“Exactly. The bedroom, then?”
“It seems to be the best choice to me, for the short term, at least. Once I have made sure you are safe there, I will secure the garden and fetch some food to tide us over.”
“Or,” Clare countered, “we stay together, visit the kitchen and garden together, and I don’t have to spend twenty minutes imagining all the ways you could die.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “I would prefer knowing you were safe.”
She retorted by lifting her own. “You said you’d let me win as many arguments as I wanted if we got back to the house.”
“Of course I did.” He sighed. “Evidently, I should not make promises in dire situations. We will go together.”
Chapter Thirty
Clare gathered the things they would need: Dorran’s wet boots, the blankets and pillow, and the radio. They were an armful, but she balanced them against her chest as Dorran took up a fire poker and approached the door.
“If anything comes at us, try to get your back against a wall or into a corner. I don’t like the idea of fighting these things inside the house. If we’re attacked, our preference will be to retreat to safety and regroup. Agreed?”
Clare nodded aggressively. “Yes.”
Dorran sent her a fond smile, then his face darkened as he opened the door. Cold light dripped through high windows to illuminate the space. Ahead, the staircase hung like a dark ribbon along the back wall. To their right, doorways led deeper into the building. The sense of hollowness that Clare had begun to associate with the foyer washed over her again. It was too sparse.
Dorran led her across the space in an arc to avoid straying too close to any of the doors. As they passed the stairs, he picked up a ring of keys hanging near the phone. Moving quickly and quietly, they went through the narrow doorway at the back of the foyer and stopped in the stone chamber while Dorran lit a candle.
Clare found it impossible not to stare at the gaping wine cellar archway as they passed it. At least one of the creatures had its nest down there. But there was no way to barricade the opening. The archway was tall and wide, and it had no door. Even if they managed to drag furniture into the space and build a blockade, there was nothing to secure it to, and Clare suspected the creatures wouldn’t have a hard time beating it down. That meant the archway would be left open. And she could do nothing about it.
Clare inhaled deeply when she stepped under the garden’s warm lights. The space, full of the musty smell of damp earth and with a gentle heat rising from the floor, had always felt like a sanctuary. Dorran shut and locked the metal door, and they turned to face the gardens.
Dorran had done good work in rescuing the plants. Most of them were wilting as shock set in, but he’d replanted them all into neat lines. Clare noticed he hadn’t disturbed the erratic, desperate planting she’d done before he arrived.
He filled the watering can from the tap and began moving through the rows, tending to and examining the plants one at a time. Some would die, and others would be stunted, but it could have been a lot worse.
Dorran nodded to her. “If you feel up to it, would you plant some new rows? It will help replace the lost crops.”
“Right.” Clare placed her luggage on the chair in the garden’s corner then crossed to the seed bench and chose several bottles. While Dorran watered, she populated a new patch of ground. They worked efficiently. Clare had nearly finished a row of snow peas when a scraping noise made her look up. Dorran righted his watering can and stared at the frosted window in the door.
A silhouette lurched past. It moved erratically, twitching, and was gone before Clare could even flinch back. Dorran placed his watering can on the bench and crept towards the door.
“No,” Clare whispered as he reached for the handle. He looked back at her and must have seen the dread in her face because he withdrew his hand. The window remained empty. After a few moments of silence, both she and Dorran returned to their work.
Clare tried to keep her head down but couldn’t stop herself from watching the door out of the corner of her eye. She sensed that Dorran’s attention was divided too. It wasn’t possible to see far through the window. The glow from the candle on the other side of the stone room gave her a sense of space, but every distinct detail had mixed into one solid blur. The creature could be hidden anywhere out there, waiting, holding its breath, knowing that she and Dorran would have to leave their shelter eventually.
When Dorran returned the watering can to its shelf, Clare knew they couldn’t delay their journey back into the main parts of the house any longer. She licked dry lips as she stacked the jars of seeds back onto their shelves. Then she gathered her bundle of bedding material while Dorran picked up his fire poker.
“Into the kitchen next, yes?” he asked.
She tried to look more confident than she felt. “Yes.”
He must have shared some of her misgivings. When he opened the door, it was an inch at a time, with his weapon held at the ready. As the metal swung open, Clare saw the candle at the opposite side of the room. It acted as a beacon, its flame spluttering in the air that travelled through the hallway. Dorran hesitated inside the doorway for a moment, running his eyes from the wine cellar to the basement door. He finally nodded for Clare to follow him out and shut the door behind them.
Instead of turning back to the main part of the house, Dorran led her deeper into the stone chamber and towards a nook beside the garden. Shelves full of equipment lined the walls. He stepped beside them and sorted through the knickknacks until he came up with a padlock. They returned to the garden doors, and Dorran bolted it shut, using the ring of keys from the foyer to lock it.
“Not a perfect defence, but it will have to do.” He offered the key ring to Clare, and she tucked it into her gown’s pocket. “Those were the housekeeper’s. They can get into most rooms. I don’t know if those creatures are smart enough to use keys, but it would be wise to keep them with us regardless.”
They stayed close to each other as they reentered the hallway. Dorran moved into the kitchen, turning on the lights as soon as he opened the door.
The visit was brief. Dorran found a crate under one of the benches and funnelled supplies into it with quick precision—plates, cutlery, the jars of sprouts that hadn’t already been eaten, and most of the food from the pantry. He lifted the crate and led her towards their room.
Once they were on the stairs, they picked up the pace. Dorran was clearly battling with the idea of using light to ward off the creatures and the need to conserve precious fuel. He turned out lights whenever they left an area but always waited until the last possible moment.
Once they reached the third-floor landing, they had a straight run to their room. Dorran hit the switch beside the stairs. The bulb directly above them flickered on, but that was the only one that did. Dorran made a soft noise in the back of his throat and gently nudged Clare behind himself.
“That’s not a bad fuse, is it?” Clare asked.
“No.”
The closest light washed over them and lit the highest few stairs. Its sphere of influence ended just meters ahead of them. The remainder of the hallway was swallowed by shadow, with a sliver of light coming from under the curtain covering the window at the end of the hall. Between its refracted light and the traces echoing from the first bulb, Clare could pick out the corners where the cross paths intersected. Glittering fragments of broken lightbulbs were scattered over the carpet.