The Attic (Completed)

Chapter 4

Later that night, Lily lay wide awake in her new canopy bed, replaying the day's events in her mind.

She was certain Ian Hawke had something to hide.

And she still didn't know why he was co-heir.

At their first meeting, she was apprehensive due to his barely constrained hostility, but later he'd shown a softer side; a vulnerable one even. He also seemed to have a lot of control over Mike and Hannah. Were they afraid of him? No, she was reading too much between the lines. It was a strange new place—surreal even—and it would take time to adapt and get to know everyone.

Lily squeezed her eyes shut, trying once again to clear her mind. Sleep seemed out of reach. She'd been lying here for hours now, the glow of the moon flowing through the open drapes of the arched windows and suffusing the contours of the furniture. Though the blankets on her bed had been freshly laundered, there was an aura of dust and cobwebs and bats. The scent of polished wood and paraffin candles. Of course it was only the age of the place spooking her out. Eventually she'd get used to all the high ceilings and endless rooms.

After another ten minutes of tossing and turning, she climbed out of the bed and pulled on a housecoat and slippers.

She crossed the room toward the windows, hugging her arms around her waist for warmth. The room was chilly. She made a mental note to ask about heating and how to work the fireplace. When she reached the first window, she pulled aside the drape a little further and peered out into the night. Many of the windows in the hallways were made of leaded glass, blurring the view outside, but these windows and the windows in most of the bedrooms were clear. There was nothing much to see, other than the bronzed and dangling boughs of the willow trees.

She wanted to see the backyard.

Opening her bedroom door quietly, she stepped out into the hallway and looked in both directions. She would not be able to see anything from the floor-to-ceiling lancet windows, due to the leaded glass, but she'd learned on her tour that the bedroom at the end of the hall was unoccupied.

With soft steps, she reached the end of the hallway, relieved that the cricks in the floorboards weren't too noisy, and tried the knob of the door on the right, hoping it was unlocked. It moved inward with a creak and she froze, expecting a light to come on in Hannah's room, which was next to her own. Angie, Christopher and Mike's bedrooms were all located in this wing of the mansion as well. She hadn't finished the full tour of the estate though, and didn't know where Ian's quarters were. It dawned on her then that she also didn't know where her grandfather's room or rooms had been. What was behind the door Ian had stopped the tour at? If he'd been close to Auguste, perhaps he wasn't ready to see the elderly man's rooms again. But if that were the case, why not just say so? Why get all antagonistic and send Mike off?

Lily squinted in the darkness of the room, glad the windows were close to the door. She stepped up to the first overlooking the backyard, and opened the closed drapes.

Across the two acres of greensward, where the gargoyle path lay, the first three white orbs were aglow through the trees: like the lighted dots of a boat out to sea in the black of night.

Weren't they on a motion sensor?

A shift in the distant darkness caught her eye and she leaned in closer to the glass, bumping her nose. Was it just her imagination or did the white orb of the first gargoyle lift above the others as though floating? It was much higher than it had been a second ago. She blinked and it was low again.

Her mind must be playing tricks on her.

First chance she got, she would go out back and take a look. But not now—not in the middle of the night.