Page 91 of Tales of a Monstrous Heart
We were here.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Beware of the places the world forgets. For the memories that remain there are creatures all their own. Feral with their despair and looking to share misery with their bite.
– Myths of the Damned,1645
Words from a book that had filled me with nothing but horrid unease as I’d read it, however, nowhere near to the unease I felt looking at the remains of what stood before me.
‘This was Fairfax Manor?’ I wondered just in what century the family had abandoned the house and why.
‘What’s left of it,’ Emrys corrected as we climbed over large roots and up uneven stone steps, passing warped metal gates that led to the front door, or what little remained of one. ‘They clearly have a habit of ruining their houses.’
The forest had claimed the house. A thicket and vines tangled with wood and stone until it was almost impossible to distinguish the two. A large tree sprouted up from where the entrance door had once stood. The space was too packed with bark and crumbled stone to get through.
There was a window frame to the side of the entrance, half collapsed, but a snarled branch was keeping the rest of it upright. I moved up the steps, climbing over the ancientroots and around to the window at the side, pressing myself close to the crumbling stone.
‘Kat,’ Emrys muttered in annoyance as I reached for the shattered window, pushing the ivy away aside to lean in and see the drop on the other side. It appeared to have once been the main hall. Morning light streamed through a gaping hole in the ceiling as birds roosting above flapped their wings in annoyance of our presence. A rusted corpse of a chandelier lay in the centre of the room, the gems that had survived throwing multicoloured shapes into the darkness.
Emrys climbed up next to me, our shoulders pressing together as he peered in. A curse slipped from his lips and he grasped the window frame to climb through. I caught his arm.
‘Do you think that floor will hold?’ I frowned.
‘Only one way to find out.’ He sighed, taking hold of the window frame and using a gap in the bricks to get his foot on the windowsill, barely fitting through the space before he dropped to the other side as silently as a cat. I had to lean in again to check he hadn’t gone straight through the floor.
No, he stood looking up at me in the dismal dark, trying to rub a moss stain off his sleeve. I was instantly grateful to Alma for my trousers as I hoisted myself up and used the ledge to lower myself as far as possible before I let go. Emrys caught my waist as I landed, my back pressed against the warmth of his chest as I struggled to steady my feet on the uneven floorboards. His hands gently cupping my elbows until I was balanced.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered, turning, but he was already moving into the gloom.
The air was thick with damp. The space vast and circular in shape, with only threads remaining of curtains that had once clung to the windows, walls now crumbling, and thickvines and roots growing over them. Archways surrounded us. There was nothing but a dense darkness beyond.
The remains of glass cracked under my boot as I followed Emrys across the room, avoiding loose planks in the floor. The aftermath of the night’s rain seeped through holes in the roof. Most of the upper rooms had collapsed, visible through holes in the ceiling above us that had been painted once with what appeared to be a grand mural, now oVerrun with foliage.
The place teamed with life. Nothing like the darkness that consumed Paxton Fields or that horrid Verr pit in the woods. This didn’t seem like the hiding place of a monster. No, just a forgotten manor in a hungry wood.
‘There isn’t anything here.’ I was overwhelmed by the lack of relief I felt at those words. Only because, if such dark things weren’t dwelling here, they were dwelling somewhere else.
‘Looks can be deceiving,’ Emrys replied, a hesitation in his voice. This wasn’t his first inspection after all.
He moved through one of the sagging archways, unbothered by the cobwebs, seeming to know the layout without having to glance at which way to turn, despite the fact I was certain nobody had been in these halls in the last century. I let him guide me through doorways threatening to collapse and over precarious gaps in the floor until we came to a more protected room. The ruins of a library, judging by what bookshelves remained.
Books and papers were left to rot in a strange pulp on the floor. Amongst the mess was the gleam of golden coins from Elysior, currency during one of the old King’s rule. Tarnished with the centuries that had passed. Wealth that had killed the world.
‘They left in a hurry,’ I observed, kicking over a small wooden chest with my boot. More of the garish bright coins spilling onto the floor, rolling until they dropped through the gaps to whatever abyss lay beneath us.
The disarray confused me, as did the remainder of valuable items. What had stopped them coming back to plunder it?
‘Dark magic has a habit of consuming when it’s left unchecked.’ Emrys’ response held apprehension, making me feel this place wasn’t as safe as I’d first anticipated.
It was then that I noticed how the coins gleamed brighter out of the corner of my eye, trying to attract my attention. Cursed artefacts, holding a great price for those greedy enough to take them.
‘There are curses here,’ I whispered; cautious they were listening even now.
Emrys moved closer to my side, brow furrowed in confusion. ‘You can see them?’
‘My mother was mortal.’ Her blood allowed me to see the things that would drive mortals mad, yet my Kysillian side protected me from being fooled by it.
‘I forget sometimes,’ Emrys murmured, more to himself, turning to consider the mess at his feet.
