The hobgoblins took far longer to burn than she or Pearl had expected. Either the fire wasn’t hot enough, or the hide of the creatures was heat resistant. The skin eventually blistered and charred as Coral and Pearl added more wood to the fire. The smell was horrendous.
Unwilling to leave it unattended, and wanting to take advantage of Mr. McCray’s absence, Coral left Pearl to maintain the pyre. She entered the manor through the kitchen’s back door, several snapdragons ran out by her skirt, scampering down into the courtyard.
Coral watched them go, waiting for them to decide that it was far too cold to play outside. It didn’t take long. Two of the smallest decided to come beg to be let back inside. The rest, the two-headed snapdragon, Pearl’s Blossom and a plum coloured one had been drawn towards the smoke, their noses tilted up towards the air and little tongues flicking about. Coral stepped aside to let the two small snapdragons run inside. When she looked back up, Pearl was brandishing a stick about to keep the tiny creatures from leaping into the flames.
Even if the snapdragons did play in the fire, they wouldn’t be bothered by the heat. She often found them curled up on the embers in the fireplace enjoying the warmth. Rather, it was prudent to not let them sample whatever nastiness that may be festering on the Hobgoblins. Neither she nor Pearl wanted to tend to sickly Snapdragons.
It wasn’t a big surprise that the snapdragons were running about. Coral had taken to ensuring they remained safely within the Winter Salon ever since Lady Rayner had attacked her. Much to their annoyance, as she had only really begun to trust them enough to scamper about the front rooms of the manor. The ghosts, well, all except Egbert, had agreed to not let them out.
Several times since that incidence, Coral had found them wandering about the corridors, and in places they really ought not to be. Far too often now had she went to fetch herself a cup of tea, only to find a snapdragon curled up inside the teapot. Or trying to get into the food supplies. Or discovering new teeth marks on the leg of the corridor table.
When questioned, Egbert would deny he ever let them out. Coral didn’t trust him at his word, having listened to him grumble continuously, and wasting precious minutes of the bone conductor’s usage, about the snapdragons lighting his favourite lounging room on fire. So far, they had only lit one chair on fire, and that had been the same one that had already had a hole gauged out of it. Since then, Coral and Pearl had been putting extra effort into training them to not carry the coals out of the fireplace and hiding them in objects. They were also beginning to produce more than a few sparks, now progressing to tiny little flames. Coral really was going to have to find a way to prevent the Winter Salon from catching fire if the snapdragons continued to develop so quickly. Perhaps they were getting smarter too as they were discovering ways of turning the door handles, if Egbert were to be believed. How they were managing to get up that high when all they could do was leap about and flap their little wings, only briefly achieving a second or two to hover two feet in the air. Maybe they were taking a running leap at the door. There was no other way Coral could fathom how they were getting out, unless there was a hole they had scratched into the wall she hadn’t found. Now that she had more to spare, perhaps she should place the black crystals back around the Winter Salon to keep Egbert away from them.
Coral’s leg slowed her down a little as she made her way up the grand staircase. She paused a moment to appreciate how the stained-glass window splashed colour across the wooden banister, which was positively gleaming from having been waxed and polished in thanks to Mrs Sapping. One less task she did not need to concern herself with.
With the amount of work the ghosts were helping her with, Coral would be able to focus more on securing the manor for mid-winter. She had hardly had a need to pick up a dusting cloth in the last week. It had also given her some more reading time with a lovely glass of wine.
The room Pearl had put Mr. McCray in was the third bedroom down the corridor. As she approached, the bedroom door opened before she could lift her hand.
“Thank you,” Coral said to whichever ghost was likely there, and limped forward. It was an odd thing to be accustomed to ghosts manipulating the furniture and doors. Coral marvelled for a moment at how different her life had become in the last few months. This time last year she was likely being scolded for something incomprehensible, and now, she was the owner of an Inn. She paused after the first two steps and gaped at the state of Mr. McCray’s room. The reality of her situation filtered out some of the joy she felt as she took in the chaos.
