Fifteen Signa
FIFTEEN
S IGNA
Music thrummed through the halls of Wisteria Gardens.
Signa heard the pleasant trill of a flute before she’d even made it up the stairs and to the library, which Aris had prepared for their arrival.
Lined against the wall was every instrument that she could think of, those favored by the spirits already claimed.
One of the musicians sat perched on the bench of a piano, his hair smoothed and his expression content.
The second had a violin set on their lap as they drew resin across their bow, and the last played a bouncy melody on the flute.
They were each already warming up, their bodies looser and faces relaxed.
“I have found your musicians,” Signa declared as she approached the ballet mistress, whose sharp face turned toward her appraisingly.
Signa’s stomach twisted a little—with her long nose and wrinkled skin, the woman reminded her of her late aunt Magda.
She wondered briefly whatever had happened to that woman, and whether she’d passed on to the next life yet.
It was horrible of her, but Signa rather hoped she hadn’t.
She would have preferred not to see Magda again in this life or the next.
“So you have.” Despite sounding pleased, the woman’s face remained sallow and stern.
When she clapped her hands, all the previously chattering spirits glanced up, alert.
The tulle of their dresses brushed against one another, their head ornaments jingling as they snapped to focus.
The sound made Signa think of sleigh bells, though it was harsher, with a sharp, hollow ring that unsettled her.
The library, so quiet moments before, now buzzed with anticipation. Signa adjusted her stance, unsure whether to stay by the door or find a seat, the energy prickling along her skin.
“ Places ,” the ballet mistress demanded. “Everyone to their places. Jeanne and Laurent, you will go on for Odette and Jules.”
A squeal of delight came from one of the spirits in the formation.
She was a tiny thing, dressed in a silvery gown with her brown hair slicked back and dusted with tiny silver crystals.
Odette’s eyes burned into her back as Jeanne took her place.
The others followed behind her, forming two sets of lines as if on either side of a stage.
Behind the ballet mistress, Odette sat against the bookshelves, the tulle of her pink skirts flaring around her as she began sobbing into her knees.
Signa’s chest tightened. It wouldn’t do if she were to help only some of the spirits pass on. If Blythe and Aris were to make this their home, she’d need to get them all out.
“Can she not perform?” Signa challenged, motioning to Odette, who sniffled and looked hopefully up at them. “I’d like to see her.”
“She cannot go on without a partner.” This, it seemed, was not up for discussion.
Again the ballet mistress clapped her hands, and this time music swelled around them.
Signa had barely stumbled into the nearest chair before the dancers pressed onto the tips of their toes, plastered their faces with smiles, and began their performance.
The library transformed into a makeshift stage, the spirits moving with an eerie grace that sent a shiver down Signa’s spine.
She tried to imagine what it might have looked like six decades prior, back when the stage had been real and the costumes festive.
As it was, Signa could only faintly make out the shades of their skirts and the shimmering silver threads that tangled around them like cobwebs.
The faint glow of candlelight flickered off the jewels and the ornaments sewn into their costumes, casting odd, twisted reflections onto the walls.
Even the headpieces became terrifying in the right light, gilded stag horns becoming perilous weapons that made the performers look more like monsters than spirits.
There was a gauziness around them that made it feel like the most curious holiday dream—one moment enchanting, the next unnervingly hollow.
The dancers twirled so effortlessly that it was easy to forget their feet never quite touched the floor.
Jeanne led the performance, appearing to play the role of an innocent maiden lost in a fantastical, wintry world.
She twirled on the very tips of her toes with an ethereal precision that awed Signa, who couldn’t look away from such a curious show.
Laurent followed, lifting his partner effortlessly into the air while the other dancers circled around them, as if trapping the pair, who seemed to be…
struggling to leave? Fighting against them? Or perhaps they were joining the fray.
Odette, too, stared unblinking. She was no longer sobbing, but a palpable fury seemed to fester within her. With every step Jeanne took, Odette’s expression darkened. There was no mistaking the tension crackling in the air, or the jealousy that burned behind her eyes.
When the music reached its haunting crescendo, her posture stiffened, hands balling into fists around her skirts. Her ragged gasps were too loud against the soft strains of the piano.
The spirit’s glowing, bloodied eyes whirled to Signa, and panic shot down her spine when Odette screamed.
