by Ally Carter
And April being April, she followed.
Through the foyer and past the library and down the twisty stairs that led to the narrow hall that, Sadie said, was the oldest part of the mansion.
The salt line was faint but very much there – right up until the point when it wasn’t.
It disappeared into thin air. Except. Not thin air. Into a fireplace that didn’t have a fire, and April had to wonder if Gabriel Winterborne might be a little bit like Santa.
All around April, Winterborne House was still sleeping. In just a few hours, Smithers would be up and cooking breakfast. Sadie, Colin, Violet, and Tim would be coming downstairs to eat. But right then the only things that moved were the hands of the big grandfather clock and the dust that danced in the light of the moon, hoping Smithers might miss it.
April looked back down at the salt line, and she thought about Gabriel Winterborne. Not the man. The boy. Winterborne House was lonely. Too dark and too formal, too close to the cliffs and the sea. On edge in almost every sense of the word, and April felt sad. Not just for herself. But for the little boy who must have lived here when Winterborne House was an orphanage for one. That boy would have explored. That boy would have run wild. That boy would have found every nook and cranny, crease and crevice, and that boy was still hiding from the outside world.
The difference was that, this time, someone was going to come looking.
She took a step closer to the fireplace and studied it again – not the whole, but the pieces. She pushed against the angel’s wing and pulled on the candlesticks that sat atop the mantel. She pressed every stone and touched every square, until, finally, April stepped back and sighed and admitted to herself that she’d been wrong.
Then she noticed the salt was moving, drifting across the floor like the house was trying to blow out its birthday candles. But houses don’t breathe. They do, however, have draughts.
As she eased back towards the fireplace, she noticed a book on the shelves beside it. HIDDEN PASSAGEWAYS OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND the spine said, and April pulled on the book, thinking, Could it really be that easy?
(Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.)
The fireplace stayed closed, and April groaned in frustration, kicking the cast-iron poker that was there for a log that didn’t burn. A poker that didn’t fall but rather, tilted with a pop as the fireplace swung open, revealing a very dark, very windy, very dusty, very scary passageway.
It was the most beautiful thing that April had ever seen, and she stepped into the darkness, smiling all the way.
BECAUSE BILLIONAIRE RHYMES WITH LAIR
It wasn’t a hallway, and it wasn’t a corridor. It certainly didn’t feel like the rest of the house. It was more like a cave or a tunnel that sloped down into the earth. The floor was cold and hard against her feet, and she kept one hand on the damp stone wall as she inched towards a light that flickered in the distance.
With every step, the air got colder and damper, and a part of April was afraid that a wave might wash up and carry her out to sea. But she kept walking anyway.
Water dripped from the ceiling, a steady plop, plop, plop that echoed, and April wished she’d brought Mr Winterborne some soup. It was the kind of place where you could only hope to be warm on the inside.
When the tunnel opened into a big cavernous space, April stopped. A fire burned in a stone fireplace on the far side of the room, and she watched the flickering light dance over the tall, arching ceiling. More tunnels branched off, stretching out to who knew where, and April turned slowly, taking everything in.
Until she heard the words that stopped her. ‘You’re not as stupid as you look.’
The light was so dim that it took her a second to find him in the shadows, sitting on an overturned crate, the pillowcase beside him. The voice sounded like Winterborne House looked: smooth and elegant, rich and cultured. It sounded like the voice of a movie star. But the body it came from looked like something that had been carried in by the sea and tossed up on the rocks below. Battered. Bruised. And just barely hanging together as he leaned into the light.
‘Uh … thank you?’ April said when she couldn’t think of anything else. He was gnawing on a chicken leg, and when he was finished, he tossed the bone on to the fire, sending sparks up like fireflies. Then he dug back into the bag, pulled out a piece of bread, and bit into it like it might be the last thing he’d ever eat.
‘Don’t thank me,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘A dog is smarter than I thought you were.’