The room was simpler than the others, with a beautifully carved wooden bed that took up a fair portion of the space. The pillows had been tossed to the floor, along with what looked like the entire contents of Mr. McCray’s traveling bag. A whole assortment of weapons littered the floor, left in a fashion Coral could only call careless. Who left a sword right in the way to be tripped over. There was even a pickaxe of all things. Books were strewn across the floor, along with rolls of parchment, some already unfurled on the desk in the far corner of the room. From here, she could see a map of Direwood had been left behind, though it appeared to have been blotched with ink stains.
The dresser near the bedroom door was clearly going completely unused, and most likely the best place that Coral could hide a black crystal. Well, she certainly wasn’t doing housekeeping for this guest. Not unless she significantly increased his fee, and it would have to be hefty enough to even make her want to attempt to tidy the space.
Coral dug around in her pouch and pulled out the largest black crystal. She could feel the magic emitting slightly, making the palm of her hand tingle. She opened the bottom drawer, found that it was indeed empty, and placed the crystal in the far corner.
This wasn’t a fool proof solution. The crystal should provide Mr. McCray some protection from any ghost with the intention of harming him. However, with how strong Lady Rayner had been, able to manifest into the physical world long enough to choke her, she wasn’t so sure one was going to be enough. Coral didn’t have enough crystals to fill all the rooms in the manor, and she didn’t want to hinder the other ghosts from going about their day. Truth be told, she liked having the ghosts around. It made the manor somehow more lived in, even if the feeling was an echo of former living people.
Coral shut the drawer and then for her own reassurance, she placed a smaller black crystal beneath the bed, then left the room feeling a little better. She systematically went to each of the bedrooms prepared for guests and placed a black crystal, either hidden away beneath a bed or cupboard, or placed on a desk or shelf as though it was a purposefully placed piece of decoration. She hoped those weren’t snatched up by thieves. Coral made sure to add a smaller crystal in the bathroom of her old bedroom. Recently, shed had a firm word with all of the ghosts to ensure not only her own privacy, but those of her guests as well.
Until Silas returned, placing protective crystals about the manor was the best alternative that she could afford. The crystal placement had an idea brewing away in the back of Coral’s mind, though she didn’t know if she had the courage to put such a plan into action. She didn’t like invoking Lady Rayner’s anger, nor did she favour the idea of her wandering around the manor unchecked.
Coral emerged from the last bedroom and turned to look down the corridor, towards the children’s nursery. As far as she could tell, it was undisturbed. The nursery was one of the few places Coral would be sure to find Lady Rayner haunting, if her children were present. Coral hadn’t discovered where the children spent their time. There was so much more of the manor that Coral rarely went to and that was likely where they were running about. If running was an activity ghosts could do. Every now and then Coral would still hear the patter of feet somewhere in the house, only now it was a matter of trying to distinguish if it were snapdragon paws, ghostly feet, or if the gargoyle had decided to move location.
Her own feet were feeling a little bruised. She looked down at herself, grimacing at the blood splatter on her clothing. That would have to wait until after she found a few items of furniture she had in mind to sell. There was no point in changing if the filth curse was bound to get her dirty again. Surely if she was already dirty, the filth curse couldn’t make her even filthier, would it?
She supposed there was really only one way to know. Coral took inventory of all the stains, any smear of grime, the amount of muck clinging to her, then went in search of a cloth and a bucket of water.
When she found the items and had dragged them up to the first floor, down the corridor into an unused section of the manor, Coral picked out the first piece of furniture left to collect twenty five years’ worth of dust. She checked over herself one last time, then set to scrubbing down an old table, careful about how she went about it. She sneezed a few times as dust billowed into the air. The water in the bucket became a dirty grey brown. When the table had been wiped down, Coral stepped into the light of a window and inspected her clothing.
As far as she could tell, she wasn’t any dirtier than she was before she started cleaning. Perhaps, in theory, Coral could manage the curse a lot easier if she just smeared a bit of dirt on herself in the beginning of the day.
Coral wiped her hands on an unblemished part of her skirt, lamenting at the difficulty of scrubbing blood out of fabric. In the dull light coming from the window beside the table, the dark stains looked as if she may have splashed herself with the dirty water. It would be nice to be rid of this ridiculous curse.
