“From the sounds of things, it seems as if we might need a map to navigate this staircase,” Irma muttered, brushing a few leaves from her hair.
“I’m sure Norbert made it sound more difficult than it really is,” Drusilla said. “Although it might not be a bad idea to start making a few maps when we get some spare time because clearly this castle has more than a few secrets.”
“I shudder to think what those might be,” Irma said before she glanced through the doorway. “Seems rather menacing in there, what with how dark it is.”
“Norbert said there’s a candle.” Drusilla shoved aside the trepidation that was causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand at attention and stepped into the gloom. Striking a match she located on a small table inside the door, she lit the candle that was next to it.
“Shall we?” she asked before she drew in a breath and began moving down a hallway that truly did seem as if it might have a few ghosts and ghouls wafting about.
Twenty
“I would like to state for the record,” Irma said, causing Drusilla to jump ever so slightly when her mother stole up behind her and began following her down the narrow hallway that branched off in two directions once it reached the staircase, “that I don’t believe this is a prudent decision on your part, but as your mother, I can’t very well let you brave what will certainly turn into another disaster alone.”
“That’s a very motherly thing to say.”
“And quite unlike me, which suggests I’m not feeling myself today, and...” Irma’s words trailed to nothing before she suddenly released a strangled-sounding shriek that reverberated eerily around them.
Drusilla whipped around and found her mother swatting her hands madly about. “What’s wrong?”
“I just walked straight into a spiderweb.”
Drusilla peered through the gloom. “It looks to be more along the lines of a cobweb than spiderweb, and cobwebs won’t hurt you.”
Irma’s brows slammed together. “Since you have as much experience as I do with spiderwebs and cobwebs, forgive me if I don’t actually believe you have the ability to differentiate between the two.”
“A valid point, but since I’m the one leading the way, you should take comfort in the fact that I’ll be the one to run into most spiderwebs. Not that I know this for certain, as Annaliese is the expert on spiders, but I imagine that any spiders I run into will skedaddle by the time you pass through what remains of any webs I disrupt.”
“Unless they decide, like the ravens did, to band together and attack us,” Irma grumbled as Drusilla started moving up stairs that gave new meaning to the wordsteep, unsurprised when Irma’s grumbles stopped when the stairs began creaking with every step they took, the creaks more unnerving than Irma’s shriek had been.
The cobwebs—at least that’s what Drusilla truly hoped they were—seemed to grow denser the higher they climbed, little wisps of webs sticking to her face as she fought her way through them. By the time she reached the first landing, she was covered in them. After taking a second to dash a web-covered sleeve across her face to rid it of little tangles of silken threads, she held the candle aloft and tried to get her bearings.
Directly to her left, the stairwell continued upward with a sharp turn, but once she stepped forward and into a narrow hallway, she realized that the hall seemed to run the entire length of the castle and that the staircase was positioned exactly in the middle.
She turned to the right, as Norbert had instructed, and walked forward, pausing when the feeble light from the candle glanced over the floor and what appeared to be footprints in a thick layer of dust captured her attention.
Curiosity had her kneeling to get a closer look, but before she could do more than realize the footprints were on the small side, Irma stumbled into her, sending Drusilla headfirst onto the floor, anoomphescaping her when her mother tumbled on top of her a second later.
The force of her mother’s tumble had her dropping thecandle, causing the flame to immediately sputter out, leaving them in complete darkness.
“What do you think the odds are that Ottilie’s ghost will show up next, making our current situation more unsettling than ever?” Irma whispered as she remained lying on top of Drusilla, seemingly content to remain there instead of on what was a remarkably dirty floor.
“Aunt Ottilie isn’t haunting the castle.”
“Of course she is, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have been responsible for whatever it was that had you bending over like that, possibly in the hopes that I’d then fall over you and then we’d be stuck here in the darkness, unable to find our way to that door we’re supposed to be looking for. It could be hours until someone finds us, and if I’m stuck here for hours, I will undeniably lose my senses and end up in a lunatic asylum, which was probably Ottilie’s goal for me from the start and why she paid me a visit the other night.”
“You’re not going to end up in a lunatic asylum, nor was any ghost responsible for me kneeling down. I did so because I saw footprints on the floor, and before you tell me those were Ottilie’s, know that I’ve never heard of any ghost leaving tracks behind.”
“Oh” was all Irma said to that before she wiggled around a bit, quite as if she wanted to make herself more comfortable. “I suppose the creepy atmosphere is causing my imagination to race at full tilt, just as I suppose the footprints you spotted belong to Norbert since he told us he makes rounds throughout the castle at least twice a week.”
“Norbert told me that he hasn’t used this particular servant hallway and staircase for quite some time, and besides that, he wears big boots. The prints I saw were on the smaller side.”
“Perhaps they were made by a member of Ottilie’s staff before they bolted from the castle,” Wilhelmine suggested fromwhere she’d obviously had the good sense to stop a few feet behind them, sparing herself a tumble in the process. “Although, speaking of that exemplary staff, I feel compelled to admit that, if I’d been given advance notice that they were abandoning their positions because of a rogue suit of armor, something everyone in Chicago heard about, I wouldn’t have hesitated to poach them.”
“Given that it sounds as if you employ a rather inexperienced staff,” Irma began, “I don’t believe anyone, not even Ottilie, would have blamed you.”
“How very kind of you to say, Irma, as I was worried my disclosure might have left you feeling at distinct odds with me as the poaching of Ottilie’s staff is why the castle is in a rather derelict state.”
“But you’re not the ones who ended up poaching the staff,” Irma pointed out.
