Page 161 of Flirting with Darkness

“What’s in there?”

Without slowing her pace, Granny smiled at me. Or at least, her mouth curved and her eyes crinkled, but everything about it was stiff. “We don’t go in there.”

“How come?”

“Because we don’t.”

It was the kind of non-answer I gave my brothers and sisters when they hit that particular age when they could ask “Why?” a hundred times in an hour. I’d do my best to answer and explain, but eventually they’dwhyeven my patience to death and I’d snap “Because.”

Finally, she led us to a huge conservatory that clung to one side of the house. It was so tall, entire trees grew inside, twisted forms with broad leaves unlike anything I’d seen near Briarbridge or since arriving in Elfhame. Their dark branches carved up the sky and merged with the black metal frame of the structure. Thick swathes of pale—was that moss?—hung from their boughs, almost reaching the floor in places.

A small table with two chairs sat on a patio beneath their shade, like someone had set it up to take in the view.

I wasn’t sure it was a view I wanted to take in.

Just like the lighting on Granny had been “off” when she’d appeared in our path, so many things about this house were… not quite right. The abandoned rooms, yes, but also smaller things that I couldn’t always place.

The last step coming down the stairs was a little higher than the others, meaning I lurched into the hallway.

A quarter of the doorhandles didn’t open when I turned them, so I had that momentary jolt of my heart as it seemed I was trapped. But when I turned it for the twelfth time or so, it opened smoothly as though nothing had been wrong.

And that wasn’t even mentioning the things that werealmostnormal. The room where the floor wasn’tquiteflat. The clocks that didn’ttick-tock, onlyticked. The creaky floorboards and hinges.

Only, I’d never heard a floorboard sound quite so much like a distant shriek.

We saw no sign of another soul in the entire place. I didn’t even see any of the spiders that had created all these webs, and there was no birdsong outside. No servants, either, only House.

By the time we’d trudged around the entire place, up steps and down narrow passageways that threaded beneath narrow staircases, my legs ached as much as they had from walking across Elfhame for a full day, and it was time for lunch.

15

AWAKE & NOT

That night, I awoke again, except…

Evening light peered through the open curtains, and candles lit the whole room. No spiderwebs lurked in the corners, and a sense of somethingdifferentdragged at me—the sense that I had something to do.

“We need to get ready for the ball.” Faolán’s voice, soft, thoughtful. I found him standing by the fireplace, a frown etched between his eyebrows.

I blinked at him, taking a moment to register—the furniture was all new, with no threadbare arms to the chairs, no chip in the table. By the time we’d gone to bed, his facial hair had grown into a trimmed beard but now it was freshly shaven.

“What ball? How do you know?”

He shook his head, the frown deepening to dark, scored lines. “I just do. Come.” He opened the wardrobe and rifled through.

I squinted at the windows, at the indistinct shapes outside and the violet dusk.

The change in time, the old furniture made new, the odd sense that I had something to do.

This was a dream.

No harm in playing along, and I’d never been to a ball, so this could be fun.

I slid out of bed and reached the wardrobe just in time for Faolán to turn, holding up two gowns. One was deep wine red velvet with an off-the-shoulder neckline. The other draped to the floor in blackened emerald green satin.

“Hmm.” I canted my head. “Not sure either of those will fit you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I meant for you.”

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