I didn’t know what else to do but nod and hope my agreement wasn’t taken as vanity.
“I imagine your dance card to be quite full,” he mused, reaching the top of the stairs. He pushed open the door, revealing the hallway just outside my suite of rooms. “If you don’t mind my metaphor.”
“Oh…no,” I stammered. “There’ve been no…partners.”
His eyebrows rose with surprise. “How curious. Well. I’m confident some young man will come along and see you for the catch you are.” He nodded. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure of it.”
With a gallant flourish, he opened the door to my rooms and gestured me in.
“I enjoyed our evening as well,” I said, ready to say good night. My room had already been prepared for the evening. The bedding was turned down and a bank of low flames burned within the fireplace.
“Yes, I—” Gerard stopped, a peculiar expression on his face. Without waiting to be invited in, he stepped past me, his eyes darting about the parlor. He took a deep breath. “What a strange scent.”
I sniffed, catching the notes of Annaleigh’s candles. Whoever had readied the rooms had left a trio of them burning on my nightstand.
“The candles,” I explained, pointing. “My sister shipped a crate of them here, from Salann. So I wouldn’t be homesick.”
“Most thoughtful,” he murmured. “Sage and”—he smelled the air again—“salt, if I’m not mistaken.” He frowned. “What a curious combination.”
“Annaleigh has always been partial to it.”
“Probably an old island superstition.”
“Superstition?” I echoed.
He nodded, seemingly unaware of my confusion. “Salt. Sage. Together they’re said to ward off unwelcome spirits. Ghosts,” he clarified, and my heart stuttered painfully within my chest.
“Oh,” I said, managing a weak smile. Why were his eyes lingering upon me? I could feel their weight boring in deep. “I’ve never heard that before.”
In my mind, I saw every crate of candles Annaleigh had ever given me, on birthdays, blessing days, thoughtful gifts offered out “just because.”
Just because.
Just because.
Just because she knew what I saw.
But did Gerard?
He turned from the bedroom, crossing back to the door with an easy stroll, giving nothing away. He didn’t seem to sense my alarm, nor offer out any telltale sign of misgiving. “It’s quite late; I ought to let you rest. Thank you again for all your work today.”
“Of course.” I trailed after him, scrutinizing his every movement.
His smile was bland and he seemed a bit weary himself. “Pleasant dreams, then, Verity.”
When I woke, it was dark. Annaleigh’s tapers had long since sputtered out and were now pools of hardened wax, spilling from the candleholders and ruining the nightstand.
I flicked my nails under the residue, freeing flakes of salt and sage.
It was a wonder I’d not burned the manor down.
I peered groggily across the bedroom, feeling a tug of something amiss.
I strained my ears, listening for an echo of something, anything loud enough to have woken me. There must have been a noise that jarred my conscious mind to action, sinking its merciless claws into my slumber. The two glasses of champagne in the greenhouse, paired with Gerard’s surprising revelation about my sister’s candles, had left my head feeling off-kilter and achy and all I wanted in the world was a glass of water and to go back to sleep.
With a soft groan, I pushed myself from the warm nest of pillows and sat up, peering blearily for the water basin.
A shrill cry sliced the silence, setting my teeth on edge.
I flung off layers of bedclothes and stumbled for the switch of the gaslights, which hissed as their flames lit the room. For a moment, I couldn’t see around their blinding glare, could only hear the noise ring out again, piercing clean through me.
Was that…weeping?
I made my way through the sitting room. The air felt colder in here, draftier. Retreating back to the bedroom, I grabbed my robe. Just as I finished fastening it, my fingers fumbling against the silken belt, another volley of noise rose up.
I covered my ears but could still hear it, could still feel it, vibrating off my bones, rattling the curves of my ribs and making the length of my sternum ache.
Not weeping.
Screaming.
As it died away, I dared to peek into the hall. I’d expected to hear shouts from servants calling for help, pounding footsteps and moans of torment, anything to explain away such anguish, but all was still. All was silent.
Again, the shriek.
It sounded like it was behind me now and I turned.
The gardens.
The greenhouse.
It was coming from outside.
I peered out the window, searching the darkened yard.
The cries lowered in tone, turning harsh and ugly, as if ripped from someone’s gut. Was it an animal, some unfortunate, cornered prey?
The full moon rained soft light over the garden, limning the edges of trees, catching outlines of statues, setting the quartz walkways to sparkle.
Then I saw it.
A large shape scurried out from under a canopy of trees.
It was a woman, tall, with long skirts trailing behind her. Caught by the moon, they glowed a strange and eerie blue.
I squinted. Was that Dauphine?
What was she doing out in the garden so late? Had she, too, heard the sounds and went to investigate?
I fumbled at the window, wanting to throw open the sash and ask if she was all right, ask if she needed help, but there was no opening. The panes were soldered shut. I rapped my knuckles on the glass instead, wanting to let her know she wasn’t alone, wanting to somehow guide her to safety.
She startled at the sound of my knocking and turned to face me. With a sharp twist, her neck wrenched at a terrible angle, an impossible angle. It looked as though it had snapped from her body. Then she opened her mouth and screamed again.
In my alarmed haste to back away from the window, I tripped over a tufted footstool, falling against the wooden floorboards and striking the side of a curio cabinet.
My cry of pain echoed in the chamber.
I sat up, wincing as I rubbed at the back of my head. I could already feel a bump forming, throbbing and tender and rising off my scalp like a goose egg. The room swayed unevenly around me as I crawled to the window.
When I looked outside, I realized I was seeing double.
Two women now stood in the garden, their white dresses gleaming, their attention trained on the manor.
On me.
Two women stared up.
I blinked, trying to regain my vision.
One woman screamed.
Then the other.
One strolled away, deeper into the garden.
The other stayed behind.
I wasn’t seeing double.
I ducked down, cowering in the gauzy curtains, childishly convinced that if I couldn’t see them, then they certainly couldn’t see me, and if they couldn’t see me, then I must be safe.
What were they? Their screams, their bellows, those weren’t the sounds a human throat was capable of. They were too high, too loud, too…wicked.
A shiver ran over me even as I broke into a sweat. I felt clammy and sick as I remembered the strange pace at which Rosalie and Ligeia had moved through the halls of Highmoor, the way their whispers were heard directly behind my ears, even as I watched them walk away from me.