She stepped down. The chill had been bad at the top of the stairs, but it grew worse with every step. Clare began to imagine shuffling footsteps ringing out of the eternal blackness. When she stopped walking, the shuffling noise stopped too.
Echoes. That’s all. Echoes in the fancy people’s wine room. Don’t give it power.
She kept descending. Her heart kept hammering. She didn’t remember the stairs going down so far. The hallway was wide—wider than the flight of stairs into the basement—and made of slabs of solid grey stone. Her candlelight caught on uneven scraps of rock, and the shadows it created ran in circles around her.
Something rang out in the blackness ahead. Clare froze, and she clenched her teeth to keep quiet. She thought the sound was caused by something being dropped.
It’s an old house. Things fall sometimes. Maybe there was a chip of rock on the wall, and the reverberations from your footsteps knocked it free.
She’d come too far to turn back. Clare forced her legs to work, to carry her lower. After three more steps, the staircase levelled out on the stone floor.
Shelves surrounded her. Dorran had said his family had squandered most of their wealth, and she could see some of the symptoms in that cellar. The shelves were less than a tenth filled. Empty brackets ran for rows sometimes before the pattern was interrupted by a bottle. She supposed good wine was expensive, and having good wine delivered into the middle of nowhere must be even more so.
Clare waited, forcing her back to be straight as she faced the room. It was large. The shelves continued on farther than her light could manage, disappearing into the inky gloom. The stones under her shoes were well-worn from countless feet pacing over them in search of the bottle that had been requested. Clare focussed on those details, on the elements of the room that were mundane and normal, grounded in reality. She tried to use them to push out the panic in her mind and silence the soft scrabbling noise she imagined coming from the room’s unseen corner.
Stay for two minutes. That’s all. Then you can get out of here. She swallowed. The cold stung her throat and made her nose water. She blinked her eyes rapidly as she stared towards the nearest wall.
There was something dark there. It looked like a stain of some kind, like a liquid that had sprayed over the stones and soaked into the porous material. Blood, her mind whispered, and Clare clenched her teeth. It obviously wasn’t blood. She was in a wine cellar. Bottles would inevitably, eventually be broken.
Maybe I am delusional. My flames of paranoia are being fanned by an unwelcoming mansion. How long has it been since I’ve spoken to someone other than Dorran? It has to be weeks.
The scrabbling noise wasn’t going away. In fact, she thought it might be coming closer. She steeled herself, knowing that running would only make the fear worse in the long term. She was nearly at the two minutes she’d assigned herself. She would spend the last few seconds approaching the other side of the room—the unseen side—and once she’d conquered her imagination, she could leave.
She walked forward, each step slow and measured. The delusions were realistic. She could pinpoint the exact space the sound seemed to be coming from—ahead and a little to the right, near the ground, close to the space she’d imagined seeing the figure days before. Fingernails on stone.
Each step revealed more of the space. The soft golden glow of her candlelight poured out like a liquid, running over the stone floor and stone wall to give her a little dome of light. Then the candle guttered as moving air disturbed it. In those brief seconds when the flame trembled and fought to hang on, Clare thought she saw two round, yellowed eyes staring out of the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-One
Clare stopped moving. The candle stabilised. Her throat was dry, and her hands shook, but she knew what she had to do.
It’s not real. There’s nothing there. Step forward. Prove it to yourself.
Her shoe scraped across the stone as she lifted it. As the candle moved forward, its light cut into the blackness. There was a shape there. The huddled, filthy figure was almost invisible on the absolute outer edge of her light.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
She lifted her other foot. The limb felt heavier than stone. It barely moved forward, but when it did, the light that splashed across the shape became a fraction brighter.
Vertebrae had cut through the skin on its back. The bones were jutting out and poking up like a spiny ridge. The skin surrounding the protrusion was a dark red, almost black.
It’s not real. It’s not real!
She couldn’t breathe. She wanted Dorran. He would erase the fear and make her feel safe. He would make her believe nothing in the cellar could hurt her.
Dorran. She clung to the thought of him. Dorran is why you’re doing this. Dorran needs you to be better.
Her foot scraped forwards again. The creature moved. Its gaunt face turned towards her. It was a woman… but only just barely. Strands of long grey hair hung about its face. Its jaw was too long and projected out. Deformed. Bony fingers tipped the arms that didn’t fit properly at its sides. It took Clare a second to understand what she was seeing. The arms were far too long. They had an extra joint each, making them jut out at bizarre angles.
It’s not real.
The creature had been scrabbling at the stone wall, in the same place Clare had seen the first woman. Its round, lidless eyes stared at her as it rose out of its crouch. A narrow, pale tongue darted out to taste its bottom lip. Then one of the three-jointed arms reached towards her.
It’s not real.
Her legs shook. Her body shook. Her hands jittered so badly that the candlelight shimmered.
Elongated teeth filled the gaping maw. The arm kept reaching, stretching closer and closer, aimed at Clare’s outstretched hand that held the candle.
A memory rushed through her. It was vague and gone in an instant, but the emotions associated with it were sharp enough to make her breath catch. Claws digging into her. Claws just like the overgrown nails protruding from the woman’s fingers.
Clare turned and ran. The creature made a noise, something between a hiss and a rasping, gurgling inhale. Then its nails began scraping over the floor as it gave chase.
All rationality had fled. Clare only cared about one thing—reaching the top of the stairs. Her shoulder hit one of the shelves. It shook her, and she stumbled. The enormous wooden structure creaked and swayed. As Clare swivelled, she saw the creature two paces behind her, jaw stretched wide and spines glistening in the light. Then the candle went out.
Clare yelled. She lurched forward, towards where she knew the stairs had to be. She hit another shelf. Bottles clinked and rattled. Clare used shaking hands to feel along the structure’s edge, guiding her forward. Her lungs were starved for air. Her throat was too tight. Then she hit the first step of the staircase and tumbled forward.
Sharp rock hit her jaw, jarring her and making her taste blood. She barely felt the pain, though. She clambered up. The clawing, scratching noises were almost on her. She could hear more of them. They came from every corner of the cellar, clicking over stones, scrabbling around the shelves as they converged on her. With every heartbeat, she expected to feel the sharp pain digging into her ankle. She ran, pure adrenaline driving her up, closer and closer to the archway of light in the distance.