Craven Manor(17)

Daniel took the slip of paper. It held a mobile number. He didn’t know what to say. He tucked the paper into a pocket and managed a smile. “Thanks.”

Joel raised a hand in farewell, but he was already halfway to the bank of trees. “Take care.”

Daniel waited until Joel had disappeared amongst the garden, then he released a breath as he looked at the wheelbarrow. I should have asked him for a phone. Joel’s number isn’t much help if I have nothing to call it with.

Crows cackled as they settled into the tree behind him. The sun was up, but the thick foliage blocked out much of its light and left Daniel feeling chilled. He rubbed his hands over his arms and tried to look at the situation from an optimistic point of view.

Joel and his father prepared the house for me. That’s one mystery answered. Bran apparently prefers being hands-off with his property. I don’t mind that, just… I wish the whole thing made a bit more sense.

Joel received letters with instructions, just like Daniel did. And he was being paid in the same gold coins. That wasn’t where the similarities ended. Both Joel and Daniel had been too desperate to refuse Bran’s offer, no matter how uncomfortable it made them.

It’s like he’s preying on the vulnerable.

Daniel struggled to dismiss the thought. He ran his hand over the wheelbarrow’s handle. His request for gardening equipment had been answered so swiftly that it was disorienting. He didn’t know how that was possible when he was seemingly isolated.

Maybe Bran has a security camera or motion sensor installed in the foyer to alert him when I go inside… except Craven Manor doesn’t have any electricity to power them. Maybe Bran hired someone to drop by every evening and look for notes. Maybe that’s who I heard knocking on my cottage last night.

Crows shuffled above him, their feathers creating a grim rustling. When he looked at them, one cawed softly. They seemed have gathered around the ancient oversized crow Daniel had seen the day before. Its unrelenting, unblinking stare made Daniel uncomfortable. He picked up the wheelbarrow’s handles and began pushing it towards the crypt.





Chapter Eight





Daniel couldn’t stop churning through the new knowledge as he hiked towards the mausoleum. He’d all but sealed his employment at Craven Manor by accepting Joel’s offer of a generator; leaving the house once supplies had been paid for would be a shady move. Daniel squinted up at the tower as he passed under it, but the only thing he saw in its windows was the reflection of the overcast sky.

Maybe I was paranoid over nothing. The taps could have come from a night bird, or maybe even a squirrel. Just because they sounded like a human asking to be let in doesn’t mean that’s what it was.

The crows exploded out of the tree in a burst of cries and whirring wings. Daniel flinched, but the birds passed over him and vanished into the forest past the fence.

It’s a creepy house. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. He ran his tongue over his lips. This could be home. Maybe you can be happy here. Your own bed, supplies delivered at your request… and plenty of nature. Oh boy, is there nature.

He dropped the wheelbarrow’s handles when he reached the crypt. The vines he’d torn off the previous day lay in clumps around the stone building, and Daniel gathered them into the wheelbarrow. He didn’t know if the house had a compost pile, but one would need to be set up. By the time he was ready to add new plants to the property, the organic material would have decomposed enough to be good fertiliser. Daniel wondered if Bran’s offer to pay for supplies extended to saplings to replace some of the dead trees.

Daniel found a clear patch of ground to dump the severed vines then returned to the mausoleum and strapped on the gloves. Joel hadn’t lied when he’d said they were good brands; his hands barely felt the thorns as he clipped branches off and tore the bushes out of the ground. Sadly, the gloves couldn’t protect the rest of him. His jeans developed a series of tiny tears, and red scores appeared across his arms. At the same time, the process was cathartic. Every new prick meant fewer of the ugly black shrubs to cluster in the tomb’s entryway. Within a few hours, he’d cleared enough to stand inside the shelter.

Daniel paused to admire the space. It had been designed as a place where people could sit to pay their respects to the departed, or even shelter from the rain. Stone benches had been carved into both walls. The tomb’s doors were wood, as thick as the house’s main doors and carved with leaves and flourishes to match the outside decoration.

He gripped one of the ugly bushes around the door’s base. The shrub came up to his shoulders and was hard to get out of the ground. After a series of grunts and muffled swear words, he finally tore it free, but a strange clinking noise joined the sound of his scuffing shoes. Daniel tossed the bush aside. It had been hiding a silver tray and two teacups resting on the ground.

The cups were fine china, with delicate flowers painted in gold around their lips. The tray looked like it had been expensive, but the whole arrangement was coated in grime. Decades of plant growth over them had left a gritty black residue on the china, and a multitude of small bugs had died inside the teacups.

Daniel kicked the bush outside the eave then carefully lifted the tray. The metal had stuck to the stone, and its underside held a layer of red rust. He tried to imagine someone visiting the crypt—a grieving parent, perhaps—to have tea with the dead Annalise. But no scenario he could conjure explained why the cups had been abandoned there.