Secrets in the Mist

by Morgan L. Busse

  “Hurry! They’re coming!”

  She dashed across. He was right. The whole street was filled with the creatures. Cass flung herself inside, a flame of hope stirring again within her, giving her enough strength to bring her revolver up and a presence of mind to check their surroundings. She moved through the drawing room, then down the hall while Theo shut the door. No Turned. The white spores lay like dust across everything, undisturbed.

  “Help me move this table.” Theo’s voice carried down the hallway.

  Cass found Theo dragging a narrow table from the drawing room. She took the other end, and together they moved it into the hallway and pushed it against the front door.

  “I locked the door, but obviously we need to place some barriers here as well. Let’s grab the settee.”

  Cass nodded and followed him back into the drawing room. Something pounded on the front door, and she startled.

  “Focus on me, Cass.” Theo’s voice pierced through to her.

  She looked up at him. His eyes were steady on hers.

  “We’ll get through this. First, we need to place this in front of the door.”

  She nodded, and on the count of three, they lifted the couch together. Sweat poured down her face, stinging her eyes. Her lungs burned now, and her fingers throbbed under the hold.

  They reached the hall and positioned the settee in front of the table. Theo went around and maneuvered it until it was wedged between the stairs and the table, effectively jamming the front door.

  Cass wiped her face. “If they break the windows, upstairs will be safer.”

  “I’ll follow you.”

  Cass scrambled over the back of the couch onto the stairs. She pulled out her revolver again and checked the three rooms at the top. Nothing. Inside the last room, she sat down at the edge of the large canopy bed and breathed. Her mind was a whirlwind of everything that could still go wrong, but after a few seconds, all grew quiet. And she was too tired to think.

  “Cass, listen.”

  Cass looked up. Theo stood in the doorway, his head cocked toward the hall.

  Nothing. The pounding had stopped.

  Theo gently closed the door and walked over to one of the chairs near a fireplace. The room was larger than the other two on this floor, with rich damask curtains surrounding the bed, a wardrobe in the corner, and the small fireplace with two light blue wingback chairs. Ivory wallpaper covered the walls. It wasn’t a mansion, but given the fine furniture, whoever had owned this home had been somewhat wealthy.

  Cass took in another breath and rubbed her face.

  Her eyes trailed to a portrait over the fireplace. A woman sat in a high-back leather chair with a young boy on her lap. Behind her stood a man with his hand on her shoulder. There was a single grey stripe through his black hair, hair that brushed the top of his collar. There was something familiar about the man . . .

  Theo stood up abruptly from the chair he had been sitting in for the last minute, his gaze pinned to the portrait. “Byron Winchester.”

  Cass looked at Theo, then back at the portrait. “Who?”

  Theo didn’t answer. Instead, he looked down and ran a hand through his hair, then gave a short laugh. “What are the odds?”

  He spun toward the door, his voice determined. “It has to be here.”

  “What?” Cass grabbed his arm as he headed for the door. “Remember, there are Turned downstairs. We need to be quiet. For some reason, they’ve stopped pounding on the door.”

  Theo paused and sat down on the bed beside her. Silence spread across the room as he stared at the portrait again. The portrait mesmerized him. Cass looked at it again. Byron. There was something familiar about the man’s face. Were Theo and the man in the painting related? But why did he say Byron Winchester? Wasn’t Byron his surname?

  She glanced at the window on the other side of the room. It didn’t matter. What mattered was what should they do next. How would Bert know where they were? She should be searching for a way to escape.

  She went over to the window. A stream ran about thirty feet away from the house, overgrown with weeds and the branches from a willow tree. Somehow they had made it to the edge of Voxhollow. The Mist drifted across the land like smoke, cold and ominous. Beyond that, a patchwork of wild grass and more trees. No hills, no roads, nothing they could use to take off. Gales.

  “What are you looking at?” Theo whispered, joining her.

