Hours went by. I think that what woke me in the end was the ticking. Some clocks are distinctive, with personalities—friendly or malicious as the case may be. I see no reason to deny personality to a machine, in this age of marvels, when natural philosophy is daily plumbing the Mysteries of Life itself. I recognized this clock, and I did not like it. It had a malevolent wheeze. An ancient, fragile creaking from deep inside the case told of how it was gathering its strength for the next tick—and they were very slow and somber, these ticks, as if each one might be its last—or yours….

It was the clock in the hunting lodge. We were there, captive!

I was awake in an instant. I found I was lying on a rug in front of the hearth and that I had been wrapped tightly in several blankets; too tightly to move. Or was I bound? I struggled, with panic rising in my breast, but found that there were no ropes, at least. There was no fire in the hearth and it was bitterly cold. I sat up. Charlotte lay beside me, similarly wrapped. I shook her, and the movement made me feel very sick and sent blows of pain resounding through my head. She would not wake, and I had not the strength to shake her again. I lay back trembling.

The darkness was not quite total. There was one small window, which looked out at the close-packed ranks of dark trees, and through this a fragment of moonlight, inexpressibly melancholy, filtered hazily. As the throbbing in my head subsided, I looked around and saw by this dim and gloomy radiance that we were alone. Ugly lumps of black shadows thrust themselves out from the rough wooden walls like gargoyles: hunting trophies, the heads of bears and stags slaughtered by the count or his predecessors. It was my fancy, but their glass eyes all seemed to gleam with the same glacial ferocity as Uncle Heinrich’s, and they seemed to be crying silently in their several voices: Victims, victims! As we are, so you shall be….

My hand sought Charlotte’s and squeezed it fiercely. With a sharp smothered cry, she awoke—and sat up, as I had done, and then pressed her hand to her head.

“Lucy! Where are we? Oh! My head—I feel sick—” She sank back on the rug and turned swiftly onto her side, so that I thought for a moment that she was going to be sick. But the impulse passed and she relaxed. “Oh, Lucy, my head does hurt….”

“I think we’ve been drugged, Charlotte. It was the wine.”

“Oh, no—poison!”

“No, not poison—just something to make us fall asleep. I don’t remember anything after starting to eat—”

“I remember Herr Snivelwurst sneezing all over me, disgusting man….Oh, what are we going to do?”