Robin started the trip to Black Oaks in a downpour that ended almost as soon as she was on the road, and she continued her journey under an overcast sky. After a boring drive on a federal highway, she turned onto a state road that wound through farmland and orchards. As she drew closer to her destination, buildings grew scarcer, the space between them grew greater, the sky darkened, and rain began to fall again.
After a while, Robin found the turnoff to a narrow, poorlymaintained, two-lane road that wound up the side of Solitude Mountain. Just before the junction, she passed the grounds of the hospital for the criminally insane. The complex had been built in the last century with bright red brick in this isolated setting on the theory that living in gaily colored buildings in the midst of a serene natural landscape would soothe the inmates.
While the people who’d built the mental hospital might have seen the surroundings as serene, Robin thought of them as desolate. In the years since the hospital opened, the brick had weathered to dull rust, the buildings and grounds had decayed, and the complex reminded Robin of Arkham Asylum from the Batman comics that she and her brothers read in middle school.
The original Black Oaks had been built near fog-enshrouded fens where quicksand could make a cow disappear in seconds and a man could easily lose his way. There were no moors on Solitude Mountain to make Robin feel uneasy, but being penned in between steep rock walls and a guardrail that was the only thing that protected her from hurtling over the abrupt edge of a cliff made Robin very nervous.
There were plenty of sharp curves on the mountain, and the downpour spattered on the windshield, making it hard to see the road. Robin had to slow down to navigate the hairpin turns. Even then, her car slipped on sections of the road where mud had slid onto the asphalt. Robin said a silent prayer of thanks to the technicians who had developed a braking system that was capable of keeping her on the straight and narrow.
It seemed like she’d been driving for hours when the road ended abruptly at an iron gate attached to a weathered stone wall. Robin phoned the house, but the call wouldn’t go through. That’swhen she remembered Nelly had told her that cell phone reception was very bad on the mountain.
Nelly had mentioned a call box. Robin spotted one that was attached to the gate. Rain blew into the car when she lowered her window. There was a black button below a speaker. She pressed the button and heard static.
“This is Robin Lockwood,” she said. “I’m at the front gate.”
There was no response, and Robin started to worry. She pressed the button again and repeated herself. There was still no response, but, moments later, she heard a low hum, and the gate swung open.
A turn in a winding drive gave Robin her first view of Black Oaks. The manor was constructed of gray stone blocks turned darker by the constant assault of wind and rain. Several octagonal brick chimneys were scattered along an asymmetrical roofline that featured a turret here and a dormer there. Robin’s overall impression was of a dwelling that had been slapped together without a coherent plan.
Robin parked, slung her canvas overnight bag over her shoulder, and ducked under the shelter provided by a portico that shielded an oversized wooden door from the elements. In the center of the door was an iron wolf’s head knocker. Robin was about to use it when the door opened, and Robin had to use all of her self-control to keep from staring at the horrific scars that covered the left side of the face of the massive human being who filled the doorway.
“Welcome to Black Oaks, Miss Lockwood,” the man said in a raspy voice that could have been the result of lung damage. “I’m Luther, Mr. Melville’s houseman. May I help you with your bag?”
“I’m good,” Robin said as she flashed a warm smile to show Luther that she wasn’t put off by his deformity.
Luther stood back to let Robin into a cavernous entry hall where gray stone arches curved overhead to support a vaulted ceiling. A slender woman in a brown dress walked up to the houseman and laid a gentle hand on his forearm. Her face showed lines of age, and her gray hair was pulled back in a bun.
“Thank you, Luther. I’ll take Miss Lockwood to her room.”
Luther walked away, and the woman smiled at Robin.
“I’m Emily Raskin, Mr. Melville’s housekeeper.”
Mrs. Raskin led Robin down a gray stone hall decorated with tapestries showing medieval scenes. In one, men were hunting a wolf at night on the moors. Something about the wolf seemed off, but the light in the hall was dim. Robin remembered Loretta’s jokes about a werewolf and Black Oaks, and she stopped to take a closer look.
She’d been right. There was something off about the wolf. It was standing on its hind legs, its front legs hanging down like a man’s arms would, and it was looking over its shoulder toward the hunters with eyes more human than canine that stared from a face that was flatter and rounder than a wolf’s and almost human in shape.
“Is that supposed to be a werewolf?” Robin asked Mrs. Raskin.
The housekeeper paused and turned. “So I’ve been told.” She shook her head to show her disapproval. “I hate that thing. So does Mr. Melville. But he won’t take it down because Mrs. Melville put it up.”
“Was a similar tapestry in the original Black Oaks?”
“I wouldn’t know. You’ll have to ask Miss Nelly. Don’t askMr. Melville. He believes in the Black Oaks curse and won’t take kindly to your question.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
Mrs. Raskin headed back down the hall at a brisk pace.
“This place is huge,” Robin said. “How many people live at Black Oaks?”
“Mr. Melville, Miss Melville, and Miss Monroe live on the third floor in the east wing. The west wing is for guests. It’s where you’ll be staying.
“Luther and I have rooms on the second floor directly below the Melvilles’. No one lives in the other wing on the second floor.”
The housekeeper stopped in front of a stone banister that ran along a staircase that curled toward the upper floors. The staircase was adjacent to a cage elevator. The sides of the elevator car were made up of narrowly spaced, black, wrought-iron bars decorated with gilded gold fleurettes.
Robin smiled. “I assume that this contraption wasn’t part of the original seventeenth-century manor house.”