Page 22 of A Secret In The Garden

The truth was, if he killed me, the thought of haunting my own mother gave me some sick sort of pleasure.

My curiosity sparked again, and I pushed my thumbnail between the locket and the clasp. As it clicked open, something fell to the floor with a clang. The inside was nothing but the red velvet lining the piece.

I looked at the floor in search of whatever it was that had fallen out of the locket. There was movement under the corner of the bed—something shiny. I dropped to the floor to get a better look. Whatever it was, it was moving, and quickly.

A glimmer, a golden gleam of something almost too bright to be real, crawled across the floor. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light, but when I looked again, there it was—a spider.

Not just any spider, mind you.

It was golden, glimmering with an antique sheen that could only be described as eerie, as though it had been crafted by someone who had forgotten the rules of nature. Unlike the ordinary spiders in the corners of the manor, this one’s body was shaped like a skeleton key—long and delicate, tarnished gold that caught the faintest glimmer of light on its metallic-looking back as it moved.

The legs, long and spindly, seemed to stretch on forever as it crawled out from beneath the bed. Its movement wasn’t frantic, not like a regular spider racing to hide itself. Instead, this creature moved with the calm precision of knowing exactly where it was going.

And I—well, I had to follow it. I grabbed a pair of jeans, rumpled atop the nearby laundry basket, and stuffed my sore legs into them.

I buttoned my pants and crept forward, my breath quiet. I took a few tentative steps after it, then another, a little faster this time. I found myself in the hallway, eyes fixed on the golden arachnid as it scuttled silently beneath a door. The door creaked slightly as it passed beneath, and I felt my pulse quicken. I had no idea where this path would lead, but I had already crossed the threshold. I couldn’t turn back now.

In my haste, I practically fell as I turned into a new hallway just in time to see its body disappear under another door.

I reached the door and stood for a moment, listening. It was futile; all I could hear was the sound of my heart hammering in my ears. I couldn’t just walk into this room—what if someone was inside? I couldn’t let the key—or the spider or whatever the thing was—get too far away or I’d lose sight of it, and it would be gone forever. My fingers were already on the knob, twisting it open, and—nope. The door refused to budge.

I gave it a little more force, but still, no luck. Of course, it had to be one of those damn doors that only opened if you turned the knob just right. So, with a huff, I took a step back and stared at the door, fully prepared to hip-check it like a SWAT breacher.

Thankfully, I saw it then—the smallest latch, hidden beneath the knob—the sort of latch no one ever notices. I slid it open with a slight click, feeling a small rush of triumph—a small victory—and pushed the old, heavy door forward.

I expected to see a room, but instead, another hallway lay stretched before me, dark and winding. The spider was nowhere to be seen…but it couldn’t have gone far.

Fuck! I had to find it!

I hurried down the hall, glancing hurriedly to either side. The lure of each door I passed felt like a potential detour, a trap. I turned a corner, then another, caught in a labyrinth of my own making. The spider was clever, leading me on some sort of chase, but why? I rounded another corner. A long stretch of stone. A door. But—no. Not there. I could feel it—the certainty that this wasn’t right, that this wasn’t the way.

Blindly trusting my instincts, I retraced my steps. A shiver ran through me. Where had it gone? Where in the house was I?

I made a mental note to beg Jasper for a quick tour of the manor while I was still in his good graces and then, just as I was about to give up, I heard it. A sound so faint I almost missed the susurration—the tiniest click, the softest scrabble of tiny metal legs tinkling against wood. I spun on my heel just in time to catch a gleam of gold—it had gone down another hallway, impossibly quick.

I followed, faster now, a thrill of excitement pumping through my veins as the hallway stretched on, winding and twisting like a maze. The spider didn’t slow. It seemed to be taking me on a tour of the house’s most forgotten corners, past neglected cobwebbed rooms, through narrow stairwells, and across floors so old the wood creaked beneath my feet. It had a destination—I could feel it.

Finally, after an eternity of turns and near-misses, it scurried under a large, ten-foot-tall door. I came to a stop before that door, just a bit ajar; I could see where a sliver of morning light broke through. From the outside it was no different from any other door in this giant house, but the moment I saw it, I knew something important was inside. I could feel it.

I pushed the door open, my heart pounding, and stepped inside, gasping when I realized where it had led me.

Jasper’s bedroom sat before me engulfed in a heavy, haunted silence. A light breeze from my opening the door swept through the room, stirring the dark curtains slightly. And then my eyes landed on it: the trunk.

It was the most peculiar thing, standing at the foot of the bed like an artifact from another world: dark, textured wood, nearly black with age, brass handles that had long since lost their gleam, the trunk looked both heavy and fragile, ancient and enduring all at once.

The skeleton-key spider scuttled toward the trunk, its long golden legs tapping like the clicking of a clock, each step deliberate, as though it had completed this task a thousand times and was simply finishing another turn. It reached the trunk, climbed up the side, and then paused at the keyhole.

I watched, breathless, as the spider crawled into the key-shaped hole—no hesitation, no struggle. It fit perfectly, as though the lock had been waiting for it, and the sound of the lock turning was as soft as a sigh. A click, and the lid of the trunk fell open.

My heart leaped in my chest. I took a step forward, though my feet felt heavy, as I was afraid of what I might see. But inside was simply a stack of letters—old, yellowed, and brittle as though they had been kept hidden from the world for centuries.

Each letter was opened; its paper was slightly curled at the edges. But it wasn’t the letters themselves that made me catch my breath. It was the wax seals—dark red, almost black in the stream of sunlight that poured into the room. An intricate, sharp, but strangely beautiful symbol was stamped into the wax. A bird’s wing? No. Something…other. A twist, a jagged line—was it a flower?

I stood there, rooted to the spot, my heart still racing as I peered at the stack of letters. The spider had led me here, but to what end? What did these letters hold? What was it that had been hidden away, so carefully, so purposefully, for so long?

Nervously, I glanced around the room again. The luxurious furnishings were different in here than the rest of the house. A small collection of expensive-looking watches in a case on the dresser, a sleek-looking bottle of cologne, a few books that looked to be about war, and nothing else to say for certain whose room it was, but no one else in this house would have such expensive possessions but Jasper.

Not wasting another second for fear the room’s owner would return, I grabbed the letter closest to the top and began to read. It was dated only a few months ago.