Awaken (SHADOWS OF A FORGOTTEN PAST #1) by Marcia Armandi EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Authors: Marcia Armandi
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2.5 MB
- Price: Free
~ OBSCURE REALITY ~
Geneva, Western New York, 1937
A meal of three-day-old bread crust and watered-down milk hardly
stoked the flames of courage, and standing on the steps of Oak’s Place in
the drizzly rain, I needed every spark of spirit I could gather. Usually, a
teeth-baring gothic door knocker would not give me goosebumps. Neither
would unpredictable weather, let alone applying for a job, even at a house
whose mysterious owner fueled the town’s gossip storm. But hunger could
wear down even the bravest heart, and a job opening was a miracle never to
be slighted.
I stepped back and gazed up at the high brownstone walls and mortar
chimneys of the house, its gables filled with ivy and signs of disrepair. Last
summer, the estate fell into the hands of a retired British general. Who was
he? And why select this part of the world in which to retire? No one knew.
No one ever saw “the Shadow,” as people called him, locked away in his
mansion in the woods.
Naturally, my imagination went wild. Although Granny—Sister Dolores
to the rest of the world—vehemently disapproved, I often tuned into the
Detective Story Hour after supper, imagining the new owner of Oak’s Place
a silent yet fierce vigilante. A childish game to play, perhaps, but
understandable when I’d spent my twenty years of life with my adopted
granny—a saint at heart but devoted to making my life as dull as only a nun
could.
A rustling brought my attention to the scrub where the trees clumped
together, their branches twisted in serpentine patterns. There. Something
moved but disappeared before I could make it out. I told myself it must be
some creature of the woodland realm but then got the strange feeling that
unseen eyes watched me closely. I quickly grabbed the door knocker as a
wind rose, rushing through the ancient trees. Almost as soon as the metal
collided with the wood, a gray-haired woman in a black dress opened the
door, her catlike eyes gleaming from within the gloomy interior.
“May I help you?” The sharp British voice sounded oddly… familiar.
“Good morning,” I said promptly. “I telephoned about the ad in the
paper.”
Her eyes quietly assessed me for a moment, and I wondered if she
would invite me in. Just then, another gust of wind whipped around the yard
and shook the door. “Come in. Come in,” she said hurriedly as if compelled
by the elements.
Brushing my fingers through my hair, I stepped into the unlit foyer and
immediately noticed the thick silence. It greeted the tapping of my heels
with a faint echo, as if someone invisible walked the long corridors. Yet I
detected no one besides the dreariness residing there, the passages I could
see beyond the foyer as labyrinthine as one could hope for so mysterious an
owner.
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