“Mmm.” Deirdre nodded quickly, her pulse still thrumming. “Yes. Bed sounds good. Will you help me take down my hair?”
“Of course.” Esme smiled, but Deirdre noted a wariness in her manner that hadn’t been there before.
As they walked past the other girls, languidly sitting in the rattan chairs that lined the porch, humming with talk of bouquets and summer teas, Deirdre felt Gentry’s eyes burning into her back. Pa had been wrong to send her away. Leaving Tin Mountain hadn’t solved one thing. Gentry had followed her, and now, she had no one at all to protect her.
She had a mind that devil would follow her wherever she might go.
Once in their room, Esme lit an oil lamp and helped Deirdre undress down to her shift, then untangled her braids while she sat at the small vanity, rubbing her scalp with nimble fingers to ease the ache of her heavy hair. Then she took up a silver brush, and raked it through gently, until Deirdre’s hair made a wild, crimped halo around her face.
“There,” Esme murmured, her hands resting on Deirdre’s shoulders. “You look like Circe.” Their eyes met in the warped glass. Esme’s glittered with life, her pupils wide and sparkling.
“Who?”
“The beautiful witch from the Odyssey, who seduced Odysseus and turned his men to pigs. You’ll read it in classical literature. It’s an epic poem. Quite exciting.”
A draft came from the window, surprisingly chill. Deirdre shivered. She wondered if Gentry was still out there. Wondered if he could scale the ivy-covered wall. Wondered if she might find him leering over her bed in the night with his eyes well-deep and full of dark promises.
“Might we close the window?” Deirdre asked softly. “I’ve taken a chill.”
“If you’d like.”
Deirdre settled on her lumpy mattress and pulled the covers to her chin. Esme turned down the light, and soon the creak of the other bed came from her side of the room. Within moments, Esme fell asleep. Deirdre listened enviously to the steady rasp of her breathing. She had the urge to cross the room and curl next to her new friend so she might enjoy the comfort of her closeness, but she resisted.
Instead, Deirdre forced her eyes to stay open, though tiredness weighed down her limbs, leaden and heavy as bricks. The palmettos cast strange patterns on the plaster walls—their fronds like sinister fingers, reaching to grasp at Esme’s sleeping form. She listened to the great house settle and tracked the waning and waxing light until morning came. Finally, just as sleep began to take her into its arms, the gong downstairs rang seven times, summoning thirty girls from their beds.
SEVENTEEN
GRACELYNN
1931
As I walk home from the depot, I notice something about the hills. They’re quiet, watchful, with nothing stirring but the sound of the wind through the cedars. I usually find that kind of quiet peaceful. But this morning, something feels off.
For one thing, it shouldn’t be this hot this early. I take off my cardigan and use the sleeve to mop at the sweat dripping from my temples. The sun is crawling above the tree line now, burning the sky a sickly orange. I head for the shady shelter of the woods. A few minutes later, the train’s whistle sends up a lonesome call. Morris will be on his way soon.
I try to put my worries about Morris aside and set my mind to all the things I need to do when I get home. Caro’s work trousers need mending, and then I’ll make up some bland hardtack to stock the cupboards, just in case winter comes in as hard as Granny said it would.
I’m halfway across the Ballard Creek bridge when I hear the singing.
It’s high and clear. A child’s voice. I stop and listen. It’s pretty. An old folk song about fairies in the firelight. Curious, I follow the sound through the trees, the sun slanting in low beams through the branches like light streaming through the windows of a church.
I get worried, thinking somebody’s young ’un might’ve wandered off and got lost. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in Sutter’s holler. I pick up my pace, following the sound toward the bluff, craning my head to see over the edge of the holler.
“Hello?” I cup my hands around my mouth and call out. “Are you lost?”
All of a sudden, the song stops, like somebody’s turned the dial on a radio. By now, the birds should be awake, but all’s quiet apart from the spring’s distant trickle.
I ignore the electric feeling in my skin and pick my way down into the holler. The locust tree at its center looms overhead, with twisted, thorny branches thick as a man’s waist. Across the way, the ruined log house that once belonged to Granny’s kin sits low in the holler. There’s a crumbling chimney at each end, the stone streaked with mud dauber nests. The swaybacked roof stretches between them, with the barest hint of the old log walls and foundation visible through the brambles of poison oak and pigweed. I cross the clearing and carefully climb the rotted steps. “Hello?” I call through the door. “Anyone in here? I heard your song. It was real pretty.”
I don’t get an answer, so I step under the bowed lintel. Inside, the air is rich and loamy, damp with rot. I blink as my eyes adjust to the light. It’s built almost the same as our cabin up the mountain, but bigger. An altar of sorts stands in the corner, next to the hearth, branches stacked to form a bower. Animal bones and feathers adorn it, and a slab of rock sits at its center. There’s a dark stain on the rock’s surface. It looks like blood. A low creaking sounds from overhead. I look up. Totems like the ones we wove to ward off Bellflower hang from what’s left of the ceiling.
Suddenly, the dense heat flies away, replaced by the icy cold of a chilly January day.
“You finally came.”
I startle at the sound of a woman’s voice behind me, my skin prickling. I slowly turn.
At first, I think I’m seeing my reflection. Only there’s no mirror. I shake my head, disoriented. The woman looks a little like Granny, gone back in time. She’s wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, her dark-red hair loose in a frizzy halo around her face. This feels like one of my dreams, but I know I’m awake, because I feel a slow trickle of sweat running down my spine.
“Do you know who I am?” Her voice is soft and childlike, but her blue eyes carve into me with an ancient knowing, sharp as two pieces of cut glass. She takes two steps toward me, holding out her hand. “Do you know who I am?” she asks again, and this time her voice echoes all through me.
My heart thrashes like a trapped animal, because I do know who she is. I want to run. Everything in me screams to go. But my feet are rooted to the spot. She closes the distance between us, bringing the scent of charred embers with her. She leans forward and her lips meet mine. This ain’t a kiss like Abby’s, all flower-soft and testing. Her mouth is cold and hot at the same time, like an icy, burning brand.
A rush of memories flows through me with her breath. Only the memories aren’t mine, they’re hers. A log cabin, spilling chimney smoke into the winter air. Lovers in a tangled bed. A line of torches, moving down a hillside. A little boy crying for his mother. A crowd of men, jeering for the woman’s death. Then nothing but fire, fear, pain. So much pain—hotter and keener than in any of my dreams.
Anger comes next, searing my veins with a white-hot power that burns fiercer than the fire that killed her and sets my heart to a purpose. Vengeance. Redemption. Justice.