The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

but it doesn't make me any more at ease sleeping under the same roof as her.”

“Please, she wouldn’t break a fingernail hurting a hair on your head.”

“She wouldn’t.” Thax pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped it awake. “Here.”

He turned the phone at me, a photo of a grainy close-up image of some bricks were all I could make out. “What am I looking at?”

“An inscription. I was in the main reading room last night and used the old emergency exit for a smoke break. I wasn’t even paying attention until I snuck back in and along the edge of the fireplace near the door. I found a name.”

“A name?” I squinted, unable to see what he did.

“Look here.” He used his fingertip to outline the faint scratches.

“Oh yeah.” I turned, finally able to make out the hard scratch of an uppercase Z and lowercase A.

“You think Zara did that?”

“I know she did.” He pulled his phone back and swiped through another series of photos. “The fireplace had a cornerstone block that said 1975,” he offered before turning the screen at me again. “I found this birth announcement on microfilm last night while I was in the stacks. See?”

“Zara Usher Thornberry, born this day of our Lord, 1969, to Zahara Usher, proudly welcomed by older siblings Yara and Yarrow. So, Zara is Yara’s little sister?” I frowned, trying to understand the meaning. The birds above our heads began to swoop and dive, singing so loudly it left a shrill ringing in the echoes of my ears like ocean seashells.

“Something like that,” Thax replied.

“But why would she be written out of Lilies in the Cellar then?—the kids were so close in age.”

Thax tipped his head to the side, eyes burning with mischief. “Maybe she wasn’t written out, but never written in.”

“What do you mean?” I bristled, feeling like he’d solved some dark riddle before I’d even had the chance to understand the question. A pair of blackbirds screeched and dove above our heads, forcing me to duck and Thax to chuckle. The noise of the birds was so loud it was deafening, like a throbbing vertigo had settled beneath my skull.

Thax stepped closer, licking his lips before finally breathing, “I think Zara was the first one to end up dead.”

PAST

Zara - Spring 1964

“Yarrow, my love!” Mother’s syrupy, saccharine tone carried up the stairs. It’d been under an hour since Yarrow had nearly stabbed Yara to death with the thorn bush branch, and I’d only gotten through another box of photos. A chilly sense of peace clung to this house like a cloud, it made it easy for me to fall back into time as I devoured the photos decade by sepia-shaded decade.

“Yarrow, my love?” I whispered to myself, practicing the sweet tone my mother’s voice so unnaturally carried when she said those lines.

Just like an actor.

“Yeah, Mom?” Yarrow called from the first floor.

That word again.

“I want to talk to my little lilies, where are your sisters?”

“I dunno.”

“I don’t know, you mean,” she corrected him. “Ladies! Parlor, please!”

I groaned, tossing the stack of photos in my hand to the dusty desktop before turning and walking out of the door. I took the steps to the ground level two at a time, meeting Yara in the hallway as she ascended from her dungeon lair. I shot a wicked glare at her, just for fun.

She averted her eyes, pretending not to see me as we walked through the threshold of the old parlor. The space was sparse and clean, utilitarian to the core, with only faded wallpaper to adorn the walls. Old, wrought-wooden frames surrounded pictures of what I assumed were ancestors long passed, but whose names I failed to recognize.

I searched for resemblance in the irises of their eyes and saw none.

“Starting today, all of our lives are changing. Library life is stuffy, all the dusty books are bad for your little lungs, but here we’re blessed with the fresh sea air. I want all three of you to take advantage.”

I crossed my arms, leaning against the corner grandfather clock. Tiny birds were carved along the face of the mechanism, olive branches in their beaks as they built a nest that sat atop the number 12. The hands didn’t turn though, their ability to keep time lost to the eventual slow drip of seconds.

“We’ll do some of your lessons outside, and you, Zara—” She pointed to me. “I would like to clean up the garden so we can set up a quaint little table for tea and scones.”

“What are they going to do?” I nodded at my half-siblings.

“Oh, they’ll be busy.”

I sighed, wishing Mother didn’t insist on talking in such cryptic terms. Her words always carried more cutting power than the blade of the most skilled swordsmen.

“Daily chores are a requirement at Usher House.”

The twins frowned.

“What type of chores?” Yarrow spoke up.

“Easy ones, my love, don’t you worry. I’ve structured your mornings to start at six with some outdoor chores, the garden alone will take weeks if not months to freshen up. Usher House was known for the fields of lilies that surrounded the house when I was a child. The village elders even did special tours on holiday weekends to allow the little children to walk through the garden and there were games and festival tents in the yard between the garden and the cliffside. It was a dream. I’d love to bring it back to all of its glory.”

“You want to have a carnival at Usher?” I thought of the ominous crack fissuring the house facade. Usher was more haunted house than fun house; I couldn’t imagine anyone willingly spending time here.

“Maybe a carnival is ambitious, but I want it to be as beautiful as it once was, starting with the lilies.” She bent, patting the twins on the tops of their heads. “Starting with you two.” She pulled them up by their elbows, gentle yet firm. “It’s better I show you. Follow me.”

The three