The door groaned open, and the screams.
"Help me, please, please, help me."
What I saw was a chamber, and my breath caught in my throat at the sight.
Heat blasted outward. Shadows and skeletons writhed across the walls. Three hooded figures stood with their backs to me. One held a torch, its flames roaring as sparks dropped to the floor. A woman knelt before them, her hands bound and trembling.
Around her neck hung a gold necklace with a star wheel pendant, glinting faintly through the smoke. The same pattern as on the door.
“Please… please don’t…” she sobbed. My heart lurched. “What the hell is this?” I whispered, horrified at what was happening to this poor girl. As I spoke one of the hooded figures turned toward me slowly as if his head wasn't fully connected to the body. I wanted to run, but I needed to see, it was the white masks of the Ecliptuari. The silent guards that protect this fucking place, and here they were, holding torches ready to burn this girl alive like psychopaths.
“What is happening here?” I asked, my voice shaking.
The woman released my hand and stepped forward, causing the shadows to swirl around her.
"Look closely," she whispered.
I looked to the girl on her knees. Something about her felt horribly familiar. The shape of the mouth, the line of the brow.
Then the truth struck me.
It was my own face, older and gaunt, with hollow eyes. She looked up at me, and slowly…she smiled.
“You’re next.” Her words stung.
“No, no. It can't be. I don’t believe this.” I stepped back, confusion washing over me. Why was I being shown my face like some kind of fucked up warning?
Perhaps they were just the products of my overburdened imagination. I shook my head to banish the intrusive voices.
“This isn’t real!” I shouted.
"There is no way this is real."
Turning, I ran as quickly as I could. Before I could think, I was running from this dank place, out through the room of paintings. I didn't dare look at anything else.
I raced up the stairs in terror, keeping my eyes fixed on the floor until I reached my room and slammed the door shut behind me. The whispered chorus still echoed in my mind.
"Breathe, breathe," I told myself.
But then I noticed something in my hand, the star wheel necklace that had been around the girl's neck as she crouched on the floor. It felt cold and it was tingling against my hand. How had it gotten here? I hadn't reached for it or touched it. If it wasn't real, why did I have it?
I huddled beneath the bedcovers until the voices finally retreated. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see was my own hollow face staring back at me. Was I witnessing my own fate? I hated that I was alone, paranoid. I just wanted to be back home where the house didn’t feel so alive.
TWENTY ONE
A LONELY PRISONER
Over one week had passed since Seraphina and the brothers vanished into the vortex and left me alone. A lonely prisoner in a gilded cage, I wandered the manor and the grounds like a lost soul, talking to myself in a way that would have given others cause to question my sanity.
As I stepped inside, shaking the rain from my hair, I caught sight of movement at the far end of the corridor. A maid stood half-turned, a basket clutched against her skirts. The moment she noticed me, she scurried away, disappearing around the corner.
Curiosity tugged at me harder than caution. I followed.
When I turned the corner, the maid was gone but a door to the right stood slightly ajar.
Oh the curiosity tugged at me harder than caution, I couldn’t help myself. I crossed the corridor and pressed the handle down slowly, easing the door inward. Quickly checking that no one was there.
The door opened I peeked through. It was not a cupboard. It was a bedroom. A vast one.
