Emboldened, I lifted my kimono clear of my feet and started up the wooden stairs. No light fixture had been mounted in the staircase, but my eyes had become so accustomed to the darkness by then that the faint glow from the corridor was all I needed to see the vague outline of the door at the top of the steps.
I held my breath as I crept closer to the door, afraid that the slightest sound would give me away. If a stair had creaked, I would have shrieked loudly enough to shatter windows in Finch, but fortunately the staircase was solidly built.
The sense of dread that had chilled my heart at the bottom of the stairs became stronger with every upward step I took. I felt as if I were caught in a countdown to a terrible explosion from which there was no turning back. When I finally reached the door, it took every ounce of courage I possessed to release my kimono and place a cold and shaking hand upon the doorknob. I raised the feathered slipper, ready to strike, grasped the doorknob firmly, and discovered that it wouldn’t turn.
I tried turning it in the other direction, with the same result. I placed the slipper on the top stair and wrapped both hands tightly around the doorknob, but no matter how I tugged and twisted, it Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter
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refused to budge. After a few seconds of futile struggle, I groped furiously for my slipper, found it, and was on the verge of beating the doorknob into submission when I heard a sound that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
A floorboard had creaked on the other side of the door. Someone was in the attic.
I stood paralyzed with terror, expecting the young master to fling the door open at any moment and drag me into his den of iniquity, but nothing happened. The door didn’t open, the young master didn’t appear, and I wasn’t dragged anywhere.
Slowly, with infinite care, I pressed my ear to the door, but although I listened with all my might, I heard nothing. I was beginning to think that I’d imagined the floorboard’s creak when the blood-chilling truth struck home: The young master had his ear pressed to the door, too. His face was mere inches from mine. If I put my nose to the keyhole, I would probably smell his rancid breath.
My courage evaporated. I grabbed the hem of my kimono and fled. I ran down the wooden stairs, snatched my other slipper from the floor, and kept running until I reached the door to the music room, where I tucked the rowanberry necklace inside my kimono and shoved my feet into my slippers. It took a little longer to pull my heart out of my throat, but I eventually managed to calm down enough to present a relatively tranquil face to Kit and Charlotte.
My tranquillity was short-lived, however, because the sight that met my eyes when I entered the music room sent my heart back into my throat. Kit appeared to be wiping a smear of blood from his lips, and Charlotte seemed to have drops of blood on her fingertips.
“What are you eating?” I blurted, aghast.
“Hello, Lori,” said Charlotte, turning her head to look at me.
“It’s a treat from my nursery days.” She held up a dish of cookies that looked like little flying saucers leaking blood. “Jammy biscuits.”
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“They’re filled with Mrs. Harcourt’s homemade raspberry jam,”
said Kit. “Delicious.”
“If a bit messy,” said Charlotte, smiling down at her fi ngers.
“Jam,” I repeated breathlessly. “Raspberry jam.”
“Won’t you try one?” Charlotte asked.
I waited until my pulse slowed from a gallop to a walk, then crossed the room and sank weakly into my chair.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I’m not hungry. I don’t think Mrs.
Harcourt’s sausages agreed with me.”
“They can be a bit of a trial,” Charlotte said sympathetically. “I may be old-fashioned, but I find that Mrs. Harcourt is rather heavyhanded with the garlic.”
A passion for garlic might explain Henrietta’s ruddy complexion as well as the absence of bite marks on her neck, I told myself.
“May I offer you a cup of tea?” said Charlotte, setting the jammy biscuits aside. “It’s still hot.”
“Yes, please,” I said fervently, hoping that a hot drink would chase off the chill I’d brought with me from my close encounter with the creature in the attic.
Once I’d sipped enough tea to still my chattering teeth, I began to take an interest in the other items on the trolley. Apart from the bleeding biscuits, which I had no intention of ever trying as long as I lived, there were petits fours, brandy snaps, chocolate eclairs, ladyfingers, and Eccles cakes, but I concentrated on the crustless sandwiches, sampling the watercress, the smoked salmon, and the deviled egg in turn.
“You seem to be feeling better,” Kit observed dryly.
“Tea is a powerful restorative,” I said. “What did you two talk about while I was gone?”
“Kit was telling me of the many difficulties you encountered during your most unfortunate walk,” said Charlotte. “You must have been relieved when he kept you from tumbling into the river.”
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