under its control, Isobel wondered as she moved towards the bedroom door? To know you had to do something bad, something you didn’t want to do, but were unable to stop? Was that how it was with her father? Had she inherited his addictive gene? She must have done so otherwise why on earth was she creeping back into Fear Zone in the middle of the night?
No matter how hard she tried to forget that Fear Zone existed, it seemed as if the old house was determined to remind her that only a flight of stairs separated her from a man who had returned from the dead. He could have killed Victor with his stick or ordered his werewolf to tear him apart. She was terrified of him yet unable to stop thinking about his journal where he had written the truth about his existence. She tiptoed along the corridor, past the room with the dust sheets and the dodgy ceiling, past the bathroom with the night candle and noisy toilet. Caesar would not disturb her tonight. He was staying overnight with Charlie, who was bringing him to the vet in the morning for a booster injection.
After a short search through The Recluse’s desk, Isobel found his journal. He kept going on about love. She skipped over that part. Reading about his love life would force her to think about vampire brides. She was only interested in finding anything he might have written about her family and it didn’t take long to find her mother’s name in his notes.
I watch Victor’s eyes when Sophy enters with her potions and sage advice. She interrupts our angry exchanges and, later, when Victor has gone, she asks why I treat him so rudely when he only has my best interests at heart. Ha. His house is a magnet to someone who has lost everything, as she has done. I will not let him take her from me. I’ve told him many times that the only way I will leave here is in my coffin. When the time comes, Charlie will weave my final resting place from the reeds he gathers by the lake. I no longer fear death now that I know my essence will live on in another form.
Too horrified to continue reading, Isobel closed the journal. Until tonight, she had believed she was overreacting and allowing her imagination to be influenced by her surroundings. But this evidence proved she had barely scratched the surface of Hyland Hall and its terrifying owner.
She became aware of a noise, faint at first then growing louder – the low growl of an engine outside. Was Victor calling back again to see his uncle or, sneaking in the dead of night to see her mother? A week had passed since the ‘love is not a tap’ conversation and Victor had stayed for dinner twice.
This possibility faded as the noise became a heavier, straining rumble. A wavery glow swept across the ceiling and walls before plunging the living room into darkness again. The Recluse’s bedroom door opened. She barely had time to shove his journal back into the desk and close the lid before she heard the thud, thud, thud of his walking stick on the landing. He was coming towards his living room.
The noise from outside had stopped. It was a waiting silence that broke when a clunking, clanking clatter reached her? Steel on steel clashing, glass breaking and there was a lighter clang, as if tin cans were being flung to the ground. The fly tippers were back only this time they were dumping their rubbish onto the courtyard. Victor said it wasn’t possible to prevent them trespassing unless The Recluse was prepared to hire a team of security men.
The door opened. She hunkered down behind the armchair opposite the one where he usually sat and pressed her face into her knees. This was as terrifying as the time in the stables, only now she had no excuse for breaking his rules. He switched on the light and came towards her.
His footsteps were silent; only the thud of his walking stick sounded his progress as he drew nearer. She could see his feet, his scaly toes and heels, the skin all scrunched and wrinkled. The noise grew louder when he opened the window. She thought of trains crashing together, banshees wailing, heavy metal music clashing.
She lifted her head above the rim of the armchair. He was wearing a long, red dressing gown with an image