THIRTY-EIGHT
GOD, WHAT A FOOL SHE’D BEEN. SIGNA KNEW SPIRITS WERE FICKLE beings, just as she knew what happened when they were reminded of their deaths. Perhaps this was why Fate had suggested a party; not to help her, but to damn her further. She should have anticipated what it would mean to bring so many people into Foxglove, filling it with crinoline and dance cards.
She had re-created the night of these spirits’ deaths, and now all of Foxglove was to pay the price.
Everywhere she looked, spirits were rousing from their daze. One of the twins who’d been stuck in a loop of eyeing a group of ladies now crossed the floor to offer his hand to one. She accepted it, and the two swept into a waltz alongside the living. The other twin’s neck twisted to one side, twitching as his brother slipped away from their loop. Signa’s palms went clammy as she watched. Had the man not already been dead, he seemed prone to snapping his own neck.
Behind him, a woman walked straight through Briar, who whipped toward the nearest table, sending a rush of cold air through the room that knocked over more empty champagne flutes and had guests squealing as they scurried away. One older woman went as far as to scream her surprise, and Signa’s skin crawled from the sound.
“Briar?” Amity’s eyes glowed red as she raced toward the spirit, only for Briar to look through her.
“Amity,” Signa whispered as the spirit’s face darkened, having to pause every few steps to smile at guests who murmured their alarm. “Amity, get control of yourself.”
It was no use. Amity was circling Briar, trying to pry the restless spirit from her disillusions. Briar’s body spasmed in response, while tears as black as tar rolled down Amity’s cheeks.
Signa remembered the way Lillian had lost control back in the garden; remembered the way that frogs had marred the trees, their blood spilling down onto the soil. Once a spirit lost control, there was no going back. And the more living bodies that filled Foxglove’s ballroom, the greater that threat became.
Signa had to weave around the second twin as he strayed from his table, following a silver serving tray of petit fours. He blinked when his hand went straight through the tray, then tried again with more focus until he was able to seize a cake for himself. His edges dimmed with the effort, and when he tried to devour the sweet—only for it to fall through him and land on the floor—the spirit’s eyes flashed red. Behind him, Amity screamed at Death, backing away as he held out his hand in offering. She cared only for Briar, who was tugging her hair out by the ends in a fit of distress.
Something needed to be done, and fast. Not only for the sake of the spirits—whose pain Signa felt as though it were her own, eating her alive—but for Elijah, too. She needed to help the spirits before they sent her guests sprinting from the party and the Wakefields alongside them. Already they huddled in corners, hungry for sightings of the paranormal. Signa was certain that was why they’d come after all. Not to meet her, but to investigate the notorious Foxglove manor and see whether its rumors were true.
For once she didn’t care. If it gave her a way to gather the Hawthornes and Wakefields into her home and force everyone to reckon with the false blame laid on Elijah, then the residents of this town could believe whatever they wanted. And yet the moment that Signa started toward Amity, a woman blocked her path.
“It seems that I didn’t imagine you, then.” Dressed in her finery, coiled hair twisted into pins, it took Signa a moment to place her as the woman she’d met on the pier—Henry’s mother. She looked like an entirely different person, her skin refreshed and eyes no longer so angry or bloodshot.
“When I received the invitation, I was hoping it was you who was the new owner of Foxglove,” the woman continued. “Is it true what they say about this place?”
“That it’s haunted?” Signa asked through a wince, only half paying attention as Amity begged Briar to snap out of her haze. Across the room, Death’s offered hand was once again refused, this time by a spirit whose body crackled like an approaching storm.
Foxglove was haunted indeed, and as plates and glasses fell from the tables and the chill in the air grew so intense that Signa’s breath plumed, it seemed more people were taking notice.
“Well, yes.” The woman dropped her voice. “You can see them, can’t you? Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. After what you did for Henry, I owe you the world, Miss Farrow. That’s why you’re here at Foxglove, isn’t it? To help the rest of them?”