The Wards' Mystery

Chapter 3

It's bright; I quicken my steps. The road that leads to the Ward's manor is a deserted one. The manor stands on the outskirts of town surrounded by a thick forest on one side and a swamp on the other. Young mistress constantly complains about the late arrival of the post. She believes that the local postman's only goal in life is to mess with her correspondence with the sweet Mr. Gregory Blackwood. The thing is that she never had to walk these dirt roads after the weeks of rain. If she did, she would have realized long ago that the postman had no ill will towards her, and would appreciate that the post arrived not even once but twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.

I reach an old broken well. It stands awkwardly by the right side of the road. The ruins of a burned house loom in the distance. People say that a long time ago a wealthy merchant family lived here. Noone remembers their names but everyone remembers their tragedy. The wife, driven mad by her husband's unfaithfulness, in the dead of the night sneaked into her children's room, locked the doors and set the house on fire. There were no survivors. Some claim that they've seen tiny ghosts roaming around, others that they've heard sad howls of the wife.

I can hear something too — not a howl or a cry, but a clip-clopping along the road. I dive behind the well.

Rocking back and forth, guided by a sleepy postman, the post cart passes by. The postman is a chubby old man with thick sideburns and big round eyes on a big round face. He looks exactly like I would imagine a hob would look like. Ada is convinced that we have one living in our kitchen. I, on the contrary, have never believed in household spirits or any spirits whatsoever. Still, Ada never gave up on her pursuit of proving the opposite to me. It annoyed me a great deal then. Now I'd give the world to hear her tales again. God, please, let me be in the wrong. Let them all be safe and well.

The post usually arrives around seven. Everyone should be up by now. I need to hurry.

You could say that Wards' manor and our orphanage were twins. But it was not so much about the architectural similarities, even though there were plenty, but about the feelings those structures evoked in you. As always the three-story limestone giant looks at me with contempt. A constant reminder that my presence is a necessity, nothing more.

I grab the gate bars and pull myself up. Maybe the others actually did disappear. Maybe they got lost in one of the numerous corridors and never found their way out. That would certainly make the Wards' manor happy.

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