17

 

 

SHE WASN’T AFRAID, Gwynn told herself.

For some time after Richard’s death, she’d dreamed of the apple orchard, the looming trees with their low-hanging skeletal branches, reaching for her, always reaching for her. In those dreams she’d feared them, and everywhere she’d turned, there had been another. The cold, gray, scaly bark. The occasional fruit, well past its season, which clung to a branch like a tiny yellow shrunken head. The dream knowledge that something terribly wrong, terribly evil, was just out of sight along the path. In these dreams she knew she could not turn back—could never turn back. In these dreams she knew that all paths led to a horror.

But the dreams had faded. She had not had the nightmare of the orchard in years. And she was not afraid now, she told herself. Still, the day was cold, and she pulled her coat more tightly about her, pulled her sleeves down over her hands. The dead leaves crunched and skittered underfoot, the bones of the dead summer. She shivered and forged her way on.

There was blood on her hand, she realized suddenly, feeling the trickle between her fingers. The thorns had scratched at her, again trying to hold her back. She didn’t even pause now, but walked on, holding the scratch to her mouth. She wouldn’t think about the blood. She wouldn’t think about the brambles. She wasn’t afraid, and she would look inside the dovecote.

Don’t.

The voice was Colin’s, soft in her head, but with some urgency. Gwynn had let him convince her to come away that other afternoon, but she would not be swayed today.

The clearing came as a surprise, as it had the first time. In the center of it hulked the low barn, its beams worn, the ragged canvas hanging like a black distress signal in the window. There was no sound. The dovecote was black with age, the roof sagging slightly in the middle, and menacing, like a monster prepared to leap. Gwynn shook herself, a hand to her breast. It was not a monster. It was not a hulk. It was a building, old, abandoned, and unused for ages. She was simply going to look inside; she would not go into its bowels too deeply, not with the way the ridgepole sagged. She was curious, she told herself, but not stupid. She patted the flashlight in her pocket. Reassurance.

There was no sound. The clearing, as she crossed it slowly, was silent. No birds. Perhaps they were disturbed by her presence. Well, she would not be here long. Just long enough to look, long enough to prove to herself that, despite the chills the place gave her—it was simply abandoned, and she was simply suggestible, and there was nothing more to it than that. Despite the urgency in his voice when Colin had told her to leave the door alone—she was master of this, her own property, left to her by her own great-aunt, for reasons she would probably never understand. She pulled the flashlight out and flicked the switch, turning it up to look at the bulb, which glowed slightly orange. No doubt the batteries were weak after all this time; she’d simply have her look around, and put batteries on the shopping list when she’d returned to the cottage.

Gwynn hadn’t brought the remains of the penetrating oil, because, as she remembered, the door here was not latched, and in fact hung slightly askew on its hinges; there was probably no need of it. Now she put a hand to the wood and pushed gingerly. The bottom plank was driven into the ground by its own weight, and at first it resisted her. She pushed harder. The crack widened. Slowly. With an ugly dragging sound. She glanced down and saw the arc it traced in the dirt. She shoved even harder, and suddenly the door swung open to slam against the inside wall. She nearly fell into the dimness.

The flashlight beam was indeed weak, yellow instead of the strong clear white of full power. Gwynn cursed herself for not checking the batteries back in the kitchen. A thin pale rectangle of light fell at her feet from the grey day outside, and though she shone the hopeless flashlight beam further into the dovecote, it took a few moments for her eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness.

Cages lined the walls at the edges of the light, their occupants long gone, their doors, for the most part, hanging open like hungry mouths. Patches of rotten hay were scattered over the dirt floor. She shone the light overhead and it picked out the great black beams that crisscrossed beneath the sagging roof trusses. Dust motes filtered their way past, into the beam and out again like flurries. The mustiness made her sneeze, once, and again.

Deserted. Gwynn had no idea what had so spooked Colin. Or why she had allowed herself to absorb his uneasiness. There was nothing here.

She turned slowly, looking at the dove boxes, at the beams overhead. Everything was deathly still.

A slight movement of air touched her cheek. There was a creak behind her. She spun, and the flashlight died.

“Who’s there?

Gwynn shook the flashlight, retreating quickly toward the pale rectangle of daylight on the floor. Impossibly, the door to the dovecote swung shut.

No, it didn’t. She blinked, confused. Took a quick panicked step.

Gwynn stumbled, fell to her knees. The flashlight beam, reviving, gave out a feeble light. She looked up, and for a moment thought she saw feet. Swinging gently in the movement of air, the toes barely dragging across the dirt floor.

With a strangled cry, Gwynn scrambled toward the door. She clawed at it with her fingers, and then threw herself out into the clearing, into the air, away from the creaking darkness.