Then he smiled. It wasn’t the same smile that so often charmed me. This was like someone else’s cruel smile. It was the first time I had ever felt even a little afraid of him.
We turned as the sounds from the fireplace erupted into a chaos of flying embers and terrible shrieks. Yellow-hot sparks and tiny chunks of burning wood littered the hearth and carpet. Alarmed, I fell back. Press pushed me roughly aside to grab the brass-handled broom hanging near the wood caddy and quickly swept the burning embers back into the fireplace. But the sparking continued, fueled by the vicious tangle of whatever was now wrestling in the fireplace. Rancid tendrils of smoke unfurled around us.
Press thrust the broom at me, shouting “Use this! Keep the fire off the carpet.”
I took it without question and hurried to the farthest bits of red smoldering on the antique Yomut carpet. Press had taken the poker and shovel and was gingerly trying to handle the creature—or creatures—scattering the fire. The shrieking was fading, and it would surely end in death. Press suddenly jumped aside, and some mad, flaming thing shot past him and into the room.
I screamed.
A trail of embers dropped to the floor, melting into the carpet. The thing hit a row of shelved books, and it, too, fell to the floor, floundering.
The library door opened. Terrance, with more speed than I could imagine him capable of, grabbed the brown cashmere throw blanket from where it sat on a chair and tossed it on the thing. I watched as the throw lifted and fell, lifted and fell, until it shuddered to a stop.
Whatever was left in the fireplace gave a loud pop and whistled finally into silence.
“Miss Charlotte, let me.” Marlene took the broom from me. In the flurry, I’d forgotten the smoldering bits of wood on the carpet. Fortunately, most had burned themselves out.
I went to the fireplace where Press stood looking down into the scattered logs. Among the squarish chunks of spent firewood, something long and twisted lay draped like a thick piece of rope. As I watched, it moved slowly as though it were trying to turn itself over. Then it was still.
“Snake.” Preston jabbed at it. “Not a very big one.” He turned, pointing the poker at where Terrance stood across the room. “I believe that was a raven.”
Terrance had picked up the other creature in the ruined blanket. He folded back the edge so we could see the limp body of the bird.
Chapter 10
The Magic Lantern
Dense silver clouds from the previous day hung over the house all through the night, pressing against the windows as though they would come inside. The bedroom itself was cast in gray as I rose groggily from my bed in the steely morning light to retrieve my robe from the closet. Before I could put it on, I doubled over in a fit of coughing. My hands still smelled of smoke, even though I had scrubbed them, and Terrance and Marlene had left all the windows on the first floor open until well after nine the previous night.
We’d had a damp, rather dismal dinner in the dining room. Press made a weak joke about Marlene serving us roasted raven, but when neither Nonie nor I laughed, he looked down at his plate and was uncharacteristically reticent for the rest of the meal.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said when we were finished. “Care to join me?”
Given the argument we’d had just two hours earlier, I thought he was being sarcastic. I was surprised to see that his face was serious.
“I don’t think so.”
I could feel Nonie’s eyes on us. Had she heard the argument in the library? Bliss House was big, and sound didn’t travel well through its walls. Or perhaps she was just being her discreet self.
Press nodded and excused himself. As he left the room, he ran a hand over Michael’s head, making him squawk with pleasure.
“Daddy!”
Press went through the kitchen door, which meant he was probably going to the mudroom for his boots and thus would presumably be walking in the orchards rather than on the lane. It felt strange not to care that he was upset with me. My head was too full of the screams of the bird, and the look of Press’s smile. I wasn’t sure what either meant. I felt confused and angry.
Five hours later, while the rest of the house was sleeping, I found myself still awake, unable to settle. Terrified that I would be awake until dawn—Bliss House, no matter how familiar it feels, is no place to wander or wonder in the loneliest part of the night—my resolve not to take the sleeping medication that Jack had prescribed gave out, and I put several drops in some water and drank it. Not long after, I fell into a dreamless, uninterrupted sleep.