The Last Writer Adriane Leigh (story reading TXT) 📖

the garden and property beyond. No more than a few acres in size, all three sides were enclosed by tall brick walls. Escape was impossible.

The cliffside roared with wild freedom, a solitary bench meant for gazing.

Or inviting anyone who spent more than five minutes at Usher to sit and contemplate their own suicide for a while.

I flipped the key in my hand, taking out the other and comparing them side by side. Identical matches. Who had been the owners?

I was puzzled by the statue—puzzled by the evil smirk on the cherub’s face. His sweet cheeks and lush curls hid horned secrets and what else? Cherubs were innocent and pure, playful and childlike—centaurs clever and cunning and not always trustworthy.

I moved around the side of the fountain, certain now that I was meant to find something here. A secret, a sign, or symbol.

I inspected closely, on the lookout for a secret code Zara may have left Nate a long time ago. Nothing stood out, until I swept the decaying leaves from the front of the fountain wall and read an inscription:

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

I recognized the quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Defeated that I hadn’t found anything else of value, I turned, skeleton keys tingling in the palm of my hand as I approached the greenhouse. One large bottom pane was broken in the back corner, a jagged slice of glass still seated in its base. It reminded me of Zara’s story from her diary, a single sentence about Walton cleaning up the glass from the night Nate had disappeared. Zara was right then, I was sure of it.

I pressed my lips together, trying the knob of the greenhouse only to find it securely locked. I shoved my key, the key with the pastel bow ribbon and bone adornments into the keyhole.

The door swung open freely.

Adrenaline coursed through me, all of my nerves alive as I realized I was meant to be here, I just couldn’t figure out why.

Growing up in the suburbs with my parents had been peaceful, if not dull. I spent most of my days feeling horribly out of place until I went to New York—the city—the anonymity made me feel alive, but not even the welcome hum compared to the feelings coursing through me at this moment.

Everything had fallen into place so easily, the diary—the code—the boy.

“Thax?” I called out, feeling stupid because all four walls were hardly a dozen feet squared, but I sensed the key was this building.

I edged to the back, weaving around old clay pots and bins of unused garden soil. A bird’s nest chirped with life in the corner of the roof, while every paned and leaded glass window was caked in seven layers of dirt and salt spray.

I edged closer to the back corner, a cool breeze rushing through the broken window and causing a soft, whistling hum to settle on my ears. I searched the junk cluttered along the wall, more pots stacked tall, a bench with rusted garden tools, and a trunk in the opposite corner under fabric tarps. I shoved them off the old trunk and encountered a giant lock. I pulled out the skeleton keys, pushing one in the keyhole. It seemed stuck, unable to turn, and I was about to give up until I realized it’d been so crusted with soil and rust it probably wouldn’t work if it was the right key. Refusing to give up, I twisted and wiggled the key, working with patience as with each pass more dirt and rust fell out of the tiny hole.

Finally, the lock popped open.

I slipped it out, scared of what I might find in the trunk.

I sucked in a quick breath, a soft prayer on my lips that I wouldn't find anything I wasn’t ready to—and then I pushed it open.

It was empty.

Only the smell of dust and rotting wood filled my nose. I pushed down on the bottom of the trunk, determined to find something I must be missing. I searched all the dark corners, dust and cobwebs covering my fingertips, before I nearly gave up.

“Ugh. What am I missing?” I grit, giving the bottom of the trunk a slam with my open palm. It gave away instantly, the unexpectedly thin layer of rotting wood from an old trap door pushed through into darkness.

“Holy crap.” I clung to the edge of the trunk, wiggling it once to discover it was bolted to the floor of the greenhouse. I wondered then if the entire greenhouse was meant to be a cover for what was inside this door.

“Thax?” I called, softly, sure I wouldn't find him down there and afraid to discover what I might find at the same time.

Silence and the smell of damp earth swallowed me.

I clamped down on my teeth, unsure of what else I might do if I turned and went back into the house. I had no way of communicating out, short of climbing the wall or scaling the cliff, and if there was a backdoor tunnel here, I would bet there were more—maybe even one Nate had discovered the night he’d disappeared.

If he’d run away, that is.

Zara, from the tone of her diary, had become more and more convinced as the months passed that something awful had happened to him, even if she couldn't prove it.

I didn’t believe in ghosts or otherworldly spirits, but if I did, I would swear that was the moment for which I was born. To discover the truth of the heroes of Usher, unveil them to the world, and prevent any more atrocities from being executed in Yara’s name.

I, like Zara, didn’t have evidence, but I had more than enough coincidences in a row to keep me putting one foot in front of the other. Clues left like breadcrumbs to keep me searching. I shoved the skeleton keys deep in my pocket and then palmed the cool metal of the letter