Page 81 of Ghosted
What the fuck did that evenmean?
Clare wrote it there for a reason. She knew that the next maid would find it. No one else would have any reason to go into the back of the pantry.
It was a message for me.
I looked again at the words, and my stomach twisted. I’d been afraid enough times in my life that I could recognize fear. When Clare wrote these words, she felt afraid.
And then she fell down the stairs.
I believed Dorien’s story, that he’d already been halfway down the staircase. I didn’t believe he killed her. So who was Clare afraid of? Why did she say this?
Could someone else have pushed her?
I scrambled to my feet and snuck out the door under the stairs into the entrance hall. My boots padded on the thick carpet as I ascended to the first floor. From the top of the stairs, I looked both ways down the hall, and my heart sank. There was no vase or piece of ugly antique furniture large enough to hide behind, no conveniently-placed curtain. Madame Usher’s apartments were right at the end of the hall. Dorien would have seen someone else standing in the hallway as he went past. There wasn’t enoughtimefor someone else to reach the top of the stairs and push Clare.
I couldn’t see how someone could have pushed Clare, and yet… I felt certain her death wasn’t an accident.So what the hell happened?
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Faye
I worked all day, scrubbing down the ballroom before the party and thinking about Clare’s message. Madame Usher demanded everything be perfect, but obviously, she refused to hire extra help or ask the other students to lift a finger. Ivan and Titus snuck into the kitchen while I was prepping food and trapped me in the pantry for half an hour. Dorien passed me in the hall with a stack of clean towels for the guest bathrooms, and seeing no one else around, pinched my ass.
By the time I’d finished everything on my list, I could barely drag my feet up the stairs to change into my concert dress. I’d left the attic landing light on for myself, but the bastard ghost had turned it off. As I stepped toward my room, a rush of icy air engulfed me, driving the breath from my lungs.
Weird. It’s never cold up here.
Unease prickled at the back of my neck. I hated being up here, knowing there was someone in the house trying to scare me. It was almost better when I thought the Muses were responsible for my haunting. Now…
Just ignore it. It’s a draft from somewhere in the house.
I fumbled in my pocket for the key. As my hand closed around it, someone stepped out of the shadows in front of me, sending a fresh wave of ice curling around my body.
“Wha—” But I couldn’t form words. My breath died in my throat.
The brown hair tied up in a bun. That button nose. Eyes that once sparkled with life but now burned with hatred.
Clare.
She stared at me, her head twisting to the side at an impossible angle, one eyebrow raising in a ghastly expression.
Through her skin, the wood grain of my door was visible.
Run.I commanded myself.You have to run.
But I remained frozen with terror.
Silence stretched between us. Clare opened her lips, but no sound came out – her mouth opened into a maw of terrifying darkness that swallowed all light and hope.
I staggered back, my chest exploding with panic. Shadows spewed from Clare’s mouth and circled her body – reaching, grasping,crawlingtoward me. One grabbed my arm. Before I could tear myself from its grasp, something hot and hard closed around my mouth, pressing a sweet-scented cloth between my lips.
Then everything went black.
TO BE CONTINUED
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