The Secret of Spellshadow Manor Read online

Alex spun in alarm.

  A prim woman of middle age sat before him behind a desk, adjusting a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She was wearing a rather incredible amount of blush and lipstick, and the impression it created was of a swollen red toad glowering at him from her seat. She held a pen poised over a large stack of papers.

  “I haven’t even finished the intake forms for the last one,” she said, her voice sharp and exasperated. “He never brings two at a time.”

  “I’m sorry—what?” Alex blurted.

  “Yes, yes,” said the woman, “you’re very confused. I know. The young woman is already off to her orientation, but I can show you the way. The Head will explain everything.”

  “No, I—”

  “Ah, where are my manners?” the woman continued, ignoring Alex. “My name is Siren Mave. I look after the newcomers, make sure everybody is settling in, that sort of thing. If you’ve got any concerns, you can always come to me!” She licked her lips, smiling impishly before bustling out from behind her desk, grabbing Alex by the sleeve as she passed him.

  “Wait—what is—”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “I know, I know. Very confused. Rest assured, you’ll be okay! This is a good place.” She let out a tittering laugh that could suggest either sinister glee or reassurance; Alex was completely unsure as to which it was.

  This bizarre woman had, however, said something important. The young woman is already off to her orientation, but I can show you the way. Whatever “orientation” meant didn’t matter at this point—Alex’s mind already felt blown to a million shards—but it sounded like this woman would show him to Natalie, which was all his brain needed to focus on. He’d have a chance to get her out. So instead of continuing to ask questions to which he received only nonsensical answers, he should just hold his tongue.

  The hallway seemed even longer than Alex had assumed, drifting on and on until he didn’t think it was possible that they hadn’t hit the back end of the building yet. They passed a window showing a sunlit garden, and another—to his bewilderment—that looked out onto a moon-drenched lake, sparkling with ice.

  Once, through an open doorway, Alex glimpsed a group of young people sitting around a table, their heads bent together. They turned, quieting as he passed, their faces dark and unreadable.

  How many others are in this place?

  The end of the hallway they had come from seemed to have been swallowed up behind them, yet the rest stretched out before them, out of sight, seemingly infinite.

  Siren Mave looked around, as if to get her bearings in the perfectly straight hallway, then picked out a door with a little black knob. She placed one hand on the knob, then paused and turned to Alex, looking him up and down.

  “You look a bit like you’ve been fighting, dear,” she said disapprovingly.

  He glanced down at himself. His clothes were rumpled, smudged with dirt, and torn in places, and he had light scratches all over his hands. He noticed suddenly that they stung a bit—he was so distracted he hadn’t noticed before. He imagined he must have gotten the injuries when Natalie had flung him away.

  “Actually—” he began, but Siren Mave held up her hands in exasperation.

  “Not much to be done for it, I suppose,” she sighed. Her face grew stern, and she reached out a small hand and jabbed him in the chest with it. The blow was unexpectedly hard—just like Natalie’s had been—and drove him back a step, leaving a stinging welt.

  “Ow!” he spat, but she interrupted him yet again, as though he had not spoken at all. She was relentless, impossible.

  “Remember,” the plump little woman said in a humorless voice. “You will keep your manners about you and be polite when in the Head’s company. He is a busy man, with many commitments, and he does not have much time for students. He does, however, make the time to meet with new arrivals, and you ought to be very grateful for that opportunity.”

  New arrivals.

  Students.

  He cocked his head, straining to make sense of the nonsensical, but Siren Mave was already turning the black knob. As it rotated, something beyond the door stirred. It was as though the dark that had been held inside grew eager to slide out, and began to bleed in thick, questing tendrils from the frame. Siren Mave swatted it away as it looped down toward her, then yanked the door open.

  A black pit yawned there. It was full of little noises, like cat’s paws padding over packed dirt. A ripple of cold broke over Alex’s skin as a smell seemed to sweep up to envelop him. It was like a forest after rain, all wet grass and dripping trees, with just the faintest musk of something animal waiting nearby.

