Raconteur is a favourite author of mine, and this is great:
A Question of Trust .
Now a good one...
Got it! Try this:
Lois stepped out into the darkness of the hallway and
winced as the bedroom door clicked to a close at her back,
seeming overly loud in the calm silence of the slumbering
farmhouse.
She stood for a moment, breathing heavily as though in the
midst of some clandestine burglary, waiting to be
discovered. But nothing stirred, the silence was unbroken,
the darkness continued to press against her.
She peered over the banister and down into the living room,
trying to adjust to the blackness taking shape around her.
She had never realized until now just how dark it was in
the heart of the country. Here, there were no streetlights
to illuminate the room through its large windows on her
right. No buildings across the way to shed a faint ray of
light to guide her steps. It had been a warm, muggy night,
so there'd been no need to light the fire in the mock
Georgian fireplace. There were only the blackness and the
shadows. Deep and somnambulant and somber. Weighted and
old. Like everything it seemed, in this alien territory
that scared the hell out of her.
Why had she let herself be persuaded to come down here
anyway?
She knew why. Because Perry had snow-blinded her.
Although...she mused reluctantly as she gingerly made her
way to the foot of the staircase, wincing at the
inadvertent creak of a loose step halfway down, and paused
again to take new bearings...it did seem that her partner
*could* have been right and there was a story here after
all. Maybe.
Simona
