Excerpt: The Fetch

I wandered around the house, exploring the public spaces in the semi-darkness of my lamp light. The second floor sitting room seemed exactly the same. Same furniture, same paintings on the walls, same rug with the tricky edge that tripped me every time.
Descending the stairs, I thought I heard a creak of the stair boards behind me. Heart thudding in my ears and hairs on the back of my neck and arms standing stiff, I turned around. Craning out my lamp and straining my eyes to see in the darkness, I turned toward the sound. No one was there.
I tried to tell myself it was nothing, that old manors tended to creak and groan. I tried to believe as I made my way down the rest of the stairs and into the library, but my instincts were having none of it. Something was here. A presence, unseen and unheard, but felt deep in my bones followed me into the room. As I backed away, twisting to and fro, it always seemed to be behind me. It felt malevolent and like if I strained really hard, I might be able to hear its evil whispers in my ear.
"Dagda," I breathed. "Keep and protect me."
This was silly, wasn’t it? I had lived through five years of battle and mayhem, but I was standing here, in my own house, afraid of the dark. Taking a deep breath, I made my way to the side wall, lighting one of the sconces there with a clicking turn of the switch. To my surprise, all the lamps in the room lit up after that first one, bathing the room in a soft yellow glow.
I searched the room quickly with my eyes, trying to spot the danger screaming through my mind. But there was nothing. I was alone in the library, even though all my other senses were telling me something wasn’t right, that something was there, in the room with me. There was a scuffling near the door and I gasped, grabbing a letter opener from my father’s desk. I don’t know what good a blade would do against an enemy I couldn’t see, but it made me feel better.
The library door creaked open and I readied for my attack, crouching and coiling my muscles in preparation. Someone stepped into the room, and I was just about to strike, when I saw who it was. “Grandmother?” I gasped, feeling the presence retreat instantly. It was gone so quickly that I wondered whether I had imagined the whole thing.