Coral looked over the table at the gleaming surface. It was for the most part, an antique, and would hopefully fetch her a nice sum. Although, she wasn’t sure if Craving’s and Delirium could sell such a thing in Direwood. Most of the residents were farmers or Adventurers. If this was an expensive piece, the clientele was very limited. Perhaps she ought to find a simpler piece of furniture, most likely stored in the servants’ quarters. Coral’s eyes swept over the gleaming surface of the table, to the spiderwebs clinging to the wall behind it. The wall was so dusty that Coral could drag a finger across the surface and leave a trail.
She dropped her hand and turned to look down the corridor, overwhelmed with how filthy everything was. Surely there was an easier way to clean everything. Coral couldn’t focus her attention properly on domestic chores when she had to keep guests safe from Lady Rayner. She could request the ghosts to help, though she can’t rely on them indefinitely. They weren’t even compensated for their time with coin. Not that they could use the coin anyway. When Coral discovered the reason for their entrapment, and how to free them more importantly, the ghosts would most definitely leave. She needed another option that didn’t involve paying someone. They simply did not have the money.
Coral dropped the cleaning cloth into the bucket, splashing dirty water on to the floor. There were a few scattered things in the corridor. An old painting had fallen face first on top of something left laying on the floor. There were scattered pieces of porcelain from a vase that had toppled from the table. Coral bent and scooped the porcelain fragments into a pile, then lifted the painting and balanced it against the wall, the picture of flowers now displayed to the corridor for her to enjoy in the off chance she came back this way. Which she hoped she would, as there were plenty more rooms she could use to accommodate guests. It was a matter of making the time to come down to this part of the manor more often to prepare the area. This would be her springtime project, this corridor. She could also select another room for herself as well. Coral didn’t mind sharing a room with Pearl, even if her sister did have a tendency to squirm and kick. It made the odd creaks in the middle of the night in near pitch darkness easier to endure. She may be used to the ghosts inhabiting the manor, but it still made her skin prick with fear when she heard strange noises in the dead of night, anticipating some kind of monster to come crawling through the bedroom door. Often, her imagination conjured up images of the ghoul prowling the halls.
Thinking about it made the hair on the back of her neck rise. Coral turned to check the corridor she stood in, unnerved by the half open doors and the stillness of the room. She shook her head. She shouldn’t be thinking about this sort of thing while she was alone.
Coral glanced down to see what the painting had been resting on to focus on the task at hand. She picked up a book and flicked through the pages. It was a rather dull poetry book. She might be able to sell it for a few coins, or it might serve better as some entertainment for guests. She paused at a page and read the flowery passage, then searched ahead for another verse. Coral had never understood how anyone could sit still and read poetry. It was never engaging enough for her, and more than often it was a sure thing to lull her to sleep. In Coral’s opinion, spell books were far superior. The study of magic was thought provoking and vexingly difficult. Still, Coral was endlessly intrigued the way spells were structured and founded; the way runes were used to form the sigil. How magic was drawn from the world around them and shaped into life.
Coral blinked and shut the book with an exasperated sigh. She did have a solution to her cleaning problem, and she was a fool to not even attempt it after all this time. She had spell books, and she was sure there had been some domestic spells she could try.
Coral went in search of the spell book she had been reading, irritating the back of her knee in her eagerness to attempt magic again. Thirty minutes later, Coral stood by the window in the same corridor, a lantern in hand to read by; the sky had darkened enough that a storm was imminent. Coral had propped the spell book against the window, open on the page that she needed. She studied the sigil design one last time, ensuring to follow the instructions to the precise degree. All she had to do, was draw the sigil with her finger upon the item she wanted to repel dust, speaking the activation word in the last stroke. A relatively simple concept, though much harder in execution. She had to ensure the angles of the sigil were perfect, focusing on the intent as much as she were to feel the magic was being drawn into the formation.
Stolen novel; please report.
Coral lifted her finger and set it down upon the table. She closed her eyes briefly, slowing down her breath so that she could calm herself, and pictured the sigil in her mind. She opened her eyes again and began to trace her finger carefully across the table. As she drew, she could feel her hand tingle as magic was drawn in to the runes.
“Dust,” Coral said, the activation word was nothing fancy as she had imagined it would be. That was the beauty of sigilry, it was all in the rune formation. Oh how Coral would love to learn a spell or two that was far flashier than a simple dust repelling spell. Still, she wasn’t going to scoff at it if the spell improved her life.
