Chapter 26
The house was eerily silent, which seemed odd. Normally, there were creaks and groans and other sounds indicating supernatural life. Victoria wasn’t sure what to make of it. Fear skipped through her like icy tendrils dancing up her spine as she stood in the hallway and peered down at the west wing.
Shadows clung to every corner, every nook, every cranny. A faint mist hovered over the floor. And the cold air pressed against her. Like a threat.
Or a promise.
Determination, though, was stronger than her fear. Inhaling a deep breath, she forced her feet to move into the west wing.
Her first stop was the bedroom she suspected was Lily’s. Her hand wrapped around the knob, and for a moment, she hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she’d find in there. The last time she was in this room a mirror appeared and showed her the ghost girl.
“I am not afraid,” she whispered, hoping to give herself courage.
Finally, she turned the knob and pushed open the door with a creak.
It revealed the room cloaked in shadow. Undisturbed. Dust clung to every surface. Spiderwebs drifted from the corners like elaborate lace. In the middle of the bed, a lilac. As though it had just been plucked from the garden.
She stepped inside, her heart a frantic beat. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but something had drawn her here. Moving deeper into the room, she looked for signs other than the lilac. Signs that there was something—or someone—still here.
“Are you my mother now?”
The girl’s voice in the quiet startled her.
Her heart fluttered into a wild beat as she turned to see the ghost girl standing near the open door.
The light from the hallway filtered in, slashing through her opaque form.
Victoria moved closer, trying to keep her wits about her as she peered down at the girl with the large, blue eyes so different from her mother’s.
For the first time, she noticed the ghost girl’s skin was pale blue. Her lips, too. Her gown was rumpled and wet. Droplets of water shimmered on the floor at her feet.
Victoria managed a smile. “I’m looking for your mother. Do you know where she is?”
Lily glanced over her shoulder toward the hall, then looked back. “Her room is down the hall.”
The girl must be referring to the suite she’d explored before. When she found both Lenore’s and Gabriel’s portrait. She forced a smile.
“Perhaps take me there,” she suggested.
Lily shook her head, her eyes wide with sudden fear. “I’m not allowed.”
But Victoria was not to be dissuaded. “Then perhaps point to it?”
The girl hesitated there as the minutes ticked by. Her gaze darted back toward the hall, as though unsure.
“Lily, I promise you won’t get into trouble,” Victoria said, sensing her unease.
“You promise?”
She nodded. “You have my word.”
“All right.”
Victoria followed her into the hallway once again, where the light seemed to fade.
The girl took a few steps toward the main suite, leaving wet footsteps behind, then halted midway.
She pointed. There was a door to the right.
One Victoria hadn’t noticed before in her exploration. One that had not been there before.
“Thank you, Lily,” she muttered.
The girl turned and bounced away, her image fading away to nothing.
Victoria remained rooted in place, staring at the door, her heart in her throat. She tried the knob. Though it turned, the door didn’t seem to want to budge. After several minutes of trying to push it open, she finally put her shoulder into it, turned the knob and shoved with all her might.
With a groan, the door opened.
She released the knob as she peered into the room. Darkness peered back. The air was musty and stale, as though the room had not been opened in years. She took a tentative step, pausing in the threshold. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw a room of horrors.
An altar in the center, stained with a dark substance that could only be blood.
Something rested in the center. A shape she could not discern.
Black candles scattered about the room and around the altar, a few burned down to the nub.
Strange symbols were carved into the floor, the altar. And next to it, an open book.
Moving closer, she saw the book first on the table.
The yellowed pages with faded ink were splattered with circles of long since dried blood.
Bile rose to her throat. Something evil happened here.
Something desperate. Something dark. Turning, she was close enough to see the object resting on the altar.
A knife with a curved blade. Discarded. As though forgotten.
Cold settled around her. A warning she was all too familiar with. She clutched her elbows, shivering. She had to get out of here. It was wrong to come here. Wrong to look for answers that were better left as secrets.
When she turned toward the door, she yelped surprise.
The woman blocked her exit. She was no longer a wraith. She was fully formed. Her black eyes stared at her with a hatred Victoria felt. Her long hair hung loose around her face. Her dress was tattered, old. Her skin held a deathly pallor.