So awful was the sound that Signa stumbled to her knees, clapping her palms over her ears.
It’d been years since she’d felt such fear.
Years since her body was so chilled that not a single bone would move, leaving her paralyzed as the spirits began twisting to and fro.
Their bodies flickered once, then twice, and none seemed able to cease their twirling, writhing in a desperate frenzy.
Odette did not move at all, her hollow eyes staring into the ether as her body fizzled in and out of view.
Books fell from shelves as the library seemed to tremble beneath the rising chaos.
The piano’s melody fractured, each jarring note a physical ache that thrummed in Signa’s chest. Odette’s scream tore through it all, sharper than the music.
Signa? Sylas’s voice pressed against her thoughts, sounding every bit as panicked as she felt. What’s happened? Are you safe?
Her first instinct was to summon the reaper.
To tell him that she needed help before one of these spirits possessed her.
But no—this was her job. She was the bridge between the worlds of the living and the dead; the only one who could truly help these people accept their deaths and pass on.
Her job was made far more difficult, of course, when there were over a dozen spirits all suffering simultaneously, but Signa had no choice but to sort this out.
Crouched behind a chair and using it as a shield, she drew a long breath and opened her mind to Sylas.
Don’t worry for me, I’m fine , she told him, then turned her attention to the ballet mistress, whose wrinkled face had stretched and twisted in rage.
She was yelling at the spirits in a language that Signa did not understand, but they weren’t listening.
The music was too loud and their minds too lost. The bookshelves beside them trembled as spirits spun into them, their movements awkward and jerky.
The ballet mistress twisted toward Signa, her eyes consumed by blackness.
She was so fast that there was no time to react, flashing out of sight and then beside Signa a second later, spindly hands seizing her by the throat.
They drained her not only of breath, but of every ounce of warmth in her body.
Signa swayed on her feet, understanding that the woman meant to possess her but unable to do anything to stop it.
The ballet mistress’s grip tightened, icy tendrils crawling beneath Signa’s skin, freezing her limbs in place.
Her vision blurred, darkness crowding the edges as her knees buckled.
Gundry was at her heels, snarling and snapping at the spirit who would not stop.
Fortunately, Sylas had not listened.
Gundry’s low growl reverberated through the library. Then came a cold that was different from the ballet mistress’s icy touch. It was a gentler, familiar cold that seeped from the very shadows themselves and pressed against Signa’s skin. She relaxed into the touch, able to breathe again.
He arrived without sound, slipping through the stillness as if he’d been there all along, a quiet force that bent the air around him. Sylas materialized beside them, his presence swallowing the space like a void as his eyes fixed on the ballet mistress, blazing with barely contained fury.
“Release her.” It didn’t matter how quietly he spoke; his words cut the silence like a blade, sharp and unforgiving.
The spirit hesitated, her grip faltering. In the space of a breath, Sylas had put himself between them, his gloved hand wrapping around Signa’s waist as his shadows slipped over them like a shield.
“You’re all right,” he whispered, thumb brushing against the spot where the woman had gripped her throat as she curled against him. “I’m sorry. I won’t let any of them hurt you.” There was still an edge to his voice no matter how gently he spoke, like ice cracking beneath a surface.
She tried to form the words—tried to tell him she was all right—but her teeth couldn’t cease their chattering.
Around them, the room had erupted into chaos.
The ballet mistress’s fury radiated like a shock wave, sending the spirits scattering from their makeshift stage.
They spun wildly through the library, books flying from their shelves and pages fluttering about while furniture was overturned, crashing violently against the walls.
The piano screeched in protest as Signa turned to find the musician’s face contorted, his fingers pounding the keys and driving everyone around him into a frenzy.
“This is all my fault,” Sylas admitted, half muttering to himself, though there was no chance for Signa to press him for specifics.
Gundry had leapt forward, monstrous in size with thick black shadows dripping from his gaping maw.
He bared fangs as long as Signa’s hand at any spirits who dared approach as Sylas eased her into a chair.
She was too numb to move. To speak. To do much of anything but sit there shivering as he extended an open palm, every shadow in the room twisting and pooling together until it formed his scythe.
He brandished it at the spirits, and that’s when the front door of Wisteria swung open.