Foxglove (Belladonna, #2)(68)
The spirit beside her was a small, reedy man. He wore spectacles that sat low on the bridge of his aquiline nose, squinting through them as he watched the third spirit, who sat on the bench of a pianoforte, playing a dreary tune with a level of mastery Signa could never hope to reach. Physically, she appeared to be around Signa’s age, with a long, slender neck and a small oval face that pinched as she focused on the piano. As she played, her translucent fingers never disturbed the thick caking of dust. A rat lay beneath the bench, long dead and little more than a skeleton that the spirit’s ankle hovered beside.
The girl’s mother and father watched proudly until the woman’s head twisted to the side at the sound of a floorboard creaking beneath Signa’s feet. She smacked the man Signa could only assume was her husband on the shoulder to get his attention. At once, the piano ceased.
“It’s the girl,” whispered the older woman as she shifted out of her seat to get a better look at Signa. “That’s her, isn’t it?”
“Is it that time already?” asked the man. “Where’s the husband?”
The younger girl spun on the piano bench. In a nasally, high-pitched voice, she answered, “It doesn’t look like she’s got one. There’s no ring on her finger!”
If they wanted to believe that Signa could neither see nor hear them, she’d let them. Without looking any of them in the eye, she drew closer to the piano bench as if inspecting it for the source of the music that’d been playing.
“No husband?” The man scoffed as he circled her, too close for Signa’s comfort. “You mean to tell me she’s to inherit this house alone?”
“Perhaps that’s how they do it now, Father. It would certainly be a nice change.”
“We should have been warned that she was coming.” It was the woman who spoke now, her voice conveying just how greatly Signa’s existence displeased her. “She should have sent staff to prepare the home.”
Her lungs half clogged from the sheer amount of dust in Foxglove, Signa agreed.
“We always knew the day would come.” The man removed his spectacles and puffed a breath upon them before he rubbed the glass and put them back on. Given that there was no air in his lungs, the effort made little difference. “A home like this could only stay empty for so long.”
Behind him, the woman placed her hands on either side of her hair as if to balance it while she strolled closer. “Even after all these years, you still give the Farrows too much credit for their taste. You were twice the architect that man could have ever hoped to be. Have you forgotten they’re the reason we’re stuck here to begin with?”
“Mother’s right,” added the girl. “Perhaps we should remind her of that. This home has been ours far longer than it’s belonged to her.” The girl spat the last word like it was a disease and rushed so close to Signa that it took everything in her not to flinch. “All we’d have to do is slam a few windows and creak a few floorboards, and she’ll go running.”
“We can haunt the mirrors,” added the mother. “Oh, I do love a good mirror haunting. The girl cannot remain here if she has no staff. We’ll have to keep scaring them off.”
“I’m not going anywhere near that maid she brought,” the younger girl hissed. “Not when she looks like that. You’ll have to be the one to haunt her, Mother.”
Signa bit the inside of her cheek, anger rising. It was one thing to toy with her, but to haunt Elaine?
“The only thing you will do is put an end to that music.” Signa marched straight toward the piano and slammed it shut. “Dear God, can you imagine if someone heard you playing without a living soul sitting on the bench? And don’t you dare even think of haunting anyone.”
So stunned were the spirits that for a long moment no one spoke. The mother glanced at her husband, and quietly whispered, “Is she talking to—”
“To you?” Signa settled her hands on her hips. “Of course I am.”
Silence hung heavy around them before the man cleared his throat and the daughter whispered in a shrill, disbelieving voice, “You can see us?”
“Do you think I’m talking to the walls?” Signa folded her arms. “Now listen to me, because this can be our home or my home, but this is certainly not your home. If you so much as creak the floorboards, I will have my hound dig up your buried bones so that I can burn them to cinders. Is that understood?”
“Are you the Farrows’ girl?” asked the man. “The baby, Signa?”
“I am.” There was the tiniest tremor in her voice when she answered. “And I’m trying to make a life here for myself, so there will be no more piano.”
The girl frowned as she drew her bony hands from the keys. “But we’ve been playing for years.…”
“I’m sure you have,” Signa chided. “But I’ll not have people thinking my home is haunted.”
“But it is haunted,” the man noted. Signa turned to him. Though he couldn’t drink, he stirred a rusted spoon in an old teacup beside him, going through the motions. The liquid had evaporated long ago, leaving only a dark ring inside the cup.
“I know that.” Signa slid a hand through her hair, exasperated. “But I don’t need the rest of this town believing I’m a deranged spinster who dallies with ghosts.”