57. Harlow
HARLOW
C arrenwell House is the absolute last place I expected Henry to want to go during our only free time on Descent day. That said, there is hardly a more appropriate place for me to begin a journey into darkness.
It’s midafternoon, but the eclipse has made the day so dark, the only light in the garden is from the glowing sunstones that line the paths. The lights cast his face in sinister shadows, and my stomach twists.
“Will this take long?” I ask.
Henry squeezes my arm a little closer to him, like he’s afraid I’m going to bolt. “Not long. Why? Did you have something else you wanted to do other than take a walk in the garden with your husband?”
I eye him suspiciously. “Is this a sex thing? Because yesterday was just a temporary lapse of judgment.” I wait for his comeback, but it never arrives. Now I know something is wrong.
His face is inscrutable. I fight the impulse to press onto my toes and bite the strong line of his jaw just for something to snap him out of his unsettling stoicism.
“I was just going to check my mailboxes if we had the free time before we have dinner with my parents tonight,” I say. “I didn’t have a chance to stop and check for messages on our last visit.”
He finally looks at me. “Your murder mailboxes? ”
I glare at him. “Women rely on me, Henry.”
“The women will have to wait today. I need to show you something.”
He’s been too intense all day. Maybe it’s just his frustration over lying about Rafe, but he disappeared with Kellan last night, then left me at the party. Carter and Naima walked me back to the boarding house and Henry wasn’t in our room when I got there.
He stayed out all night, returning this morning smelling like alcohol. He’s barely looked at me all day, orbiting me more than interacting with me as we prepped for tonight’s events.
I was already dreading having dinner with my parents, but Henry’s sour mood makes me even more apprehensive. If he’s this standoffish in front of them, it will ruin my chance at getting the key from my father. I just need my husband to not be himself for one night.
The afternoon is clear but cool and the air smells faintly like there’s snow coming. I wonder if Aidia is at North Hold, standing on her balcony, willing it to snow. I loathe the cold too much to enjoy snow, but Aidia has loved it since we were children.
The ache in my chest has been a constant nagging reminder that I haven’t seen her yet.
Staying at the boarding house is strategic for showing our distance from my family, but it also means she can’t sneak in to see me like she normally does when I’m in South Hold.
Without seeing her face, I’m left with the unsettling vision of the last time I saw her.
I just need her to hold on for a few more days.
A cold breeze ruffles my cloak, sending a shiver up my spine as Henry leads me through a white rose-covered archway in the Carrenwell garden. Gravel crunches beneath my feet, and it takes me a moment to realize where we are.
I freeze. A burst of adrenaline rushes through my blood. “I don’t like this part of the garden.”
Henry ignores me and continues pulling me down the path.
The dread presses in on all sides. I don’t like this path with its white roses. I don’t like the climbing vines that write their stories along the stone walls. I don’t like the cold fist of fear that wraps around my heart.
Nothing is wrong, and yet my body is coiled to fight or flee.
I try to tug out of Henry’s grip, turning to look down the path behind us for help .
But Gaven isn’t behind me, waiting to lend a helping hand. Gaven is dead.
“I’ve never seen it.” Henry’s words are clipped. It’s not the tone of a man who’s curious to see the garden. He sounds almost angry.
“It’s just a garden, Henry. It looks like everything else we’ve seen,” I say, my voice hoarse.
He narrows his eyes. “But we haven’t seen the roses.”
I stare down the path ahead of us. I don’t know why I feel like I’m walking straight into a Drained den. The path is lovely, the roses kept in perfect bloom thanks to magic, but fear has my muscles locked up. It’s beautiful, but wrong.
I meet Henry’s deep blue eyes, and there’s no warmth there, just cold calculation. “Harlow, everything is fine. Just once around the garden and then we’ll go back inside.”
An irrational sinking feeling settles in my stomach, but I force my feet to move. It feels like he’s leading me into a trap, but I’m too confused by the panic flowing through my body to do anything but let Henry guide me down the path.
There is a reason I don’t come to this part of the garden, but I can’t remember why.
We turn into the rose garden, and for a few moments, I’m lost in looking at the bright blooms. Peach climbing roses on a trellis blend into yellow ones and then bright red, which blend into exotic deep scarlet that’s so dark it looks almost black.
I keep waiting for the dread to leave me, for the knot beneath my ribs to come unbound, but neither relent.
