CHAPTER ELEVEN

I sleep again after my ordeal, but I am far from rested when I trudge downstairs in the morning. Theresa, as usual, is in the kitchen. She looks just as haggard as I am.

“Morning, Mary,” she says. “Did the storm keep you up as well?”

I chuckle bitterly. “You could say that.”

"Aye. The North Sea is a cruel mistress. Whatever gods rule, it must delight in tormenting those who choose to live here." She sighs. "But we still live here."

“I don’t mind spiting the gods,” I say, helping myself to some of the tea she’s made.

She laughs. “I’ll drink to that. Spite the gods.”

We sip our tea, and I look pensively down at the cup. I need to talk to someone about my experiences last night. I’ve had poor luck finding friends in the past, but I suppose Theresa will have to do for now.

“I thought I heard Sarah screaming for help last night,” I tell her.

“Aye. So did I.”

I lift an eyebrow. “Did you?”

"Aye. Trick of the wind, of course, but it chilled me, nonetheless. Sometimes it's Sarah I hear, sometimes it's another. Sometimes, it's my own mother, screaming as she did before the illness took her."

“I’m sorry.”

She shrugs. "Better the illness takes her than that it tortures her for the rest of her life. Anyway, that was nineteen years ago. The point is that these storms find the deepest fears you have and rip them to the front of your mind whether you want them or not."

I scoff. “That’s true.”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Was Sarah’s loss your biggest fear then?”

“No. Just the most recent.”

She waits, eyebrow still lifted. I sip more of my tea and try to think about the consequences of telling her more than I already have. Something tells me it would be better not to share anything about my personal life, but I'm so tired and so frustrated and so alone. All of the old memories that plagued me, the nightmares I thought I'd overcome, have all come back in force.

And there’s that need again, that compelling to solve mysteries, to uncover hidden truths, to seek justice for those to whom justice is denied. It won’t release me no matter how hard I try.

And I can’t bear this burden alone.

“I lost my sister,” I tell her. “Thirty years ago.”

She nods. “Those tragedies never truly let us go, do they?”

"No. They don't." I sip more of my tea. "She didn't die. I thought she did for a long time. But recently, I learned that she faked her own death. Or rather, she disappeared and did nothing to stop us from thinking she had died. She moved from Boston to Monterey, California and lived there for several months, nearly a year, before leaving again."

“What happened to her after that?”

“I don’t know. I stopped looking for her.” I finish my tea and set the cup down with a sigh. “It just hurt. To know that she was alive all this time, but she didn’t want me to know.”

“Were you two close?”

“I thought we were. I suppose that feeling was one-sided.”

A lump forms in my throat. Before now, I was certain that I had forgiven Annie for her decision, certain, in fact, that there was nothing to forgive.

But thinking of the way her departure has affected me, the nightmares I’ve suffered, the brushes with insanity I’ve endured, the inescapable compulsion to fight for those who have disappeared or whose deaths have been brushed under the rug even when doing so places me in mortal danger… No, I haven’t forgiven her. She suffered, yes, but I was not the cause of her suffering, and while I was never a perfect sister, I was far better than to deserve the wound she tore from me when she left.

She escaped, but there is no escape for me.

Theresa says nothing. She simply pulls me into an embrace and holds me. We are not yet close enough that I would ordinarily accept such a gesture, but I am alone here, far from the only person I am close with, and I have learned that I am not yet recovered from my sister’s departure the way I thought I was.

And once more, I am embroiled in mystery.

She releases me a moment later, and I offer her a smile. “Thank you. I guess I haven’t moved on as well as I thought I had.”

“You don’t need to be sorry. You’re a good woman, Mary. It’s your sister who should be sorry. I’m sure she had her reasons for leaving her life behind, but that’s no excuse for the pain she caused you. I hope she suffered. I hope she lived to regret hurting you like that.”

I appreciate the sympathy, but the venom in her voice is a little disquieting, and while I am angry with Annie at the moment, I don’t particularly enjoy hearing a stranger disparage her. I pour some more tea and change the subject.

“Last night, when I heard the cries, I followed them. I think… I guess a part of me wondered if Sarah had somehow come to harm here in the castle.”

“Aye. Inspector Hargreaves thinks that as well.”

“You don’t agree?”

Theresa frowns. “I think it’s best not to meddle in the affairs of high lords.”

“You’ve said that twice now.”

“Twice to you, but many a time before.”

“But what about Sarah? What about the others who have gone missing?”

Her frown deepens. “Who told you about the others?”

“Inspector Hargreaves told me that Alivia disappeared from this same castle.”

