Free Frost Arch by Kate Bloomfield Page A

household. I collected my things and rejoined Charles who led me away from the kitchen and down a narrow hall.
    “This is where most of the staff lives.” He indicated down the hall to the left of the kitchens, “The master rarely goes past the kitchens. Like I said before, he prefers to see us as little as possible. Technically this whole left hand side of the first floor is designated to staff.”
    I found this quite amusing. While the 15 staff members were designated to live on this particular side of the first floor, the Forsythe family consisting of four people had the other three floors to roam freely.
    As we entered the staff living quarters I noticed a very obvious change in decoration. I could no longer see the handsome green carpet that lined the floor, as well as the beautiful tapestries that had hung on every other wall I had passed. Instead the atmosphere became severely depressing as the stone walls, floor and ceiling obstructed any source of light from the outside world. Charles pointed out the living quarters as we walked past boring wooden door after boring wooden door.
    “That’s Jack’s room there.” He informed me as we walked past another generic door. “This is you.” He pointed to the very last door in the hallway.
    He took a chain from his pocket and flicked through a bundle of heavy brass keys. He put one of them to the door and unlocked it with a heavy clunk. I felt like I was being put in a prison cell. He then removed the key from the bundle and handed it to me. “This is yours. It only fits in this one door. I also have a spare, just in case you lose yours, or just in case there are … uh … incidents.”
    “Incidents?” I repeated faintly.
    “Yes, well, a few years back we had a rogue staff member. Went absolutely mad and tried to drown everyone in their soup.” He waved it aside, “We needed to confine her until we could get her taken away.”
    I gulped. What if my Power slipped up and they assumed I was attempting murder? I fought the horrible thought aside.
    “I’ll let you get settled in before I send Jack in to give you a tour and a run-down of everything you’ll need to be doing.”
    Charles turned his back on me and walked briskly down the hall towards the kitchens once again; his balding grey hair bobbing out of sight when he turned a corner.
    I heaved a sigh and turned to face my door whilst I pocketed the heavy key. With my expectations extremely low I turned the brass handle and let the door swing open. It creaked very loudly and the first thing I smelled was a lot of dust. I was right to have my expectations fairly low. The room was rather small; I guessed I could have crossed from one side of the room to the other in three of four paces. In the far right hand corner was a small, moth-eaten bed with itchy brown sheets. Above this was a little rectangular window that I probably couldn’t have stuck my head out of. Next to that was a bedside table with a lone candle. In the left hand corner of the room was a little wooden chest of draws.
    My expression vague, I crossed the room, took of my coat and threw it on the bed before sitting on its edge, only to discover that it caused me to sink several inches into the mattress. I threw my bag to the end of my bed and flopped backwards, staring at the dull grey ceiling. With a great sigh I thought about my day. Quite an eventful one actually, I thought indifferently.
    Drifting in and out of thought, I was vaguely aware that my bag had begun to do something very strange indeed. Coming out of my stupor I stared at it. Had I imagined it? Perhaps I had … Maybe the light had caught it at an odd angle and …
    No. There it went again. It moved! I sat up abruptly and looked intently at it. I waited. Several seconds later the bag fell on its side with a stifled yelp. I scurried away from my bed as fast as possible, tripping over my own feet in the process. From the floor I watched as my bag seemed to have some kind of seizure,