Chapter 69: Chapter 69
With a flick of her wrist, the blonde young lady opened an ornate feathered fan, concealing the lower half of her face as she cast a hostile glance at Wellington.
After all, she was the one who had brought Jenkins. He was an insignificant figure, and to embarrass him here was to embarrass her.
As no one objected, the invited writers, one after another, began to share their stories in the hushed room.
Perhaps no one had expected that this reading salon would turn into a showcase of horror stories. As a result, while most of the tales were coherent enough, their plots rarely strayed from traditional tropes like spirits rising from graves and wicked rituals.
Even so, everyone listened with rapt attention. The quiet room was filled only with the occasional crackle of firewood from the hearth, as low male and female voices narrated tales of corpses, ghosts, and darkness.
The atmosphere was certainly immersive; even if a story was lacking, the mood more than compensated for it.
But Jenkins felt the temperature in the room begin to drop. He shifted uncomfortably, and in his peripheral vision, he noticed that Miss Hersha’s attention was not on the writer by the fireplace, but turned toward the window.
Through a gap in the elegant, embroidered curtains, Jenkins saw a single, hollow black eye peering inside.
The gaze was filled with a dead emptiness.
His expression unchanging, Jenkins listened to the storyteller by the fire describe the dampness of a graveyard at night, all the while wondering if he should find an excuse to use the restroom again and deal with the voyeur outside.
A faint gray mist began to seep into the room through the cracks in the window frame. The fire in the hearth flickered, its light seeming to grow weaker.
Beside Jenkins, Miss Mikhail subconsciously raised a hand to cover her smooth left arm; she, too, had noticed the drop in temperature.
Before Jenkins could make a move, Miss Hersha’s lowered right hand began to tap rhythmically in the air, tracing what seemed to be an unknown melody.
Jenkins saw a single point of yellow light materialize before her, twinkling with a faint brilliance like a distant star.
In an instant, both the gray mist and the eye at the window vanished. The logs in the hearth shifted, letting out a sharp crackle that seemed to shatter the room’s uncanny atmosphere.
Many of the guests let out a sigh, feeling an oppressive weight lift from their chests, though none could say why. Read complete versıon only at NoveIＦire.net
Jenkins, too, breathed a sigh of relief and put the matter out of his mind.
One by one, the storytellers made their way to the rug before the fireplace, sat cross-legged to tell their tales, and then returned to their seats. Naturally, Jenkins was the last to go.
He stood, offered a smile to Miss Mikhail and Miss Hersha, cleared his throat, and began his story.
"This is a story I heard from my neighbor, a Mrs. Susan Spence. She lives down on Squirrel Alley in the lower district, a rather chaotic part of the city."
he recounted, his voice tinged with a hint of the Norland dialect.
The young gentlemen and ladies were taken aback. Most of the other stories had begun with "a long, long time ago"—why was this one set right here in Nolan City?
"Next door to Mrs. Spence lived a young man studying painting at the Nolan Academy of Art. Mrs. Spence simply called him Hardy."
Jenkins noticed the point of light before Miss Hersha shine once more, though this time it was a different spark.
A subtle, almost imperceptible sense of dread began to fill the room, welling up from within the listeners, though it was extremely faint.
It was somewhat similar to the 'Fear' spell he and Papa Oliver had encountered in the castle basement, but the difference in potency was night and day.
"Setting the mood for me?"
he thought to himself, continuing his tale without missing a beat.
"Mr. Hardy had a girlfriend he adored. She also lived in the slums of the lower district, scraping by doing laundry for others and gluing matchboxes."
Jenkins had been about to say she was a flower girl, but the words died on his lips. The psychological trauma from A-01-2-0198 had yet to completely fade.
He paused for a moment.
"She died. Fell headfirst from the clock tower in downtown Nolan. Given that there are many ladies present, I won't describe the red and white matter that spilled out when her skull shattered."
The room was silent, but just as he'd expected, he heard a faint, choked gag.
"Mr. Hardy was devastated, and his grief only deepened when the police ruled the poor girl's death a suicide. On the seventh night after she passed, while diligently practicing his painting at home, Mr. Hardy heard a strange thump, thump, thump from outside. He opened the door of his rundown apartment and, under the light of the red and blue twin moons, saw a blurry figure vanish around the corner of the alley, right by the brass steam pipe. The Nolan air was a bit chilly for August; Mr. Hardy shivered and thought nothing more of it."
Jenkins let out a sigh. The firelight illuminated half his face, leaving the other half cloaked in shadow.
Whether it was the immersive power of his story or the effect of Miss Hersha’s ability, expressions of unease had already begun to creep onto the faces of his audience, even though the tale had just begun.
"For several days in a row, that strange thump, thump, thump echoed through the night right on schedule. It reminded Mr. Hardy of someone slapping the ground hard with their palm. The sounds grew more frequent, more insistent, and he started to feel deeply uneasy. What's more, his sleep was plagued by nightmares of someone pressed against his window, watching him as he drifted off."
Just as he'd anticipated, a soft gasp of fear came from the audience. Jenkins privately commended himself; the atmosphere was building nicely.
His right hand, lowered and hidden in shadow, lightly tapped the floor. Frost Punch!
He used only a minimal amount of spirit, but it was enough to alter the temperature. Worried someone might notice, he kept the change extremely subtle.
"Mrs. Spence told me that Mr. Hardy grew more haggard with each passing day. He became convinced the figure lurking outside his home was the spitting image of his dead lover. One evening, gripped by absolute terror, he decided to seek help from his church. But the chapel was closed, having shut its doors unusually early. Not daring to linger on the streets, he had no choice but to take a carriage home.
The carriage driver heard his tale and offered him a piece of 'common knowledge': a ghost can only hold the posture it had at the moment of death. Since the poor girl had died lying flat on the ground, it meant she couldn't bend over. All he had to do, the driver said, was hide under his bed, and the ghost would never be able to get to him.
"He scrambled from the carriage and ran, sprinting all the way home with that thump, thump, thump echoing right behind him, never fading. Finally, Mr. Hardy managed to dive under his bed. He didn't dare look out. He could only press himself against the wall in the darkness, listening as the thumping drew closer... closer... until it stopped right beside his bed."