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.”
The spirits shared a look, and Signa all but scowled at them again. “Never mind.” She waved the girl from the piano bench. “Off of that. Off! I won’t have any more of it.”
“Then what do you propose we do?” the girl demanded, eyes flashing with such anger that for a moment Signa braced herself for the worst. “We’ve few other options to entertain ourselves!”
It was then that Signa felt the cold sting of Death settle against her skin. The spirits’ eyes grew wide as they huddled together, away from the reaper that Signa could not see. Still, his presence alone was enough to bolster her spirit.
“You could always try passing on to the afterlife,” she mused. “I’m sure there’s plenty to do there. I hear you can even reincarnate if you’d like.” Still in her nightgown with her hair strewn about, she was far from prepared for this conversation, let alone the situation at hand. Her throat remained raw, voice hoarse and rife with tension.
As she noticed the tremors racking Signa’s body, the woman asked, “What happened to you?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” Again Signa cast a look down the hall, ensuring Elaine was still in the servants’ quarters. She took a seat on a footstool across from them, arms wound around herself. The chill within her was easing some, not nearly as bad as if the woman had possessed her. At least she could be glad about something.
“Just how many spirits live in Foxglove?” Signa wished with everything in her for a lower answer. She was unprepared for the truth of it to roll from the man’s tongue, his words spoken too quickly as he glanced between her and Death.
“Somewhere close to twenty, I imagine,” he said. Signa’s arms wrapped tighter as a wave of sickness overcame her, wishing she could look upon Death’s face. Twenty. She had thought it odd enough to see a trio of spirits together. There were places she’d passed in her lifetime where spirits had roamed freely, certainly. Lands that had once been ancient battlefields and hospitals. But for twenty spirits to live under a single roof? It was preposterous.
“Where are they?” Signa pressed. “Why haven’t I seen more of them?”
“Everyone has their favored spots.” The spirit pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “We like ours right here, away from all the riffraff. Most stay in the ballroom, though there are a few that roam the halls.”
Signa’s blood went cold. Of course they’d be in the ballroom.
“They must know I’m here.” She sounded as though she’d swallowed a frog, the words a low rasp. “Why haven’t more of them sought me out, and why have they left my maid alone?” It didn’t seem wise to share with them that she’d been attacked only minutes earlier. She didn’t want them getting any ideas.
What Signa didn’t expect was for them to share another look.
“What is it?” She pulled the footstool closer to them. The two spirits on the couch leaned away as she neared, but rather than look at Signa, the older woman peered just over her head, toward the servants’ quarters.
“I wouldn’t go near that maid of yours even if you paid me to do it. There’s something wrong with her skin. None of us have seen it before, and no one wants to be the first to find out what it means.”