Chapter 20
I woke to the sensation of being watched.
The feeling crept through the fog of laudanum-induced sleep, pulling me toward consciousness despite the heavy weight of the drug still dulling my senses. Everything felt distant and hazy, as though I were underwater or wrapped in thick wool that muffled sound and thought alike.
My ankle throbbed with each heartbeat, a steady pulse of pain that the medicine had reduced to manageable discomfort but did not eliminate entirely.
I had been confined to bed for two days now—Agnes’s orders, delivered with maternal firmness that brooked no argument.
She had wrapped the swollen joint, elevated it on pillows, and administered measured doses of laudanum Dr. Ambrose had prescribed at intervals I could not track with any accuracy.
Time had become elastic, stretching and compressing until distinguishing day from night was a challenge I lacked the clarity to meet. Hours slipped past me in lucid fragments, the cold weight of sleep dragging me under again before I could grasp what was real or what was a dream.
I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against the darkness of my room. The fire had burned low in the grate, providing just enough light to see shapes but no details. Pools of inky black filled the corners and lay thick across the floor, climbing walls like predatory vines intent on suffocation.
Something moved in those shadows.
I held very still, my breath caught somewhere between my lungs and throat, as the darkness near the foot of my bed began to coalesce into a shape.
It thickened gradually, a stain deepening against the dark air.
She materialized gradually, bleeding into existence with the same slow inevitability of rot spreading through dead flesh.
Dr. Ambrose’s wife hovered above the floor at the foot of my bed, her bloodstained nightgown hanging in motionless folds that defied any air current. Her hair fell in tangles around her shoulders, and her translucent skin was a sickly gray-green shade, deepening the shadows around her eyes.
Her lips parted and a wet gurgling sound emerged from deep in her chest. She bent double, one hand covering her mouth, one pressed firmly to her abdomen as a violent fit of coughing overtook her spectral form. Splatters of crimson seeped between her fingers with each expel of her lungs.
I stared at her, unable to move or breathe properly, fully expecting the vines to reveal themselves at any moment.
Her form flickered, dissolved, then reappeared on the side of my bed, her attack settled back in her chest. She tilted her head, studying me with those green eyes that matched mine exactly. Then she lifted one translucent hand and beckoned me.
I sat up slowly, my movements clumsy and uncoordinated as I fought against both the drug’s lingering effects and my body’s reluctance to cooperate.
My injured ankle protested, sending sharp reminders of its condition.
I gritted my teeth against the discomfort and swung my legs over the side of the bed.
The ghost waited patiently as I found my footing.
Standing required concentration and balance I did not entirely possess, but I managed it through stubborn determination and the support of my bedpost. The floor tilted beneath me, and the dark room seemed to stretch like a toothless yawn, prepared to swallow me whole.
She turned and floated toward the door.
I followed, limping heavily, one hand trailing along the wall for balance, the other gripping my nightgown where it gathered at my hip. The fabric dragged cold against my legs, and the floorboards chilled my bare feet until the sensation crawled into my bones.
The house was dark and silent as we moved through corridors I had learned to navigate by daylight but which seemed foreign and maze-like now. The ghost provided the only illumination, her form casting a gentle, hazy light that was barely sufficient to see by.
I gripped the bannister, hobbling down each tread. She continued forward without looking back, through the entrance hall, past the study, and into the corridor that led out into the gardens toward the greenhouses.
Cold air met me at the door, sending goosebumps prickling over my skin. I followed her into the damp night, a fine mist silvering the stone path and clinging to every surface. When she did not turn toward the secondary greenhouse, I paused for a moment, confused.
She drifted further along the narrow pathway toward the third greenhouse—the one I had not yet explored.
The structure waited at the edge of the garden, smaller than the others.
Its glass panes were filmed with condensation and grime, rendering the interior opaque from the outside.
Vines had climbed over portions of the frame, knotting themselves around iron supports with possessive patience.
The ghost passed through the door without pause, her form briefly obscured by the glass before emerging on the other side.
