Free The Haunting of Highdown Hall by Shani Struthers Page A

events leading up to it. Perhaps an explanation was the key to releasing her.
    Looking around the bedroom, Ruby could see what Theo had meant; it was most definitely a shrine. Kept that way by Sally presumably, the devoted maid.
    Velvet drapes, deep red in colour, like the precious stone she herself was named after and sumptuous if dusty to behold, adorned two sets of floor to ceiling windows. In between the windows was a dressing table, art deco in style with an assortment of silver brushes and combs artfully arranged on top as well as crystal scent bottles, some full, and some half full. On each and every item lay more dust. She knew if she scrutinised further, she’d see cobwebs too. If Mr Kierney had employed a team of cleaners, Cynthia obviously hadn’t let them into her bedroom either.
    Double doors with ornate handles, also art deco in style, led to a walk-in wardrobe, empty but for a few padded hangers swaying slightly in the breeze that Ruby had created by opening the doors. Where were Cynthia’s clothes? Lovingly placed in storage perhaps? In the attic above them? Or perhaps they’d been auctioned off or sold to a museum somewhere. There was another door, a peek around it revealing a large en-suite bathroom in shimmering white marble, a sizeable glass bottle that looked to contain bath salts standing beside a smaller empty bottle on a floating glass shelf above the dramatic claw-footed tub. Back in the bedroom, Persian rugs, predominantly red in colour, but with blue in them too and green, the colours once vibrant she presumed, now distinctly faded, were scattered across the oak floorboards, but the bed was the star of the show. Obviously custom-made, it was much bigger than king-size, it was enormous, the wood dark and sturdy, walnut perhaps? There were four intricately carved half posts at each corner, a silken cover in midnight blue with scatter cushions not thrown but arranged on top, some sequinned, although bare in patches. Walking over to the bed, she laid her hands upon it. Vibrations, not entirely savoury, could be detected, but Ruby ignored them. Cynthia’s private life was none of her concern.
    On either side of the monolith were two bedside tables, sturdy also and in matching wood – again custom-made she’d wager. Quickly, Ruby rifled through the drawers, they had been emptied too, home now to just more dust and cobwebs.
    “Cynthia,” she called out. “I’m leaving now but I’m coming back with Theo and some friends of mine. In the meantime, please remember, you are not alone. We are with you, my friends and I, and our intent is to help you. There’s no need to be frightened anymore.”
    Nothing, zero, nada was the response. Cynthia was gone. Hiding again.
    As soon as she left the room, Cash stood up.
    “Are you okay?” he asked, genuine concern very much apparent in his eyes.
    “I’m fine. But Cynthia, she’s not. Far from it.”
    Walking side by side down the corridor, they returned to the staircase. “There was such a dark feeling coming from that room, it was almost, I don’t know how to describe it... cloying somehow. And then it just went, disappeared. Have you... you know... sent her on her way?”
    “Not yet, I’ll need the entire team to do that I think. Fear tends to make a spirit resistant and for some reason, Cynthia is very afraid.”
    Descending the stairs, Cash replied “I’ll help. I want to. In whatever way I can.”
    “What, you mean hold a crystal or something?”
    “Yeah,” he said, laughing. “Unless you promote me to smudge stick duty that is.”
    “Smudge sticks?” she replied, raising an eyebrow. “You know what they are?”
    “Yep, they’re herb wands, used predominantly to purify psychic space and create an aura of protection; I’ve been doing my homework.”
    “In that case,” she laughed along with him, “promotion might just be on the cards.”
    ***
    “Did you sense her?” said Mr Kierney, materialising from the same shadows he had