Chapter 25
He dismissed her and left her standing alone in the kitchen with her father’s journal and the crumpled pages.
It hurt. Sharp and deep, cutting her to the core. She stood there a long moment, staring at the closed door, the air still shuddering from his abrupt exit.
She didn’t understand why his rejection stung so badly.
She should be grateful for the reminder of what awaited her in Crown Hollow.
The security of her aunt’s house, a tidy life mapped out for her, a marriage of duty that would keep her safely removed from this drafty, haunted place and its brooding master.
Only the thought of leaving made her stomach twist.
Because despite everything, despite the whispers in the halls, the shuddering windows in the dead of night, the way Gabriel seemed determined to push her away, she couldn’t stop thinking of him.
Of the grief in his eyes when he spoke of Lenore.
Of the way his hands had tightened on her arms, not in cruelty, but in desperation.
As though he feared she might slip away before he could save her…
or perhaps before he could admit he didn’t know how.
A part of her wanted to run. But a deeper, quieter part—the one that had been awake since she first stepped over Ravenfell’s threshold—wanted to stay.
Not just for him. For the house. For the restless dead who deserved peace.
She wanted to help him out of his despair and anguish. She wanted to banish Lenore to the spirit world. She wanted to see these halls restored to their former glory.
With Gabriel at her side. Whether that was as his wife or something else didn’t matter.
Only one question gnawed at her now.
How?
She didn’t know how to do any of that. And she felt lost. Alone.
The bell at the front door chimed. In all her time here at the manor, she had never heard the bell, nor did she know one existed.
Victoria headed to the front door, dropping her pages and the journal on the foyer table. She pulled the door open to find a young man on the stoop, eyes wide and wary.
“Are you Miss Ravenwood?” he asked.
“I am.”
“I was told to deliver this to you.” He pushed an envelope into her hand, folded and sealed with an unfamiliar sigil.
Before she could thank him, he bobbed a quick bow and scurried off, as though his feet were on fire. Likely he had heard the rumors of the haunted manor and did not want to tempt fate.
She closed the door, breaking the seal as she walked back the foyer table. The moment her eyes found the familiar script, her chest tightened.
Her aunt.
The letter was excessively polite, but there was something sharp beneath the gentle phrasing. Lord Charles had business in Crown Hollow, so they returned first thing that morning. They would not, unfortunately, be making another visit to Ravenfell.
Victoria read between the lines. Her aunt was displeased. Disappointed. And perhaps finished with her.
With precision, she refolded the letter, the weight of unspoken meaning pressing through her. No invitation to return to Crown Hollow. No promise of future visits. A door closed, quietly but firmly.
Her dread of having to face her aunt again dissipated, melting away like Spring snow. Now that she was gone, Victoria was free to make her own choices. Free to seek answers and face Gabriel without her interference.
Free to stay.
She headed to her room where she deposited the journal, the papers, and the letter from her aunt on the dressing table. Fatigue hit her, hard and fast, after her long night in the study. She kicked off her shoes and laid on the bed. Moments later, she was asleep.
The dream came.
A memory, long-buried. Now resurfaced.
Her parents were alive. She was a child again. And they were living in Ravenfell. It was late at night. Her mother woke her from a deep sleep.
“Wake up, Victoria,” she said with a gentle nudge. “We have to leave.”
“Where are we going?” She rubbed her eyes as she peered up at her mother, yawning.
But in the darkness, there was another figure. Not her mother. Not her father. Someone else. A woman. With dark hair and black eyes. She had seen the figure once before. Then she was not afraid. Now, she was.
Her mother’s breath shuddered out between her lips. She gasped, reached for Victoria’s hand and tugged her out of bed. Victoria slid out of the bed, her feet on the cold floor. And there, the ghost woman watched.
“Abner!” Her mother’s voice was sharp, fearful.
He stood in the doorway of her room, the light from the hallway pressing against his back and making him nothing more than a silhouette. He waved them forward with urgency. Her mother, holding her hand, hurried from the room practically dragging her.
