from her mind, every detail of it erased so completely that had she not still been in the last, weakening clutches of its terror, she might have wondered if she’d had the dream at all. Yet she was sure it was the nightmare that had awakened her, and as the mist in her mind slowly cleared away, other sounds filtered in. A few minutes ago she’d heard a crash coming from the second floor.
She’d almost gone downstairs to investigate. Then she remembered the beautiful handkerchief that Oliver had given her, and that Germaine had promptly snatched away to give to her mother. It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Germaine has been very kind to you, and if she wanted the handkerchief for Miss Clara, you shouldn’t begrudge it. But when Miss Clara hadn’t wanted it after all, why had Germaine insisted on keeping it for herself?
Even so, she reminded herself, if something is wrong downstairs, you should go see if you can help.
Still she hesitated, the strange scene she’d witnessed in the parlor fresh in her memory. What had come over Germaine? From the moment she’d opened the box of chocolates, it had been as if …
Even in the privacy of her own mind, Rebecca hesitated to use the word that had popped into her head. Yet there was no other way to describe it.
It was as if Germaine suddenly had gone crazy.
Although it had been no more than a minute or two before Germaine fled the room, the scene had terrified Rebecca. When she’d taken the tea tray back to the kitchen, her hands were trembling so badly that she was afraid she might drop it. And she still had no idea at all what had happened to Germaine.
She recalled, then, hearing glass breaking, followed by a sound that was part scream and part moan. Had she not been so badly frightened by the terrible scene in the parlor, Rebecca knew she would have hurried to see what had happened.
But what if Germaine really had gone crazy? What if she would have attacked her?
The house had fallen silent for a few minutes, but then the noise started up again. She heard Miss Clara shouting, and decided that Germaine was no longer in her room and that she and her mother must be having a fight. Better not to interfere, she’d thought.
For the first time since she’d awakened, Rebecca felt the tension in her body ease a little. When she heard the grinding of the gears that operated the elevator, Rebecca concluded that the argument must be over.
A sudden scream—a scream so terrifying it made Rebecca’s blood run cold—erupted through the house. At almost exactly the same instant, the elevator’s machinery fell silent.
Finally, the terrible quiet.
It held Rebecca in a strange thrall. She stood motionless at her bedside, one hand on the iron footboard, straining to hear anything that might reveal whatever terrible tragedy had brought forth that final, awful, ear-splitting scream.
The silence seemed to turn into a living thing, taking on a terrifying, suffocating quality, and slowly it came to Rebecca that only she could end it. Unconsciously holding her breath, she finally gathered her courage to leave her room and walk to the top of the steep and narrow flight of stairs leading down to the second floor.
Her steps echoing hollowly, she descended the bare wood stairs and gazed down into the hall below. Though she saw nothing, she sensed that it was not empty.
It was as she started toward the head of the great sweeping staircase at the far end of the mezzanine that the silence was finally broken.
A sound—nothing more than a gurgling whimper—drifted up from below.
As she came to the elevator shaft, Rebecca paused and peered down. A glistening pool of blood was spreading across the floor in front of the elevator door.
Her heart pounding now, Rebecca ran to the head of the stairs. For one terrible moment she hesitated, instinctively knowing that whatever awaited her below was going to be far worse than anything she might be able to imagine, and wanting desperately to turn away from it, to go back to her room, to hide herself from whatever horror had transpired below.
But she knew she couldn’t. Whatever it was had to be faced.
Gathering her strength, Rebecca walked down the stairs and gazed upon the elevator.
Clara Wagner was slumped in her wheelchair inside the cage. Her eyes were open and seemed to be staring at Rebecca, but her jaw hung slack, and spittle dripped