The Bone Princess

Chapter 4: Stranger Heartbeats

The ghost-echoes re-emerged in the mezzanines, drifting at the far edges of the foyer. No, not again. A hand fell on my shoulder. I gasped and spun around.

"We must leave," Sutton said, eyes darting from me to them. "Now." He turned and walked away, hastily, not looking back. "If you wish to live, you will follow me."

"I'm not going anywhere without my sister," I yelled, and the things in the darkness drew closer. They'd seemed frightened of the skeletal nightmare that had just taken my sister. Maybe even frightened of Sutton, but their hunger was greater than their fear. I could feel it.

"Then you are already dead," Sutton said, striding into the sitting room and disappearing from my view to the left of the massive fireplace. His shadow danced out behind him, elongated and deformed, then was gone.

"Sadie," a voice like broken glass whispered behind me, and I bolted to the fireplace, but there was no sign of Sutton. I spun in place, panic pumping into my veins as the wraiths crowded and swelled and drifted toward me.

"Ahem," Sutton said. I whirled around to see him peering at me from behind a lush tapestry that hung to the floor. "This way." He vanished, and the tapestry rippled.

I looked back once more at the ghost-echoes and remembered their cold touch on my bones, then I practically leapt behind the hidden exit.

#

I followed Sutton deep into a narrow corridor that seemed to be dappled in moonlight, though there were no windows. There were no lights of any kind other than Sutton's torch, which he carried as if he were the first man to invent fire. Where are we? It seemed like a hallway to nowhere, like we were behind the walls of the house. A secret passage. How much does Sutton know about this house? The only place I was interested in going was up.

"Sutton . . . ?" He walked on unfazed, a good ten feet ahead of me.

"Sutton," I called a little louder, running to catch up. "What happened to my sister? Where did that monster take her?"

"There's no time, we have to—"

I yanked his wrist, spun him around, and shoved him against the wall.

"There's no time? So that means you know? You know where the—the Bone Princess took Tabitha? You have to tell me!"

He grabbed my shoulder and squeezed me a little harder than he needed to, pushing me against the other side of the hallway. With the torch hanging over our heads, he leaned in close, gritting his teeth, trying to be firm. It didn't work.

"There's. No. Time." He punctuated each word with a fierce little nudge. "And be. Quiet. There was no anger in his eyes, and none in his voice or in his grip. Merely urgency. "I know it can be difficult for a woman to remain calm when she is out of her known environment, but I'm afraid I must insist."

"You insist I be quiet?" My words escalated to a yell. "I INSIST you tell me WHERE MY SISTER IS!"

"Stop it Sadie . . . you don't understand. You have to be silent!" He tried to grab my mouth, but I ducked underneath his arm, grabbing a long, broken piece of wood from the floor. An old piece of molding that had come loose. I smacked it against the wall, the noise echoing down the hall.

"You're going to get us killed!"

I slapped the plaster wall again with the wood. "I'll be quiet when you tell me where my sister is!"

"Da attic. De-da. De-da." A shiver ripped up my spine. The raspy voice which'd answered sounded more Oliver Twist than Sutton's Downton Abbey.