When Bones Whisper
Prologue
Charlotte Lovett made certain her sister was dead before they put her in the ground. Ensuring Alice wouldn’t be subjected to the horror of being buried alive was the least she could do after letting her die.
The other mourners faded from her periphery, a group of moths instead capturing her attention when they flew between the weathered headstones.
She watched them flutter erratically as one broke away from the group and tumbled down into the six-foot-deep hole.
Its wings trembled when it tried to fly out but quickly gave up and landed on the muddy wall next to the casket, unaware that in its descent, it had narrowly escaped the beak of a wren circling overhead, which instead consumed its faster friends.
After a couple of minutes of the priest droning on, the moth crawled out, and the bird was gone.
Much like the insect, Charlotte was also alone, broken, and surrounded by predators.
Except, unlike the wren, those in good society hid their predacious natures behind finely embroidered frocks and insults disguised as compliments.
She watched them all from behind her black crepe veil as they avoided eye contact with what they perceived as the less accomplished sister.
A beauty, yes, with her wild black curls and wide, green eyes, but her skin was kissed by the sun from the long days she spent barefoot in the garden, and she could never tame her hair into the fancy updos suitors preferred.
Charlotte closed her eyes, breathing in the heavy fragrance of damp earth and wilting lilies.
She had grown to hate the flower that had once been her favorite.
Her mother’s burial, just a few days prior, lingered with the same musty odor.
It clung to everything—her clothes, her hair, and no matter how much she bathed, she couldn’t get rid of the smell.
Voices filtered through the inaudible whispers and sniffles surrounding her, but the loudest, not in sound but in accusation, came from the Baron Ellenwood and his wife, Victoria, who were standing beside her.
“I heard the father murdered three maids too, after he killed his wife and daughter,” Victoria stated in a low voice, just loud enough for Charlotte to overhear their conversation.
Her husband replied with less of a hushed tone, a single lily pinned to his black suit. “Terribly tragic. Although I am not surprised after what their mother did to the Eringhorn family.”
Victoria hushed him, but the tilt to her lips gave away how much she enjoyed her husband’s salacious remarks.
“It is true. She should never have allowed her daughter to fraternize with a chimney sweep.” She hid her lips behind her gloved fingers and murmured, “Lord Eringhorn’s son had no choice but to break the engagement after that scandal. ”
Baron Ellenwood shook his head, his fist tightening around the handle of his cane. “Quite right. It was not as if Alice could have done better than the second son of a baron.”
“Yes, and shortly after the news spread, the Eringhorn’s housekeeper fell ill and the family lost their wealth,” Victoria stated.
He tsked under his breath. “Perhaps that is why the father killed them all. Their mother, at the very least, had the evil eye.”
Charlotte pursed her lips, fighting the hot, angry tears that brimmed in her eyes. She instead tried to focus on the casket in the large hole in the ground, her stomach dipping at the thought of her sister’s body inside, unmoving and cold, her throat covered in bruises that matched her own.
“I wonder if the youngest daughter will inherit Lovett Manor?” Victoria asked, and Charlotte clenched her jaw.
Did they have no sense of propriety? Discussing such rumors at a funeral, especially when they were false.
“Surely it will go to Mr. Lovett’s brother,” Baron Ellenwood responded, side-eyeing Charlotte’s uncle. “If he has any sense, he will marry the girl off. That is if anyone will have her. Twenty-five years old and still unmarried.”
With a loud cough, the priest cleared his throat, and the whispers faded into a dull murmur.
Her family didn’t practice witchcraft, and Alice did not fraternize with anyone.
The Eringhorn’s lost their wealth because Baron Eringhorn gambled, and their housekeeper did not fall ill.
She was pregnant, and according to scandal sheets, the reason she was sent away was because the father was Alice’s fiancé, Baron Eringhorn’s son.
The truth didn’t matter, not when the lie better suited their delicate sensibilities.
They wanted to demonize her family, and it would not have done for anyone to discover it was Alice who broke off the engagement.
They were an aristocratic family, and everyone knew the aristocracy could do no wrong.
God, she hated them all.
With a deep breath, she lifted her glassy stare to the somber, cloud-shrouded sky and grasped at the gold locket hanging around her throat, containing a lock of Alice’s hair.
She refused to think about the Baron and Baroness Ellenwood any longer.
They were notorious gossips, and she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of showing that their words had any effect on her.
The priest’s voice floated back into her awareness, closing the end of the service, but Charlotte wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Alice had promised never to leave her. They only had each other, and now she was gone.
