A Hatred Most Pure novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Ice House

I did not walk out.

I carried the key in my fist all the next morning, through the kitchen and the hall, and I didn't use it.

Ansel noticed, and he didn't say anything, and I could tell it cost him.

At noon I found him in the yard watching the Saltmarsh wolves pitch their tents along the wall.

"There's a cold cellar under the east tower," I said. "Bram says the hold stores ice there for summer."

His face went blank.

"Yes."

"Does it have a door with slats?"

"Cora."

"I owe you the last one." I held his eyes. "I want to say it where it happened. Not in a bed."

He said nothing for a long time.

Then he took a lantern from the hook and led me across the yard.

We went down a stair that smelled of straw and wet stone.

The door at the bottom was old gray oak, and the top half was slats with a hand's width between them.

A plain latch held it, with an iron ring through the wood so it lifted from either side. There was no bar.

Ansel hung back.

"I haven't been down here since I was a boy," he said. "Bram keeps the key."

"Then go in."

His throat moved.

"I'll stand outside," I said. "Where I stood."

He looked at me, and then he opened the door himself and walked into the dark with the lantern.

I closed it behind him, gently, and dropped the latch.

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