Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“There you are!” Vansi cried out when we reached the others. “Come see what I’ve found!”
It proved to be a moss-covered cupid, his eyes filmed with black mold. Kneeling down on one knee, I took an image eerie and striking. I didn’t know what made me do it, but I reached out to touch the mold.
A clap of sound before my fingers could make contact with the black, Darcie waving us all over. “You can wander tomorrow! I want to show you the house before we lose this gorgeous natural light.”
I rose, leaving the cupid buried in what I’d realized weren’t raspberry bushes, but poisonous imposters. Vansi had already gone on ahead, so I walked into the house at the tail end of the group. It was chilly inside, the walls of the hallway dark wood paneling that seemed to reflect the cold back at us.
“What the fuck!”
Kaea, staring upward at a dropped part of the ceiling designed to hold a painting.
Following his gaze as Vansi backtracked to do the same, I sucked in a breath. The woman looking down at us from inside a chipped golden frame could’ve been Darcie in period costume, the neckline of her dress high and stiff, the shade a solemn dark green.
Her eyes stared straight at us, her lips curved upward.
I could hear the others talking, but couldn’t make myself look away from the portrait. Something about it didn’t sit right. Was that actually a smile, or was it a shaky falsehood worn by someone who didn’t want to anger another person? Was that a sparkle in her eyes, or was it the sheen of tears?
Oh.
It was the tilt of the eyes, the angle at which she held her head, the subtle difference in the line of her jaw. This Shepherd ancestor might look like Darcie at first glance, but change the hair from gold to darkest brown and it was Bea who stared out at you.
“Really looks like Darcie, doesn’t she?” Vansi whistled from beside me. “She told us about her—the woman in the painting—while you were taking photos: Clara Darceline Shepherd, cultured nineteen-year-old bride from England who thought she was coming to a grand home and ended up in this mausoleum in the middle of nowhere.”
Grace joined us. “It does look like her . . . but I don’t know, there’s something not quite right. A jitter in the frame.”
I wondered how only the stranger in the room saw what I had, how Vansi didn’t see it. Confirmation bias? Or was I the one seeing things wrong, the shadows in my vision creating mirages out of nothing?
A quiet obsession given visual form.
“Come on,” Darcie called out when we hesitated too long, “the living area is a trip!”
I was the last one to follow her command. My nape prickled as I turned away from Clara, a shiver rippling over my skin. Beatrice would’ve never worn a dress so formal and stiff, but the secrets in Clara’s eyes? That had been Bea, hadn’t it? Always the one with secrets.
I stepped into the living room doorway on that thought . . . and gaped.
A massive fireplace dominated the cavernous space, the ceiling so high that our voices echoed. The exposed beams were as dark as the stone of the outside walls and some of that stone outlined the large black maw of the fireplace. But what had sparkled with glints of silver in the sunlight looked flat and heavy on the inside.
Mounted stag heads—had to be at least ten—glowered down at us from above the fireplace, their dead eyes black and staring. If that wasn’t disturbing enough, an entire stuffed stag stood by the windows, its pelt moth-eaten and one antler broken in half.
“I think old man Shepherd got a two-for-one deal on stuffed heads.”
Vansi, near enough to hear my muttered aside, snorted. “Don’t look up but there’s a bull’s head mounted above you. Prize-winning stud, apparently.”
Shuddering, I turned my attention to the walls. Tapestries covered many, and from the look of them, they were old. As in, they’d come straight from England in the time of Clara Shepherd, carried on the ship that had brought her to her new home. Threadbare patches on the edges, where hands big and small must’ve touched; indications of moth damage higher up.
“What a shame,” Vansi whispered, brushing her fingers over an undamaged part. “These would be museum-worthy with a little care.”
“V, am I seeing things, or is that a frolicking demon?”
“Ha! Someone in this house had a sense of humor.”
I thought of the portrait again, of the woman with Bea’s mischievous eyes. “It’s well hidden, too, a secret joke.”
“Hope this place has bright lights.” Grace’s bubbly voice. “Be dark as anything at night.”
“Afraid not.” Ash crouched by the fireplace, grabbing kindling from a wooden crate that he stacked neatly in the grate. On one side of the fireplace sat five fat logs ready for use. “Lots of atmospheric shadows.” A glance at me. “You’ll love the photo opportunities.”