Terence had started a cylinder of music on the phonograph (some piano suite he never declared the title of) and was reading in his armchair, as if he hadn’t just maddeningly informed her that they were, supposedly, haunted. But even then Jane could tell that the Terence who was now in her company was different from the one who greeted her so warmly on the lawn. She saw it in the stillness of his eyes as he pretended to read, the worried lines between his brow, the disarrangement of his hair, the newfound frumpiness in his collar, the tremor of his hands, the bouncing of his knee. Her stomach knotted at the scene, and she didn’t know what she could say to ease tension for either of them.
As Jane looked at the fossils, the nub of her pen tracing the scale-like imprint ofLepidodendron’s bark, all she thought about were the claw marks. The patterns in the wood of the desk beneath her resembled their shape. She squeezed her eyes shut when she thought too much of what beast may have been pounding at her door—and stalking the grounds. And where it may have been hiding.
As she tried to imagine what breed of animal—real or something of myth—was capable of leaving such marks and striking fear into the heart of a grown man, she failed in her endeavor and decided to assign it the shadowy visage of a boogeyman, one with claws and pointed, interlocking teeth—perhaps not too unlike like the hooded figurine atop the fireplace mantle.
Jane tore her gaze away from the desk to look up at theidol. Through its veil, it watched her—somehow—and her bones tingled.
“How does one come into possession of such an ugly little doll?” She did little to tame the sneer in her tone.
“Doll?” Terence frowned before looking from Jane to the idol. He rolled his eyes. “Oh,thatthing.”
The exasperated “that thing” hinted at a story begging to be heard, and Jane gave an expectant raise of her brow.
“It’s nothing too special. It was a relic of my grandfather’s,” he said.
Jane perked. “Was he an archaeologist or some such?”
He scoffed and looked down at his book as if he were going to pretend to read from it again. “If by ‘some such’ you mean ‘daft’, then yes, absolutely.”
He rose and crossed the room to the bookshelf beside the desk where he grabbed something from a higher shelf and offered it to Jane.
She took the sepia-toned photo, held in glass and a simple silver frame. What she saw was a large family: a mother, father, three boys, and a young girl gathered around an old man with grizzled mutton chops sitting in the very center of them all. The old man’s eyes were blurred, as though they’d been rapidly looking about whilst the photo was being developed, and a scar bubbled across the right hand curled in his lap. Everyone in the photo appeared weary, with sunken eyes and mouths prematurely lined. Disfigured shadows loomed over their shoulders, jagged and pointed, like wolves lurking somewhere behind them, waiting to pounce, but Jane assumed it was an illusion caused by the photo developing poorly, some disorganized set piece, or the rumpled state of the subjects’ clothes.
The youngest of the children, standing between anexhausted mother and an even more exhausted father, stared at Jane with drooping eyes shadowed by a morose brow, and she smiled. Unlike his siblings and father, his hair was as dark as his mother’s.
“So you’ve always looked like a kicked puppy, huh,” she giggled.
He took the photo from her with a blush and clearing of his throat. “I’ve only ever seen my grandfather twice in my life,” he said quickly, an obvious distraction. “Once when this photo was taken, and again when he was in the grave.”
Jane’s smile fell. The cemetery in the yard. Was the rest of the family buried there, too? How many in the photograph lay beneath dirt trodden upon by nighttime beasts? She couldn’t imagine the locals of Wolf’s Run letting the Hayes bury their dead in the local graveyard if the glares they gave Terence’s carriage were anything to go by.
“It was not much of a loss,” Terence returned the photo to the topmost shelf, nearly hiding it from her view. “He never left his room, at least of his own volition—it was turned into the guest suite after he died. Mother said it was because he was afraid of something, and I’ve suspected that he was afraid of—” he tapped the idol and his hand jerked back as though it was stung, “—this. And his affinity for learning of the whims of spirits.”
How comforting,Jane shuddered at the thought of sharing sheets that may have once held an old, dying man.
“He was a madman,” he continued as he ran a knuckle over the books on the shelf, one of which simply readCommunications From Angelsin gold lettering on its spine. The ones beside it,A Defence of Modern SpiritualismandPsychomancy: Spirit-rappings and Table-tippings Exposed. “His love was with the occult, and my father told me he had attempted to dabble in Spiritualism but,supposedly, a spirit possessed my grandmother during a seance and twisted each of her organs one by one until she was sputtering so much blood attendees could no longer see their reflections in the waxed table and candles were extinguished—and then shedied.”
He lunged at Jane then, raising fingers curled into claws and teeth bared in laughter. She screamed and jumped backward until she fell out of her chair and hit the floor with a harsh thud.
“My apologies, I only jest,” he said with a breathy laugh still softening his lips. “It was a stroke that killed her, in her sleep.”
Out of instinct, Jane slapped the hand he offered, muttering a slew of curses under her breath as she got back to her feet.
“The statue was a totem he’s had since before I was born, bought from some traveling merchants or peddlers or loons in London ages ago,” Terence continued. The glow that had previously been in his eyes diminished the moment he looked back up at the idol. A droplet of sweat slithered down his neck. “I’ve never liked it. It feels as though it’s always watching—andknowing.”
“Ah, so he was an enjoyer of strange toys and outdated party tricks,” she glared at the idol. In a way, she supposed it reminded her of animal-headed deities from Egypt—namely their death god, Anubis. Only this was ugly in the power it exuded, not grand like a deity warranting respect. She looked a little higher up on the wall above the fireplace and her disgust for the toy fizzled until it was replaced with a familiar thrill. “Was he a hunter as well?”
She approached the fireplace, reached up, and removed from its oak mount a hunting rifle. It nestled in her palms with a cool familiarity and an even cooler weight. “A Model 1895?”
Her thumbs brushed over thick grooves etched into the barrel in white scars; bullets gleamed from the mount like gildedteeth, eager to rupture through flesh.
“Only Ruben hunts, though not as much as of late—the rifle was one of his prized possessions. He had been saving for—goodness, I want to sayyears, to get himself a Winchester before I offered to purchase one for him. It’s simply a decoration, now,” Terence said, low and quiet, as he returned to his chair. “I would not know its precise model—your guess is as good as mine. How could you tell?”
Jane allowed herself to smirk. “I am an American. My blood runs with bullets and my heartbeat is a gunshot.” She then felt compelled to add, upon Terence’s lack of immediate amusement, “My father hunts, on occasion. Not as much now, now that he’s older, but still. Winchesters were his favorite, but more for decor, rather than to actively hunt with. He happens to have an 1895 mounted in his study.”
She returned the rifle to its mount, careful to not brush against the idol while doing so. The cold imprint of the gun echoed in her palms, like the blood of a woodsman’s gut pile abandoned in winter.
“Is that so?” Terence cocked his head and closed the book in his lap, using a finger to keep his page as he balanced it upon his knee. She was relieved that he didn’t seemtoobereaved at the mention of ‘hunting.’ That saddened crease pinched at the corners of his eyes. “I never took Dr. Sterling to be a hunter.”