She lifted her finger. The table didn’t look any different. Coral went to the window and scooped some of the old dusty cobwebs from the frame, then shook her hand over the top of the table. The greyed bit of cobweb clung to her fingers, and she had to flick it off quite forcefully. It spattered over the table surface.
Undeterred, Coral tried again. Still, the bit of dust that smeared the surface remained. So she tried again, and again. On the thirty-third attempt at the sigil, and having clamped down on her frustration, something finally happened. The dusty cobweb jerked as she spoke the activation word.
Encouraged, Coral placed her finger back down on the table, careful with every movement. “Dust,” Coral said firmly, and this time she felt the magic tingle the tip of her tongue. The sigil gathered magic from around her and began to glow a dull white. It wasn’t the colour Coral was expecting.
The cobweb flew off the table and gently floated to the floor. Then, an invisible force pressed against her whole body, sending her backwards. Coral tried to fight against the sensation pushing against her, as though she were fighting a magnetic pull. She lost her footing. Coral slammed into the corridor wall, her head smarting. She groaned and tried to rub her head, but the repelling energy field was still pressing down on her, and she could hardly move her arm. She couldn’t move at all. Her body stuck to the wall as though it were made of glue. She managed to turn her head enough to see that the bucket she had been using had been flung against the wall in the same manner as she had. The dirty water from the bucket had pooled against the wall, seeping into the panelling. Somehow, the water had completely missed her.
The table and the area around it were completely clean. No dust motes floated in the light of the window. The dust was probably in her hair.
The spell was supposed to be a simple dust repelling charm, that could differentiate between dirt and items on the surface the sigil had been placed upon. Well, it had worked, however she had clearly done something wrong. The sigil was still glowing, something it was not supposed to be doing once activated. The repelling field was also significantly stronger than intended. Coral tried to peel herself off the wall and spent several fruitless minutes struggling to no avail. She had managed to move perhaps an inch or two at best. The harder she tried, the worse the repelling magic became. There was no way she was going to get close enough to see where she had gone wrong, or to erase the sigil. All she would have had to do is strike her finger through the sigil, breaking the connecting lines that formed the spell. She had about as much chance of doing that as she did saying ‘I do’ to the man her dead father had betrothed her to.
“Hello?” Coral called out, her voice ringing in the silence that followed. “I’m stuck, can anyone hear me?”
Coral listened for a response of some kind. A shadow in a corridor, a creak of a door, whispers, scratching. Another minute went by with no sign of anything living or dead coming to her rescue. Coral was going to have to get herself out of this mess herself.
She looked around, noticing how the few things repelled from the table had been flung out towards the wall, with some pottery pieces pressed against the ceiling. A few meters to her left, she could still see a thick layer of dust over the wooden floor. It wasn’t the direction she had come, but at least she would have a shorter distance to go if she shuffled that way. Coral slowly reached her left hand out, fighting the pushing sensation with every tiny fraction of wall she gained. Next, she moved her foot. It scuffed against the floorboards in small bursts as she forcefully kicked her leg out. She gained about a foot before Coral had to stop and rest, panting with the effort.
Finally, after a full hours worth of effort, Coral’s fingertips reached the outer edges of the spell’s proximity. She could peel the top of her fingers easily away from the wall. Encouraged that this was nearly over, she wriggled a little further, then her hand was out. A few more minutes and she could move her arm freely. When only half of her body was still within the spell, she threw herself forcefully to the ground, toppling sideways awkwardly.
She was out. She lay there breathing deeply for a moment, recollecting her energy.
Coral was going to have to find a way to return to the first floor where she was familiar with. She tilted her head and eyed the corridor with some trepidation. She and Pearl had been lost on more than a few occasions while exploring the other wings of the house. She was always cautious to remember which way she had come, and to never go too deep into the manor until she could recall which direction to take.
The manor was like a labyrinth. The years of neglect could make a building a dangerous place to navigate. The floor could give out beneath her. The mould. Broken glass and furniture blocking doorways, or rooms that never seem to be where she thought they were. If she wasn’t careful, Coral could get hurt.
