The Dark Stairs R/I
Page 9
Again Herculeah felt a chill, and she pulled on her sweater. “Madame Rosa?” Where could she be?
She glanced in the small parlor where Madame Rosa gave her readings. The round table in the center of the room was draped with a black cloth, and a large, gold-edged book lay open upon it. The heavy curtains were drawn in this room, too.
Herculeah moved back through the living room and into the hall. Her feeling of unease grew. The house had never been so silent, so filled with dread.
“Madame Rosa?”
She walked back into the kitchen. She smelled something burning and she went to the stove. A pot of some kind of liquid had boiled away. Perhaps, she thought, Madame Rosa had been disturbed in the middle of cooking something. Perhaps she had rushed out, leaving the front door open and ... Herculeah’s thoughts trailed off.
She turned off the burner and shifted the pot. She opened the door to the backyard and peered out. There was no one in sight.
She moved through the hall, checking the rooms on either side as she went—the downstairs bedroom, the library, the sunroom, the bathroom. All were empty.
She paused at the foot of the stairs. Again she called, “Madame Rosa?”
She glanced at the coatrack beside the door. Madame Rosa’s long, black cloak hung there. Madame Rosa never went out without that cloak. Even in the summer, she wore it slung back over her shoulders. Madame Rosa had not gone out of this house.
A shiver of fear ran up Herculeah’s spine. She wrapped her arms about herself.
She put her foot on the first step.
In the living room Tarot had warmed up and regained his strength. “Beware! Beware!” he screeched. “Beware” was the parrot’s only word.
Herculeah had always thought this was comical. She liked it when she passed the house and Tarot screeched his warning out the window. She would pause to listen. “Beware! Beware!”
She knew that all the neighbors did not feel the same way. Some of them had complained to the police about the noise. And unsuspecting strangers walked faster when they passed by, as if they took the warning seriously.
Now it didn’t seem comical at all.
Gripping the banister tightly, Herculeah started up the stairs.