Craven Manor(10)

“Just wait here a moment, little guy.” He swallowed as he backed away, trying his hardest not to startle the cat. It barely looked at him. “I’ll be right back.”

He kept his movements slow until he reached the door, then he turned and jogged to the gardener’s hut. The cat isn’t flighty, so it must have been someone’s pet at one point. It’s a long way for a cat to wander from the nearest town, but no one has lived in the mansion in the last couple of decades. How’d it get here?

He leapt through the cabin’s door, skidded on the wooden floor, and turned towards the kitchenette. He remembered seeing a tin of Spam in the cupboard. It wasn’t ideal cat food, but it was better than nothing. He found a plate in one of the drawers, wrenched the tin open, and scooped spoonfuls of the slimy pink substance onto the plate.

The journey back to the mansion was slower as he struggled to balance the plate while climbing over dead trees. He began to worry the cat might have wandered off, but as he re-entered the foyer, it was still sitting by the staircase. The lamp’s light created a warm glow across its fur, which had probably once been glossy but was rough with age. Its ears twitched towards him, and Daniel smiled.

“Here you go, little guy. I got you something to eat.”

He lowered himself close to the ground and extended the plate as he crept forward. The cat made eye contact for half of a second then turned, flicked its tail, and climbed the stairs.

“Wait—come back! Food, kitty, food!”

I sound like an idiot. Daniel couldn’t help himself; he grabbed the lamp and followed the cat, plate held out as though that might tempt the creature to stop. It didn’t seem afraid, just bored of him, so he followed it around the bend at the top of the stairs and towards the third-floor landing.

Tiny puffs of dust exploded around his feet with every step. The higher they climbed, the more cobwebs clustered along the railings and architraves. They clung to Daniel’s arms when he wasn’t being careful, then a large invisible one snagged over his face when he was nearly at the third floor. He stopped, face scrunched up, and tried to brush the threads away without dropping the plate of food or the lamp. By the time he had cleared his eyes, the cat had vanished into the shadows.

“Hello? Little guy?” Daniel craned his neck to see his small companion. The lamp’s light didn’t reach as far as he would have liked, but it highlighted elaborate moulding running along the ceiling and the whirls in the hand-carved balustrades. He peered over the railing and saw the foyer stretched out below him, magnificent in its scope and tragic in its abandonment.

He considered returning to the ground floor and slinking back to the cottage. The letter hadn’t forbidden him from exploring the house, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding on someone else’s domain. But the dust under his feet was thick and undisturbed, and he didn’t want to give up on the starving cat yet.

“Psst, cat, come back, please.” He crept the final six steps to the third-floor landing. The stairs opened into an open area of at least twelve square feet. To his left and right, hallways stretched away until they eventually faded into shadows. Despite their age, the bronze wallpaper and royal-blue carpet looked beautiful. Paintings lined the gallery walls. The halls felt eerily quiet, almost as though they were sleeping.

Straight ahead, a short passageway extended deeper into the house. Its floor was uncarpeted stones, and it had only one destination: a massive wooden door.

It looked thick—thicker even than the front doors—and the wood was painted tar-black. Daniel, mesmerised, lifted his lamp higher as he crept towards it. Tiny crystals had formed over the stones at the door’s base. They sparkled in his lamplight. An emblem had been painted across the wood’s black tar in a striking white paint: a circle with a cross running over it. Four massive bolts ran up the door’s side. They were all locked, sealing the doorway, but the metal was so rusted that Daniel thought he could break them without much strain.

What is this place?

He quickly realised what he was looking at: the door to the tower. The one the letter explicitly forbade him from opening.

An uneasy groan escaped Daniel’s parted lips. He took a step back from the door as chills ran up his arms like tiny spiders. Do not enter the tower…

Daniel swallowed and checked over his shoulder to make sure he was alone. Even when he wasn’t looking at the door, he could feel its presence: massive, daunting, threatening. What is Bran keeping up there? It can’t be where he’s living, surely? If he is, then why are the bolts on the outside?

Daniel put the lamp down and reached towards the door. He couldn’t stop himself. He had no intention of touching any of the four locks, but he wanted to understand the mystery. His fingertips brushed the wood in the centre of the painted cross, and he instantly recoiled. Something had thrummed through the wood, like a low electrical current. With it came an immense sense of malaise. Suddenly, he felt as though his whole world were a second away from crumbling, as though the shadows were alive, creeping towards him, their long, cruelly sharp fingers twitching as they stretched towards his throat.

Do not enter the tower…

He snatched up the lamp and dashed to the stairs. Juggling the plate and lamp in one hand, he wiped away the perspiration running into his eyes. His footsteps were like a drum, echoing back from the hundred hidden nooks scattered through the mansion. He felt dwarfed by the building. The air inside was stifling to the point of being suffocating. His lungs worked to suck in oxygen, but it never seemed to be enough. Dizziness crashed through him, and he came to a halt on the second-floor landing, gasping and shaking, while he waited for his vertigo to subside.