The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

was running away from me. Desperate for a distraction I fiddled with my phone, searching with the limited network access I had for anything I could about Usher House. I hadn't been able to find much before the turn of the century, the old estate first purchased and built by the Usher family sometime in the 1800s. The first real historical record of its existence came from the painting of the hunting party I’d found downstairs in one of the endless red hallways. One picture existed online dated 1922, when the house had begun operational use as an orphanage. It closed momentarily during the Second World War and for a while in the fifties, before opening again with renewed interest after Zahara Usher moved in and put Usher on the map with Lilies in the Cellar and then it’d been operational well into the 1980s.

I shook my head, thinking how naive I’d been walking into this place—I should at least finish the story that’d inspired the woman I saw today.

I kept scrolling, anxious as the tiny cursor spun circles on my screen as I waited for the rest of the article to load. I thought again about taking a walk to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. Maybe even a stop at a late-night coffee shop for a slice of cheesecake and caffeine—but then I realized if I pulled another all-nighter my brain would be zapped for good.

I tipped my head to the side, eyes growing sleepy as I registered the time on the corner of the screen announcing that it was after midnight. Another night with little rest, another early morning, more words, more weirdness.

I yawned, killing the screen on my phone and flipping it face down on my nightstand. I curled into the single pillow, thankful exhaustion had finally arrived.

A violent series of thunks yanked me from my near-sleep before my door burst open. The silhouette of someone tall blacked out the dim hallway light, fear clogging the screams in my throat as shadow turned to flesh and one palm stifled my mouth.

“Scream and die.”

Fear shook my bones as my fists balled and I bit against the solid surface of my attacker. A jab of pain split through my bicep as a millisecond later my muscles loosened to warm butter.

“W-why?” My words slurred.

“You know.”

I felt the scream grow inside my chest. Dark clouds flirting at the edges of my sight. I tried to scream, imagined I was screaming. Praying I was screaming. Reality flickered like a television screen as red wallpaper swam with crimson carpet. Marble melded to concrete, the scent of roses burning to moldy stacks.

I faded, my senses flirting at the edges of capacity with some unknown drug tunneling through my veins. My vision painted black. My awareness only dulled. I tried to tear at the edges of the nothingness of my mind, fighting my will with an unknown force.

My screams cut short when I smelled it: cloves and leather.

Him.

“Thax?”

PAST

Zara - Fall 1964

“Walton Usher, get your old bag of bones out of my way. Don’t you have another runaway that needs handling?” The thinly-veiled contempt in Mother’s voice sent a chill down my spine. I wondered if Walton felt it too, he was the only one around here that ever stood his ground with her, well, other than me.

“You don’t want to open that door, Ms. Thornberry, what has been seen cannot be unseen.”

“Oh, stop with your foolish riddles. And I told you: don’t call me that. The children call me Governess and you will too.”

I heard Walton grumble something under his breath before the characteristic shuffle of his steps came closer. I pressed myself against the wall of my bedroom, listening at the crack in the door as they fought over unlocking one of the bedrooms next to mine.

“I have to give those kids one of the bedrooms. If a social worker stops over and asks them where they’ve been sleeping, they’ll take the whole lot from us.”

“Be better for them kids if they did.”

“Oh, hush, you old wind bag. Go feed the dogs and get out of my hair. I’ve got a writer’s workshop in the village in an hour and I don’t have time for nonsense. Some of the people attending are very important old connections that I haven’t seen in decades. You’ll need to take care of this while I’m gone.”

Walton growled this time, his disdain for my mother’s control over his life matched only by my own.

“Don’t know why you got rid of that teenager when you planned on giving me more work around here anyway, you could have put him to good use.” Walton’s words turned my spine to stone.

Neither of them had mentioned Nate since his departure weeks ago. I’d slept with his dirty jacket under my pillow at night and prayed for him to come back for me, but deep down I knew he wouldn't.

Or couldn’t.

“If I would have known you were so weak, I would have. That boy talked too much though, lest we forget loose lips sink ships, dear Walton. I told you I only wanted little ones anyway, that nurse pushed him on me with the others. Harder to influence the memories of the older ones.”

He didn’t answer her. My nerve endings were tight with pain as I tried to choke down a scream. Tears welled in my eyes as fear gripped me over Nate’s last moments at Usher. Had they done the unthinkable? And what did she mean about influencing memories?

I heard Walton’s footsteps as he shuffled by my door. Nate’s brown leather boots on his feet.

I gulped, tears filling my eyes again.

I knew what I knew.

Maybe they didn’t think anyone would notice simple things like the shoes a teen boy wore, but I did. I noticed everything.

I heard everything too, and the more I listened, the more I became convinced something awful had happened to Nate. Something evil that I couldn’t comprehend. Maybe in truth Nate had swapped for