The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla 3)

Suddenly she heard the voice again, this time clearer and closer. It was whispering her name. Hannah turned to face the dark room and, for the first time, she noticed the glow coming from a small glass flask. Black as obsidian, it stood in a tiny niche in the wall, yet it was enveloped in ghostly radiance.

The girl slowly moved towards it. At first glance, it looked like a bottle of perfume, but she’d never seen one as beautiful as this, nor had she seen glass so delicately cut. Its stopper formed a prism, casting a rainbow of colours all around it. Hannah felt an irrepressible urge to hold the object and touch the perfect lines of the crystal.

With utmost care, she placed her hands around the flask. It weighed more than she expected and the glass was icy cold, almost painful to touch. She raised it to eye level and tried to look inside but all she could see was an impenetrable blackness. And yet, when she held it against the light, Hannah had the impression that something was moving inside it. A thick black liquid, perhaps a perfume . . .

With trembling hands she clasped the cut-glass stopper. Something stirred inside the flask. Hannah hesitated. But the perfection of the bottle seemed to promise the most exquisite fragrance she could imagine. Slowly, she twisted the stopper. The dark contents stirred again, but she no longer cared. At last, the stopper yielded.

An indescribable sound, like the shriek of pressurised gas escaping, filled the room. In less than a second, the black mass issuing from the mouth of the flask had flooded the air, like an ink stain unfurling over water. When she looked at the bottle again, Hannah realised that the glass was now transparent and that, thanks to her, whatever had been lodged inside it had been released. She put the flask back in its place and felt a draught of cold air sweeping across the room, blowing out the candles one by one. As the darkness spread, a new presence emerged through the gloom, a dense form covering the walls like black paint.

A shadow.

Hannah slowly tiptoed backwards towards the door. She placed a trembling hand on the doorknob, then carefully, without taking her eyes off the pool of darkness, she opened the door, ready to sprint away. Something was advancing towards her, she could feel it.

As Hannah left the room, pulling the door towards her, the chain she wore round her neck got caught on one of the carvings. At the same time, a piercing sound echoed behind the closed door. It sounded like the hiss of a large snake. Hannah felt tears of terror sliding down her cheeks. The chain snapped and she heard the pendant fall, freeing her. She turned to face the tunnel of shadows before her. At one end of the corridor, the door leading to the staircase of the rear wing was open. There was that ghostly whistle again. It was closer now. Hannah ran. A few seconds later she heard the doorknob starting to turn behind her. She cried out in panic and hurtled down the stairs.

The descent to the ground floor seemed endless. Hannah was leaping down the stairs three at a time, panting and trying not to lose her balance. By the time she reached the door leading to the back garden, her ankles and knees were covered in wounds, but she barely felt any pain. Adrenaline ignited her veins like gunpowder, urging her on. The back door, which was never used, wouldn’t open. Hannah smashed the gla

ss with her elbow and forced the lock from the outside. She didn’t feel the cut on her forearm until she reached the shadows of the garden.

As she ran towards the woodland, her sweat-drenched clothes clung to her skin in the cool night air. Before taking the path through Cravenmoore forest, Hannah turned to look at the house, expecting to see her pursuer rushing across the garden. There was nothing. Not a trace. She took a deep breath. The cold air burned her throat, searing her lungs. She was about to start running again when she caught sight of a shape clinging to the façade of Cravenmoore. The profile of a face emerged from the darkness as the shadow crept down through the gargoyles like a giant spider.

Hannah threw herself into the dark maze of the forest. The moon shone through the clearings, lending the mist a bluish hue. The wind awoke the whispering voices of thousands of leaves, the trees standing by like petrified ghosts, their branches transformed into threatening claws. She ran desperately towards the light that beckoned at the end of that tunnel, a channel of brightness that seemed to move further away the more she tried to reach it.

A thunderous noise filled the forest. The shadow was ploughing through the undergrowth, destroying everything in its path. A shout froze in Hannah’s throat. Her hands, arms and face were covered in cuts from branches and thorns. Exhaustion clouded her senses, and a voice inside told her to give in, to lie down and wait . . . But she had to go on. She had to escape. A few more metres and she would reach the road that lead to the village. There she would find a passing car, someone who would help her. Her salvation was just a few minutes away, beyond the edge of the forest.

The distant lights of a car approaching along the Englishman’s Beach swept through the gloom. Hannah straightened up and screamed for help. Behind her, a whirlwind surged through the undergrowth then rose up the trees. Hannah looked up towards the treetops shrouding the face of the moon. Slowly, the shadow unfurled. She was scarcely able to let out one last moan. Then, raining down like a torrent of tar, the shadow swooped on Hannah. She closed her eyes and pictured her mother’s smiling face.

Moments later, she felt the cold breath of the shadow on her cheeks.

5

A CASTLE IN THE MIST

Ismael’s boat emerged through the veil of sea mist that coated the surface of the bay. Irene and her mother, who was sitting calmly on the porch with a cup of coffee, glanced at one another.

‘I don’t have to tell you . . .’ Simone began.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ replied Irene.

‘When was the last time you and I spoke about men?’ her mother asked.

‘When I was seven and our neighbour Claude persuaded me to give him my skirt in exchange for his trousers.’

‘Cheeky little rascal.’

‘He was only five, Mum.’

‘If that’s what they’re like at five, imagine when they’re fifteen.’

‘Sixteen.’

Simone sighed. Sixteen. My God. Her daughter was planning to run away with an old sea dog.

‘So we’re talking about an adult.’

‘He’s only a year and a bit older than me. What does that make me?’

‘You’re a child.’