“What
is that?” my wife demanded of Oak. “What's up there?”
She
had a look in her eye I've never seen before, or at least if I had,
it had never seemed quite so....well, deranged is the word I'd
use.
“I'd
tell her if I were you,” I said, “There's no telling what she
might do now.”
I
have to say that by this point I was genuinely worried about Mary,
about what she would do next. That look, that really was something
new, something I'd never seen in her before. She was never one for
rational thinking, not at the best of times. But now it seemed as if
the events of the previous twenty-four hours had pushed her over the
edge.
A
third thumping sound came from the top of the stairs, this one
louder, quickly followed by loud creaking, as if the whole house were
contracting in a sudden blast of cold.
“I
can assure you both,” Oak said, his eyes flashing to the ceiling
then back to Mary, “That has nothing to do with myself. Or the
Forest. Now cut me free, and we'll face it together.”