“What happened here?” Victoria asked, her voice quivering. Her breath pluming.
Lenore’s gaze landed on the altar. “It was supposed to bring her back.”
“What was?” Victoria resisted the urge to glance at the knife, the open book.
“It failed. I failed. She didn’t come back.” Lenore moved closer, her gaze fixed on the altar.
The words slipped into her mind, cold and slick.
An incantation. To bring back the dead. Her stomach turned to ice, the air thick in her lungs.
Of course it had gone wrong. How could something so unnatural ever go right?
The thought barely formed before the ghost woman’s black eyes lifted, locking on hers with a weight that pinned her in place.
“He tried to stop me,” she continued. “He didn’t want to bring her back like I did. He didn’t love her as much I as I did. Because she wasn’t his.”
Victoria shook her head. “That can’t be true.”
“Not his. Mine.”
Instantly, Victoria thought of her father’s journal—that Gabriel was Lenore’s second husband. Understanding dawned.
“But surely he loved her like his own,” she tried to reason.
“He tried to stop me. Tried to make me bury her in the dark. She’s afraid of the dark.”
Lenore slithered closer. The air dropped another few degrees, making Victoria shiver.
“But now the price must be paid. The debt is due. It wasn’t supposed to be you. It was supposed to be someone else,” she said.
Victoria didn’t understand what that meant.
Lenore’s face turned from calm and serene to something grotesque and terrifying. A mask of horror as she charged toward Victoria with her hands outstretched.
Victoria jerked sideways, crashing into the wall and knocking the book off the low table. It landed on the floor with a muffled thud. She skirted around the altar, her eyes on the door as she tried to avoid the apparition.
Lenore swiped for her, but missed. She hissed, frustrated as Victoria stumbled toward the open door. The moment she approached, it tried to close but she dove, putting herself in the threshold just as it slammed on her. With a cry of pain, she shoved it open and staggered out of the room.
Behind her, Lenore’s frustrated scream. The walls shook. A crack split the floorboard as Victoria stepped into the hall. She tripped. Her ankle twisted, her foot turning over, and she crashed to the floor.
Lenore was on her in a second, snarling. Her icy hands landed on her as she tried to drag her to her feet and back into the room. Victoria cried out, the pain searing through her. But her voice wasn’t the only one crying out in pain. It was Lenore’s, too.
With a hiss, she stumbled backward into the open doorway. Mist fogged around Victoria.
“You’ll pay for that!” Lenore shouted.
Victoria shoved herself upright, the world tilting around her.
She managed one step before her ankle gave out.
Pain flared white-hot, buckling her legs.
She went down hard, the breath punched from her lungs.
Then the jolt of her skull striking the floorboards burst into a shower of stars behind her eyes.
“Lenore, leave her. She’s not for you.”
The voice cut through the corridor like a blade.
Victoria’s blurred vision sharpened just enough to see Gabriel at the far end, a lone candle in his grip. Its flame danced wildly, throwing sharp planes of light and shadow across his face. His eyes locked on Lenore, dark and unflinching, even as the space between them rippled.
Lenore hissed, a sound like steam on iron, before her form fractured into curling shadows. They slid back through the doorway, swallowed by the darkness within. The door slammed of its own accord, the echo ricocheting down the hall.
The mist thinned. Warmth seeped back into the air, though Victoria still shivered.
Gabriel was at her side then, kneeling next to her. It was difficult to look him in the eye with the shame burning through her but she forced her gaze up. There, she saw relief, anguish, regret, fear. A mishmash of emotions that played across his face in the flickering light of the candle.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” He wrapped a hand around her upper arm and helped her to her feet. “Can you walk?”
“I just twisted my ankle. That’s all.”
He said nothing as he released her and turned away, heading away from the west wing. She watched him leave her with her ankle throbbing and a raging headache.
“Gabriel, wait.” She hobbled after him.
He halted at the end of the corridor. His shoulders drooped in defeat. Slowly, he turned to face her.
“Come to my sitting room,” he said then. “I’ll tell you everything.”