Page 86 of If I Stopped Haunting You

She stepped forward. Pen didn’t want to be rescued; she wanted toknow. It was clear Neil felt it, too, albeit on a lower level. It was that urge to see, to uncover. Pen had never been so close to the answers, and all she had to do was fling open that door and look.

She puffed out her cheeks and reached for the door, her hand outstretched for the copper knob. The tips of her fingers brushed the cool metal, and she clasped it in her hand, fingers itching to turn it. Her gut roiled as she worked up the courage, her nerves buzzing at the bite of the handle in her palm.

A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Pen screamed, flailing her arms as she stumbled back a step and into—

“Neil?” Pen panted, her hands gripping his arms as she stared up at him. “What are you doing here?”

He frowned down at her.

“I could ask you the same thing. I thought you were going to wait for me?”

Pen whirled around, eyes going to the doorknob she’d been gripping. Swallowing, she and Neil hurried out of the hall and to the landing. Pen shivered, instantly relieved to be in the light.

She shook her head, squinting into the darkness. “I don’t know. I couldn’t help myself.” Pen let out a shaky breath. “It’s like I couldn’t stop, almost as if something was tugging me to the door.” There had been some strange magnetic force pulling her down the hall to the things that waited for her beyond, and it wasn’t the first time she’d felt it.

Neil ran a hand anxiously through his hair, pulling on curls.

“This isn’t good. None of this can be any good.” He grabbed her hand and started for the staircase. “Come on, we have some work to do.”

She struggled in his grip, her eyes returning to the hall. “Neil, I was so close.”

“This isn’t the way, Penelope. There are safer ways to go about this. Just… please.” His eyes were wide, lips pressed into a thin line as he stared at her, silently pleading.

“Please,” he begged, again.

This time, his words reached her.

Reluctantly, Pen followed him down the stairs, but she looked back at the shadows over her shoulder, feet tripping on the stairs as they retreated toward the kitchen. She hated to think it, hated to even imagine it, but she could have sworn she saw the edge of a white dress drifting out from the corner.

Where she and Neil had been only moments ago.

Shivering, Pen tightened her hold on Neil’s hands and hurried after him, that awful sensation of being watched making her hands shake and the hair on her neck stand on end.

They were not alone.

In this castle, no one ever was.

Chapter 25

NEIL

Downstairs and in the warm light of the kitchen, Neil felt a strange sort of relief. She’d gone into the wing alone, reaching for that door like it held all the answers. Was she that desperate for the truth? Neil couldn’t stop thinking of the woman in white, of the rotting stench that filled his nostrils and made everything in his mouth turn to ash.

They weren’t safe here. None of them were safe.

Penelope grabbed the journal, flipping quickly through the pages.

“There has to be something here.” Her eyes scanned rapidly over large, swooping handwriting. “This!”

She turned the journal to him, fingers pointing to a charcoal sketch. Neil frowned as he angled the journal closer, peering down at the sketch of a man.

Neil’s hands tightened on the edges of the table until his knuckles were white and his joints ached. He wanted to rip the page out of the journal and tear it into shreds. It was the man they’d seen at Penelope’s door, the man with the black jacket slung over his arm, seemingly out of place.

The drawing was delicate and yet somehow dark, the lines swift and sharp, shaded and smeared like Georgina had sketched it without looking down. It was beautifully done, Neil had to admit.Her fingers had left perfectly placed smudges, shadows in all the right places, slinking along the man’s jaw and nose, the eyes sharp and distinct as they stared out at Neil from the page.

“But look,” Penelope whispered, leaning closer.

Beneath the sketch was a single name in the same, swooping script of the journal and the letters.