There could be rats. Coral grimaced. Where was Fable when she needed him.
She got to her feet and tried the first door to her left. It was locked. The second door opened up to a spacious room that she could convert into a bedroom. The next few doors were much the same, opening up into rooms full of forgotten furniture, dusty trinkets, faded paintings and more mouldy walls. She was going to have to remember to come back and air out this area. Behind another door she unexpectedly came across a modest stair well that led downwards into a darkness so deep that it unnerved her to look at it. Coral quickly stepped away and closed that door. She wasn’t going to risk tripping in the dark and snapping her neck. If she couldn’t find another way, she would attempt that staircase after she found a lantern or candle to use. The lantern she had brought with her still lay within the repelling field, and she was not going to attempt to reach it after it had taken her so long to escape.
Coral reached the end of the corridor where a large floor to ceiling window cast dreary winter light from behind moth eaten curtains. The corridor split in two here, a wing headed in each opposite direction. Neither way looked any more promising than the other. To the right, the corridor was very dark. The curtains had been drawn, and no light penetrated the far end. To her left, there was a handsome staircase that twisted up to the floor above. Coral could try that and then make her way back down at the next stairs she found. The rooms and floors linked up in one way or another.
She pushed aside the musty drapes and looked out the window to see where in the manor she was. Judging from the suns position, she was facing west. In the distance Coral could see the tall mountains from here, with a swathe of trees that blanketed the land, some moving with a breeze and their tops swaying rather violently.
No. She was wrong. There was no breeze. Most of the trees were as still as statues for as far as she could see. There was no tell-tale whisper of leaves tumbling or tree limbs swaying. Not even the haunting howls the wind makes when it finds a gap in the manors walls to blow through.
Coral frowned as she watched, pressing closer to the glass. The trees were moving only in one area of the forest, beyond the grounds of her manor, as though something was parting them. She kept watching, the first few trees stilling after a moment. Coral had been hearing the odd shriek or animal cry from the forest, but this was her first glimpse of seeing something that dwelled there.
The sun glinted across an iridescent sheen. A large body slid through a gap in the branches. The trees foliage hid most of it from view, but in that one brief glimpse, Coral caught her breath. Whatever moved had been enormous.
Coral followed the direction of the trees swaying as the creature made its way through the forest. A moment later, the trees fell still. She could see nothing more.
Well. The wall that surrounded the manor no longer felt like a layer of safety. Surely something that large would be able to climb right over it. Coral began to understand why there was a push back on building a wall around Direwood if this was the size of the creatures the town was expecting to come slinking out of the dark.
Perhaps she shouldn’t leave the manor without something to defend herself with, even within her own land. Coral realised that Elwyn’s insistence to walk them to and from town was far more than mere politeness. It was for safety. She recalled the farmer who had driven them back to the manor after her ordeal with the ghoul. Mr. Shepherd had been fixated on what had startled his sheep, suspecting Hobgoblins. Coral had assumed winter was supposed to be a dormant time for a lot of creatures and monsters, wasn’t it? Hobgoblins settled in places to scavenge, and now that she had been confronted with their presence nearby, she was scarcely about to leave without something to aid herself. In town, a group of Adventurers had a slain troll strapped to their caravan. Did trolls hibernate during the colder months? Trolls didn’t have iridescent skin. So, what else could it have been?
Coral swept her gaze over the grounds below. A plume of smoke could be seen from a corner of the window, where Pearl was tending to the pyre. She better find her way back, in case that creature did breach the wall.
She gave the hall to the right one last glance before deciding to try the stairs heading up a flight instead.
Slowly, Coral picked her way through the next floor, poking her head briefly into each room to see where it led. There were many rooms she could convert into bedrooms, which was rather promising, even if a little daunting at how much work still lay before her. There were other rooms that had more corridors and doors leading further into the manor. She gave them a cursory once over, and when she did not find any stairs, she quickly left those rooms behind. If she followed wherever they led, she was surely to get lost even further.
Every now and then, she would brush her fingers against the bone conductor and call out. Not one ghost answered. She would have thought the magic energy that imbued it had been depleted if it weren’t for the tingle that brushed over her skin the moment she made contact with it. Coral clenched her hand into fist around the chicken bone, frustrated that she lived in a haunted manor, and not one ghost was nearby to help her. She hadn’t even seen Lady Rayner, which Coral counted as luck more than anything.
