The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

of weird stuff back then, but this stuff is extra creepy.”

“Do you still have the files? Can I read them?” Nate’s voice rumbled with intrigue.

“There’s an entire file cabinet full in one of the old classrooms. Mother thinks it’s locked, but Yarrow crashed through it and I’ve been sneaking in ever since, looking at the photos and trying to figure out what the medical stuff means. I brought one of the files back to my room last night and was up half the night reading the different cases. I don’t know what most of it means, but what I do know, doesn't seem right.”

“Nothing about Usher House feels right.” Nate fell silent.

The tiny little black bird chose that moment to land between us on the ledge of the fountain, hopping over to the pile of seeds and sampling a few.

I held my hand out and the tiny bird looked intrigued, then went back to pecking at the seed. “It feels just right to me when I’m right here.”

Nate sighed. “Easy for you to say. I’ve got to get back to the cellar and the stupid lily bulbs.” His eyes scanned the clouds, then fell to the tops of the apple trees that towered over one wall of the garden. “Do you need any help cutting limbs? She can’t get mad that I offered to help you out here, since, ya know, you’re a girl and too weak to do any real work.”

“You’re the deranged one now!” I shot up from the ledge and threw my fist into his shoulder.

His laugh echoed off the evergreen hedges and sent all the birds chirping and flitting through the leaves in alarm.

“See, you’ve sent them all away. Go back to the cellar where you belong!”

Nate’s eyes scrunched together, before he stood and swiped the rusted loppers I’d been using to trim the dead branches off the apple trees. He swung the heavy tool in the air and then roared like a warrior going into battle. He looked so insane, I couldn't help but laugh.

He ran around the edge of the garden, picking up one of the broken greenhouse window panes and holding it against his chest like a shield. A few crows squealed overhead, checking out the commotion as Nate tore around the garden like a madman and I laughed until my cheeks hurt and salty tears stung my eyes.

I don’t think I’d ever laughed so hard in my life.

“Aren’t you afraid now?” He waggled his eyebrows as he approached, stopping to cut one of the bigger dead limbs that I’d been struggling to cut through for the last few days.

“Trembling in my shoes.”

“And what fancy shoes they are, Madame.” Nate bowed, bending all the way to his knee and swinging the loppers out like a sword. “I do it all in the name of your honor.”

I smiled, feeling every part Juliet to his Romeo. “You’re certifiably deranged.”

“In other words: a Shakespearean hero.” He smirked, and it was that moment he stole a tiny piece of my heart.

“Careful, any more Shakespeare and I might have to label you a romantic.”

“Never, m’lady.”

“What’s going on here?” The anger in Mother’s tone sent my spine rigid.

“Nate was helping,” I defended lamely when she approached.

Her eyes cut to Nate’s. “Back to the cellar.”

“She needed help with the orchard.” He stood, discarding his windowpane shield and sword loppers on the ground.

“Is that what you were doing?” One slash of eyebrow rose, menace lacing her features.

“Yes,” Nate growled, anger clearly washing through him. “You shouldn’t ask her to cut the heavy branches. They could fall on her when she tries to yank them down.”

“Mind your business.” She caught his upper arm and gripped.

“Let go of me.”

“You lack respect, would you rather be on the street? Or worse, back at the pathetic orphanage?”

“Maybe,” Nate taunted.

“Hardship steals the spine, that’s what’s wrong with you. Spoiled rotten. You’ll sleep in the cellar from now on, not the basement, the cellar, just like Walton.”

“Is that what you did, banished him to the cellar because he didn’t listen to you?”

“I said, mind your business. And from henceforth you’ll address me as Governess.”

Nate sneered, but didn’t reply.

“You’ll need to be in the habit of respecting me more when the new kids arrive in the morning. Usher must present a unified front if the village is to grant us boarding school status.”

“Boarding school status?” I questioned, then thought better of it.

Mother cast me a glare before turning away with Nate. I picked up the rusted loppers, watching Nate’s hunched shoulders as Mother dragged him down the garden path and disappeared around the hedge.

Silence grew thicker than the walled hedges around me.

The birds are gone. Nate is gone. Loneliness returned.

I pushed tears from my eyelids as I stopped at the nearest apple tree and tried to lift the loppers and attempt to work another dead limb off the tree. I worked slowly and quietly, trying to contain the emotion welling inside of me as I waited for the tiny blackbirds to return and the garden to feel peaceful again.

Maybe tonight I would sneak one of the medical files to the cellar to share with Nate. I suddenly felt responsible for his punishment, his willingness to help me earning him a hard cot on a cold damp stone floor, surrounded by earth and lily bulbs.

I owed Nate a thank you at least, and maybe I could even get that smile to cross his face again.

I was starting to live for those smiles.

PAST

Zara - Summer 1964

“They did a lobotomy on a twelve-year-old at Usher House because of extreme behavioral outbursts in the classroom.” Nate emphasized the last words. “That’s actually what it says in the medical file. Can you believe the evil this place must have witnessed?”

I twirled the tiny white finger bone in my hand, running the smooth edges along my skin and wondering how many others had done the same. I held it up to my hand in the dim lamplight of my room, noticing that