“I’m fine,” she managed, her voice tight. “It was probably just a shadow.”
His fingers squeezed lightly. “You have been through a lot these past days, more than any person should be asked to bear. I will help you as much as I can, but the brunt of this fight will be internal.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. She wanted to cry but refused to let the tears out.
“You are not alone.” He tilted his head down, close to hers. His voice was soft. “I will do what I can to make sure you never have to feel that way. So stay with me and trust me. I will keep you safe.”
Clare didn’t sleep at all for the rest of the night, even though she pretended to. She was fairly sure Dorran was feigning rest as well. His breathing was a little too deliberate.
She felt a small spark of relief when morning light hit the windows. Dorran smiled at her as though nothing had happened as he helped her into the bathroom.
He’d said she wouldn’t be alone, and he seemed intent on keeping that promise. While Clare brushed her teeth, she could hear Dorran moving around in the main room. Normally, he was as quiet as a wraith, but that morning, he never went more than a few seconds without making some noise. When Clare came back out, he’d boiled basins of water for her to wash with. He stayed in the bathroom while she scrubbed herself clean, and when she was done, he came back out and redressed her stitches.
“These are looking a lot better.”
Clare lay on her back, blankets over her chest and lower half, while he cleaned the stitches on her stomach. It was easier to feel like things might be normal now that it was morning and they were back into a routine. She smiled. “Yeah? Think we can take them out soon?”
“A little longer. Maybe another week. But it is healing faster than I had hoped.” He reapplied the bandage. “I’ll get breakfast. Two minutes, and I’ll be back. Will you be all right for that long?”
“Of course.” She laughed. “Take longer if you want.” She tried to sound carefree, but as soon as Dorran was out of the room, her smile dropped. She dressed as quickly as she could then stood close to the fire, watching both doors.
Is it possible this really is some kind of paranoia? Delusions manifesting? It has to be, doesn’t it? Women with holes in their sides. Bones poking out. That can’t be real. But if it’s not, then what is it?
She chewed on her thumbnail as she paced in front of the flames. Believing that the building was haunted was a wild leap of logic, but at least it made a little more sense than the alternatives. If a house was going to have a ghost, Winterbourne would be an ideal contender. Old, opulent, full of horrible family secrets…
She’d read a handful of gothic books as a teenager. In one of them, the heroine had discovered that her husband-to-be was hiding his insane first wife in the attic. It had been a chilling scene. For a moment, Clare considered the idea that she might be living in a real-life re-creation of the story. Maybe Dorran wasn’t hiding a wife, but a family member could have been locked away for her own good and found a way to escape from her hidden room.
That theory didn’t hold up, though. Dorran had been sincere when he’d told her they were alone. She was sure of it. There had been no hint of any lie in his expression. He was just as confused and concerned as she was.
Besides, no one should have been able to survive the disfigurement the woman endured. Not for ten minutes. And certainly not for days.
That left two possibilities—ghosts or delusions. Dorran said he’s never heard any rumours of ghosts. And if the house really is haunted, wouldn’t someone else have seen the spirit? Surely I can’t be the only one.
She felt sick to her stomach. When the door clicked open, she reflexively flinched. But it was only Dorran. He’d promised two minutes, but she was pretty sure he’d returned faster than that. She checked that his bowl was full before she started eating.
It was easier to relax while he was around. He was reliable and safe, and he didn’t try to belittle or pick at what Clare had seen. They sat by the fire and talked about the outside world while they ate. Dorran wanted to know what her life was like, so Clare told him about her work at a bookstore. Remembering her old job felt strange. She’d only been gone for a week, but it felt like a lifetime. She realised she was probably fired by that point. She hadn’t turned up to work on Monday, and being uncontactable, they would eventually need to replace her.
“It wasn’t a bad place to work.” Seeing that Dorran had finished his meal, she drained the last of her soup. “I mean, every job has stress and annoyances, and some days you wish you could chase certain customers out of the building with a broom, but my coworkers were nice. And that makes the biggest difference.”
“Good people can make a bad situation bearable,” Dorran said.
“Exactly! There was one shift where everything went wrong. It was a Saturday, which is crazy to begin with, and then our terminal stopped working. I thought I was about to drop from exhaustion by the time I got home. But the other staff and I pulled together to get it done, and I felt kind of proud when I flipped the sign to Closed.” She put her bowl on the coffee table and pulled her legs up under herself. “What about you? Do you get along with any of your family?”
He hesitated, and Clare instantly realised her mistake. The family members who’d supported him hadn’t survived the fateful dinner. She pressed her hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry—”
“Some of the staff are quite nice.” He smiled to let her know it was okay. “The doctor was good company, and I got along well with most of the gardeners. All of the staff supported my mother—she wouldn’t tolerate subversive employees—but at least they were not as extreme as her. Most of them were friendly.”
Clare lowered her hands. “I guess that must have helped.”
“Yes. It made this home feel less like a prison. And I was able to learn skills from some of them. Not all of my time spent here was unpleasant.”
He was more cheerful about it than Clare thought she would have been if their situations had been reversed. She followed his gaze to the fire. “Did you have any plans for today? I don’t want you to feel like you have to sit with me constantly.”
“I enjoy being with you. Enough that, yes, I am starting to neglect some very necessary work.” He chewed on his lip. “The garden needs to be a priority.”
Clare grimaced. He’d spent more than an entire day at her side without even looking at the plants. And she’d been selfish enough to welcome it. “You’d better go. They’ll need water.”
“Come with me. I can make you comfortable in the garden, and you will not have to be alone that way.”
She was desperate for a chance to get out of the room and began to rise. “Yes!”
“Steady.” Dorran came up beside her and put one arm around her shoulders. The other slipped under her legs, and in an instant, he’d lifted her off the ground.
Clare grabbed at his sleeve. “I can walk!”
“It is a long way. This is safer.” Unfazed, he plucked a blanket off the bed, then he used his shoulder to push the door open and carried her towards the stairs.
Clare kept her hold on his shirt as Dorran smoothly moved through the maze of passages to reach the lowest floor. It was impossible not to feel the way his body pressed against hers. His muscles shifted under his shirt with every breath, warm and firm. She kept her head down so he wouldn’t notice the colour spreading across her face.