  Was Natalie somewhere in there? In the feral darkness? He peered at it, his heart hammering against his ribcage, and opened his mouth to speak.

  Siren Mave, however, planted her strong little hand in the square of his back and shoved him in. He toppled forward, his head breaking through the layer of dark like he was falling through a sheet of suspended water.

  He coughed, shivering as he staggered into the room beyond. It was small, stone, its only adornment a wooden bench along one wall. It looked like a prison cell.

  Natalie sat on the bench, her eyes cast down toward the ground, her hands folded in her lap. He rushed forward, relieved to see her in one piece—and unaccompanied by the man.

  “Natalie! God. Are you okay? Can you hear me?” He held her shoulders and looked into her face, but her head lolled to the side, as if she were unconscious.

  “Hey! Natalie, wake up! We need to get out of here!” He snapped his fingers in front of her, then gave her a shake. She swayed back and forth, completely unresponsive, then rolled slowly to her original position, once more staring blankly at her feet.

  He stepped back from her, feeling frantic, trying to assess the situation.

  “Okay,” he spoke aloud to himself, pulling at his hair. “Okay. It’s fine. She can’t be too heavy. I can carry her…”

  Alex turned back to look the way he had come, and blinked. Whatever door he had entered through, it was now concealed. Only a flat mass of stone stood at his back now. A torch upon the wall flickered with dancing light, sending the smell of oil and smoke into the air. Siren Mave was nowhere to be seen.

  He whirled back around, eyes darting from blank wall to blank wall, breathing ragged.

  There were no doors or windows at all. It makes no sense!

  He scanned the stone walls, running his fingers over them, looking for irregularities. There had to be something that might indicate a hidden panel or a secret lever that would spring back to reveal the exit, but there was nothing. He noticed that his hands were shaking.

  Stepping back to the middle of the cell, Alex tried to steady his breathing. He had to at least attempt to stay rational, even in an utterly irrational situation. He folded his arms and turned again to Natalie, studying her nervously.

  Her condition was unchanged, but at least she didn’t seem injured. Just mentally gone.

  He began to pace, slowly, going through the things he knew for certain.

  Assuming he hadn’t simply lost his mind, he knew he was trapped in a bare cell, somewhere unknown. He had not been harmed—at least, not much. Natalie was here with him, sort of. They appeared to be out of options, just stuck here, waiting.

  The “Head” the absurd woman had mentioned must be pulling the strings here. Yeah, meeting with him was something to think about. He thought quickly, trying to plan a course of action. When he was let out of this room, he should find a weapon, defend himself and Natalie, carry her to safety. And it was of vital importance that he not let her out of his sight again.

  Alex sat beside her on the bench and leaned forward. In the dim, flickering light, her features looked softer, her tan skin warmer. Her slack expression made her seem childlike in her helplessness, and he felt more worried about her than ever.

  “Natalie,” he rasped. “Natalie, if you can hear me, I want you to know it’s going to be okay. I’m going to get us out of here. We’ll b
e home soon. Okay?”

  For the first time, Natalie seemed to hear him. Her head tilted, her blank stare sweeping over to where he sat. She blinked, and it was as though her eyes were furiously trying to come into focus.

  “Natalie!” he urged hopefully. “Natalie, it’s Alex! We’re—”

  But then she shivered, and collapsed back into the same position she had occupied before.

  Alex tried to speak to her again, but she was back to being unresponsive. Soon he too fell silent. He twiddled his thumbs, mind racing. He wanted to pace again, but was loathe to leave her side.

  Alex lost track of time as the only sound that filled the room became the crackling torchlight and his sharp breathing.

  Then came a noise like a key turning in a door, and the far wall swung open in a splash of golden light, as though the door had been there the entire time.

  Siren Mave stood silhouetted in radiance, looking down at a sheaf of papers.

  “Young lady,” she announced, “you’ll be up first. If you’ll follow me…”

  Alex’s eyes shot to Natalie—who had miraculously jolted upright, though seemed to still be in a daze. She rose and walked to the woman.