  “A way to escape. But there are no hills, at least in this direction.”

  “We’ll probably have to go west, toward the mountains. There will be foothills there.”

  Cass nodded. Theo was right. The only hills she recalled seeing were on the west side.

  Things were starting to look worse and worse.

  “But at some point, I need to search this house,” Theo told her.

  Cass looked at him.

  “This is the place I was looking for.”

  “It is?” This was unexpected.

  “Yes.” Theo pointed at the portrait. “That is the ancestor I was telling you about.”

  “It is?” she repeated, in evident disbelief.

  “Yes. So his research should be somewhere around here.”

  As Cass tried to take in this new development, she glanced at the door. It was still quiet. Eerily so. “There is something strange about the Turned here. They don’t act like normal Turned do.”

  “They’re not.” Confidence seemed to be filling Theo. “Not only are their clothes pre-plague, but their bodies are mummified.”

  “Mummified?”

  “Not decomposing. Did you notice how leathery the skin looked compared to other Turned? And stretched across their skeletons?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the body is still whole. Nothing is decomposing. Something in this environment—or in them—is keeping these particular Turned preserved.”

  Cass shivered. “So how old are they?”

  “Old. Very old.” Theo smiled slightly. “Given the clothing they’re wearing.” His eyes drifted. “Fascinating,” he murmured.

  Not fascinating. Terrifying.

  Theo began searching the room, opening the wardrobe, checking through the nightstand, while Cass stood guard by the window, watching for any movement outside and listening for any Turned at the front door downstairs. Each time Theo opened something with a creak or a drawer rustled with movement, she tensed. Every nerve inside her body was taut, waiting for the Turned to begin moving again, for the pounding on the door to commence, or even for the crashing of furniture downstairs.

  After a few nerve-racking minutes, Theo stopped. “It’s not in here.” He moved toward the door.

  “Wait!” Cass said in an urgent whisper and hurried over to him. “You need to be more quiet.”

  “I am being quiet!”

  “No you’re not,” Cass insisted. “I could hear everything you were doing.”

  “Listen, I’ll try to be quieter. But we need to find this as fast as possible, and I can’t guarantee no noise.”

  They stared at each other, her fingers curled around his arm, his dark eyes peering down into hers. A moment later, she let go of his arm and took a step back. “You’re right. It’s just this place . . . and those Turned . . .”

  “I’ll be careful, Cass,” Theo said.

  She looked at him. “I’m coming with you.”

  He nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

  Cass withdrew her revolver. She felt chilled as they stepped into the hallway. Theo didn’t seem to be as scared as she was. They went into the next room. It was similar to the first, only smaller, with a single bed. Theo went through it silently, carefully, methodically.

  “It’s not here,” he said quietly, a thoughtful frown on his face. “I wonder . . .”

  Wonder what? He never finished his sentence. He was staring at the stairs. He ignored the third room and kept going.

  Cass’s heart leapt into her throat. What was he doing? They couldn’t go down there! She went to
grab his arm but only found air as he headed down the stairs.

  Her eyes darted from the table and settee wedged against the front door to the side rooms where windows let in pale light. She cautiously followed Theo.

  He bypassed the kitchen and scullery and stopped at a single door on the right. Another bedroom?

  He reached for the knob, turned it, and the door swung inward. The interior was dark, as if windowless.

  “Hmm,” Theo said as he looked around. He walked into the scullery next to the door instead.

  Cass hesitated in the hallway, keeping an eye on the front door and waiting for the pounding that was sure to come.

  Theo disappeared. He returned a moment later with a lit candle and proceeded to enter the dark room. But instead of walking straight across, he began to descend down a new set of stairs.

  Cass’s eyes went wide. There was a room beneath the floor? She glanced one more time at the front of the house, then went down after Theo. The soft candlelight reflected off an old brick wall, and more of the threads from the outside fluttered along the surface. What was this place?

