Krampus: The Three Sisters (The Krampus Chronicles Book 1) (23 page)

Catharine and Henry carefully approached the Manor as the hard snow crunched beneath their feet. Although the outside of the house had a warm and welcoming quality, the paned windows were dark and foreboding.

But then a galloping horse sounded in the distance.

Henry’s back stiffened as he glanced around. “What’s that?”

“It’s probably Albers or Wesseling, going to guard a different entrance,” Catharine whispered and then pointed to the porch. “We need to see if anyone’s inside. You check the second floor and I’ll look below.”

Henry watched Catharine disappear into the shadows under the porch before he turned toward the front stairs. His feet froze at their base, but then an ominous breeze, funneling through the nearby trees, propelled him up the porch steps. Also, the muffled sounds of Catharine moving below strangely gave Henry a great deal of comfort.

Henry pressed his forehead against a window and squinted through the cold glass. An empty dining room appeared on the other side of the wall. Any dishes from a possible Christmas Eve dinner had been cleared from the table. Nothing inside stirred.

Not even a mouse.

Henry crossed to the other end of the porch and looked through the windows of what appeared to be the parlor. But seeing nothing of interest, Henry turned the corner and moved to the side of the house. The last window belonged to a small bedroom. Henry was surprised its two beds were empty, since the sheets and blankets were strewn about as though they’d been recently slept in.

Stepping back from the window, Henry listened for Catharine’s footsteps under the porch. But his ears were met with silence. Bending down, Henry tried to see if there was any sign of Catharine between the wooden planks. But a glow in the window he had just been looking through caught his eye and he glanced up to find a face staring directly back at him.

Henry stifled a scream and fell backward onto the porch.

The glow was actually the pale skin of a dark haired boy peering out the window. The boy seemed unaffected by Henry’s presence as he continued to blankly stare. Henry watched closely, expecting the young boy to go running to his parents at any moment. But the boy didn’t flinch.

Gently getting up from the ground, Henry slowly walked to the window. The boy’s eyes were fixed on him the entire time. Reaching out to the window, Henry placed his hand carefully on the glass above the boy’s head.

“Hello,” Henry whispered. But by the time his breath had faintly fogged the window, the boy had already disappeared into the shadows of Van Cortlandt Manor.

Catharine crept along the bottom of the Manor, peering into the windows of the main floor. There was a kitchen, back chambers, and a couple of windows with their curtains drawn. But when Catharine finally came out from below the porch, she noticed that the Van Cortlandt Manor front door was now ajar.

Thinking that Henry had gone into the house, Catharine began to whisper his name, but then stopped. She didn’t know who could be listening. Instead she cautiously climbed the porch stairs and peeked through the entrance. There was an empty hall with a door on its right wall, leading to a parlor, and a door to the dining room on the left.

Catharine hesitantly tiptoed inside.

“Who are you?”

The chilling voice came from a young boy standing at the end of the hallway. Rather than being frightened, the boy’s voice was forceful with an air of authority.

Catharine glanced at the boy who returned a somber stare, not breaking eye contact for even a moment. His hair was dark and curly, and he looked harmless enough; dressed head to toe in an oversized, baggy cotton shirt that stretched down to his ankles.

“Don’t be afraid,” Catharine whispered soothingly.

“I’m not afraid,” the boy replied with his hands innocently clasped across his belly.

His tone caused Catharine to shift between feet with unease.

“I’m a distant relative. And I’m looking for something that belongs to our family,” Catharine gently explained.

The boy didn’t reply, but a smirk formed on his mouth.

There was a sound of footsteps running along the porch outside. Catharine spun around just as Henry burst through the front door.

“Catharine,” he said, exhaling rather loudly. “A boy…”

Henry trailed off when he saw the child standing behind Catharine.

“What about him?” Catharine whispered.

“No, not this boy,” Henry said. “I saw another boy who looks very similar. But he vanished.”

Catharine glanced back at the peculiar boy, realizing that there was more than one child awake in Van Cortlandt Manor.

Henry cautiously approached the child. “Who are you?”

The boy’s smile disappeared. “Romeyn.” He then added simply, “You’re here for the wheel.”

Henry and Catharine exchanged surprised looks.

“How do you know that?” Henry straightened his back.

Romeyn was silent, but two other young voices chimed in.

“Bels told us.”

Henry and Catharine turned around to see two more boys who looked similar to Romeyn. One stood in the parlor’s doorway and the other in the dining room.