Pressing her lips tight, she looked at the casket, praying that this was all a dream and her sister—her frustrating, wonderful, charismatic sister—would be back home, in her room when she awoke, berating her for stealing the tonics from her dresser.
No matter how hard she pinched her wrist, nothing changed. The world continued moving despite Charlotte’s being torn apart.
A single tear escaped, trickling down her freckled cheek. She heaved back a sob, holding her breath so she would not explode into fits of tears. Letting in even an ounce of grief meant drowning in it.
Curling her fingers into her palm, she dug her nails deeper into her skin until the pain temporarily distracted her from the agony blooming inside.
As the world shrank and dirt toppled onto Alice’s grave, she turned away, the knot in her stomach tightening. She scanned the vast graveyard through hazy eyes, not yet ready to leave while at the same time, desperate to run out of there.
A wisp of gray and white caught her eye from between two crumbling graves.
The fog took form as a semi-translucent figure, partially obscured by the morning mist. Squinting, Charlotte lifted the veil, her gasp frozen in her throat when she saw the ghost of her sister, with skin stretched taut over her lips, muffling her screams. Alice’s white eyes wept blood as she fought against unseen bonds anchoring her to the cold earth.
Help me!
Her voice echoed in Charlotte’s mind, a sound she never thought she would hear again.
“Alice,” Charlotte whispered in a strangled breath, taking a hurried step forward, almost tripping on the dull, black fabric of her dress.
Tears streamed down her face, her breath catching in her throat as she ran as Alice faded and she tripped over a wayward rock.
Her uncle’s hand tightened around her wrist, halting her fall to the damp earth.
The pain radiating in her ankle didn’t stop her steadying herself and trying to run forward again, but Alice was already gone.
“Are you mad?” her uncle Theodore asked.
She turned to face him, his pale blue eyes mirroring her father’s, the anger in them almost as potent. “I saw Alice,” Charlotte stammered, pointing at the graves. “She was right there.”
He glanced at the space between the weathered headstones and turned his glare back to her, adjusting his wide-rimmed, black hat.
“They already believe your mother was a witch. Do you intend to confirm their suspicions and have everyone think you inherited her habits?” he hissed, his voice a low, dangerous whisper, only forcing a smile when people turned to see what the ruckus was about.
With a sharp tug on her arm, Theodore pulled her back to face him when she didn’t immediately answer. “Are you not listening girl? Do you not understand the precarious situation we are in?”
She did. It was all she had heard from him since he had arrived shortly after the massacre. The last thing she wanted was to evoke his anger further or give his revolting son a reason to tease her more.
“Yes, Uncle. I apologize. It must be the grief.”
He nodded. “You have been tired.”
“I have,” she parroted, telling him what he wanted to hear. That was always the best way.
“They are gone,” he told her, as if she needed a reminder. “You must accept that and move on. No more talk of seeing the dead,” he whispered, looking around briefly as people paid their respects. “Hysteria can make you see things. That is all it is. Put it from your mind.”
It wasn’t hysteria, but he was right. She stared at the graves, her stomach dipping. Nothing but a layer of undisturbed fog coated the area. Thoughts of Alice had plagued her since that fateful night. Perhaps her nightmares were bleeding into reality.
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“I will,” she promised, letting out a tense sigh. Once satisfied, he smiled and greeted a wealthy merchant friend of her late father’s, leaving her standing alone, wiping her tears with her veil. She had to remain composed.
Her family had a long history of accusations of witchcraft, but the massacre breathed new life into them.
If she wasn’t careful, she would be ostracized for a craft she didn’t even practice.
It was forbidden by her family, but that did not stop her from reading her great-grandmother’s grimoires that were filled with sacrificial magic, every night since she was six.
Neither her sister nor mother ever used dark magic, nor researched it.
They said it was evil, but she had wondered ever since they died if the magic they feared above all could have saved them in the end?
She thanked those who attended the burial alongside her uncle and cousin, William, not even looking the guests in the face as she took their hands.
One by one, they grasped her fingers, offering words of condolence.
When a woman squeezed her fingers between her ringed, wrinkly palms, a powerful scent of rosewater brushed the air between them, before she left.
Finally, they were alone.
Her eyes glided over several tombs belonging to her ancestors, the Lysanmore Witches, as she followed her uncle from the graveyard. Upon reaching the gates, she turned back, swearing she could feel the eyes of the dead upon her, boring into her soul like daggers of ice.