One
OXLEY MANOR, A COUNTRY HOUSE HOTEL
ENGLAND
TWO YEARS AGO
Puck didn’t expect to find a body. She certainly hadn’t been looking for the skeleton of a man no one seemed to remember. How she had mourned him when he disappeared. Her mother told her to stop sniveling, that at fourteen she had no idea what love was.
But she did know!
Now, so many years later, she was still at Oxley Manor, and this morning she was hiding from her mother—as usual. The absurdity that she was thirty-eight years old and still trying to escape Mummy wasn’t lost on her. If her beloved cottage hadn’t been gifted to her, she would leave Oxley. Maybe.
There were perks to living where she did. Today she’d been planning on going wildcrafting in the Preserve at the north end of the 130-acre estate. She’d made sure her phone’s sound was off, put it in her shirt pocket and buttoned the flap. When her mother inevitably called and couldn’t reach her, she’d say that yet again she’d forgotten the gadget. She let no one know that she used her phone to photograph all the plants she found on the estate so she could catalog them.
One of the farmers told her his grandmother used to pick yellow-leaved wild thyme there. She could use the herb in the wreaths she made and sold.
The Preserve was a dozen fenced-in acres that the owner, Mrs. Guilford, said were to be left untouched. No machines, not even people were to walk across it. Wildlife only. She had installed signs warning of danger, but everyone knew that Mrs. Guilford was trying for some conservation award so she could use it in the hotel’s publicity.
At the edge of the thorn-filled woods, Puck stopped and listened. She was good at hearing what others didn’t, adept at seeing what they couldn’t. No one was nearby. She was thin and knew how to move without disturbing plants or animals. Not even the birds ran from her.
There was a lock on the gate and Puck knew the key was hanging on a rack in the kitchen, but she hadn’t dared take it. It might be missed. Instead, she’d climbed over the fence. Inside, she walked slowly, leaving few crushed plants in her wake. She didn’t want anyone to know she’d been there.
She walked in quite a way, across about four acres. Briars scratched her legs and something bit her on the neck. After a couple of hours, she hadn’t seen any wild thyme so she thought she should turn back.
She decided to go out a different way so she’d be less likely to leave a path. She’d walked only a few yards when the ground suddenly gave way under her. She fell straight down for what had to be ten feet. Fortunately, she landed on moss and years of composted vegetation. It was a relatively soft landing but she was dazed.
Sitting up, she tested her body to see if anything was broken. Her ankle hurt and she was going to be bruised, but she was all right.
When she looked up, she could see the sky overhead. It was going to rain soon, and she was at the bottom of a wide, deep hole. Part of the sides were stone, some bare ground. Covering the top was a vine-covered roof made of very old iron bars. They had rusted to the point that, when she’d stepped on one side, the bars had given way.
The question now was how she was going to get out.
Standing, she checked her phone. It was working. The smartest thing to do would be to call for help. One of the farmers would show up with a rope and pull her out.
And then what? She was where she shouldn’t be. People would delight in yelling at her. Treating her like a moron. Threatening her. Legally, she could be denied permission to roam the estate. She didn’t want to think what her mother would say.
The consequences weren’t worth asking for help.
As Puck looked for a way out, she wondered what the place had been made for. Ice storage? A root cellar? From the look of it, it was a few hundred years old. At some point, the top had been covered—and then left to rot. There were a few animal skeletons on the ground. Poor things had fallen in and couldn’t get out.
She moved her foot around, testing the damage. Not bad. That was good, since she was going to have to climb up. The stones on one side were too smooth, too big for climbing, but she thought she could make footholds in the dirt part of the wall.
Looking up, she saw that a few feet down from the top was a place that had been hollowed out to form a ledge. She could see loose rocks along the lip. They looked like they’d been stacked there. Above the ledge, the ground tapered back and there were hanging roots she could use to pull herself up. If she could just get to that shelf, she could get herself out.
The soles of her shoes were thick and not flexible enough for climbing. She’d be better off barefoot. She untied her shoes and took them off. What to do with them was a question. String them around her neck as she climbed? Too distracting.
She tossed a shoe up toward the ledge. The first one missed but she landed the next throw. It took five tries to get the second shoe up there. When some of the rocks rained down, she covered her head.
The climb was easier than she thought it would be. Years of tree climbing helped her place her feet.
She didn’t realize how scared she was until she reached the ledge. In relief, she leaned back against the rocks. When they scattered, she didn’t mind. It was good to be off the bottom—and to be safe. The rest of the way up would be easy.
Leaning back on her elbows, she gave herself a few minutes to calm her heart. Too bad she’d never be able to tell anyone about this adventure. Instead, she’d have to cover the top of the big hole and hope no one else fell in.
She drew her knees up to her chest and rubbed her ankle. The movement shifted the dirt enough that she saw something metal on the floor of the ledge. When she dug it out, she discovered it was a watch, dirty and corroded. She tried to see the dials but there was too little light. She wondered how it got there. Had someone dropped it over the side?
There were some sticks in the dirt and she used one to dig around a bit. What else was hidden in there? It was too dark to see much so she took her phone out of her pocket and turned on the flashlight. There was dirt, pebbles and sticks. Nothing interesting.
She was about to turn it off when she realized that what she was holding wasn’t a stick. It was a bone.
With a gasp, she dropped it. Slowly, afraid of what she was going to see, she turned the light around. Behind her, deep in the shadows, stretched out, was a full, human skeleton. Strands of dark hair clung to its skull. Pieces of rotted clothing were beneath the bones.
As Puck turned off the light, she was shaking. Her trembling fingers touched the buttons to call her mother. Come and get me! Rescue me! she wanted to cry.
No! she thought, and disconnected.
She had visions of what would happen if she told of her find. The police and newspaper reporters would come with their flashing lights. The hotel would fill with tourists who loved the macabre. Oxley Manor would become an entry in books about Places of Death.