When he bit another hunk out of the bread and chased it with another chicken leg, April wanted to tell him that it would take one to know one, but she didn’t want to tempt her luck. He might decide to bite her next if she wasn’t careful, so instead she asked, ‘What is this place?’
He held his hands out wide. ‘It’s Winterborne House, the illustrious home of my illustrious family. Don’t you recognise a mansion when you see one?’
Maybe it was the look in his eyes or his long greasy hair and ragged beard, the black coat that was fraying at the edges, or the fingerless gloves that held the precious food, but for the first time April wondered if maybe Smithers and Ms Nelson had locked him down here because it was better for the world to think him dead than to know for a fact that he was crazy.
But when he saw the look on her face, he laughed. And it was the most sane sound she’d ever heard him make.
‘We’re in the cellars, April. They run all under the house. They’ve been blocked off for decades.’
Then the wind blew again, too hard to call it a draught, and April shivered.
‘For good reason,’ he said, digging into the pillowcase again and pulling out an apple.
April looked at the madman who sounded like a professor or a politician or … a billionaire.
‘Why are you here?’
Apple juice ran down his chin, and she thought he might choke on the apple’s core, but he just brought the tattered sleeve of his filthy coat up and wiped his face.
‘The same reason you’re here. There’s a price on my head. Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t know. Thanks to dear Uncle Evert, the whole world knows. But if you’ve come to collect your thirty pieces of silver, you should know’ – he made a show of patting his pockets – ‘I must have left my chequebook in my other coat.’
April rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, why are you here? This is your house, right? You’re a billionaire! Don’t you have a bedroom with silk sheets and … you know … a shower upstairs?’
For a long time he was too silent. Too still. ‘I’m not here, April. I’m nowhere.’
‘Everyone thinks you’re dead.’
But then the strangest thing happened: he smiled. His eyes twinkled, and he was handsome, almost charming, as he said, ‘I know.’
April didn’t mean to step closer. Her body just did that sometimes, move without her permission. Because even filthy and smelly as he was, Gabriel Winterborne was like a magnet, drawing trouble to him, and April had been told by at least six different foster mothers that Trouble was her middle name.
‘But you’re not dead.’ It seemed like a fairly important point, but he just shook his head.
‘The Winterbornes died, April. Everybody knows that.’ He couldn’t face her when he said it, April noticed. He acted busy, rummaging in the pillowcase, pulling out the soap and the razor, the cheese and the scissors. And when he said, ‘Thank you for the food,’ it was almost like it was hard to admit that she’d actually helped. That the big bad billionaire had needed the little girl who wore her entire net worth around her neck.
‘Though I must admit’ – he levelled her with a glare – ‘I would have preferred it if you’d forgotten the salt.’
She might have blushed if she hadn’t been so desperate.
‘I can get you more food,’ she told him. ‘And clothes. And anything else you need.’
‘I don’t need anything. Now go back to bed. It’s late – or early. Smithers will start looking for you eventually, and, trust m
e, you don’t want Smithers looking for you.’ For a split second she saw him as the little boy he must have been once. ‘And don’t come back here. Ever again.’
‘Ms Nelson is suspicious!’ April blurted. ‘She knows someone’s been sneaking around. She’s smart, you know.’
A sad smile crossed his face. ‘Oh, I know.’
It hurt him to hear the woman’s name, so she didn’t say it again. She just warned, ‘Someone will catch you if you keep sneaking around.’
‘So?’ He was rising to his feet. ‘As you’ve said, it is my house.’
‘But you’re dead,’ she reminded him, and the scary glare morphed into a mischievous gleam.
‘I am indeed.’
‘So you need me. To get you food and stuff. Even dead men have to eat, it looks like.’
‘And why would you help me?’ he snapped. ‘Money? Evert will give you five million, but maybe you think I’ll give you six to hold your tongue?’
‘I don’t want your money!’
His laugh was colder than the wind. ‘Everyone wants my money.’
‘I need your help!’
It was the honest truth, but he looked at her like she was playing a joke on him – a mean one.
