It's A Twin Thing | j. clarke [1]

nine

 -:- House of Flames / House of Passages -:-

 "What did it look like when the sun shone through the window?" Fabian asked Nina and I. We were in the attic, filling in him and Amber on what we'd found. Fabian was holding up the clue that we'd found yesterday, studying it intensely. It looked like an ancient candlestick, with the same coloring and marks as the other clues we'd found in the past. At the top of one of the ends was a flat black jewel that sparkled in the light.

"It was amazing," Nina gushed about the sun. "Incredible, even."

Fabian averted his attention from the clue to watch Nina. When she spoke, his eyes were focused deeply on hers. She, being Nina, didn't notice this as she talked about the window. Nina's smile was infectious, and Fabian's matched. A spark of envy shot through me as I looked between them. There was an energy that passed between them, connecting them. It made me want that for myself.

"Do you think there's something inside it?" Nina's voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

"We should check," I agreed.

A moment passed, and at that moment Sarah's young voice sounded throughout the attic. With all the focus on the next clue, we'd forgotten that one of the cylinders was cued.

"He frightens me," it said. "He spends a lot of time in the cellar with his dead animals. Dead animals that he stuffs."

Nina and I shared a frown at that comment.

"But what frightens me the most," the recording continued. "Is his raven, Corbiere."

"What did she just say?" Fabian asked.

All of us watched the phonograph, waiting tensely for Sarah to give more details. We knew one person who had a stuffed bird sitting on his desk. Nina, Amber, and I walked past it every morning and evening on our way to our rooms. Inside Victor's office sat a stuffed black bird that he called Corbiere.

"I'm more convinced than ever that he's responsible for the death of my parents, but I can't prove anything" the phonograph sounded louder when the rest of us were making sure not to make any noise.

The next voice we heard on the recordings wasn't Sarahs. It was a very familiar voice, saying an even more familiar statement.

"You have ten minutes precisely, and then I want to be able to hear a pin drop."

"Victor?" I asked, sharing a look with the rest of Sibuna.

I could barely sleep that night. After finding out that Victor was involved, all I could think about was how he murdered Sarah's parents. The rational part of me had to remind myself that it wasn't possible for Victor to still be alive. That it was probably Victor's father who went by the same name. But that didn't stop my stomach from becoming nauseous whenever I heard or saw Victor. I thought that once I went to sleep it would be better, that I would feel calmer the next day. But my dreams were plagued with Victor's words and his weird bird. When Amber's alarm finally went off in the morning I was grateful for the night to be over.