CORDELIA CASSIDY CUEVAS DROVE slowly down a road in the countryside, eyes scanning the foliage for the entrance to the Hyacinth estate. Thick hedges lined the left-hand side of the road as though they were a barrier to keep prying eyes from looking at whatever they were guarding. Or to stop what was inside looking out. She shivered slightly, then rolled her eyes and laughed at herself. She’d been surprised when none of the other agents at Rafferty and Co. Estate Agents wanted to take on this property. They’d wasted no time dumping all the least desirable properties from their portfolios onto her when she’d joined the firm a month ago. The commission on Hyacinth House would be considerable, the bragging rights even more so, yet when John Rafferty, one of the owners, had asked who wanted it, an embarrassed silence had filled the room. Until she had spoken. She couldn’t understand why they had let her have it after deliberately keeping her from any of the good properties. Then Richard, the golden boy of Rafferty and Co., had put on a good show of stopping by her desk, acting concerned for her.
He’d hovered beside her before sitting on the edge of her desk and leaning towards her. He was completely in her personal space, but she refused to move back. It would have felt like a concession.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked him, still looking at her screen.
‘Have you been to Hyacinth House?’
‘No. I only heard of it when I started here.’
‘Well, I have. I went with John and the proprietor when we took on the property. That place,’ he paused and swallowed. ‘It feels wrong. No one is going to walk in there and think it’s a home.’
‘It feels wrong?’ Cordelia repeated. She felt her lips curve up in amusement. ‘I didn’t have you down as easily spooked, Richard.’
‘I’m not,’ he snapped. ‘Look, I’m just warning you. You don’t know what you’ve gotten into with that house. They say it’s haunted. The locals don’t go near it. I’m trying to do you a favour here.’ He sounded so earnest that for a moment she almost believed him. Then the memory rose in her mind of his constant jibes, his patronising smiles, his raised eyebrows and pointed comments about her manicured nails and high heels, as though being interested in fashion and being intelligent were mutually exclusive traits. How she had heard him and the other estate agents joking that she was a ‘diversity hire’, saying hiring a twenty-one-year-old woman straight out of college was a PR stunt from an agency that had been getting pointed comments about its all-male staff.
‘I’ll consider myself warned,’ she’d said coolly. She’d stared at him until he stood up from her desk, going back over to his own before picking up his jacket and briefcase and leaving. The smell of his cologne had hung in the air long after he’d gone.
She’d gotten to read only an article or two before she was sidetracked by John asking her to ‘help out’ with some filing he never would have asked the other two – male – agents to do. She hadn’t gotten to dig into the YouTuber incident last month, or the O’Sullivan tragedy from five years ago. There had to be rational explanations for both, though. Cordelia had never been one for ghost stories and the supernatural. There was enough in real life to be frightened by: the man who walked too closely behind you on a dark street; how she had been taught in school to keep her house keys between her fingers, just in case. There was no need to fabricate monsters.
She spotted a large opening in the hedge ahead and flicked on her indicator, steering the car into a wide driveway barred by wrought-iron gates. They were sealed by a large padlock, and rose over ten feet into the air, ending in sharp spikes that loomed threateningly over the car. The metal shimmered in the dull afternoon light as the world around her seemed to darken. It was just because the house sat in a steep-sided glen that added a permanent shadow, she told herself. Plus, a quick glance out the windscreen showed rainclouds approaching, adding an extra layer of gloom to the surroundings.
‘I’ll need to think of a good way to sell the lack of sunlight,’ she thought to herself, making a mental note to research possible advantages of that. Maybe she could pitch it as being nice and sheltered from any storms. She was lost in thought when a sharp rap at the passenger window made her jump violently. Looking over, she saw a man with short grey hair and stern features glaring at her.
‘You’d be the estate agent person?’ he barked when she rolled down the window.
‘Yes, I’m Cordelia Cassidy Cuevas,’ she said, extending a hand for him to shake. He ignored it.
‘I’ll open the gates. Drive up to the front of the house and I’ll meet you there.’
‘Do you want a lift …’ she began, but he’d already turned away.
‘You must be Mr Morris,’ she said pleasantly. She did not extend her hand again.
He nodded. ‘Yes, I’m the unlucky sod that ended up responsible for the keys to this place,’ he said.
He kept his gaze angled away from the house as though he was trying to avoid looking directly at it. ‘Thank you for meeting me here. I’m happy to take possession of the keys to the house on behalf of-’
‘Take them,’ he said, almost flinging two sets of keys on hefty iron rings towards her. ‘I’ve had the cursed things in my house for long enough.’
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