The Secret of Spellshadow Manor by Bella Forrest (classic english novels txt) 📗

over his mouth, regarding it sternly. All the while it stared right at him, exactly like a cat.

All this told him very little. But it was clearly some kind of shadow-being, and it must be here for a reason. It didn’t seem hostile, at least not yet.

He cleared his throat and began carefully.

“I apologize for attempting to touch you,” he ventured, feeling crazy for talking to this thing.

“Thank you,” replied the cat, looking steadily back at him. “But I don’t mind. As long as you ask.”

Alex didn’t exactly feel like petting it now. He hesitated. “How are you holding that shadow around yourself? Making yourself look like a cat?”

The cat let out a throaty laugh. “How are you holding all those guts and skin around yourself? Yes, it is a choice to appear as a cat. It is an easy choice. But why should that mean I am not, as you suggest, actually a cat?”

Alex’s jaw slackened. “What?”

“I doubt you would understand,” the cat replied loftily, swishing its tail. “You’re new here. New, and more than a touch disbelieving, aren’t you?”

“There’s a fair chance I’ve gone insane, yes,” Alex said, rubbing slowly at his temple. “More than a fair chance, I’d say.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed the cat. “You haven’t gone insane, you fool boy. You have no idea what’s going to happen to you, do you?”

Alex felt a chill run through him at the words. Was that a threat?

“Please, enlighten me,” he said.

The cat rose, stretching languorously, its whole body extending as it did so until one leg was stretched all the way to the end of the bench.

“Oh, but the Head will fill you in. Didn’t that bizarre puff of a woman tell you?”

“No, not exact—”

The cat cut him off. “Just be patient. What’s the rush?”

Alex fell silent, frowning at the cat.

The rush? The rush was that Natalie was lost somewhere in this impossible place, that he was trapped in this prison of a waiting room, unable to get to her, unable to escape, unable to even figure out what the hell was happening.

The cat, as if sensing his frustration, sighed. “Child,” it said, hopping down off the bench to stand at his feet, “you’ve got all the time in your short, miserable life to figure this out. I will tell you, though, as you will find it out eventually and to your detriment: you are here now. Here is where you are. Here is where, I’m afraid, you will stay.”

It brushed against his leg as if to comfort him—or rather, brushed through his leg, the shadows lingering about his foot. He had the brief sensation of something that was like fur, but not fur—something soft and fathomless and strange.

Then there was a click, and the door swung open again. For a moment, the light splashed all around the cat, which seemed to shrink back, hissing, little twists of vaporous shadow curling up where the light bit into its form.

Then it melted into a pool of blackness and slithered away into the corner.

Siren Mave stalked into the room, staring blankly at where the cat had disappeared. She looked back to Alex, one eyebrow rising.

“What manner of devil was that?” she asked, bemused. It was as if she had forgotten that she’d thrown him to the floor during their last encounter, behaving now like this was just business as usual. Alex fumed at the sight of her, but tried hard to hide it. He needed her now, had to use her to find Natalie.

He glanced at where the shadows still hung heavy with the memory of the cat. “Devil?”

Siren Mave stared at him for a moment, then burst into peals of high-pitched laughter. She staggered forward, patting Alex’s shoulder and putting one hand on her knee as she tried to catch her breath.

“Oh,” she gasped. “Oh my sweet, dear boy. It’s a figure of speech, you silly thing.”

He stared at her. Of course it was a figure of speech. He drew himself up, easily towering over the diminutive Siren Mave. She did not seem to notice, just lifted her glasses, wiping tears from her eyes.

“Devils,” she said through her chuckles. “Oh goodness.”

“As delighted as I am to amuse,” he retorted, “I insist you tell me what is going on here immediately.”

Siren Mave’s mirth subsided slightly, but a smile continued to tweak at the edges of her lips.

“Do you?” she asked mildly, planting a hand in the small of his back and steering him toward the door. “Come, the Head is anxious to meet with you.”

The Head.

The man in charge of all this.

Yes, he was anxious to meet with the Head as well.

For the moment, he should play along. He would gather more information, then decide on a course of action.

Even so, as he was forced out into yet another seemingly endless hallway, Alex wondered if he should just make a break for it. Bolt away, find an exit, inform the police. Yes, he could tell them he had gone down a street that didn’t exist and into a mansion with talking shadows. Then he could explain to his mom why the police had been questioning him about his drug habits, and face the grief of Natalie’s family when they discovered she was gone. The perfect plan.

Scowling, he followed the woman down the hallway, matching her pace. He hated feeling so disoriented.

The warm glow of the candlelit chandeliers slowly gave way to more torches. Alex and Siren Mave walked between patches of light and dark, and each time they stepped into a new patch of firelight, the world had changed. The walls grew older, more decayed, the wooden paneling peeling away to reveal a façade of stone and brick beyond. The gray ivy came back, piercing its way through the stones and spilling like frozen waterfalls to the ground, where it rustled against their feet.

The decor was changing as well. Where once there had been paintings of dignified men in fine suits, Alex began to see other things. Depictions of black-robed forms standing