  Alex swung out to catch Natalie’s arm. “No!” he snapped, fixing Siren Mave with what he hoped was a blazing, determined gaze. “She’s not going anywhere without me. Where are you taking us?”

  Siren Mave’s glasses flashed in the torchlight.

  “I am taking her to her orientation, dear,” she said with an exasperated roll of her neck. “Why can’t you just behave yourself like this young lady?” She gave Natalie a firm pat on the shoulder, then gripped it hard, yanking the girl easily away from Alex. He didn’t waste time feeling shocked at the small woman’s inhuman strength, but rushed at her immediately, thoughtlessly, intent only on staying with Natalie, whatever it took.

  She put out one thick-fingered hand, pushing him hard in the chest. It was like running into a solid wall, and he collapsed heavily to the floor. Before he could move again, or even breathe again, Siren Mave had whisked Natalie through the bright doorway, and it had closed up into a blank wall once more.

  “No!” he hissed, leaping up to run his hands urgently over the spot where Natalie had disappeared.

  He cursed, kicking the wall in frustration. If Siren Mave was that strong, escaping this place wouldn’t be as simple as just finding a weapon and getting past her—even if he could get out of this cell at the same time as Natalie. He didn’t know what to expect from the Head, but it would not be unreasonable to assume more of the same. Somehow, he needed to be smarter about this.

  The chill in his bones continued to radiate outwards, and his breath came out in little white puffs, splashing against the wall before him. He turned away, jamming his hands into his pockets, when something caught his eye.

  A shadow beneath the bench slipped out along the floor.

  It flowed up the wall, then trickled down over the bench, pooling into the form of…a small black cat. The apparition yawned as if content, its mouth bristling with black fangs, and lashed its tail.

  Alex stared at it with no idea what to think or how to react to this new development. His eyes felt like they had taken in so much in the last hour—or had it been longer?—that if they witnessed much more of this fantasy, they would burst.

  He stepped forward cautiously, but the cat did not move. He crept closer, until he was looming over it. There it sat, just like a cat, pointedly ignoring him.

  Was it, in fact, a cat?

  Had he imagined it forming from pure shadow?

  He reached out a hand as if to stroke it, and the cat’s shadowy head swiveled to look up at him.

  “Did I give you permission to touch me?” it demanded, in a voice that was deep for so small a creature.

  Alex leapt back with a shout.

  It was not a cat.

  But what was it?

  He circled it warily, looking at it out of the corner of his eye. He paced back and forth before it. He stood stock still, legs together, one loose fist over his mouth, regarding it sternly. All the while it stared right at him, exactly like a cat.

  All this told him very little. But it was clearly some kind of shadow-being, and it must be here for a reason. It didn’t seem hostile, at least not yet.

  He cleared his throat and began carefully.

  “I apologize for attempting to touch you,” he ventured, feeling crazy for talking to this thing.

  “Thank you,” replied the cat, looking steadily back at him. “But I don’t mind. As long as you ask.”

  Alex didn’t exactly feel like petting it now. He hesitated. “How are you holding that shadow around yourself? Making yourself look like a cat?”

  The cat let out a throaty laugh. “How are you holding all those guts and skin around yourself? Yes, it is a choice to appear as a cat. It is an easy choice. But why should that mean I am not, as you suggest, actually a cat?”

  Alex’s jaw slackened. “What?”

  “I doubt you would understand,” the cat replied loftily, swishing its tail. “You’re new here. New, and more than a touch disbelieving, aren’t you?”

  “There’s a fair chance I’ve gone insane, yes,” Alex said, rubbing slowly at his temple. “More than a fair chance, I’d say.”

  “Nonsense,” scoffed the cat. “You haven’t gone insane, you fool boy. You have no idea what’s going to happen to you, do you?”

  Alex felt a chill run through him at the words. Was that a threat?

  “Please, enlighten me,” he said.

  The cat rose, stretching languorously, its whole body extending as it did so until one leg was stretched all the way to the end of the bench.