But Victoria glanced back and saw the ghost woman still there. Watching. Waiting.
At the doorway, her father scooped her up and turned from the room. They headed down the hall, to the stairs. As they did, she heard the girl’s whimper and looked over her father’s shoulder to see the young girl standing in the hallway.
The walls were crusted over with ice.
The fog swirled along the floor.
And Victoria’s mother emitted a choked sob as they quickly descended the stairs.
Out the door and into the balmy night. The carriage waited.
The lantern lit to light their way. The footman held the door.
The driver waited on the seat with the reins in his hands.
Moments later, they were inside. She was cradled on her father’s lap.
Her mother sat across from him. And then they were away. Leaving everything behind.
There was a moment of silence and then her mother said, “I don’t care what you do with it. Sell it. Burn it. Tear it down. Just get rid of it. I never want to return.”
But her father knew the manor would not suffer such a fate.
Victoria startled awake, bolting upright, her heart racing. It was early evening.
She slid from the bed, her feet hitting the floor, much like that night when they fled Ravenfell for the city. When her mother insisted on disposing of the manor.
But her father hadn’t. He’d kept it. She wondered at that. Did he not want to sell it because it was part of their heritage? If he knew the manor had a sordid history, why keep it? And, furthermore, why pass it down to her?
There were no answers to her questions. No one to give her those answers.
As she perched on the edge of her bed, she thought of Lenore. She still did not know how she died.
She glanced at her bedroom door, an idea forming.
There were rooms she had not explored. Rooms that remained dormant for years.
What if the answer to how Lenore died was somewhere within those rooms?
If she found the answer, would it lead her to a way to put the wandering spirit to rest at long last?
There was really only one way to find out.
He was a coward.
He’d left Victoria in the kitchen, sprinted up the stairs to his room, and sealed himself inside. As if that would shut away the terror spreading through him.
Why did he not destroy her father’s journal? Why did he let it languish in the locked cabinet all this time? He was a fool to leave it there, ready to be found.
He sat in the chair next to his bed, his heart throbbing a mad beat and his stomach clenched into a tight knot. Slipping his hand into his waistcoat pocket, his fingers brushed the key to the cabinet, confirming he still had it.
Victoria was more resourceful than he gave her credit. She must have found a way to pick the lock. And now, she had all the damning evidence she needed.
Gabriel raked a hand through his hair, blowing out a heated breath as he admonished himself once again. He should have destroyed it.
What had Abner Ravenwood written in that journal? He’d never stopped to read it. Only flipped the pages with the careful script. He hadn’t read it because he feared what he might find, what Abner might know about him and the ghostly presence of Lenore.
A shudder went through him. When he thought of how close he came to telling Victoria… He pushed aside those torrid thoughts. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her. He could never tell her.
He tried to stop Lenore from her dark desperation driven by her unrelenting grief.
Tried and failed.
Back then, had he known Lenore was skulking through the village asking questions and gathering information on sorcery and the dark arts, he would have done all within his power to stop her.
But it was too late the moment he found her standing over the body of her dead daughter, a bloodied dagger in hand, the black candles burning with an unworldly green light.
Thinking of that now made his stomach twist. He shot to his feet, prowling the room, pressing his hands against the sides of his head as if to push out the ugly memory. And Lenore shouting, you cannot take my child from me!
Recalling the cold desperation in her voice made his blood chill. Even now years later.
Victoria was dangerously close to the truth. He tried to avoid her questions. Tried to keep the truth locked deep inside him. Tried to push her away.
But she was getting closer.
He did not know how much strength he had left within him to conceal the truth from her.
What terrified him most was knowing that every step Victoria took toward Lenore carried her closer to death. The ritual had never been meant for her—it had been meant for Eleanor Ravenwood, the blood sacrifice required to break Lenore’s captivity.
Now fate had twisted, and it was Victoria who stood in her place.
Now, she was doomed.