PROLOGUE
It’s dead quiet.
The walls seem to be holding their breath, the rafters clenched tight against the cold. Rose can’t shake the feeling that the house doesn’t want her here. Not for the first time, she wonders if Thornwood Park itself is evil, or if it’s merely a place where the echoes of evil can be heard.
She looks around the attic with its sloping roof, faint light from the bare bulb fading into its gloomy corners. She pulls her coat tight around her. It’s even colder up here than in the empty rooms below.
Around her are boxes full of moth-eaten woollens and men’s suits, long out of fashion. Her nose twitches as she walks past a wooden crate overflowing with sheets grey from the damp. She had already looked through these and even searched the pockets of the suits, finding nothing more than train ticket stubs and bits of tobacco. But she was not looking for what she hopes to find now.
Rose’s eyes fall on a stack of old suitcases, their brown leather furred with mould. She had searched these and found nothing, but she didn’t know then that something had been intentionally hidden. If she were hiding a map, these suitcases would be her pick.
She takes the smallest suitcase by its cracked handle. She opens it, reaching into the pockets on the sides, the cream ruched silk fraying at her touch. But they’re empty.
She reaches into the…
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