  “Oh, but the Head will fill you in. Didn’t that bizarre puff of a woman tell you?”

  “No, not exact—”

  The cat cut him off. “Just be patient. What’s the rush?”

  Alex fell silent, frowning at the cat.

  The rush? The rush was that Natalie was lost somewhere in this impossible place, that he was trapped in this prison of a waiting room, unable to get to her, unable to escape, unable to even figure out what the hell was happening.

  The cat, as if sensing his frustration, sighed. “Child,” it said, hopping down off the bench to stand at his feet, “you’ve got all the time in your short, miserable life to figure this out. I will tell you, though, as you will find it out eventually and to your detriment: you are here now. Here is where you are. Here is where, I’m afraid, you will stay.”

  It brushed against his leg as if to comfort him—or rather, brushed through his leg, the shadows lingering about his foot. He had the brief sensation of something that was like fur, but not fur—something soft and fathomless and strange.

  Then there was a click, and the door swung open again. For a moment, the light splashed all around the cat, which seemed to shrink back, hissing, little twists of vaporous shadow curling up where the light bit into its form.

  Then it melted into a pool of blackness and slithered away into the corner.

  Siren Mave stalked into the room, staring blankly at where the cat had disappeared. She looked back to Alex, one eyebrow rising.

  “What manner of devil was that?” she asked, bemused. It was as if she had forgotten that she’d thrown him to the floor during their last encounter, behaving now like this was just business as usual. Alex fumed at the sight of her, but tried hard to hide it. He needed her now, had to use her to find Natalie.

  He glanced at where the shadows still hung heavy with the memory of the cat. “Devil?”

  Siren Mave stared at him for a moment, then burst into peals of high-pitched laughter. She staggered forward, patting Alex’s shoulder and putting one hand on her knee as she tried to catch her breath.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh my sweet, dear boy. It’s a figure of speech, you silly thing.”

  He stared at her. Of course it was a figure of speech. He drew himself up, easily towering over the diminutive Siren Mav
e. She did not seem to notice, just lifted her glasses, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “Devils,” she said through her chuckles. “Oh goodness.”

  “As delighted as I am to amuse,” he retorted, “I insist you tell me what is going on here immediately.”

  Siren Mave’s mirth subsided slightly, but a smile continued to tweak at the edges of her lips.

  “Do you?” she asked mildly, planting a hand in the small of his back and steering him toward the door. “Come, the Head is anxious to meet with you.”

  The Head.

  The man in charge of all this.

  Yes, he was anxious to meet with the Head as well.

  For the moment, he should play along. He would gather more information, then decide on a course of action.

  Even so, as he was forced out into yet another seemingly endless hallway, Alex wondered if he should just make a break for it. Bolt away, find an exit, inform the police. Yes, he could tell them he had gone down a street that didn’t exist and into a mansion with talking shadows. Then he could explain to his mom why the police had been questioning him about his drug habits, and face the grief of Natalie’s family when they discovered she was gone. The perfect plan.

  Scowling, he followed the woman down the hallway, matching her pace. He hated feeling so disoriented.

  The warm glow of the candlelit chandeliers slowly gave way to more torches. Alex and Siren Mave walked between patches of light and dark, and each time they stepped into a new patch of firelight, the world had changed. The walls grew older, more decayed, the wooden paneling peeling away to reveal a façade of stone and brick beyond. The gray ivy came back, piercing its way through the stones and spilling like frozen waterfalls to the ground, where it rustled against their feet.

  The decor was changing as well. Where once there had been paintings of dignified men in fine suits, Alex began to see other things. Depictions of black-robed forms standing around a fire. A griffon, beak plunging down to meet a great serpent that rose up from the sea. Strangest still, a painting of nothing but an open mouth, filled with an unnatural number of teeth.

  “I keep asking him to spruce the place up,” Siren Mave explained as she kicked a line of ivy from her path. “But the master is old-fashioned and stubborn. He’ll never adapt to modern times, I fear.”