"Belle," David says when the scream finally echoes into oblivion, and I'm able to think again. "We need to get the police up here."

I don't like the sound of that, and rising from my crouched position, I walk towards him on shaky legs, afraid to see what he has uncovered.

"Maybe you shouldn't look," he tells me, stepping in my way, but I shake my head and rest a hand on his chest, startled to feel his heart beating wildly like a trapped bird. The woman and her scream came as a huge shock to him, and whatever he found in the enclosure definitely freaked him out.

"Honestly, David, it cannot be worse than the horrors going on in my mind. Is it worse than the woman you just saw?" I ask, and he frowns, shaking his head.

"I didn't see her clearly; I just heard her." He grimaces, clenching his teeth. "That was bad enough."

I don't resist when he pulls me into his arms, running his hand over my head, soothing me, and I can feel him trembling with pent-up emotions. This is the first time since all the weird things in this house started to happen that he is not calmly taking control. I can tell that he is really upset and needs comfort as much as he is giving it.

"I'm so sorry, Belle. Please forgive me for not believing you," he mutters into my hair.

"You didn't believe me?"

"I didn't know what to think," he admits, hugging me closer. "I believed that you believed seeing her, but I wanted to debunk it for you."

I step back to look up at him; my fingers curled in the fabric of the sweater he pulled on after taking a shower before we came up here. His face is filled with regret and compassion, and with a wobbly smile, I reach up to touch his cheek.

"You broke down a wall without believing me?"

"Belle, I will do anything I have to to set your mind at ease," he assures me, his eyes glittering earnestly.

"Even vandalise your own house?"

"Anything."

"That is the most romantic thing I've ever heard," I grin, relieved when David chuckles, his features releasing some of the tension pulling at them.

"Well, turns out, I cannot debunk it. I can only prove it," he says with a wince, and together we turn so I can see what he found. There's no strong smell. I would've expected the smell of putrification, but I guess that has come and gone long ago, leaving only mustiness behind, laced with the dust from David's demolition efforts.

He'd uncovered a tomb.

Calling it a room would be too generous. It's a narrow space, big enough for one person to lie down in. A person whose hair had once been black, judging by the strands of long, dry, dark hair covering patches of a skull, eaten clean by insects.

I recognise the dress - what's left of it – as the one the woman at the window was wearing. Torn black lace, with the fabric stiff and stained with blood and bodily fluids as she decomposed. I recognise the thick chain too. The ring was still around her neck when she was tossed in here to rot away in secret. Now, it's lying limply, the flesh keeping it in place all gone, and the bones no longer completely in place.

Did she break her neck?

I gasp in protest when David steps into the 'grave' and crouches to take a closer look at the terrible remains.

"What are you doing?" I ask, shocked by his inexplicable interest in something so macabre.

"I'm looking for some kind of clue to tell us who she was," he explains, and that does make sense, though, to be honest, I just want to get out of here and unsee this. My stomach feels tight and uncomfortable, and I can barely swallow due to the knot in my throat.

"Maybe we shouldn't disturb the crime scene," I say, though the broken-down wall has already done a good job of doing just that.

"I won't, I just... Oh!" David says, rising and crossing to the boxes we moved; he digs around in them until he finds a battered old paintbrush, its broken bristles glued together with old paint. Kneeling beside the woman's remains again, he pokes around with the back end of the paintbrush until he triumphantly lifts a tarnished chain with some kind of pendant on one end.

"This might help," he says, studying it where it dangles from the paintbrush. Shivering apprehensively, I rub my hands over my upper arms. "It looks like a locket. It might open like the one Maribelle was wearing. It could have some answers inside."

Nervous, I turn to see if the woman is standing at the windows watching us. Perhaps, angry about having her necklace taken. I'm relieved to see that we are still alone up here.

"It's not Maribelle," I say when I see the look on David's face while he gazes down at the bones and desiccated clothing. "It's not. We found her locket already, and I saw the woman, David; it wasn't her."

