Read Online The High House by James Stoddard - Free Book Online Page B

thunderous crash followed, and then silence. Carter and Hope kept running, straight into another dead end. They exchanged frightened stares. Hope was dripping with sweat, looking terrified; Carter was certain he looked the same.
    “Over here!” a gruff voice said.
    A center section of one of the bookcases slid forward, opening like a door into a dull, shadowed chamber. Within it sat a lanky man wrapped in penumbra. Even in the darkness, Carter saw his clothes were old, mismatched like a vagabond’s. His face remained hidden by the wide brim of his stovepipe hat. The collar of his patched coat hid the rest of his features.
    “Who are you?” Carter demanded.
    “The Face Outside the Window. The Thing the dog barks at in the night, which it cannot see. I am the Thin Man. In here, quickly.”
    Despite his reservations, driven by need, Carter followed, Hope behind him, and the door slid into place at their backs. The stranger held a tiny candle, which barely illuminated the way before them, revealing a rounded tunnel, with a stair angling upward.
    “Where are we?” Carter half whispered.
    “Headed away,” the Thin Man replied.
    They climbed one flight of rickety steps, but then descended as if toward the basement. Carter wondered if he could defend himself in this narrow way if the Thin Man meant them harm.
    They came to a door, and the stranger grasped Mr. Hope’s sleeve. “You go through there,” he ordered. “You will be safe.”
    Hope looked at Carter and licked his lips. “This is just a nightmare, isn’t it?”
    Carter attempted a smile. “Yes, I suppose it is.”
    Hope disappeared behind the door. The Thin Man led Carter farther along to the end of the stairs, into a vaguely familiar room.
    “I will leave you now,” the stranger said. “You should be fine.”
    “Yes, thank you.” He turned to look around, but when he turned back, the Thin Man was gone. “Where are you?” he cried. And though he had vanished, his voice echoed in the room, as if far away: “Happens this way in dreams.”
    Part of the wall slid outward, revealing an opening. To Carter’s shock, he found himself back in his own room, entering from the fireplace again. Yet, the staircase had led down, from what should have been the attic, not up from the library. He pressed the brick that rolled the hearth back into place. A great weariness was upon him, despite his fear, and he lay upon the bed, intending to close his eyes only a moment.
    A loud knocking on the door roused him from sleep. He stood groggily.
    “Just a dream, after all,” he murmured, relief sweeping over him.
    As he went to the door, he abruptly halted, for if this were a dream, why hadn’t he awakened in the library, instead of in his own room?
    He opened the door cautiously and found Mr. Hope looking grim.
    “Something wrong?” Carter asked.
    “You better come down. It’s Brittle. In the library. He’s been murdered.”

The Tigers of
    Naleewuath
    A hard rain fell as they laid Brittle to rest in the servants’ portion of the ancient cemetery south of the house. All the staff was gathered around: the housemaids, ladies’ maids, the housekeeper, valets, butler’s assistants, cooks, the groom of the chamber, footmen, ushers, the hall boy and others, some gaping, some weeping, some biting their lips so as not to weep. Most of the grave markers were modest, but a marble statue of a young boy stood in the center of the stones, his hand above his brow, as if gazing into the distance, and though Carter thought its significance obscure, it gave him comfort to look upon it, and there were flowers on many of the graves. The mounds were nearly level, for no one had been buried there in many years. Brittle’s marker was unassuming, for Enoch said he would have wished it so, and it bore the words Trusted Servant , and gave the date of his death, but not of his birth. Carter asked Chant about that, but the lampman said, “No one really knew when he was born, he had no