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There’s one door at the very end of the passage. I imagine it must look out onto one of the ends of the wings, and that means it probably has an incredible view, surrounded by old windows that overlook a part of the grounds I haven’t been able to see as yet.
I make my way to the end of the hall and put my hand to the old brass knob. The door sticks for a moment but then opens. I get a whiff of dust and faint decay. This room smells like it has been closed up for a very long time. It’s a bedroom, a big one. A four-poster bed occupies one wall, facing the windows I suspected would be there. They are as massive and impressive as I had hoped, and the view is quite exquisite.
For several minutes I stare out the windows at the dense forest beyond. Gnarled and wizened, spreading with great age, those trees must surely be ancient, older than this building; perhaps they were here before people got here at all.
After a time I turn back to the room. This time I spot a large and ornate fireplace. I can imagine that this room would be cold in the winter when snow must surely blanket the grounds and the skeletal trees, having lost their leaves, no longer put on this brilliant display of fall finery.
This is a place in which to think romantic thoughts. I lower myself into a chaise by the window, and I look around the room. Someone has taken care to preserve it, though I have a sense that nothing… wait.
My eye is taken by the fireplace. It is incredible, but what hangs above it is even more startling. It is a portrait of a beautiful woman with a fiery red mane of hair and strong but elegant features. I know that woman, because she’s my mother.
“Mom!” I let out a gasp.
I have never seen a picture of her look this real. And it's not even a photograph. It’s a portrait. An incredibly lifelike painting of the woman I have not seen in almost ten years. I suddenly feel close to her, as if she is here in the very room with me.
I feel a sudden sense of warmth and reassurance, as if everything is going to be okay after all. I get up and walk over to the painting. It has been almost ten years since we lost her, and I still feel absolutely bereft. I don’t know how I am supposed to go through the world without her guiding me. She always knew what was best, and I was never the rebellious sort. I listened, and my life was easy. But that was then, and this is now. Now everything is wrong, and uncomfortable, and confusing.
“Grr!”
There is a growl behind me. A snarling, angry noise that doesn’t even sound human at first. I turn around to see Father Bryn staring at me with baleful brown eyes.
“What are you doing here?”
That’s a confusing question.
“You invited me to stay here.”
He makes an impatient swatting motion with his hand. “I don’t mean the house, you impudent brat. I mean this previously locked room. What are you doing inside it?”
He’s angry. And, as I suspected, he’s hot. He removed the ridiculous sweater and is now in a tight undershirt. It’s white and it grips his ultra-fit body as if it is afraid that it will fall off, holding to his musculature like a cotton serpent.
I open my mouth to try to explain, but he doesn’t give me a chance. He strides over to me, takes hold of me by the ear and uses that grip to twist me around away from him. I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear his voice, rough and cruel in my captive ear.
“You might have run roughshod over everyone who ever told you what to do before this moment, but I won’t have disobedience in my house.”
His hand sweeps through the air and catches my ass in a hard slap. I let out a screech of shock and even horror as heat and pain flash through me. I cannot believe he hit me.
I don’t know whether to cry or to shout, to run or to fight, but in truth I have no choice. He has a grip on me that makes it impossible to run, and I don't have the nerve to fight. Instead, I hang limply in his grasp and whimper as he delivers three, no, four more hard slaps to my ass. Every single one of them echoes around this elegant room like a gunshot, sending shame and heat rushing through my body.
“Do you understand, little girl?” He hisses the question in my ear with almost demonic intensity. I have been captured by something far more powerful than any man has the right to be.
