Free Darker Still by Leanna Renee Hieber Page B

scalded.
    The picture frame had faintly glowing marks all over it: strange hatch marks, crosses, and triangles. Symbols of a kind I’d never seen appeared in faint traces all around the back of the frame, which would have been hidden against Mrs. Northe’s wall but was visible to us on the inside.
    “What on earth is all that?” I asked.
    “No idea. But they’re familiar,” Denbury said ruefully, unbuttoning his cuff to reveal angry red marks, as if those same symbols had been carved into his flesh. I shuddered. “Part of the devil’s magic, surely. When the spell was cast, my arm burned with this brand.”
    “I’ll have to ask Mrs. Northe about it. She might know something that could help.”
    Madness after madness. I stared at the closed curtain. Something was missing. My body. “I must be dreaming then, am I? I don’t see myself.”
    Denbury set his injuries aside and instead offered an unexpected but dazzling smile. “So the rumors are true indeed! Miss Stewart dreams of me.” He took a step toward me, his blue eyes warming. “I maintain that I’m flattered.”
    I blushed and stammered, “But…are you dreaming? Oh! Could we be sharing a dream?”
    Denbury shrugged his broad shoulders. “I wish I knew. I never know whether I’m dreaming or not. I seem to reside here in a perpetual state of consciousness.”
    “It’s not healthy not to sleep.”
    He set his jaw and spoke bitterly, “I daresay it isn’t healthy to be cursed, severed from your body, and trapped in canvas. Please add sleeplessness to my long list of maladies.”
    I bit my lip, looking at him helplessly. “Perhaps I can help you through,” I offered, going to the door. The ornate brass knob turned in my hand. It opened wide onto a long and darkened corridor. I heard a whisper. That Whisper.
    Something shifted in the dark corridor beyond. A flicker of something ephemeral and gauzy white. I felt Denbury behind me, peering over my shoulders.
    “That’s…not my home,” he said tentatively.
    “No…” I said with difficulty. “If I came from there, then what’s out there came from me .”
    “Oh.”
    There was a long, uncomfortable pause as we stared into the darkness. A figure was visible deep in the darkness, a tiny bit of glowing white. My blood was ice cold. I managed to choke out a question: “Did…did you hear a whisper?”
    “No. Did you?”
    “I always have,” I said, turning from the uninviting corridor. “You see, I lost a parent too, Denbury, when I was four years old. I don’t remember my mother, but I’ve always wondered if she’s whispered to me in the years hence. If it’s indeed her, I wish she’d speak more clearly.”
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
    “As am I for yours.”
    He nodded, turning away. His grief was fresher than mine but I knew he did not wish to show it.
    “I suppose that’s what accounts for my nightmares,” I added.
    “Your mother?”
    “I’ve always heard a Whisper and glimpsed a bit of white lace out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think the worst of the world, but…I feel as if shadows follow me. Perhaps I suffer from paranoia. But I swear there’s something in that hallway.”
    “It’s your mind. What do you think it could be?”
    Oh, God.
    If Denbury owned the grief of the moment, then I brought the horror.
    The doorway was empty one moment but not the next. I was greeted by a sight of unequaled terror. An ugly sound came from somewhere deep in my throat, and I clapped my hands to my mouth.
    A dark-haired corpse in a white dress stood at the threshold, her head bent, mussed hair shrouding her face from view. I knew it was a corpse from the pallor of her arms. That and the congealing blood that was dripping from her fingertips and tapping onto the threshold…
    Here my voice left me again. I wanted to scream but couldn’t. Instead, out of panic, I turned and buried my face in Denbury’s shoulder to avoid the ghastly sight.
    “Good God!” Denbury cried,