Jarred left me there and returned to the hotel before the owners realized he was gone. With my own copy of the book still clutched in my hand, I began my walk down the small overgrown path to the house.
And when I say overgrown, I mean overgrown. The path consisted of a few tiles every few meters, though they were often completely blocked by thick weeds, while it was only a few feet wide. I couldn’t see very far, as trees and untrimmed bushes completely blocked sight of what was beyond. My dress got caught up in thorn bushes more than once, and though the path itself wasn’t long, it took me well over half an hour to finally get to the house.
Which was when I found out that ‘house’ was not the word I should be using. It was far more like a mansion. I counted at least four floors, with ta