‘I can’t help you, April. I can’t help anyone.’
‘No. You can help me,’ she said. Before she even realised what she was doing, she was reaching for her key, but the chain was tangled in her hair, so April jerked. She felt the chain break, but she didn’t care. She just held up her key and pleaded, ‘I have this! And I need you to help me find out what it opens.’
For a moment, he stood perfectly still, staring at April and the small key in her hand as if both of them were figments of his imagination. His mouth was agape, and his breath came harder, and it felt like, in that moment, the room went from cold to hot.
April was definitely getting warmer.
‘My mum left this for me. That’s the Winterborne crest, right?’ She pointed at the part of the key that had matched the tiny box at the museum. ‘So it came from here, didn’t it? I bet she was a maid or something. I bet she left me something here – in this house – and I need you to help me find it.’
For a second, April felt strong and sure. But then Gabriel Winterborne laughed at her.
‘Have you seen Winterborne House? Really seen it? Because I grew up here. This was my playground and schoolroom and home, and there are rooms I’ve never set foot in.’
‘But this key opens something, and with your help—’
‘Go to bed, April. Just … forget I’m here. Forget I even exist. The world almost has, and the sooner the job is done, the better.’
He actually sounded like he meant it. Like he believed it. But April didn’t have time to feel sorry for anyone. April had a full-time job just taking care of herself. And if he wanted to sleep on the floor and eat scraps and not wash his hair, then that was his business.
Finding her mother was April’s.
‘You’re going to help me find my mother,’ April said as if she, the twelve-year-old orphan, had the power to make the grown-up billionaire do exactly what she wanted him to do. ‘You’re going to help me, or I’m going to tell the world that Gabriel Winterborne is alive and well and … smells.’
She watched him listen to her words and register her threat. She even saw him recoil a little bit at the smelly part. He was one of the richest men in the world, but in that moment, he was a man who had absolutely nothing left to lose.
It was a look April totally knew when she saw it.
She wanted to argue. She wanted to plead. She was even willing to beg, but he was too fast and too strong, and the next thing she knew, he was swooping down and picking her up, tossing her over his shoulder like she weighed no more than that pillowcase.
‘I’ll do it!’ She banged against his back and yelled louder. ‘I’ll put it on the internet! I’ll call the newspapers! I’ll take pictures and videos and tell everyone you’re crazy and living in the basement—’
‘Cellars.’
She stopped banging. ‘I won’t even do it for the money. I’ll tell the world that you’re down here just because you’re mean.’
‘I believe you, April.’ He sounded almost impressed.
‘I’ll do it!’ she shouted into the void. ‘I’ll tell. I’ll—’
But before April could finish, the fireplace was opening again and she was being dropped unceremoniously on to the floor. The cellar seemed a million miles away, even though the cold wind still blew through the open passage.
‘There’s a storm coming. Now go to bed and forget you know me. Forget you saw me. Forget I’m alive.’ He looked back into the darkness. ‘Forget I was ever alive at all.’
A KNIFE AS SHARP AS LIGHTNING
April did go to bed. Not because he’d told her to but because she was sleepy and the storm had started to blow hard outside the window.
She hoped he was miserable. Cold and wet. Maybe the waves would crash up high enough to flood the cellars and take Gabriel Winterborne far away again.
April told herself that would suit her just fine. She didn’t need him anyway. So she pulled the velvet curtains tight around her bed and tucked the covers in around herself and closed her eyes.
She should have slept. She was exhausted, after all. She’d been trying so hard to trap Gabriel Winterborne that her bed should have felt like the best thing ever. But April didn’t sleep. Instead, she tossed. She turned. She counted sheep and got up to go to the bathroom. It wasn’t until she was on her way back that she noticed that her bed wasn’t the only one that was empty.
‘Hey, Violet,’ she said, inching towards the little girl who was standing at the windows.
Lightning crashed outside, sending bright white light through the glass and over Violet’s face. Her eyes looked even bigger as she stared out at the storm.
