A New Estate - Crimson Peak

Chapter Seventeen

A couple more days passed uneventfully.

Nathaniel and George had arrived back safely with a successful report of my letter being sent off, now we just had to wait for a response.

Robert's hand was healing well, though the minor burn still caused him enough grief to be a hindrance as he worked.

The others had taken a great deal of pleasure in teasing him, making jokes that I wouldn't dare repeat, all accompanied with obscene gestures.

David was beginning to get frustrated with the level of work being done, everyone knew that easing back was the best idea for the time being but that didn't mean that David had to like it.

We all waited in mixed levels of anticipation for the reply with a course of action, until then we all tried to carry on as normal.

Things had gone quiet on the spectral side too, the manor gradually becoming a place of relative calm as I settled and finally relaxed in my new home.

A part of me began to believe that perhaps it was my mind playing cruel tricks on me, that perhaps the stress of the move and being alone in such a large and admittedly rather strange looking manor had gotten to me and caused me to conjure up such imaginings.

The mind is a powerful thing after all.

They say that if you were to sit in a purely silent room for more than ten minutes, with absolutely no sound obstruction then you would begin to hear, see and even feel things that were impossible to be there.

Maybe my senses were trying to fill a strange void I was unaccustomed to after spending my twenty six years living with my family, constantly surrounded by the noise of family life and rarely having time to get lost in my deepest thoughts and senses.

If this is what they conjured up after mere days, then I didn't wish to dwell there for too long ever again.

Although that didn't explain what happened to Robert's hand nor how that machine managed to harm him despite being dormant for years, something which still greatly concerned me with each passing day.

About four days had passed since the accident and it all carried on smoothly, considering the circumstances.

It was in the early hours of the sixth day that I found myself being jolted awake abruptly by the door being pounded on.

I immediately sat up in bed, thankful that it takes me barely a moment to wake up, something many people don't have the luxury of.

I hastily stumbled out of bed and bolted to the door to haul it open.

On the other side stood a flustered looking Jonathan, his breathing laboured and coming out in ragged pants.

"Mercy," I huffed, placing a hand on my chest. "You scared me half to death."

"Sorry," he replied in a huffed breath. "I just have to inform you of the carriages coming up the path."

"Pardon?"

I gently stepped past him, not caring that I was still in my nightdress, and head down the stairs to the main entrance.

My heart was still racing from the sudden jolt awake, admittedly part of me had initially thought that the pounding on my door was a sign of the spirits of this place acting up once again and announcing their return.

With slightly shaking fingers, I fumble with the ring of keys to find the one for the front door.

Once the door was unlocked and opened, a terrible gust of cold and bitter early morning air blasted over me and sent a freezing shudder down my spine.