Within These Wicked Walls(6)

Remember where you were this morning, Andi.

You woke up in a stall with a bunch of goats. You chased a sleazebag off with a rock.

A slightly irrational employer is nothing.

I took a third and final soothing breath, and then went back downstairs to finish my dinner.





CHAPTER 3


I didn’t care what Peggy or Mr. Rochester said. Manifestations were their most active at night, and I wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to assess them. I wanted to have a better idea of what I was dealing with when I was given the silver required to construct protective amulets to cleanse them.

I stepped into the quiet hall a minute before ten to wait—well, quiet except for the vague sound of music drifting up the stairs, muted strings plucking a tense and melancholic tune to match my anxious mood. I’d never been this nervous with Jember, but then, it had rarely been me doing the work, only observing. Besides, anticipation was always worse than the actual Waking.

The only way to truly know what I was dealing with was to experience it without my amulet’s shield. With that in mind, I gripped my amulet and whispered a quick prayer of protection before hanging it on the inside doorknob to my room and shutting the door.

There was a strange, deep sounding of a bell. The great clock across from the stairs hadn’t rung all evening, and yet now it called up to me, full of dread and warning. Three … Four … Each bell interrupted the echo of the last. Seven … Eight …

The eerie music and bell tolls were replaced by the howl of the wind as it slammed into me like a dust storm, knocking me one way, then another. My limbs went numb within seconds, but not enough to deaden the sensation of freezing needles stabbing into me at high speed. I shifted my feet wider to brace myself, blocking my face with my arms, my dress whipping around my legs. Just over the howling, I could hear bangs and scratches, moaning, the creaking of wooden boards.

The Waking had begun.

It was amplified, which made sense for the severity of the curse. Still, I was freezing. I needed to work quickly, take in as many Manifestations as I could so I’d know what sort of amulets would be required. Already my mind could see and feel the strokes I’d need to cut from the silver with my welding pen. It was like a box of white powder thrown onto a black board, the patterns of each Manifestation’s life force sticking to invisible glue to form a clear design. Line, line, curve, line, dot, line. Or, normally, they were clear—now there were hundreds, overlapping, jumbling up. Far too many to distinguish one from another.

But I could focus on one. Pick the easiest to start on tomorrow. From there they were all connected, and cleansing the first Manifestation would make it easier for me to take care of the next.

All the candles had been blown out by the wind, so the meager moonlight through the windows at the end of the hall and downstairs were my only source of light. But I saw vague shadows of what looked like a horde of rats at the bottom of the stairs and the first-floor ceiling. Waves and waves of small, dark creatures scampering around and over each other, leaving no view of the wood underneath. Likely not actual rats, but until I knew for sure I wasn’t going to venture that way. Besides, the stairs were where the wooden creaking was coming from, the wood visibly shifting and cracking. Breaking.

I bent down and touched a deep crack on the first step, my fingers stopping on the outside of it, as if the space between were a barricade. It was the solid stair, the cracks lying on top like a mirage.

This Manifestation wasn’t even tangible. In other words, it was weak. This would be the one to start with.

And thank God I found it quickly, because my skin had shifted from burned and raw to numb, and it scared me a little. I’d never been hurt by a Manifestation this way—but then, I’d never been without my amulet. I needed it back around my neck, and quickly.

I rushed back to the door, fighting to stay on my feet. I tripped—or something tripped me—and hit the floor hard, as if the wind itself had deliberately thrown me down. I gasped, the wind knocked out of me, but I’d at least caught myself just short of my face slamming on the ground.

But whatever had tripped me was still there, and I kicked at it, yelping as it grabbed my foot. I stumbled to my feet, looking around in the dark. The Something grabbed me more firmly this time, and I quickly stomped to get it off and rushed to my room. But as soon as I shoved the door open it grabbed me again, this time wrapping around my ankle to hold me still. It felt familiar and terrifying, and when I looked down the moonlight flooding from the window in my room revealed a hand coming from the ground, long fingers curling around me.

“Get off!” I cried, kicking hard to break its grip, but another replaced it, then another on my wrist, leaping out like spiders from the wall and floor. As soon as I got free of them, I felt fingers dig into my hair, gripping at the roots, and pull me backward. My back slammed against the wall, and more hands scraped at me to hold me there. I was a mere foot from my door, to freedom, and couldn’t get to it.

But I fought, anyway, because that’s all I knew. I kicked and hit at the Manifestation until I smashed enough fingers to break their hold. I ran into my room, slammed my door shut, and immediately put on my amulet, hugging it to my chest. I secured the lock and shoved the large chair in the room in front of the door. All at once my limbs felt weak, and I lowered myself to the floor, curling up in front of the fireplace.

I was frozen to the core, and it wasn’t all due to the wind.