Page 58 of Fear Me Not

She still seems preoccupied with the box of photographs. I wish I hadn’t shown them to her now. I don’t want things dug up. I remember the drawings she’d done and wonder what else she’s experienced here. She’s mentioned a couple of things now—the bath of blood and the woman on the road—but it makes me wonder what she’s keeping to herself. It’s not as though I’ve told anyone about what I’ve experienced either, especially not the parts about thinking I was having sex with Aspen only for her to turn into something… else. It wasn’t the last time either, and I keep doubting if I’m even with the real her.

We haul the boxes into the drawing room, and I work to unpack the tree while Aspen pulls decorations from the other containers. I have no idea when the last time was that the tree saw daylight, and it looks that way, too.

“Maybe we should just get Levi to cut one from the woods and bring it into the house,” I say, eyeing the tree doubtfully.

The fake branches look far from real, and they’re kind of sparce. It’s big, so it won’t get too lost in the room, but I still think a real one will be better.

Aspen doesn’t agree. “No, it’s great! It feels authentic. I love it.”

She’s kneeling on the floor, surrounded by garlands of tinsel, plenty of it shedding, wrapped around old cardboard rolls to prevent them from tangling. They’ve got a slightly musty smell, which is hardly surprising, and have definitely seen better days, but Aspen seems delighted with them.

She’s smiling—properly smiling—and her eyes shine with delight at each new discovery.

“This might sound awful,” she says, “but it’s been years since it was just me and my dad around the holidays. We always made the most of it, but it always felt sad, you know? With both Mom and Emilia gone, we were always so conscious of the empty spaces at the dinner table and the missing gifts under the tree. Now there’s going to be four of us, and even though I’m going to miss my dad, I am kind of excited about it.”

I smile at her enthusiasm. “Levi says he’s got a turkey in the freezer.”

“He does! I can make the sides, or do my best, anyway.”

Putting my arm around her shoulders, I kiss the top of her head. “We can all put a bit of effort into making something.”

“I’d love that.”

I can’t resist the opportunity to hold her closer and inhale her scent. Perhaps I am forgiven, after all.

33

ASPEN

The snow has stopped for a few days now.

I’ve kept myself busy, decorating the communal rooms. I even put the men to work, threading bow-tie pasta to create homemade garlands. Levi complained about food wastage the entire time, but I think he enjoyed it, really. Dov gave me no such complaints, happy to create something he knew I was going to love, and Blake was responsible for climbing the tall ladders needed to hang them on such high ceilings.

The day before Thanksgiving, I make my way down to the basement alone, not because I wanted to rifle through the old photographs again or dig into the hotel’s past, but because I’d seen a frame when I’d been down there with Blake that would be perfect for one of my drawings of Windridge Hall.

He loves this place; I know that. He’s christened himself its guardian.

Is that why he doesn’t want to dig any further into what’s happened here? Because he’s afraid he might find out something about Windridge Hall that will change how he feels about it?

Maybe I should save the gift until Christmas, but with things feeling better between us, I don’t want to wait. I worry that with how things are going, our relationship might flip on a dime and so we’ll end up not speaking by then. I hate not being able to trust how things are between us.

I don’t like being down here alone. My memory of the cold fingers wrapping around mine in the laundry chute is still fresh in my mind. In any other situation, I’d have convinced myself that I’d been imagining things, that it couldn’t have been real, but I know too much about Windridge Hall to believe that possible. Strange things happen here, that fact isn’t to be debated, but the reason why, however, is still on the table.

I hurry through the dark, low-ceilinged space until I reach the room where we’d found the decorations and the old photographs. The large, gold gilded frame I’d seen had been propped up against a wall. I probably should have just grabbed it when I’d been with Blake, but I didn’t want to ruin the surprise. It’s freezing down here, and I wrap my arms around my body and hug myself.

The frame is still in the same place. Of course it is. It’s not like anyone else would have moved it. I glance at the wooden crate where Blake had found the photographs.

How long have the strange things been happening at Windridge Hall? Had they been occurring long before Blake and his sons moved here? Could it have been the reason the place shut down as a hotel—the guests didn’t appreciate terrifying visitations in the night? Maybe that was why Blake had been able to afford the place. Someone had wanted it off their hands.

I remember my visit to town and the warning from the old man.

Be careful of that place. I’ve heard some things...

At the time, I’d assumed he was warning me about Levi’s bad behavior, but what if it had never been about Levi at all? What if it had been the hotel he’d been warning me from?

I wish I’d stayed longer now, asking him some questions, but as usual, I’d been eager to get away from the conversation and had made my excuses and left. If I’d only dug a little deeper, I might have some answers to my questions now. Do the locals know that Windridge Hall is haunted and the reason behind it? If I was able to access the internet, I could do some investigating of my own, but that’s been a no-go.

A shiver wracks through my body, and I shudder. I’m curious about what more information I can gather from the boxes, but I also want to get the hell out of the basement before I experience something else that will give me nightmares.