Read Online House of Small Shadows by Adam Nevill - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Adam Nevill
Ads: Link
shut door, thinking the housekeeper had tipped her like a tradesman. It wouldn’t have surprised
her if these two isolated and out-of-touch figures still observed such a custom, but when she bent over to chase the paper that had fluttered from her hand and come to rest on the tiles of the
porch, she could see that it wasn’t money. It was a crumpled piece of brown paper.
Beyond the thick door came the muted yet frantic peal of the handbell.
Catherine picked the paper up and straightened it out. It was spattered with what looked like grease. She turned it over. Written in pencil in stubby capitals were four words. DON’T NEVER
COME BACK.
ELEVEN
Twice her wheels bumped across catseyes as if she had fallen asleep at the wheel. Late afternoon, but her journey home resembled a familiar route retraced in darkness. The
fugue of the great house’s interior remained thick inside her mind. Her place in the world felt odd too, as though she was returning to an old neighbourhood where she was no longer
remembered.
Beyond the meadows of the Red House the world suggested only the bland and temporary to her imagination. The city she returned to seemed predictable and disappointing. The British Museum had a
similar effect upon her heart, during all of those Sunday afternoons she spent there to escape the dismal rooms she’d rented in London.
Adjusting to the sight of dual carriageways, and their service stations, and garden centres near Worcester, required a conscious effort, that seemed more about regaining familiarity with the
terrain than her experience of the Red House should warrant.
The impact of the house’s strangeness and the incongruity of her place inside it combined uncomfortably with her memories of alienation as a child in Ellyll Fields. Feelings she
didn’t want stirred tugged at her heart again. Near Hereford, she even entertained the idea of never returning to Magbar Wood and the neighbouring Red House. She tried to think of excuses she
could make to Leonard. In a spurt of sickly panic that surged from a defensive instinct she’d been trained in therapy to repel, she briefly considered running somewhere new and not coming
back. But where was left?
Parked outside her flat in Worcester, getting out of the car was like waking from a deep sleep only to leave part of herself inside a dream. A physical reassembly of herself seemed necessary
before she could climb out of the car. Inside her flat, finding affection for her furniture and belongings was a struggle.
She had been uncomfortable and struck dumb in either shock or wonderment for the entire duration of her visit to the Mason house, but had left eager to return and see more. Until Maude gave her
the note. The note was the trigger.
She left the note inside her bag. She didn’t want to see the handwriting again. It was bully writing. Blunt, direct, designed to upset, unnerve, and linger long after the perpetrators had
fled the scene. She’d show it to Edith. Or should she not?
The note could be nothing more than territorial spite directed at an imposter. Maybe she had been a glaring and awful reminder of
out there,
a thing creeping inside to cheat an old
lady. Or was the note a warning? But of what? A ninety-three-year-old woman?
You don’t have time for this now.
Catherine identified the cognitive root of where the imagined persecution bled. Some days everything was a trip-wire to set off paranoia. She derailed the irrational train of thought before it
left the platform to shriek though her mind at InterCity speed.
An auction fraught with pressure, expectation, and a high profile she might be unequal to awaited, as well as her having to manage a difficult character. There was no escaping that. The note
from Maude didn’t help matters, and visiting the Red House was hardly a common experience. So it was natural to feel strange, disorientated.
That’s all it is. Relax. See things as
they actually are.
Mike didn’t like her in this
her if these two isolated and out-of-touch figures still observed such a custom, but when she bent over to chase the paper that had fluttered from her hand and come to rest on the tiles of the
porch, she could see that it wasn’t money. It was a crumpled piece of brown paper.
Beyond the thick door came the muted yet frantic peal of the handbell.
Catherine picked the paper up and straightened it out. It was spattered with what looked like grease. She turned it over. Written in pencil in stubby capitals were four words. DON’T NEVER
COME BACK.
ELEVEN
Twice her wheels bumped across catseyes as if she had fallen asleep at the wheel. Late afternoon, but her journey home resembled a familiar route retraced in darkness. The
fugue of the great house’s interior remained thick inside her mind. Her place in the world felt odd too, as though she was returning to an old neighbourhood where she was no longer
remembered.
Beyond the meadows of the Red House the world suggested only the bland and temporary to her imagination. The city she returned to seemed predictable and disappointing. The British Museum had a
similar effect upon her heart, during all of those Sunday afternoons she spent there to escape the dismal rooms she’d rented in London.
Adjusting to the sight of dual carriageways, and their service stations, and garden centres near Worcester, required a conscious effort, that seemed more about regaining familiarity with the
terrain than her experience of the Red House should warrant.
The impact of the house’s strangeness and the incongruity of her place inside it combined uncomfortably with her memories of alienation as a child in Ellyll Fields. Feelings she
didn’t want stirred tugged at her heart again. Near Hereford, she even entertained the idea of never returning to Magbar Wood and the neighbouring Red House. She tried to think of excuses she
could make to Leonard. In a spurt of sickly panic that surged from a defensive instinct she’d been trained in therapy to repel, she briefly considered running somewhere new and not coming
back. But where was left?
Parked outside her flat in Worcester, getting out of the car was like waking from a deep sleep only to leave part of herself inside a dream. A physical reassembly of herself seemed necessary
before she could climb out of the car. Inside her flat, finding affection for her furniture and belongings was a struggle.
She had been uncomfortable and struck dumb in either shock or wonderment for the entire duration of her visit to the Mason house, but had left eager to return and see more. Until Maude gave her
the note. The note was the trigger.
She left the note inside her bag. She didn’t want to see the handwriting again. It was bully writing. Blunt, direct, designed to upset, unnerve, and linger long after the perpetrators had
fled the scene. She’d show it to Edith. Or should she not?
The note could be nothing more than territorial spite directed at an imposter. Maybe she had been a glaring and awful reminder of
out there,
a thing creeping inside to cheat an old
lady. Or was the note a warning? But of what? A ninety-three-year-old woman?
You don’t have time for this now.
Catherine identified the cognitive root of where the imagined persecution bled. Some days everything was a trip-wire to set off paranoia. She derailed the irrational train of thought before it
left the platform to shriek though her mind at InterCity speed.
An auction fraught with pressure, expectation, and a high profile she might be unequal to awaited, as well as her having to manage a difficult character. There was no escaping that. The note
from Maude didn’t help matters, and visiting the Red House was hardly a common experience. So it was natural to feel strange, disorientated.
That’s all it is. Relax. See things as
they actually are.
Mike didn’t like her in this
Similar Books