‘Can’t you sleep?’ April asked, and Violet shook her head. ‘Want me to go get Tim?’ April asked, but Violet’s warm hand was slipping into April’s.
‘I hate storms.’
They were the first words she’d ever spoken just to April, and for a moment, April stood there, unsure what to say.
Then the words ‘Me too,’ came from behind them.
Sadie rubbed her eyes and stumbled out of bed. She wore red pyjamas with E = MC2 all over them and was wrapping a blanket around her shoulders as she walked towards the windows.
The rain was coming harder then, falling against the glass like waves, and April could feel Violet’s hand start to shake.
‘Winterborne House is really old, right, Sadie?’
At first, Sadie looked confused, but April shot her eyes down at Violet and Sadie seemed to take the hint.
‘Oh, yeah. It’s been here for for ever.’
‘It’s probably stood through lots of storms, right?’
‘Totally,’ Sadie went on. ‘Hurricanes and thunderstorms and earthquakes. Winterborne House isn’t going anywhere, and neither are we.’ She dropped to the floor – her eyes at Violet’s level before looking up. ‘Right, April?’
But April was going someplace. Just as soon as she found her mother.
So she stayed quiet as Sadie and Violet piled pillows on the floor. She wordlessly helped drag blankets off of beds and arranged them in front of the big bay windows. No one seemed to notice April’s silence as they nestled together, lulled to sleep by the sounds of the storm.
In hindsight, April wasn’t sure which came first, the rain or the screaming.
One moment, she was sound asleep, and the next, she was bolting awake, tangled in a knot of limbs and pyjamas while the wind crashed through the windows and rain streaked across the room, drenching the floor where they lay. April’s hair whipped around her face, clinging to her skin and blinding her. It was like they were in the middle of the storm and not their bedroom, but Violet was up on her knees, shaking and shouting, ‘Tiiiimmmmmm!’
‘Shh, Violet. It’s—’
But that was when Apr
il saw the knife.
The room was dark except for the flashes of lightning that came through the windows – bursting with the boom of the thunder, reflecting off of a silver blade that floated through the darkness. The curtains around April’s bed billowed in the wind, and the knife slashed at them, cutting away the ropes of Sadie’s invention, sending them crashing to the floor.
And, through it all, Violet kept screaming. ‘No!’
‘What’s happening?’ Sadie pushed upright and sleepily reached for the glasses she wore when she didn’t want to mess with her contacts. But the wind and the rain were too hard and the glasses slipped from her hand. ‘Darn it,’ Sadie exclaimed as she dropped back to the floor, feeling her way through the soggy blankets.
But April … April kept her eyes on the blade.
And the blade was taking a step closer to her.
There was shouting in the hallway. Doors banged open. Then a massive bolt of lightning struck – a blinding white light that came at the same time as the thunder – and the whole house seemed to shake. The hallway lights flickered on then off just as the door to their room burst open.
‘Violet!’ Tim shouted.
‘What’s going on?’ Colin asked, but the room was so dark April couldn’t even see him.
She could only feel the rush of air as someone ran past her in the darkness. She could only hear the crunch of the glass beneath feet and see a dark figure rushing for the broken window.
And then the flash of the knife was gone.
‘What happened?’ Ms Nelson stood in the doorway, a candelabra in each hand – one burning bright with candles and the other dangling by her side like a sword. ‘Girls, what—’
April looked at the broken window, the scattered glass, and rain-soaked pillows and blankets. Then she looked at Violet, who muttered, ‘He was here.’
‘Who?’ Tim asked.
‘The Sentinel,’ Violet said, and everyone exhaled.
‘Smithers, the generator?’ Ms Nelson called down the hallway.
April heard him call back, ‘It might take a few minutes to—’
But before he’d even finished, there was a clicking sound and the lights in the hallway flickered to life. Ms Nelson reached for the switch, and light filled the disaster area formerly known as their bedroom.