Coral rounded a corner and came to an end of the corridor she had been following. There was a door that stood ajar, leading into what she suspected was one of the manor’s towers. She pushed the door open further, and paused.
She had found the library. Books upon books had been scattered across the floor, some with pages torn and discarded as though it had been thrown from the shelves. The room was rounded, with beautiful bookcases lining the walls. A spiralling staircase twisted up to the next floor above, where more floor to ceiling bookcases waited. This room was like a declaration of love for the written word. The intricacy of the carving on the banisters, the shelves, even on the stone fireplace with sweeping vines and flowers. Coral stepped into the room, pressing a hand to her mouth as she explored, her heart soaring.
Everything was dusty, of course. There were signs of the room being disturbed, likely from when the Adventurers swept over the manor when searching for the ghoul. Footprints were spattered across the floor in the light of a large stained-glass window, painting tones of greens, blues, reds and purples across the room. The image on the glass matched the sinuous curves of the flowers on the fireplace.
Coral stepped slowly up the spiral staircase, brushing her fingers along the wooden banister. The narrow landing wrapped around the room. The books on these shelves had been treated much the same. Coral followed the bookshelves, occasionally picking up the book or two that had been left on a shelf. They were books on philosophy, languages, and one Coral found was on plants. Coral tucked this beneath her arm to bring to Pearl for later.
There was a crack in the shelving that caught her eye, mostly as the section that protruded out. Coral stopped before it and realised it was a hidden door that hadn’t been shut properly. She reached out, feeling about the shelves for a latch or handle. After a moment, she found a notch carved into the woodwork from the fifth shelf from the floor. She hooked her fingers and pulled the door open the rest of the way. The hinges squealed, but it didn’t stick. Behind the door was another set of stairs that curved along the outer wall of the tower, in both directions. It was dark, with no windows to provide any light.
Intrigued more than anything, Coral stepped back and looked over the library for anything to light the way. Finding nothing of use, Coral deliberated for a full minute before deciding that she may as well try to navigate the stairs. She left the door propped open, hoping to light a small portion of the way. Her curiosity got the best of her, and instead of descending, she went up. The walls were panelled in the same rich wood that lined most of the corridors, and even here there were carvings of the same flowers in the library. She was careful about where she stepped as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Coral rose steadily, her footsteps quiet on the wooden stairs. The light had all but diminished as she left the hidden door behind her. Then, quite unexpectedly, she came upon the end of the stairs framed by a single door upon a small landing. Coral reached out and turned the intricate handle. She was at the top of the tower, the domed roof peaking at the centre. Three curved windows were spaced evenly about the spacious room. There was a desk, and a few comfortable looking chairs strewn about. It could have been a private study. Now, Coral was going to make it into her bedroom. If she could recall the way to return here.
She spent a few more minutes walking about, finding a small space tucked away in the wall that had previously served as a large walk in cupboard, some more books that had been rifled through and carelessly left behind, and a circular rug that had been rolled up and left resting against a wall. From this vantage, Coral could see towards the front of the grounds with a view of the gate and more to the east through the windows. For the second time that day, Coral caught movement through a window. A battered carriage was slowly trundling up the drive. Beside it rode two men on horses that looked as though they could carry a troll, which they were probably bred to do just that. The two men were about the size and shape of a bear, wearing thick fur-lined cloaks and shields strapped to their backs. The driver looked whiplike in comparison, though he was armed heavily.
Coral grinned. More patrons, and more potential coin were coming. Then her smile faded as she realised that Pearl was still tending to the pyre, and Coral had yet to find a way back to the ground floor. Worse yet, she was still covered in hobgoblin fluids that had long since dried, hardly a presentable image she wanted to portray onto guests.
Coral still held the bone conductor in her hand, and she went to call out for the hundredth time for the ghosts, only to realise she hadn’t felt the tingle of magic in her palm for some time. The bone conductor’s spell had been used up, and she was going to have to re-charge it before she could get anymore use out of it.
She turned away from the window and hurried down the stairs, determined to find her way as quickly as possible.
