“Maybe,” I whisper.
After that we stop talking about him and make our plans, our voices hushed with excitement. It’s been a long time since I last saw Sam, and the thought of travelling with her to New York is thrilling, an adventure. Neither of us has been to the Big Apple. We speak in hushed tones for more than an hour.
Outside the wind howls like a banshee.
Chapter 24
Autumn
It is another hour before Sam and I finally manage to say goodbye. There is something about the unknowable about the house that makes me feel wary so I leave the candles to burn down as I drift off to sleep. William said they would last at least eight hours, so I reckon, by the time they burn out dawn will already be in the sky.
I am awakened suddenly by a strange scratching sound at the window. The room is in total darkness. The storm is still raging outside and in the flashes of light from the lightning I can see the candles are all only half burnt, but someone has extinguished them.
My heart is thudding in my chest. The room is like the inside of a fridge. My breath mists in the icy air. I hear someone call my name. The sound is coming from the window. Full of fear, I turn my head and see a young woman. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen. Her hair is long and black, and her skin is deathly pale. Her lips are blue from the cold, her pale blue eyes are enormous with distress, and her white dress is soaked and sticking to her thin, child-like body. She is scratching desperately on the window pane.
“Open the window, please,” she begs pitifully in a hoarse whisper. “I have something very important to tell you.”
I know I shouldn’t. I don’t even want to, but I can’t stop myself. I get out of bed and walk to the window. My God, she is standing on the ledge of the first-floor window. Shivering, I open the window, and the waif quickly pushes it open. Her head snakes forward, and it is only then I notice her pale eyes have black slits, like cats or reptilians. They glare murderously at me as if she is demon possessed. Without warning, she reaches a skinny hand out and clamps it on my wrist. Her hand is icy and my skin crawls with terror.
I freeze.
I’m too shocked to do anything even when she yanks my hand towards her. The strength in that tiny body is so extraordinary she hauls me right out of the room, and through the open window. Too late, I try to grab the edges of the window, but they slip away from me, like moving rope. For a split-second I am suspended out of the window. In sheer terror, I see nothing but darkness all around me.
Good God, Rocco’s house is floating in a black abyss!
The waif lets go of my wrist, and cries out, “Now fly away. Quick. Before it’s too late.”
But of course, I can’t fly. My arms flail helplessly in the empty air before I begin to fall, the cold wind rushes into my face. I open my mouth and begin to scream. I scream and scream and scream in the blackness. Something velvety, like a bat’s wing, brushes against my cheek, and I lose it. With a howl of fury and horror I begin to fight and struggle with the evil in the darkness.
“Autumn, wake up. Wake up,” a voice calls urgently.
My eyes snap open and I see Rocco bending over me. I throw my hands around his neck with sheer relief. Taking great gasping breaths, I sob, “I was falling. I was falling into a dark abyss.”
“It was just a nightmare,” he soothes.
In those few seconds I’m buried in his chest, time slows down to frames. Frame one, I hear his heart. A beat so steady it is hypnotic. Frame two, I breathe in his scent. He smells of rain and pine trees. Frame three, I feel his body. It is hard, lean, and filled with a wild animal’s power. I feel it throbbing in his veins. Frame four, it makes my brain do cartwheels and my body come alive with pure lust.
I let go of his neck and move away from his body.
“Are you all right?” he asks.
“Yes, I’m fine,” I reply, but the dream was so astonishingly real, my eyes rush towards the window. It is closed. The candles are all still lit and the room is not freezing cold. I hug myself.
“It was just a nightmare,” he repeats, as he straightens.
I meet his eyes. They are as calm as an ocean on a bright day. I swallow. Up this close, his skin appears radiant, his cheeks rosy. As if he has been drinking or running. He can’t have been drinking because there is no scent of alcohol on his breath. His hair is damp. Maybe he just got out of the shower. The heat from the water has warmed his skin.