The house had always been spotless when her grandmother was alive; she’d liked everything just so, not a speck out of place. Evelyn, however, had been as different to her sister as night and day. Evie hadn’t been averse to cleaning per se, she’d just always been too easily distracted, and looking at the state of the house, Olivia assumed it was safe to say that Evie had been well and truly distracted for the past two decades.
Her gaze tracked along another shelf and noticed a neat row of tiny fairies connected by a delicate spider web. With a shake of her head, Olivia leaned out further and once again felt the chair wobble beneath her. As a child, she’d always loved this room in particular, drawn to its big old fireplace and saggy couch. Each wall lined with hundreds of books old and new, of every shape, color and size. Olivia’s curious gaze scanned shelves that boasted the original Greek version of The Iliad to… The Kama Sutra in its eclectic mix.
The rest of the shelves were mostly filled with ancient books of magic and history, as well as journals. So many journals, some only a dozen years old, others so old they looked as if they would disintegrate if she tried to touch them.
As she dusted down the shelves, she could feel the hum of power throughout the books. She stopped for a moment and pressed her palm to the spines of the books in front of her and feeling the pulse beneath her skin. Some heavy-duty spell work protected the library, centuries of her ancestors adding their knowledge and secrets to this room, and now it was hers. There was something very soothing about this room, it grounded her and made her feel safe.
Moving the cloth down to the next shelf she swiped another cloud of dust, which triggered another violent sneeze. The chair swayed again as she clutched onto the shelves to steady herself. The fireplace suddenly burst into flames, dancing and crackling merrily. Across the room, something toppled from one of the bookcases, hitting the floor with a clatter and spilling across the threadbare rug.
Climbing down from the chair carefully, she scooped up the books that had fallen, glancing at the titles and stacking them against the side of the couch when her gaze snagged on something shiny that had been lying beneath them as they’d fallen. It was a small statue of the goddess Diana wearing a short, belted tunic, with her long braid coiled over one shoulder and her bow drawn. Beside her stood a huge stag, his immense, regal-looking antlers towering over her protectively.
Olivia ran her fingers over the warm bronze as she studied the stag. She was sure it was Herne the Hunter. It was funny, they didn’t seem to belong together. Diana was the Roman goddess of the hunt, whereas Herne wasn’t technically a god, he came from English folklore.
A flicker of a memory danced at the edge of her mind. She stood slowly, her gaze tracking to the window, and the woods beyond.
“You know the things he tells you are lies, don’t you?” a smooth, female voice whispered in her mind. “You must not believe the things he promises you.”
Olivia blinked, and for a split second, she could see herself as a child, riding through the woods on the back of a huge white stag, his silver antlers shimmering in the moonlight. She blinked again as the memory fell apart and scattered. She tried to reach for the memory again, but it was gone.
With a small exhale she shook her head, she placed the statue back on the mantle over the fireplace, removing a rather ugly-looking miniature gargoyle that she placed into the Goodwill box she had set up.
Taking a trio of dusty fairies that had belonged to her grandmother, she tucked them into another box of things she was keeping. Now that it was full, she picked it up and headed out of the room.
Climbing the stairs to the attic, she pushed the door open and flicked on the light. Setting the box down, she glanced around in interest. This was the first time she’d ventured into the attic since being back in the house. Childhood memories of her best friends, Louisa and Jake flooded her mind and she found herself smiling.
On rainy days, they’d spent endless hours in the attic, diving through the belongings of generations of Wests. It had been Aladdin’s cave to them, every box filled with treasure. Although, in reality, most of the stuff in there was probably junk.
Shaking her head, she lifted the box and slotted it in on top of another much dustier one. But as she gave it a little shove, it displaced the stack next to it, causing a small trunk to tumble to the floorboards with a loud thud.
Dropping to her knees, she turned the small trunk over. It was small and made from some sort of dark-colored wood—pink flowering dogwood, if she had to guess from the echo of it. Bound with leather straps and reinforced with pitted metal edges, it was covered in at least an inch of dust and cobwebs. Wiping her palm across the top revealed the name Hester branded into the leather in an elegant curling script, and a triquetra was burned into the wood beneath it.
Olivia drew in a sharp breath; she knew what this was. The trunk had belonged to Hester West, her many-times great-grandmother. She was the first generation of Wests to settle in Mercy, along with her twin sister, Bridget. In fact, it was a widely held belief that they were the ones who’d founded the town after escaping the persecution of Salem.
Olivia stroked her fingertips along the edges of the trunk reverently, dancing over the aged dogwood and tracing the rusted lock. Following Hester’s death, the trunk had remained in the possession of her family, and over the centuries, it had become something of a puzzle in her family, for one reason alone.
No one could open it.
It wasn’t just a matter of picking the old, rusted lock or breaking open the fragile trunk because it had been sealed with powerful magic. She could feel it even now, pulsing through the box like a heartbeat.
Olivia could remember her grandmother telling her about the box, so many had tried to open it, yet it remained stubbornly sealed.
Olivia chuckled as she patted the top of the trunk fondly. She stood and lifted the trunk, setting it back where it had been. She’d barely taken a step toward the door when a loud thump echoed through the attic. She glanced behind her to find Hester’s trunk had slipped and dropped to the bare floorboards.
Approaching the chest, she picked it up and glanced at the stack upon which it had been sitting. There was another dark rectangular box painted with various symbols and an old cardboard box torn at the corner, revealing moth-eaten clothes, but other than that, nothing that would’ve caused the box to fall.
Straightening the boxes back into place, she slotted Hester’s trunk on top, giving it a little experimental shake to see if it was stable. Satisfied it was safely stored, she once again turned toward the door. This time, she’d just reached the open doorway when she heard another loud thump.
She froze, her hand hovering above the light switch as she turned. Her gaze fell on the trunk that once again sat on the floor, almost as if it were staring at her. Her skin began to prickle, and the air suddenly felt heavy. Deciding to just leave it on the floor where it was, she turned toward the door but as she did it slammed in her face.
A quiet scraping sound behind her had Olivia’s heart hammering behind her ribs, her breath shallow and rapid. Very slowly, she turned to find the trunk now sat at her feet.
Her gaze tracked across the attic. There was nothing but stacks of boxes and old junk. The lightbulb above her flickered, and she shivered as the temperature in the attic suddenly dropped.
“Okay,” she muttered under her breath as her eyes dropped to the trunk at her feet. “I can take a hint.” Leaning down she picked it up, the dogwood feeling warm beneath her cold, stiff fingers.
Unoiled hinges gave a loud creepy whine as the door behind her creaked open behind her.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Olivia muttered under her breath.
