“No,” Jane said, heart aching. “No, you misunderstand.”
Augustine hadn’t said a word about it, she realized. She should have known then that something was wrong. He would have seen it, would have tended to her, fussed over her, whether he had been a ghost or living. So what, then, had he been? She felt sick.
“Really, Jane? You’d reject this blessing?” Mr. Cunningham said from where he stood beside the fireplace.
She shook her head, confused. “That’s not—”
“You marry a man, and expect him to never ask children of you? Do you think yourself so far above all of us, that you can reject our kindness in favor of marriage, and reject your marital duties in favor of self-satisfaction?”
“What do you mean?” Her brow tightened, confusion deepening. He had never been cruel to her, not even when, as a child, she’d lashed out, still heartsore and shell-shocked. The Cunninghams had been firm, kind, and distantly warm. Even in her childish imaginings, inventing reasons to hate them before she learned to cherish them, she had never imagined Mr. Cunningham being cruel. These words, they didn’t sound like his at all.
But these were their souls. Orren and Abigail had accused her only of what she knew herself to be guilty of, what they themselves had seen, somewhere across the boundary of death.
And yet something was wrong. She was sure of it. Why were they here?
“Why did you stay in Larrenton, if this is not what you wanted?” Mrs. Cunningham asked, voice softer, gentler. “We know it would have been hard for you, to go back to Camhurst, but if you had been with us, you could have gone to university. Created something new for yourself. Used your brilliance, instead of bartering it for a quiet life you didn’t fully understand.”
Her head ached. They spoke of things Jane had kept from them, and things she had thought after they had gone, wishes inspired by the derision of Augustine’s colleagues. It made no sense, that they had suspected it all.
“I thought you’d at least pretend to be sociable.” Mr. Cunningham sighed. “I thought we taught you better than this.”
And Jane went very still, a field mouse who had seen the shadow of a hawk.
The Cunninghams had never known the deepest interior of her mind, where she had taught herself to make eye contact and to handle small talk, and to smooth over how indelibly odd she was. Everything they said was an accusation she had leveled at herself at her most unkind. They could not know that. They were pulling it from her thoughts, buried thoughts, digging deep into her skull.
“You cannot control everything,” Mrs. Cunningham added, more quietly now.
“I just wanted to keep things simple,” Jane whispered, hunching in on herself.
“And look at what it’s brought on,” Mr. Cunningham said, tapping his cigar ash onto the floor. “You forced a man to marry you so that you could remain small and unremarkable, and now you have killed him because he would not bow to your wishes. Worse, you are bringing all of Larrenton down around you. We should never have taken you in.”
“I never said—I never said I killed him—”
Mr. Cunningham harrumphed. “How else could it have gone? You have always been selfish. I imagine it is because you learned at a young age that you deserved to live when others stayed behind to die. Ruined from the first.”
“Why are you doing this?” Jane begged.
Mrs. Cunningham touched her shoulder, drawing her attention. She smiled. She was kind.
“Because,” she said, “we are starving, my dear. Our hunger is endless compared to yours.” Her features smoothed out, becoming featureless stone from the cheeks up. Below was carved into an emaciated jaw and exposed teeth.
And then Mrs. Cunningham was herself again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
JANE STARTED FORWARD, focusing her eyes so hard that her vision blurred, but it was only Mrs. Cunningham before her. Panicked, Jane rose, but Mrs. Cunningham seized Jane’s wrist.
“Jane, do settle yourself. We did not adequately prepare you for the world—that is our failing.” Her voice was sweet and light, a mockery of the woman who had raised Jane.
“Let me go, fiend,” Jane whispered.
Mrs. Cunningham let go, eyes wide and soft tears welling up inside of them. “Fiend? Oh, Jane—”
“Stop.” She glanced at Mr. Cunningham, but there was no trace of stone to him, either, no more cruelty in the set of his mouth. Her resolve faltered. Had she really seen that, really heard it? Hungry—Mrs. Cunningham had said she was hungry. And what should a ghost hunger for?