The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

is. Our lives are better than they’ve ever been, and far better than what William Thornberry could ever provide.”

I didn’t have the words to contradict her, as much as I knew she was wrong. Dead wrong.

“Soon the Thornberrys and Ushers will be famous where it counts, Zara, and we’ll never have to worry about anything again.” She stepped closer, catching my chin with her red fingernail. “And all of it depends on tomorrow.”

With that, she turned and left.

I turned to Yara, snuggling closely to her and resting my fingertips against her wrist.

I held my breath as I counted her heartbeats, praying each one wouldn’t be her last. Her eyelids fluttered, her breathing slowed. I wondered what the governess had given her. It was too strong, I was sure of it. She’d lost at least ten pounds in the last month, her small frame swimming in her school uniform.

I heard the sound of children talking and giggling downstairs, much louder since the governess was out for the night.

My stomach rumbled to life as I imagined Yarrow dishing them out bubbling chicken broth. Maybe if I brought Yara a cup it might bring her to life.

I stood, not bothering to straighten my hair as I rushed out of the room and down the stairs.

I stopped dead in my tracks when I hit the kitchen. Yarrow stood at the soup pot like I’d imagined, but his eye sockets were hollow and lips a dark shade of grape.

“Are you sick?”

I held a hand to his forehead. He was burning up.

“I woke up with a fever.”

“Did you tell the governess?”

He shook his head.

“I’m going to bring a cup to Yara.”

“Is she better?”

I clamped my lips closed, refusing to answer. He poured me a small cup and I found a child-sized spoon to help feed her.

I caught sight of the smallest of the crew that sat at the table now. Jacob had lost weight like the rest of us, but he giggled and laughed along with the older boys. The excitement radiated off of him and it made me happy after the dark cloud of Yara’s sickness.

I climbed the stairs, careful not to spill the golden broth over the cup’s edge and promised myself that I’d make it out to the garden tonight, maybe even bring some bird seed for the new mating pair that’d moved into the black-bird nest.

When I stepped into my room, the cup and saucer fell.

The beat of her heart, the rattle of her breaths.

All absent.

Yara was gone.

I closed the door quietly behind me, stepping over the mess of the broth and kneeling at her side. I slipped my fingertips against her wrist, waiting for the slow beat of her heart to prove me wrong, but it never came.

Tears burned at my eyelids and rushed down my cheeks as I whispered like a prayer, “God forgive all of us.”

TWELVE

Ryn

The cries of ravens woke me my first morning at Usher. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and rolled into the pillow, the mildew scent of the yellowed cotton made me cringe. I pressed my hand to my forehead, the headache that’d been pulsing since we arrived at Usher yesterday afternoon was finally settling to a dull throb.

I groaned when I pushed myself off of the bed, realizing too late that my muscles were still weak like I’d been knocked out by a flu bug. I crossed the room and opened the door, smiling when I found a silver tray with a still-hot carafe of coffee and a bowl of fresh fruit, with a note signed in Thax’s messy scrawl.

I smiled, stomach rumbling with hunger as I brought the tray into my room, plucking a red grape and chewing gratefully.

I ate more greedily, then poured some of the coffee into a teacup and sipped. It wasn’t the usual strong espresso I was used to in the morning from Thax, but I was touched he’d gone out of his way to continue our morning tradition at all.

I lifted the tiny napkin to my lips, wishing for a shower and then maybe a tour of Usher alongside Thax, when I noticed more writing on the back of the napkin. I slipped it out, and in tiny handwriting Thax had written a sentence.

Found this in my room, what does it mean? “When does a caged bird sing violent renderings of the purest song?”

I frowned. It wasn’t a phrase I’d heard before, and my mind instantly began to track back to all the quotes I’d come across in my life. I kicked myself for not finishing Lilies in the Cellar again, as I thought maybe this was derived from something in that story. But if that were the case, Thax would probably know the reference and wouldn’t need to ask me.

I frowned, rolling the words around in my head. They sounded like Thax, or at least the kind of poetry I imagined he’d write.

Curiosity piqued, I opened the curtains so the cloudy light of morning could stream in. In the foreground was the very same garden and statue I’d assembled piece by piece from behind the walls of the library apartments. If possible, it was grimmer in real life. The ivy an almost black shade of green, the iron gates rusted at the hinges as one teetered on its last thread.

Hedges of overgrown evergreens and wild, rambling rose bushes wound through secluded paths that called to me. I imagined how beautiful it must have once been, the only pictures I’d seen of this place in the derelict state it was in now. I couldn’t understand why someone with the success of Yara would let a historic estate like this become so neglected, but then, I imagined it would take quadruple the amount I could even hope to make in a lifetime to bring Usher House back from the brink.

I cracked the window, allowing fresh sea air to fill my nostrils as sea smoke clung to the ocean in the distance. “I need to find Thax.”

I