Quin said, though he took another worried look at the study door. Kit stayed close to Quin’s side as they started along the hallway again. As they approached the stairs, Kit stared at the dark abyss of the fire-ravaged corridor which led to the bedroom he’d slept in. At first, Lawrence had kept Kit locked in there during the day. By night, Kit would be so hungry that his stomach would threaten to eat itself, as Lawrence often forgot that Kit needed actual food.
“What’s down there?” Quin asked.
