Whispers of the Silver Coasts

restlessness, an energy that didn't belong to her. Or so she thought before John's words rushed back i

the thick door but hit harder as she descended deeper into the building. The cool air from the jets in the high ceiling rippled her hair.

st-her heart steeped momentarily with blue-and then form. A sheeting robe thrown over an armchair back flashed cerulean; lips glazed sapphire on porcelain a

ade of some kind of gilded substance so thick that it mimicked relief sculpture. The woman on the cliff wore a

ere also th

form, as if the mural meant to tell her something, below its picture. She stooped lower, and put her hand directly in front of the

disturbed by the rain. He looked at her, th

g better." He

her jeans. "But there's something real

interrupted; hi

"You know? Wh

always... different. My sister said it was alive; that

oed, and with the

meant. That it contained ... well, something like a fragment of a s

uriosity growing. "And y

know." He looked troubled a moment, then shook his

t does

. His eyes shifted to the sun strained through the stained glass a

uffled drumbeats, rustling clothes - but I hardly registered any of it; my eyes were fixed on John. J

ck split the air of the vaulted cha

ground slide, and big blocks of masonry and puffing billows of yellow plasterdust came down across part of the blackslate f

one had been covered. It was a simple but haunting image of a figure cloaked in shado

ained when he spoke again

eached for her phone to take a photo, b

he said

startled. "Why not? Th

e better left unseen,"

in his eyes made her stop. She sighed

rt of the original painting." sh

was low and steady. "It could be original to the marker-or maybe not. Maybe it was adde

nched jaw, and he didn't bother to hide the worry in his bright gaze. "The Wolfe family i

ike a mantle. She should call him back, de

and Helen heard the storm rising; it seemed as if all the wolves in the world were howling outside

drawing hastily of hide image and measurement. That figure... the

e got up, exhaustion dragging muscles made of lead back to the manor. A q

hipping her hair around her face. Far below she could see the churning of waves, black and threatening. Out of nowhere, a

ant light. "Helen," the thing said in her mind as

t had raged outside all night had finally stopped, leaving the manor

hn and the Wolfe family that had her falling into something