  At the bottom, a mysterious room took shape in the candlelight. Walls were covered in narrow shelves with hundreds of glass bottles and vials, two long tables topped with strange-looking glass tubes and metal contraptions, a desk in the corner stacked with papers, and a bookcase filled with books of every size.

  She looked around in amazement as Theo lit the lamps set around the room. As more light filled the area, a fine filament of dust was revealed, but it was grey, not white. Typical dust, not spores.

  Two of the items on one of the tables looked similar to the ones Theo brought on board the Daedalus. A microscope and a box of slides. Theo had moved over to the desk. Cass cautiously began to walk around the room, studying the strange glass vials along the shelves, sounding out the names to herself, but she had no idea what they were.

  There was a sound of shuffling paper as Theo began to rummage through the desk. “This could take a while,” he said.

  Cass tightened her hold on her revolver. How much time did they have? Where was Bert now? She looked up at the ceiling. Where were the Turned?

  She went back to the stairs and positioned herself on the bottom step. A strange sense of peace filled the room. The dim light and the gentle shuffle of papers could almost make her forget the danger they were in. Almost.

  After a while, Theo walked about the room. Cass laid her head against the brick wall and watched him. He looked at home in this place, with the sleeves of his sweater rolled up to the elbows and his hair haphazardly pushed back, face inquisitive as he searched for this precious object. The glider pack and mask were the only reminders that in reality they were deep in the Mist.

  Theo went back to the desk and again began to sort through it. Her eyes grew heavy. How long had they been here? She readjusted so her glider pack sat between the next set of stairs and the wall, giving her a little more room, then she closed her eyes. It was as if her whole body was letting out one big sigh after running so high on adrenaline. There was no eating on a dive. The mask made that impossible, not to mention possible spore contamination. Inside her pack she had a leather pouch of water and a special straw for sipping, but she wasn’t sure how long they would be here, so her body grasped at the next best thing to recharge her energy.

  Just a minute. That’s all she needed. A little rest.

  Somewhere between the feeling of warmth and drowsiness, she heard it. The faint sound of pounding at the front door.

  She sat up, wide awake and alert again. The Turned were back.

  She shot to her feet, every sense alive. She strained her ears, listening for anything to indicate they had broken through the front door.

  “There it is!” Theo’s not-so-quiet exclamation echoed through the room.

  Cass glared in his direction, but he had disappeared. She went over and found him on his hands and knees, peering under the desk, reaching for something deep underneath.

  There was a soft scraping upstairs. Her heart started pounding tenfold. “Theo!” she hissed.

  He stood up holding a small box in his hands. “I found it,” he said exultantly, eyes shining.

  “We need to go. Now.” She pointed up the stairs.

  He nodded in understanding. He tucked the box beneath his arm and made his way around the tables toward Cass, turning off the lamps as he went.

  Her mind began to pace through the house. The front door was not an option. Did the kitchen have a door? Most homes like this did, leading to a garden. Yes. She remembered seeing something like a tiny stone wall around the back of the house when she looked out the window. They could exit that way, but then what?

  Cass went up the stairs to the kitchen. She was right. There, in the back, was a small door leading to the garden. Behind them, the furniture continued to scrape across the wooden floor as the Turned shoved their way in. They only had minutes.

  There was a loud creak as she pulled the door open. The moment the noise ricocheted through the room, she froze, the pulsing of her heart in her ears. Did they hear?

  She pulled again, much slower. It still creaked, but not as loud. The sky had grown darker during the time they were in that room below. Cass stepped into the garden and glanced up. Gales! Was a storm coming in? That would make it impossible to glide. But how could that be? There had been no signs of a storm when they started making their plans that morning.

  Her hand began to shake, and her breath came faster. If that were the case, they would need to find a place to hole up. But where?