Henry’s hand is warm on my lower back, guiding me through the rows of roses until finally we come to the opening at the center of the circular rose garden.
I stop suddenly, without realizing. It’s like my feet sense that I’ve stepped into a trap before I’m even conscious of it. The toes of my boots edge onto the large white circular stone.
“Harlow?” Henry’s hand on my back nudges me forward.
“I think we should go back,” I rasp.
He takes my hand, which has begun to tremble, and places it on his arm as he guides me into the center of the space. “I just want to see what this monument says.”
I glance back the way we came. My heart is beating so hard. There is no active danger here, but I still want to hide. Every muscle in my body is coiled—ready to run the moment the invisible trap springs.
My steps are leaden as we walk closer to the stone.
Panic clamps down on my chest. My breath becomes swift and shallow. My heart thunders. Something is wrong.
Run . All I can think is how badly I need to run right now.
Henry comes to a stop in front of a white marble stone bracketed by beautiful white rose bushes.
I can’t stand still. My skin is crawling, a cold sweat rising on my back despite the chill of the day. I feel sick to my stomach.
“What’s this, lovely?” Henry nods to the stone. His voice is somehow both gentle and on edge.
He turns to look at me, and I must look the picture of fear and terror. I am a statue. I can’t move. Some deep part of me knows, if I look at that stone, something horrible will happen.
I don’t come to this part of the garden for a reason. I glance up at the tall walls of my family home, at the balconies jutting out from each bedroom and the perfectly manicured florals that decorate them, and the bright blue family banners that hang down over the walls.
“I don’t like this part of the garden.” My voice is barely a whisper.
The barest hint of doubt lights Henry’s eyes. “Just look at this stone and we will leave. Unless—” The corner of his lips tips up. “Unless you’re afraid.”
I have lost the will to argue with him. My fear is indescribable—so intense my eyes blur and burn with tears. It’s a bone-deep terror that I can’t pretend away.
But there has not been a challenge Henry has laid out that I haven’t risen to. Every irrational instinct in my body screams for me not to look, but I force myself to glance at the stone.
I blink the tears from my eyes, and my vision finally focuses on the white marble in front of me—a headstone that bears one name: Aidia Rose Carrenwell .
The truth slices through me with precise violence. I’m fractured between the past and present, rent from the dissociation that has kept me alive for the past six months.
“No.” I’m breathless, my chest hollowed out by the truth I’ve postponed—a secret I’ve kept even from myself .
I don’t know what he thought he was doing bringing me here, but I watch his face morph from anger to shock, and then to horror.
“Why would you do this?” I rasp, shaking my head. “Why would you bring me here?”
His entire demeanor has softened. His voice is low and pleading instead of tight and angry. “Harlow, it’s okay. I’m right here.”
“I have to leave. I can’t—” The air whooshes out of my lungs.
Henry takes a step toward me. “Kellan told me Aidia died six months ago. He said you didn’t leave your room for a month.”
I shake my head, turning away from the memorial, trying to ignore the memory that flashes in my mind of curtains drawn over windows, of my stiff muscles and brutal headaches from crying so hard I thought I’d die too.
I had never been so devoted as I was to Divine Asher when I spent days on end begging him to take me with her.
“No, this isn’t right. I’ve seen her. She’s not—” I choke on a sob. “It’s a mistake.”
But some part of me knows it’s not. I’ve seen her. I’m mad. This is it. The whole time I thought I’d been spared, but the well has taken my mind too. Because I’ve seen her, alive and animated and whole. I’ve felt her touching my hair. Haven’t I?
I look up at the balcony three stories above us—my bedroom balcony—and I can’t speak. All the air has been sucked out of the world, and I cannot bear to be here breathing when she’s gone.
An awful jarring awareness yanks at the center of me. I’ve been wrenched from the shroud of ignorance and thrust into bright sunlight—confronted at last with the fact that there is no “we,” only a terrible, lonely me.
“Harlow.” Henry’s voice brings me back. “Kellan said she jumped from her balcony.”
I shake my head violently. “She didn’t.”
“He said she was troubled. Rafe was abusive and?—”
I turn on him. “She didn’t jump.”
His gaze is full of pity. “I know you want to believe that, but?—”
“I know it’s true.” I look at the circular pattern on the white stone ground. The ghost of a rust stain still mars the center circle, like a direct hit on a bullseye .
It was my fault. For six months, I’ve been holding back the bad memories like a tide, but now they slam into me.