Yes, I saw the woman, but I probably wouldn't recognise her if I saw a photograph. I remember that she was pretty with large dark eyes and sleek black hair, but the memory is fuzzy, blown out of my mind by the shock of suddenly seeing her with parts of her head bashed in. Something was very wrong with her jaw too.

Biting my lip, I look at the woman on the floor near my feet, appalled to find that her skull and jaw match the kind of injuries I saw on the apparition at the window.

Her hair was very black, and so were her eyes. Maribelle has green eyes in David's painting. Green eyes, a lot like David's. The woman lying here was of Latin descent and didn't resemble David at all.

"It's not her," I say again, my voice breaking on a sob as a grief too profound to express overcomes me. I have no idea who this woman was; all I know is that she was kept up here, chained to a wall and then she was brutally murdered, her jaw broken, and her skull crushed, and it's possible that her neck was broken as well.

David hurries to the worktable and leaves the brush and the locket there before he returns to me and pulls me into his arms again.

"I know," he soothes, stroking my hair and holding me with his other arm while I cry into his shirt as if the world had just come to an end. Shock, I suppose, but it's more than that; I'm feeling too much. "I know. It's bloody awful. We'll get the police and find out who did this to her. We'll give her a proper burial. I'm sorry, Love. I'm so sorry you had to see any of this."

I don't resist when he guides me from the room, down the stairs and all the way to the warm kitchen where Professor Cat is lying curled up on the storage box. He doesn't have a care in the world and is clearly not affected by the drama playing off in this house. I thought cats were supposed to be perceptive.

Sitting at the serving counter, I watch David kindle a fire in the old coal stove and heat up some milk, adding sugar to it. Being here in the cosy-looking kitchen, it feels unreal to watch him fix me a calming drink. It's hard to imagine that we've just discovered the bones of some poor, destroyed woman upstairs.

Will she rest now that she has been discovered and will be taken care of?

I don't know, but I don't plan on going up there ever again. I'll ask David to bring all my art necessities down and work here in the kitchen or in the dining room.

I gratefully take the mug when he places it near my hand. The sweet, warm liquid travels smoothly down my throat, calming the queasy fear coiling in my belly, and after sipping about half of it, I'm starting to feel better. Having David drinking coffee beside me, holding one of my hands in his, also goes a long way towards helping me calm down.

"Do you think she was still alive when she was sealed up in there?" I don't know if I really want an answer to that question. The idea is making me feel lightheaded.

"No, I doubt it," David says thickly. "The damage to her skull was probably too severe for her to have survived whatever caused it."

I agree. That was not the kind of wound that kills slowly. It's a small mercy, I suppose. The kitchen used to feel so warm and friendly. Now, the coal stove is not doing much to dissipate the cold that has crept into my body.

"Do you have any ideas about who she could've been?" I finally ask David after a long time, during which the only sound was provided by the storm raging outside.

"No," he sighs, shaking his head. "I also don't know if the police will be able to help."

I turn my head, startled to hear that and look at him with large eyes, waiting for him to explain why he thinks that.

"The bones are completely stripped of flesh," he says, putting down his mug to close my hand between both of his. "That in itself doesn't mean much, since insects and rats could've come through the ceiling, there's a hole up there. They could've cleaned the bones within hours or days. If she died recently, the police could perhaps solve this, but her clothes..." He shrugs, giving me a sceptical look.

"Yes, the dress was old-fashioned," I agree. "That doesn't mean much either because the person who killed her could've made her dress in antique clothing... maybe to throw off the timeline... or a fetish... or maybe she bought her clothes from thrift shops."

"Maybe, but those bones seemed pretty old," David sighs, and I suddenly realise that he looks tired, and it's an exhaustion that comes from his very depths, not just from working in the garden. It must be hard on him to make such a horrible discovery in the house he wanted to make his home.

"I don't understand any of this," he groans, releasing my hand to rub at his eyes. "I need to find the plans for this house and see if that little room was always there. Perhaps it was a storage room at some point and got sealed when the woman was killed and her body hidden in it. I have no idea."

