Within These Wicked Walls(18)

“That one is the most important.” Her step faltered, and when I looked at her, her brows were knitted into deep lines, her eyes tearing. “People go missing in this house if they’re not careful.”

“Go miss—”

Alone.

The word tickled my ear, like a whisper, and I tripped to a stop. “What?”

“Go missing,” Emma repeated. “Disappear.”

“No, I mean—”

You are alone.

A chill crawled over my already cold limbs, the words drawing my eyes to the closet we’d stopped beside. My amulet throbbed like an aching heart.

“This house gives me goose bumps,” Emma said, rushing me along. She led me into one of the rooms I’d seen on the tour—empty, save for being littered in soot.

“This is it.” She held out her hand to the fireplace, which Tom was busy cleaning with a rough brush. “The bane of my existence.”

“A dirty chimney?” I asked, and saw Tom’s shoulders shake as he chuckled.

“You don’t understand,” Emma said, “it’s constantly dirty. And when it’s dirty, it smokes. And we have to clean it, knowing it’ll be soiled any minute, any day.”

“There’s nothing in the room, why does the hearth need to be lit?”

“They all need to be lit, at all times. The house is too cold, otherwise.”

I’d felt the proper strokes for the Manifestation on entering the room, but approached it anyway. This one wasn’t making my amulet pound, so it was clearly not much of a threat. A nuisance, at most.

I knelt in front of the dirty fireplace, and Tom leaned back on his heels to give me space. I’d never actually looked inside one before … to be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anything was wrong if I couldn’t sense the strokes.

“It’s unpredictable,” Tom said, scratching one of his sideburns, his soot-covered hands smudging black down his jaw. “Sometimes it happens when the house decides to rumble, sometimes it goes off on its own. No shake, no sound, no warning. The only sure way to not get covered is to clean it as soon as it’s done spitting, but—” He looked up at Emma, giving her a reassuring smile. “There aren’t many of us in the house, so it can’t always be helped.”

“Not many of us?” Emma said, pushing her hands so hard into her apron pockets I was sure she’d tear them. “It’s you, me, Peggy, and Andromeda—if she stays. Poor Edward has disappeared.”

“He left,” Tom said, with a weary sigh.

“None of the horses are missing. He didn’t pack any of his things. And do you really think a frail old man walked out into the desert alone? He disappeared, just like the others.”

“Where do they disappear to?” I asked.

“Tom thinks they leave because they just can’t stand being here,” Emma scoffed.

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Better than thinking they’re being held somewhere, only to be set free when the curse is broken, like some foolish fairy tale.”

“Well, let’s ask Andromeda what she thinks.”

They both looked at me for answers, and I wanted to climb up the chimney and disappear, myself. Instead I said calmly, “I’ll look into it.”

“There, you see?” Tom stood up and kissed Emma, leaving smudged handprints on her face where he stroked her cheeks. “Why do you worry so much? Let the professional take care of things.”

Emma murmured something I didn’t catch, because a billow of black powder shot out from the bowels of the hearth. It swelled around the invisible shield of my amulet, engulfing me in darkness. I watched the dust skim by my shield and grinned … it seemed a wildly inappropriate reaction to a Manifestation, but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes simple joys were all a girl had.

Somewhere in the cloud, Emma screamed in frustration and then both of them were coughing. I let the black cloud settle some before going out into the hall where the two of them stood, doing their best to wipe their faces with their dirty clothes.

This would be an easy amulet, but I was honestly more interested in the closet we’d passed on the way here. So, I pulled the door shut and said, “I recommend staying out of this room for the time being. We’ll have to make do without the extra fire for now.”

“Peggy won’t like that,” Emma said.

“Well, she’s welcome to become a debtera and cleanse it herself.”

Emma and Tom looked at each other, their slightly shocked faces breaking down into smiles. “I told you she was the right one,” Tom said, hugging Emma around the shoulders.

“All right, don’t boast about it,” said Emma, though she was grinning. “Come on, this soot is stinging my eyes.” And they headed down the hall, I assumed toward their room.

I waited until they turned the corner to go back to the closet. I looked at the closed door and listened. And there it was—a breath, like a whisper, from behind the door.

I opened the door and was greeted by spiderwebs. Not just a few cobwebs here and there, but an entire closetful of active webs, stretching from wall to wall, ceiling to shelf, shelf to broom … spiders living their lives on them as if this was where they belonged.

There were all kinds. Some with long spindly legs. Some smaller than my bitten-down fingernails. Some with red backs, some brown and furry. A few, I saw, glowed pale white from within the darkness.