Free A Witch in Time by Nora Lee Page B

Afraid of repeating that lonely time, Enid headed straight to the second floor and moved along a dark hallway lined with paintings of previous occupants; serious portraits of people who looked like they had no sense of humor, some in broken frames, with a few of the canvases torn as though they’d been shredded in anger.
    Since these people represented the Hallow family line, Hephaestus resembled many of them, and she wondered about the relationships between them. In her free time, Enid loved researching family history. Gemma often teased her about how she lived more in the past than the present and she’d assured her sister that wasn’t the case. Now that she’d passed over to the other side, she could tell Gemma without any hesitation that she much preferred her own time better than any other. She missed the Living World in the worst way.
    Instinct must have pointed her in the right direction.
    She heard a soft voice.
    When Enid paused to listen, she thought the sound seemed to be coming from right overhead and looked around for some sign of a nearby staircase, but only saw what looked like a few bedroom doorways set along either side of the hall. Frustrated, she turned a slow circle and willed her eyes to find some detail she might be missing. A sign, any sign, of a way up to the place she’d missed in her previous search.
    When a slight breeze ruffled a nearby tapestry, she thought the darkness behind looked like an open doorway. A second draft shifted the tapestry again and reinforced her belief she’d found the stairs. Problem was that she didn’t know how to get through to the other side.
    Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes…and walked right into the tapestry. She couldn’t feel the texture of the cloth but something more like a dense cobweb she couldn’t break through.
    Yet she’d seen Hephaestus pass through solid rock. She should be able to manage cloth.
    She closed her eyes again and remembered what he’d told her about moving objects. If she couldn’t pass through, maybe she could move the tapestry out of her way.
    Enid reached out with her hand and mind. When she opened her eyes, she saw an open space large enough for her to squeeze through.
    The cloth dropped back into place behind her when she reached the other side. Trembling from exertion, she took a deep breath, rubbing a hand across her eyes. She’d not only not eaten since she’d been pulled over, she hadn’t slept either, and felt exhaustion taking a toll on her.
    How long could she go on this way?
    The muttering she’d heard before echoed through the circular space in which she stood. The winding spiral staircase before her seemed to indicate that she’d entered one of the turrets, a likely location for the bedchamber of the lord of the manor. The narrow stair favored the defenders of the home since attackers heading up from ground level would be hard-pressed to fight through anyone bearing down on them from above. The narrow slit windows along the walls also allowed for archers to aim down on anyone trying to invade the castle from outside.
    Of course, none of this mattered in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. They weren’t in medieval Europe with the Knights of the Round Table. This was the modern new world where very few citizens invaded the property of their neighbors. Especially the residents of Secret Hallow. Despite the disagreement between the young couples down in the main hall, everyone here loved each other and would never cause their friends and family deliberate harm.
    The thoughts racing through her mind distracted her as she climbed the narrow stair to the top floor. Here she found a small vestibule and a door with what looked like tooled leather fastenings holding it into the frame, a wrought iron handle locking the thick wooden slab in place. She couldn’t move this the way she had the tapestry below.
    “May I come in Hephaestus?” The voice inside the room faded away. She stood in silence staring at