Free Hallow House - Part Two by Jane Toombs Page A

that person noticed the south tower door ajar and decided to investigate?
     
    Then she heard the faint creak of the old stairs and knew somebody was going down them. She eased the door open farther, just in time to see a man's form silhouetted by the dim hall lights as the stair door opened and closed.
     
    Mark! She knew it was him, there was no denying what she'd seen. No other man had short, cropped hair. It took her a while to force herself down the steps and along the corridor to her room. She sat on her bed staring blankly at the wall. What had Mark been doing in the locked room? And how had he gotten in?
     
    Samara thought she'd never go to sleep but sometime toward morning she drifted into a nightmare....
     
    Sergei faced her across four burning black candles and she knew she was in the room behind the black door, unable to flee. Shadows surrounded her and she gasped in terror as her brother raised his hand. He held the dagger-like knife called an athame. As Sergei advanced toward her, the black door opened. When she saw the figure framed against the light, she knew it was Mark, come to save her.
     
    As she ran toward him she realized something was wrong. Mark had no face. Instead, a skull stared at her from empty eye sockets…
     
    Samara sat up in bed with sunlight streaming into her room. She hugged herself, trying to free herself from the vestiges of the nightmare. Then the reality of last night filled her mind and that was no better.
     
    She knew she had to see Mark. Nothing could be resolved until they talked. She couldn't think beyond that.
     
    She hurried into riding clothes, not wanting to stay in the house. The atmosphere inside seemed to have reverted to the old days, when her brother still lived.
     
    Hallow House became an entity that enclosed her within, making her feel trapped. She'd thought her brother's death and Vera's marriage to her father had banished that feeling forever. But now the house watched her again, watched and waited to destroy her.
     
    Samara shook her head, angry at herself for feeling this way, for reverting to childhood fancies. Still, she got outside as rapidly as she could, grabbing up an orange from the kitchen as she passed though, not heeding Irma telling her breakfast was almost ready.
     
    She headed for the stables. Although the need to see Mark lay like a weight within, she had a more immediate need to ride away from Hallow House, to let the mare carry her into the hills where the warmth of the sun would dry up her fears and the wind blow them away.
     
    Sal was saddling Anna K. when she entered the stable.
     
    "I saw you coming," he said. "You riding alone?"
     
    She nodded.
     
    "Something the matter?"
     
    "No."
     
    "Then how come you're pale, you've got circles under your eyes, and you've got that spooked look horses get?" Sal's description came close to making her smile.
     
    "Ride with me," she told him..
     
    A few minutes later Sal galloped Tsar next to her across the field. Neither of them spoke as they rode. Finally she reined in by the stream near the property line and Sal stopped beside her. They dismounted, tied the horses and climbed a granite boulder to sit in the shade of a sycamore. "Looks like another hot day," Sal said after a long silence.
     
    She glanced at him in disbelief--every day from June through August was a hot day in the valley--and saw him grinning at her.
     
    She smiled back, almost feeling no time had passed and she was eleven again, Sal a teenager. He'd never pushed her in any way. Just been there. Someone to trust.
     
    If only she could tell him about the room behind the black door and what had happened last night, but she'd never talked to Sal or anyone about that room. Not even the doctor, although she'd told him things about Sergei she hadn't confided to anyone else.
     
    "I didn't know Rosita Sanchez was working here," he said. "She's a friend of my sister's."
     
    "Johanna told me Rosita was crying on your shoulder the