Craven Manor(18)

The malaise that had dogged him since arriving at Craven Manor intensified. It was heavy and tight, like a coat that didn’t fit properly, and Daniel couldn’t get the tension to leave his shoulders. Leaving the cups in the tomb didn’t feel right, so he carried the tray out.

The crows circled above him like vultures. He wondered if that was their routine: spend the mornings in the tree by the house, the afternoons in the forest, scavenging for food, then circle the building before descending into the same tree for the night. He normally loved birds, but the crows showed none of the joy or energy he associated with their feathered cousins.

He climbed the stairs to the house. The door was still open, and the same leaves littered the foyer, but he held still for a moment, listening for signs of life. His paranoia grew as the house echoed every tiny sound back to him. The tree branches scratching against the stone wall, the wind whistling through tiny cracks, even the crackle of leaves being pushed along the foyer floor by errant bursts of wind sounded desperately loud. He braced himself then stepped inside.

Without the lamp, it was hard to see where he was going. Even when he pushed the front door fully open, its light wasn’t enough to brighten the foyer. An idea occurred to him, and he crossed to the fireplace. The half-melted candles there were set in old-fashioned bronze holders with curling handles. There were no matches, but he recognised flint hidden amongst the dead branches and empty picture frames. It only took a few minutes to light one of the wicks.

He unstuck the candle’s holder from the mantelpiece and held it ahead of himself. The plate he’d left for the cat was still in the space between two chairs. The pink Spam seemed untouched. Daniel sighed and added the plate to the silver tray. Maybe the cat couldn’t recognise Spam as food. Hopefully Joel’s next delivery will include real meat. Poor cat.

Daniel circled the edge of the foyer and opened doors in the hopes of finding a bathroom or kitchen. The hinges were all stiff from disuse, and he often had to kick drifts of dead leaves away. The first few doors opened into a ballroom, a dining room, and a magnificent library. Daniel only stayed long enough to see that most of the books were still whole, but that several of their spines were decaying off.

He got lucky with one of the doors hidden beside the staircase. The leaves were thicker there, banked high like snowdrifts, but once he kicked them out of the way and got the door open, he found himself in what appeared to be the staff’s quarters. It was a smaller, less opulent dining area. The centre of the room was taken up by a table with no less than thirty chairs crowded around it. Doors were set into its walls, and he tried one to the right. It led into what seemed to be a sewing and repair room. An old-fashioned dress lay out on the table, pins stuck around where repairs had been started.

The next door opened into a washroom, where clothes filled large tubs. They’d frozen into strange crumpled shapes, as though they’d been put in there to soak and then were forgotten. Long-dried mildew dotted the fabric. Daniel bent close to see a woman’s dress in one tub and white maid uniforms in another.

He retreated to the mess hall and tried its final door. It led into the kitchens, and Daniel’s sense of surrealism increased. Pots rested on the stovetop, dry herbs hung from hooks in the ceiling, and a fossilized loaf of bread on the central table was slowly being turned to dust by insects.

The house had been evacuated at short notice. The staff had dropped whatever they were doing and just… left. Why? What happened that they wouldn’t try to salvage anything on the way out?

He’d intended to wash the cups and tray, but it now occurred to him that the pipes might not work anymore. He turned a tap and waited. A deep, intense grating noise echoed from somewhere below his feet. A moment later, black ichor gushed out of the spout.

Daniel wrinkled his nose at the stench that accompanied the water. It was the same colour and consistency as what had come out of his cottage’s taps, so he waited for the water to clear. It took several minutes before he felt safe dunking his hands under the stream. He washed the remainder of the ichor down the sink then tipped the uneaten Spam into one of the grimy pots on the stove and submerged everything in water.

He spent a few minutes trying to scrub the gunk off the teacups and tray. It was a hopeless cause, though. His own plate came out fairly clean, but the porcelain and silver had spent too long exposed to the elements for the stains to come off without soap and heated water. He sighed and left them on the bench to dry. If the kitchens had been tidy, he would have put more effort into the dishes. As it was, washing up while surrounded by squalor felt like a Sisyphean task.

Maybe Bran is planning to hire some cleaners once the house’s exterior is less of a nightmare to navigate. Daniel raised the candle and tried the kitchen’s second door. It led back into the foyer.

He was halfway to the front door when he felt eyes on his back. It took a moment to locate the two amber spheres on the second-floor landing. Daniel moved closer and squinted against the shadows surrounding the cat. It stood directly ahead of Annalise’s portrait. He could barely see the whites of her eyes and a hint of her hesitant smile.

“Hello,” Daniel called to the cat. “You didn’t eat your food.”

The cat’s tail twitched, black moving through black. Daniel’s eyes ached from trying to see where the cat ended and the gloom began.

“I’ll bring you some more soon, okay? Something you might like a little better.”