  She began to make her way around the house as the first drop of rain hit the top of her head. They could cross the street to the other side, go along the back of the houses, and hopefully find one where they could hide. No sound, no movement. She’d never been on a dive where it rained, but maybe it would slow down the Turned. Maybe it confused their senses so they wouldn’t find them.

  She could only hope.

  The few drops of rain turned into a soft drizzle as they stole across the road to the other side. Cass took note of the Turned at the front of the Winchester house. There were at least twenty more shambling up the street. All wearing faded and torn pre-plague clothing, with leathery skin stretched across their bones.

  None of them noticed Cass and Theo. Maybe the rain really did dull their senses. Cass let out a small breath of relief, but they weren’t in the clear yet.

  They reached the corner of the first house, and Cass immediately dismissed it as a potential hiding place. Too close to the amassing Turned. They passed the second and third house, all similar to the first, with brick siding and weed-entangled gardens in the back. The rain came down harder. At the fourth house, she checked the back door. Locked.

  The fifth house was bigger than the others, and the kitchen door was already open. Cass hesitated. Should they take a chance?

  She glanced to the right. They would have to cross the bridge to reach more houses, which would mean possibly being seen by the Turned. And she was cold and drenched from the rain. They’d have to take their chances here.

  Cass led the way in, her revolver out. She checked the first floor but only found the now-familiar thin white threads dangling from drapes and the ceiling, and a coating of spore dust across pre-plague furniture. Theo waited for her in the hallway. She motioned toward the stairs, and he nodded.

  As she reached the top of the second floor, the rain turned into a deluge, hitting the thin windowpanes in the bedrooms with violent pings. Shadows spread across the hall as dark clouds continued to pass overhead, darkened even further by the cover of the Mist.

  Cass could barely see as she checked through the rooms. After clearing the last room at the end of the hall, she let out a long sigh of relief. Despite the open door, there was nothing inside. Not even traces of wildlife.

  She motioned to Theo. “We’ll hole up in here for now.” The room was slightly bigger than the others, with a double bed surrounded by burgundy curtains hun
g on brass rings. Faded floral wallpaper covered the walls, peeling at the corners. A black-and-white photo in a gold oval frame of a little girl dressed in a frilly white dress hung above the dresser.

  The rain continued to patter against the window. Cass glanced around the room again. It was the best place to stay: top floor, back of the house, a window overlooking the garden for possible escape. Theo still stood in the doorway. “We’ll stay here until the rain stops.”

  A shiver rippled over Cass. Her clothes, drenched from the rain, were chilled and sticking to her body. After stowing her revolver, she began to work the clasps of her glider with numb fingers. “We should let our packs dry out.”

  “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked as he entered the room.

  Cass slowed, her fingers on the metal loops.

  “What if we need to run again?” Theo’s hair hung around his face in long dark strands.

  She continued working the straps. “You’re right. But I also don’t know how long before the rain lets up, so we should use the time to dry out our packs and clothes.”

  “All right, good idea.”

  She shot him a grin through her mask. “I’m full of good ideas.”

  Theo chuckled.

  For one moment, the heaviness within her lightened. She pulled the pack off. She was glad she was not alone.

  Cass checked her glider. A little bit of water had gotten in, but not too much. There was no need to spread the canvas wings out. Not that they had the room to do such a thing. They wouldn’t be here for long anyway. At least, she hoped so.

  She stepped out into the hallway and listened for any sound, however slight. Satisfied, she went back into the room and sat down on the bed with her back against the headboard. Now that they were temporarily out of danger and the rain, her body crashed. Hunger and thirst waged war with fatigue. She couldn’t eat, but she could drink.

  She stumbled off the bed, dug around in her pack, and pulled out the leather pouch and straw. “You should probably drink,” she said as she carefully pushed the metal straw through the opening, making sure there was a tight seal, before connecting the straw to the tiny opening in her mask. The water was tepid with a strong leathery taste, but it quenched her thirst and put something in her belly. She finished it off. With the possibility of contamination, she could only use the pouch once.