"Your grandfather might have some ideas."

"Yes, he might." Leaning over, he takes his phone from the centre of the serving island where he'd left it earlier when I gave it to him. We were wondering how his phone came to be under the couch, and the only plausible solution to the puzzle we were able to come up with was that he must've dropped it while he was moving furniture from storage and accidentally kicked it under the sofa.

"No signal, and it's almost flat," he grunts and standing up, he crosses to the counter with the plugs and disconnects my phone from the charger he set up there earlier to connect his instead. He brings my phone to me when he returns to sit next to me again.

"No signal for me either," I sigh, feeling frustrated. What is the point of having a fully charged phone if there's no signal? There's pretty much only one thing to do with this instrument, and turning to David, I do just that. I raise the phone and take a picture of him.

"Here," he says, moving his chair closer to mine. He takes the phone from me and pulls me towards him until our cheeks touch. "I need a new phone background and lock screen image."

I like the sound of that, and despite the cold that has settled in my marrow since we discovered the skeletal remains, I smile warmly for a couple of selfies with David. I even turn my head and kiss his cheek.

Well, this was perhaps not a moment I wanted to create a lasting memory for, but it's taking our minds off the frightening reality that a young woman was held captive in this house... and then murdered here, left to rot in the Solarium.

It was definitely murder. People don't generally bash their own heads in and then plaster themselves shut in a little tomb.

"May I send it to myself?" he asks and I agree, happy to see him add his phone number to my contacts so he can do just that. "Ugh! Of course! It's hanging," he grunts, putting my phone on the counter. "I'll get it when there's a signal."

He doesn't move his chair away again but stays close to me, his arms around me from behind and resting his chin on my shoulder while I sip my milk.

"Belle," he says after an eternity of listening to the rain pelting the windows and the wind howling outside. "We should talk about this."

What more could we probably say? Neither of us knew the woman or how she ended up where she was, and all the talking in the world would only be speculation. I would rather try to find a way to dispel the awful dread saturating my body and clawing at my mind.

"Maybe there's some info in the study?" I suggest trying to be helpful since David needs to talk about it. I turn in my seat to face him, and the defeated look on his face is breaking my heart. "Or the locked room. Have you tried the key you found in the nautical clock? Maybe there are clues in there."

"The key?" he frowns, and then his expression clears when he remembers. "Oh! Right! I forgot about that key! No, I haven't tried it anywhere," he says, turning his head to look at the glass-faced key box hanging on the wall as if the key is watching him, giving him accusatory looks.

He finally shrugs, returning his gaze to my face, biting his lip, and looking uncertain.

"I didn't mean that we should talk about what we found, Belle," he says, toying with strands of my brown hair, lifting them from my shoulder and curling them around his fingers. "I mean... about us."

Us?

"S-sure..." I say, and now I'm the one feeling uncertain.

"We're not exactly in a normal situation here," David points out, pulling a face. "We're trapped; we can't go on a couple of dates to see if we're compatible and stuff like that."

"We're on a very long, eventful date. It's like extreme dating. It fast-forwards everything," I assure him, and he chuckles. "It does! It tests our endurance, my trust and your patience."

I'm making so much sense right now; it's hard to believe that today I saw a ghost... many times, got chased by threatening footsteps, met David's ex-wife - well, saw her picture - and discovered the remains of a murdered woman.

"We could market this," I tell him. "Have potential couples spend a couple of days in this house. They can get dragged around on the stairs, get stuck in disappearing rooms, and... f-find dead people in the attic."

"We'll make a fortune," he laughs, running the tips of his fingers over the skin of my throat, and I shiver involuntarily. "I already told you I'm in love with you, right?" he says, his voice like warm fudge sauce sliding over ice cream... where I'm the ice cream.

"You did..."

I really hope he is not going to take that back because I'm still very much in love with him, and I know I told him that too. Right now, sitting here in the kitchen, which is finally starting to feel warm again, I really need him to still be in love with me.