Theresa sighs. "There have been rumors. There always are. Whether they're true or not is another thing entirely. Perhaps they are, and perhaps they aren't. When I say it's not good to meddle in the affairs of high lords, I think of what can practically be done to change things. Unfortunately, when the person in question is an Earl of the House of Lords, the answer is not much. Not from the ordinary folk, anyway. Now Hargreaves, if he has years, more likely decades, and consistent support from the Yard, he might be able to do something. If there's something needs to be done, mind you. I'm not at all convinced that Lord Edmund is the monster people make him out to be. But if he is, there's naught you or I can do but get ourselves hurt. Won't affect his Lordship at all."

I purse my lips and process what she’s just said. There’s nothing really wrong with it. She has simply adopted the attitude I wish I could have. And she did try. She talked to His Lordship and reached out to Sarah. Someone must have alerted the authorities, and it’s a fair bet that Theresa is the one who did. She’s just willing to accept when there’s no more she can do.

I am not.

“Anyway, I thought I heard my cries last night, so I went to investigate them. I followed them to the third floor of the castle."

“The third floor? There’s nothing up there but old paintings and his Lordship’s library.”

“Exactly. I went into the library and found the window flung wide open.”

Theresa’s eyes widen. Then she sighs. “Oh, bother. Was the furniture ruined?”

I blink. “I… possibly the two chairs by the windows.”

She sighs again and rubs her face with her hands. “I’ll need to order new ones then. And possibly a new rug for the floor.” She shakes her head. “His Lordship is a very fastidious man in all areas save that he can’t remember to close his damned library window when he leaves. I’ve had to chase birds, bats and moths from that room I don’t know how many times. Now he’s left it open during a storm.”

“I see.”

I frown and sip my tea. I don’t know why I react this way. Theresa has provided a perfectly reasonable explanation for what happens. It would even explain why the cries of the wind were audible from my room despite the insulation of the castle’s thick stone walls.

Theresa herself says as much. “Well, we know why the wind was howling so much last night. I suppose we have you to thank for the few hours of peace we had later in the night.”

I smile briefly. “Yes, I closed the window.”

“Good for you. Not that it’ll save us much damage.”

She pours herself some more tea and adopts a pensive look. It’s my turn to lift an eyebrow and wait for her to speak.

She finally sips her tea and says, “Mary, I’m not suggesting we meddle, but… Hell, I don’t even know if it means anything.”

I try to control my excitement. “What? What is it?”

She sips more of her tea and looks at the door as though checking to make sure no one else is entering the kitchen. "Well… You're aware that Lady Cordelia is not Lord Edmund’s first wife, yes?”

I can't quite control my reaction to that news. "No. I wasn't."

"Well, she is. Lord Edmund had another wife, Evelyn. Married for twenty-three years, they were. In fact, they were married for longer than Lady Cordelia was alive when she married his Lordship. Then, less than a year later, he's married to Lady Cordelia.”

“What happened to her?”

She chuckles. “Guess.”

A chill runs down my spine. At the same time, my heart leaps. I may be close to the answer to this mystery. “She disappeared?”

"She did. She just woke up and vanished one day. I came to bring her breakfast in bed—she liked her breakfast in bed—and she was gone. We looked all over for her, but we couldn't find her."

There was a big fuss over it. Made the papers and everything. Locals eventually found her on the wrong side of White Cliff near the ocean. Dead, of course.”

A shriek splits the air, and Theresa flinches, dropping the teapot. It shatters on the floor, and we stand stock still in the mess, eyes wide and spines stiffened. Theresa looks at me. “Did you hear—”

“Help me!”

There is no mistaking the reality of that cry or the owner of the voice making the cry. The Lady Cordelia is screaming for help.

We sprint upstairs and rush to her room, moving faster than I would have thought possible for our ages. I reach the room first and catch a glimpse of Lady Cordelia in her bathroom, kicking and clawing at the air, shrieking for help. The sight is so shocking that I am frozen for a moment.

Theresa pushes past me and wraps Lady Cordelia in a bear hug. “All right, love,” she says soothingly. “It’s all right. We’re here.”

“The ghost!” Lady Cordelia cries, pointing at her mirror. “There was a ghost in the mirror! There was… there was… a… ghost.”

“Shh… It’s all right, love.”

“Aunt Cordelia?”

I snap out of my shock and rush to Oliver, who stands in the doorway, pale with fright. I scoop him up in my arms and carry him from the room. “Your aunt is all right,” I tell him. “She’s just had a shock. Mrs. Pemberton’s going to help her calm down.”

“Is she okay?” he asks, his voice wavering.

“She’s okay. It was only a nightmare.”

He wraps his arms around me, clinging tightly. I hold him just as tightly, keenly aware of how fast my heart is beating.

Lady Cordelia claims to have seen a ghost. Twice now, I am certain I heard one. Thrice, a woman, has gone missing from this house under mysterious circumstances. I do not believe in ghosts, not truly, but I do believe that Lady Cordelia’s outburst was prompted by more than just superstition.

Something is haunting this house.