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

shy of it, and could feel a wave of familiar cold washing over him. He shivered, gritting his teeth. He closed his eyes, offering up a brief prayer that what he was doing wasn’t just plain stupid. Maybe the line in the cemetery had been old, or faulty. Maybe the ones here had been updated, strengthened. Maybe he was being a damn fool.

But he had to know.

He stepped swiftly across the golden line.

The cold surged into him as the line snapped and whipped about at his feet, but this time he was ready for it. He gritted his teeth as twin founts of steam gushed from his nose, icy crystals pouring over his skin. He swallowed hard, gasping, watching in disbelief as a long icicle dipped slowly down off his fingertip, then broke and shattered against the floor with a dull tinkle. Though he had known what to expect, it was still a shock.

Alex didn’t know how much time passed like this, but the spell eventually weakened. His limbs were shaking, but the ice had melted to cool water, which pooled around him. Breathing hard, he tried to rally himself. Whoever had created the line would probably realize soon that it had been broken. He had to keep moving before he was found.

As Alex crossed into the Head’s wing of the manor, the hallways around him grew more eerie. He remembered them from that first day, but without Siren Mave’s chatter, the place felt much emptier. The gray ivy grew everywhere, coating the decrepit walls. The doors were coated with moss, and the air was full of the subtle scents of ice and blood.

If he hadn’t promised Natalie, he would have explored here long ago, but as it was, he had to search every room he passed for the Head’s office. Many of the doors were jammed, unmoving in their frames. Others opened onto empty rooms, or dark chambers holding four-poster beds draped in veils long since shredded by moths and decay.

He opened door after door, revealing rotting quarters, empty spaces where once life had been. He started moving faster, the images appearing only as blurs as he dashed from door to door, seeking only the one he remembered, with the stone desk and the tree-filled fireplace.

He almost didn’t pause when he opened the door into a stone chamber about the size of his own bedroom, but something about the place made him hesitate. The smell of blood surged into his nostrils, and this time he let his eyes linger, sweeping the room.

It was almost empty. There was a table strewn with tools, and opposite that a grate had been built into the floor beneath a pair of manacles that hung from the ceiling, almost invisible among the hanging ivy all around them. Alex felt a shiver run through him as he approached the chains.

The ground near the grate was sticky, and Alex could guess why as he looked up at the hanging manacles. They should have been hard to see, but something about them drew the eyes. The black crust that flaked on their surface. The gleam of oil on the locking mechanism.

The smell of blood was so strong here.

Alex turned away, looking back toward the table, and for the first time he noticed a painting hanging above it. It depicted a large mouth, rows and rows of teeth layered one on top of the other, dripping with spittle, an unnaturally long tongue twisting at their center. Looking at it, Alex felt a wave of nausea roll through him.

The table itself held only a few things. A shirt, ripped at the sleeve, where a dark stain covered the fabric. A rather ordinary-looking clipboard, with a list of names and dates. The handle of a knife which seemed to have lost its blade.

Alex leaned over, picking up the list and glancing over it. There were several pages, and he flipped through them, skimming the entries. It seemed that most of the names were associated with a single date: the 7th of May. Frowning, Alex flipped to the most recent page, and saw a name there that he recognized.

Blaine Stalwart.

The boy who had been caught out of bounds.

A date, the day the boy had disappeared, was written beside his name in neat handwriting. Alex looked back at the bloody shirt, then over his shoulder at the manacles. He looked up at the painting, the mouth full of teeth seeming to smile at him.

Beside the name and date, there was another note, written in a short, frustrated hand.

Not matured enough.

Alex rose, feeling sick. He wasn’t here to look at these things. He needed to get going, find the book on necromancy. For a moment, he thought about swiping the papers, or even the bladeless knife, but he thought better of it. It was best to make as small an impact as he could. He could come back for them if he needed.

He exited to the hallway, breathing hard. The torches crackled, the smell of blood mingling with the oil and smoke as he tried to get his bearings. The manor suddenly felt an awful lot like that mouth, with all of them sitting inside it, waiting for it to swallow. He looked around, then made his way deeper in.

But if he had thought to escape the image of the mouth, he quickly found that he could not. There were more paintings in a similar vein, and even the ivy itself seemed to align itself like gaping lines of teeth. The leaves brushed against him, and he could feel the way they clung to him, leaving his skin icy as they passed.

Once more he opened door after door, but now he was almost grateful when he found them empty. The smell of blood faded behind him, leaving only ice and dew and rot.

He didn’t know how long he had been searching when he finally came across the Head’s office. He opened the door, letting out a sigh of relief as he saw the