"Before we lose ourselves here completely, we need to make sure we're on the same page," he whispers, and I wonder how I'm supposed to imagine pages and books and read anything with comprehension when his fingertips are tracing delicate patterns over the side of my neck making my skin break out in delightful goosebumps.

"I'm in an entire library right now, David," I tell him, wrapping my arms around his neck and offering him my lips, which he accepts without any hesitation or restraint.

"Wait, wait," he says, pulling away after a few seconds of sheer, undiluted bliss that has me swooning and in danger of falling off my chair. "This is exactly what I mean. We're probably already too close to turn back, but I really need to know that we want the same things. If not, one or both of us could get hurt."

I understand where he's coming from after his disastrous marriage to Iris, and I nod my head, sitting back, holding both his hands in mine, unwilling to completely break contact with his warmth.

"Let's talk," I agree, gazing into his darkened eyes.

"You already know what I want in life," he says, smiling almost nervously. "Please tell me what you want."

"I want a warm home, happy children and a husband who loves us," I say with a shrug. I've always been uncomfortable admitting that because most people I know would scoff at the idea, calling it old-fashioned or traditional, but it is what I want, what I've always wanted. Now, holding this man's warm hands, I want it more than ever before.

"I'm a farmer, Belle," he says. "If this place doesn't stop acting like a little bitch, I'll sell it, but I'll start an orchard on another piece of land because I'm a farmer."

"I'm an artist," I tell him. "I can work anywhere there's enough light and space for my easel, paint and brushes." I tilt my head and look up at the beautiful ceiling panels. I look beyond them through the bathrooms and the landing all the way into the solarium and cannot suppress the shiver running down my back. "I liked painting up there, but now..."

"We can give it new floors and change the walls and... well... do stuff to make it completely different," David says, and a smile touches my lips when I look at him again. He is struggling to meet my eyes. His sorrow draws his gaze to where our fingers are tightly laced together, and my heart drops. I could never ask this man to sell the farm that has been in his family for generations, even if someone along the line was a homicidal maniac who kept a woman chained up and then killed her.

It might not have been an ancestor; it could have been one of the people who rented the place.

"I probably just need time to process it," I tell him, swallowing hard, regretting that I drained my cup. I could really use some more hot liquid to loosen the tightness in my throat. "Maybe when we know who did it and we've laid her to rest... I don't know..."

We sit in silence for a while, unsure what to say now, and then I take a deep breath, drawing his gaze up to my face.

"I just want to be with you, David... wherever..."

"I just want to be with you too, Belle... wherever..."

"As long as it is a farm?"

"That's who I am," he shrugs, and I appreciate his honesty. "Could you be with a farmer?"

"Yes, but David, please don't propose to me on the same day we found a woman's ghastly remains in the attic," I exclaim, pulling a face. "We don't even have candlelight and flowers right now," I pout, flinching when lightning flashes outside, illuminating the kitchen with searing light for a second.

The cat professor sees this light show as his cue to jump from his bed and attack my bunny slippers. They're thick, but every now and then, his teeth break through, making me squeak.

"I promise when I propose, there will be flowers and candlelight and no dead women," David assures me, using his sock-covered feet to distract the cat from mine, and despite all the tension I've been feeling, or perhaps due to it, I burst into giggles.

"Right now," he says when we've both stopped laughing and are once again gazing into each other's eyes, not sure what to do with the strange hand we'd been dealt in life. "I'm proposing that we make it official that we're dating."

"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?" I ask, giving him a coy smile playing the role of a schoolgirl in love so well, it's disturbing. I probably have a few pimples sprouting on my face as I speak.

"Yes," David chuckles. "Lunabelle Emerson, will you be my girlfriend... despite my house being a freak show with withering bones in the Solarium and a cat trying to chew off our toes?"

I stop squirming from the teeth and nails, having a ball with my bunny slippers' ears, and lean over to give David a gentle kiss on his lips.

"Yes, David Stirling! I'll be your girlfriend."

☼☼☼