I grasped the handle and found it unlocked. The door swung inward with a defiant creak.
I stepped across the threshold, my bare feet finding cold stone.
The space was overgrown and wild, neglected for some time.
Plants sprawled across every available surface.
Climbing vines escaped their containers and covered walls, flowering specimens had grown leggy and untamed without proper pruning, seedlings had sprouted in cracks between stones and flourished despite the lack of intentional care.
Dead leaves were scattered along the floor like little brown tongues, each one curled around secrets.
Worktables lined one wall, their surfaces cluttered with equipment I recognized—beakers and measuring instruments, notebooks and specimen jars, the tools of botanical research conducted in hidden darkness.
A larger table dominated the center of the space, and upon it several vines lay arranged across the work surface, their bioluminescent glow providing eerie illumination.
Verdant Vespera.
I had been right.
Dr. Ambrose was continuing his research with the vine they had created Hawthorne with—the vine that had killed his wife.
My pulse ticked uncomfortably.
And you will be his next subject, the voice taunted.
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat, desperate to ignore the truth that had unsettled me from the moment I first saw the ghost of his wife in the rose-handled room.
I moved closer to the worktable, drawn by morbid curiosity. The laudanum made my movements dreamlike, as though I watched myself from some distance rather than inhabiting my own body fully.
My little companion perked up as I approached the vines, scanning them with my eyes.
I braced myself for its violent reaction, but it did not come.
It simply observed them with vague interest, seeming to wait for a proper revelation.
I frowned, reaching out to touch one of the fresh cuttings.
The moment my fingers made contact, warmth spread through my hand, pleasant and inviting but nowhere near the intensity I had experienced when Dr. Ambrose carried them in his pocket.
Is this not what you wanted? I thought, but the voice remained oddly silent.
Confused, I turned my attention back to the ghost.
She had moved to the far corner of the greenhouse, where shadows lay thickest and the wild growth of untended plants created a dense tangle of green.
She hovered before something obscured, her translucent form partially hidden by trailing vines and broad leaves that had grown unchecked for what must have been months or years.
She pointed.
Tucked into the corner was a small wooden desk, half-hidden by vines and foliage.
I limped closer, pushing aside greenery with hands that were clumsy and distant.
Leaves brushed my arms like dead fingers, a vine caught on my nightgown, and for one breathless moment I thought it had tightened around my leg intentionally.
I stumbled forward, barely catching myself on the desk before I fell.
She pointed again.
A journal lay open beneath a curtain of dried leaves, its pages warped from the damp air.
A diagram of a woman’s body filled the page, rendered in perfect anatomical detail.
Her head was tilted back to expose the elegant line of her throat.
Her lips were parted slightly, in sleep or surrender.
The face had been left vague, yet something about the slope of the cheek and the shape of the mouth stirred an unease in my stomach.
Across her slender throat, an incision had been drawn, the skin peeled back, the muscle separated to reveal her esophagus and carotid arteries. Notes filled the margins in neat handwriting.
And woven through her opened throat, was the Verdant Vespera vine.
It had been inserted directly into the flesh, threaded beneath skin and around vital structures.
Fine roots spread through her muscle and cartilage, the tendrils curling around her trachea like a lover's hand.
Smaller filaments disappeared upward toward the base of the skull, drawn in such delicate detail that I almost imagined them moving.
The page blurred and pulsed as I stared at it. I leaned closer despite my horror, trying to make sense of the notes in the margin. Words swam through the laudanum haze, breaking apart, then reforming.
Integration…
Nerve response…
Sustained respiration…
Neurological implications…
I stumbled back from the desk, bile hot and sticky in my throat, the acidic tang filling my nose.
The ghost drifted toward the door, uncaring of my plight, but I could not move. I could only stare down at the woman on the page, at the vine tucked into her throat. The entire greenhouse seemed to pulse around me, keeping in time with the rhythm of my heartbeat.
Scriiiiiitch
I turned slowly at the sound.