“You did well, another offering when the mansion awakes.” The voice was cold, menacing and dangerous, the mansion could not make sense of what it heard. XXX Why did the voice speak of it? This lord had shot himself with what the humans then had called a “flintlock”. They perceived this all as wind howling through gaps in the roof, as rafters creaking as the heat contracted or expanded the wood, but it was so much more, it was the mansion itself trying to commune. The second owner was a friend of the builder; the first master had been persuaded to do it as a dare, a way to prove that nothing would happen. It was the voice of the second owner! Of course when wedded couples retired to their bedrooms, the mansion averted its gaze, it was built as a gentleman’s house and a gentleman