“Who’s Bels?” Catharine asked. “And who are you two?”

“My brothers.” Romeyn nodded to the boy who was a little shorter than him. “James.” Then walking over and gripping the shoulder of the shortest boy, Romeyn added, “And Theodoric.”

“Uh, would you boys be able to help us?” Henry stammered. “We don’t want to wake the rest of the household.”

Romeyn, James, and Theodoric’s nearly identical faces lit up for the first time. But it wasn’t a comforting sight. Catharine sensed that something was quite off with the children.

“Who is Bels?” Catharine asked again.

“Bels is our friend,” Theodoric squealed.

“Well, how does this friend know about the Sister Wheel?” Henry asked, bending down to Theodoric’s level. “And where does Bels say the wheel is?”

All three boys jerked a finger up to their lips and sharply hissed, “Shh.” Then they whispered together like a chorus, “We know where to find the wheel.”

“Henry,” Catharine said, touching his arm with her hand. “I don’t like this.” She spoke as though the three boys weren’t there.

But Henry pressed on. “Where’s the wheel?”

The boys laughed and then scampered around in a circle.

“In the orchard.”

“With Bels.”

“In the orchard with Bels.”

Then dropping to their knees, the boys scampered down the hallway and finally out the front door of Van Cortlandt Manor.

Henry started after them, but Catharine held him back. She didn’t say anything, but she wore a troubled expression.

“What other choice do we have, Catharine?” Henry said, breaking away from her and running out of the Manor after the boys.

Catharine tentatively followed, trying to prepare for whatever awaited them in the orchard.

When the Furnace Brook men finally reached Van Cortlandt Manor, Albers and Wesseling were still waiting near its entrance gate.

“What is it?” Albers immediately asked, riding over to meet them.

“There was another Garrison hiding on the steamboat,” Boe exclaimed. “He rode after you. But we lost sight of him halfway here.”

“We haven’t seen anything,” Wesseling said. “Was he armed?”

“He didn’t appear to be,” Boe replied, pulling the brim of his hat down.

“Send some of your men back to the steamboat. Have them bring it this way,” Albers directed. “We’ll patrol the perimeter of the estate. He shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Garrisons are cowards and rarely act alone,” Wesseling added. “He was probably just fleeing the area, not wanting to risk the same fate as the others.”

But McNutt was closer than anyone knew.

Less than a mile away on the other end of the Van Cortlandt property, McNutt had finally come to a halt. He had ridden to the Croton River, running along the east side of the estate. It was there McNutt found an abandoned ferry house.

Shivering, McNutt tied up the horse on a fence post and hurried into the desolate building. His wet clothes were frozen to his body and he trembled violently. But McNutt was able to scrounge up a pair of well-worn trousers and a dry shirt in a neglected storeroom.

Catharine and Henry were no doubt in Van Cortlandt Manor by this time. But McNutt planned to cut them off before they met up with the Furnace Brook men again. Now he just had to watch and wait.

After warming his body and dumping the frozen Garrison clothes in a sack, McNutt returned to his horse. He almost hoped that the two descendants had been able to recover the Sister Wheel. It would make their inevitable capture by McNutt an even greater accomplishment to the other Garrisons at Poppel.

“Romeyn,” Henry called. “James! Theodoric!”

The boys had run far ahead of Henry, and as he stood on the edge of the orchard that was packed with rows of bare trees, he could no longer spot them.

Then someone rushed up behind him. Henry jumped, but let out a relieved sigh when it turned out to be Catharine.

“Where did they go?” she huffed, out of breath.

A chorus of giggling voices floated throughout the trees before Henry could reply. Never had children’s laughter sounded so menacing.

Henry gripped Catharine’s hand tightly, more to calm his own nerves than to offer her any comfort. Together they walked through the orchard, looking around for the brothers.

“Romeyn,” Henry tried again.

But just as swiftly as the giggling began, it stopped. Instead a chilly silence swept through the trees.

“Boys, come out right now,” Catharine ordered.

Before Catharine could call again, a figure appeared a few rows away. Henry turned his head and immediately locked eyes with one of the boys. Henry and Catharine ran toward him, but as they neared, the boy shot through the trees and disappeared again.

“Stop!” Catharine shouted. “Come back.”

“Where’s the Sister Wheel?” Henry called.

Then the young voices returned.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells. Jingle all the way.”

The boys sang the familiar verse over and over again until their voices seemed to completely surround Henry and Catharine. Finally, the children popped up in the distance between the orchard trees.