She sat for a moment, legs out in front of her, and rubbed her stinging palms together. As she braced herself to stand back up, a flash of white caught her eye. Deep within the forest of organ pipes lay what looked to be a small pile of papers. They were slightly curled at the edges, and reminded her of the love letters her mother had stashed in a box at the back of a hall closet after her father’s death. She reached in, sliding her fingers between the cold metal until she could grasp them, and slowly pulled them out.
The pages were covered in dust, and she sneezed twice. Sitting cross-legged, she gently fanned them to one side to shake off the residue. What a strange place for old papers. Maybe it was the instruction manual for the organ.
But it wasn’t. Each page contained some kind of odd poem, written with a fountain pen in an old-fashioned calligraphy. They were numbered, and filled with strange references to pillars of salt, marriage caskets, seascapes. You’re halfway to the end of the course of clues, read one.
A series of clues. The very first one had a date on it: November 1919.
When she and Polly were young, they’d entertain themselves with scavenger hunts on rainy days when they couldn’t go out in the garden. Or rather, Veronica entertained Polly. She’d rummage through their toy chest and pick out the smaller items, like a penny whistle, or a tiny doll, and make drawings of what they were and where they were—a doll holding a biscuit to indicate the biscuit jar, for example. Then she’d hide them about the house and watch with glee as Polly tried to locate each one. Whenever her sister found one, she’d throw her head back and make her happy sound, which always made Veronica burst into laughter as well.
She couldn’t remember the last time they’d done the treasure hunt—it must have been years ago. As they’d grown older, the toys were donated to the Salvation Army, and the silly games died out.
Veronica read through the clues, one by one, until the sound of a grandfather clock chiming deep in the house broke her out of her spell. How long had she been sitting there? She had to get downstairs, join the group, and try to make it up to Barnaby on the long train ride north.
The archivist from earlier might find these papers interesting; she’d hand them over before they left. She tucked the clues into the big pocket at the front of her sweater to free up her hands and stood carefully, wary of falling a second time. Her suitcases and small suede purse sat in the vestibule to the organ room where she’d left them, and before she headed down to the main floor, she opened up the purse to check for her train ticket.
It wasn’t there. Dread coursed through her like venom from a snakebite, making her feel shaky and faint. In her mind’s eye, she could picture it sitting on the bureau in the upstairs bedroom, after she’d dumped out the contents of her purse in a frenzy to find tissues. Clearly, the ticket hadn’t made it back inside.
Lugging her suitcases, she rushed down the hall and took a wrong turn, unsure which direction she was facing. Through trial and error, she finally found the room tucked off the back hallway. The ticket lay on the rug, where it had fallen.
She scooped it up and was turning to leave when the lights suddenly went out.
Darkness and an eerie silence, both inside and outside of the mansion, enveloped her. She froze, listening for voices but hearing none.
She flicked on the light switch, but it didn’t work. In the inky gloom, she made her way to the window. Outside, the streetlamps were unlit as well. As were all of the other buildings within sight.
It was as if the storm had erased the rest of the world, whipped it up into nothingness.
A blackout.
Her mother had talked about London’s nightly blackouts that prevented German bombers from finding their targets during the war, how terrifying it was not knowing what was lurking in the night sky. Veronica closed her eyes for a moment, reminding herself to breathe, that she was perfectly fine and just had to find the others.
She groped her way through the hallway to the stairwell. Cursing the kitten heels she’d put on that morning, she clunked her way down to the reception area on the ground floor, where she’d first come in.
“Hello?” she called out.
Someone still had to be here, surely. She headed past the reception desk toward two pairs of glass French doors that led out to the street.
The inside ones were locked, and there was no bolt or button to unlock them, only a keyhole. She cupped her hands and stared out through the front door’s glass windows, onto the street. A carpet of white covered the road and sidewalks. No people, no cars. And even if someone did come by, she wasn’t close enough to the outer doors that her shouts or banging would be heard. Not that many people would be out on a night like this.