“I asked Sam to come,” Maisie explained. “He knows I’m right. You may not be safe here. Curse or no curse, the manor is dangerous.”
“It’s true,” Sam said.
My gaze moved back and forth between them. They weren’t joking around. “I appreciate the warning,” I told them. “But I think I’ve made it clear that I’m staying.”
“Bram refuses to leave until she finds out what really happened to Lark,” Maisie told him. “So maybe you should go ahead and show her where everything’s at.”
My heart began pounding so hard, I was sure they could hear it. “What do you mean, where everything’s at?” I asked.
“Two women used to live here,” Maisie said. “Haven’t you wondered where all their stuff went?”
I’m ashamed to admit that it hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d been in every unlocked room in the manor, and I’d seen no sign of Dahlia Bellinger or her daughter. It was as though they’d both vanished without a trace. “Wait, is it all still here?”
“I helped your uncle move their belongings to a storage room in the basement,” Sam said. “He said he couldn’t bear to look at his wife’s things. But he wasn’t allowed to get rid of anything, either.”
“Why not?”
“None of it belongs to him. Dahlia left everything to Lark. Lark’s father got a judge to order that it all be kept in storage until his daughter is well enough to claim it.”
“You’re saying Lark’s belongings are still here in my house?”
Sam nodded. “All the things she left behind when she went to stay with her dad.”
Maisie lifted two perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “Be careful, Bram Howland. This isn’t your house. You belong to it now.”
I’d explored every unlocked room in the rest of the manor, but, aside from the kitchen, I’d avoided whatever was belowground. Basements were where monsters lived and bodies were buried. Where furnaces leaked noxious fumes and murderous clowns lured their victims. But basements were also where secrets were hidden. I knew I couldn’t stay away forever. I would have to see what the manor held.
The basement was a maze, and with every turn Sam and I took, I kept expecting to meet its monster. We passed the laundry, the furnace room, and a workshop that looked like Miss Havisham’s parlor. Everything inside was buried beneath a layer of dust. Someone must have been in the middle of restoring a chaise longue when they’d abandoned the project. It was almost pathetic to see the poor thing sitting there with its stuffing exposed, like a Victorian lady caught with her skirts pulled up.
I twisted the knob of each door we passed. At least half a dozen didn’t turn. The farther we went, the more jittery I felt. The hallway seemed to grow darker. The spiderwebs appeared larger and the creatures inside them more eager to bite. As I followed behind Sam, I kept a few feet between us and stayed alert for sudden movements.
“So, you’re friends with Maisie,” I said when I could no longer bear the silence.
“I’ve known her my entire life. I like her well enough, but I don’t know if I’d call us friends.” Sam didn’t mince words. “I’m not sure Maisie wants friends. She’s always been a bit of a loner.”
“I heard that her home life isn’t so great.” That’s what Nolan had told me. I was hoping Sam would elaborate, but despite what Nolan had told me, Sam wasn’t the type to gossip.
He looked back at me and paused for a moment until I caught up. “Where’d you hear that?” His face gave nothing away.
“The coffee shop in town.” Technically it was true.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t believe everything you hear around here. Maisie’s had more to deal with than most, that’s for sure,” he said. “She hasn’t let it drag her down. I admire her for that.”
Sam came to a stop in front of an old wooden door. The others we’d passed looked as though they hadn’t been altered since the house had been built. But this one had been updated with three modern locks.
“You can’t tell anyone I let you into the storeroom,” Sam warned me.
“I don’t like to lie.”
“I’m not asking you to lie,” he said. “Just don’t say anything if you can help it. James doesn’t know that I copied his keys. I’m going to give them to Lark if I see her again. But for now, even my mother doesn’t know that I have them. So, please—can we keep it between the two of us?”
“Fine,” I reluctantly agreed.
“You’ll need to be quiet while you’re in there. Once you’re inside, you’ll see a rolled-up rug just to your right. Lay it down against the door so light won’t seep out under the crack at the bottom.”
“Am I hiding from James?” I asked. “Will he be mad if he finds me?” The locks had been installed for a reason. James obviously didn’t want anyone rifling through his wife’s and stepdaughter’s belongings.
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted. “But there’s no point in finding out, wouldn’t you say?”
I couldn’t have said it any better. Before he inserted the first key, Sam paused for a moment and seemed to listen. Then he unlocked all three locks and handed the keys to me.
“They’re yours now,” he said. “Keep the door locked while you’re in there.”
I turned the knob and stepped into the room. It was filled with brown boxes of every size. Half the boxes bore no markings at all, while the other half had the letter L neatly written in the top right corner, along with a label indicating the contents’ origin—bureau, closet, bathroom, nightstand. A narrow path separated the marked boxes from the unmarked.
“I packed all of Lark’s things myself,” Sam said. “They’re stacked on the right. I tried to label them the best I could so she’d know what was in them when she got home from the hospital. What do you want to look at first? Books and papers and stuff?”
I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded.
He squeezed down the path and began pulling out boxes labeled L: Bookcase.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he brought the first two boxes to the front of the room for me.
I couldn’t answer. In my mind’s eye I was watching moving men carrying my father’s belongings out of my family home. I remembered sitting on my window seat and counting the boxes as they went down the stairs. Seventy-two boxes, none of them labeled. When boxes aren’t labeled, you know someone won’t be unpacking.