Chapter Twenty-Eight. A Spirited Guest

C HAPTER T WENTY-EIGHT

A Spirited Guest

WHILE I was correct in assuming Hecate would have unspoken terms that went along with her help, I wasn’t prepared for quite how many she would have. I thought I had been more than clear I wasn’t interested in speaking with the dead, but Hecate would not hear it. As a result, I spent most of the morning fetching and carrying, gathering supplies intended to keep the spirits at bay should they choose to answer. Hecate had even managed to compel Ruan into making charms intended to repel evil spirits. A feat that filled me with concern rather than reassurance, as Ruan ordinarily refused to do any charm work.

I felt no safer for any of it—not for the salt, or the burning herbs, nor the great twisted hazel rod that took me halfway to Edinburgh to acquire which Hecate had lying across the table before her. She might fear the dead, but my concerns remained amongst the living. Someone had been willing to kill to keep their secret, and here I was trying to draw them out like a splinter from a festering wound.

The large round table was set up much as it had been the night of the first séance, however this time it was dusk—not full dark— and Hecate assured me that there was great power to be found in transitions. Between dusk and dawn, the solstices and the like. Perhaps that was why she was taking such precautions. Ruan’s unease was palpable. The two of them had been arguing in Cornish for most of the day. Some of their disagreement, clearly having to do with me, as I distinctly heard the word Morvoren more than once.

By the time Hecate proclaimed us ready, and I entered the room for the séance, Genevieve Demidov had already taken her seat at the twelve o’clock position—directly facing the window overlooking the ruins. There was to be no grand entrance this time. No chanting. No costumes. And without all that artifice, the second séance felt all the more real. Genevieve wore mourning dove–gray tonight, with her lovely hair knotted into a chignon at the back of her head. Hecate sat directly across from her, her back to the window. The two women in balance.

I spotted Elijah, no longer could I think of him as Mr. Sharpe, standing in the corner—cast in shadows by the candelabra. He fumbled nervously with his pocket watch, his attention trained on Genevieve as if his very next breath depended on whatever word she uttered. It was a strange intensity and I wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Despite our shared past, and his strange confession to me the night before, I did not fully trust him. Elijah’s presence at the séance was to be expected. It was his suggestion after all, and he did own the estate. It would be odd if he wasn’t in attendance.

But I could not disguise my surprise when I spotted Andrew Lennox entering the dining room, followed by Lady Morton and her daughter, Lady Amelia. The girl looked nervously about the room before spotting me, and the tension immediately left her shoulders. She held my gaze for several seconds, as if she wanted to impart something important but was tugged away by her mother at once.

I looked to Ruan. Had he known they were here? But he gave his head a slight shake. It seems their presence was a surprise to him as well.

Andrew took the seat beside Hecate across from me, much as he had the night of the first séance. I twisted Mariah’s ring on my little finger in the darkness as Hecate began the ceremonies. Hecate’s voice carried a rich earthy timbre as she began the proceedings, and even though I knew this was not a real séance, the hairs on my neck rose with each word she spoke. I hazarded a glance from her to Andrew, whose curious attention was fixed—not on the witch—but on Genevieve, just as Elijah’s was.

We scarcely had enough attendees to fill the chairs now, causing us to spread ourselves out to balance the table. What had I been thinking? Did I truly think the killer would walk in and reveal themselves to all of us?

Foolish, foolish girl.

Ruan stared unblinking at the window behind Genevieve. I nearly asked what transfixed him when Hecate called to me. “Have you anything belonging to the spirit, Miss Vaughn?”

I quickly slipped the ring from my finger, handing it across the table to her. She had been adamant no one else touch it—a rule I was happy to comply with as it was my most important clue.

The little ring glinted in the dying light of day.

Making deals with witches, Ruby Vaughn? Did you learn nothing in Lothlel Green?

“Speak the spirit’s name, Miss Vaughn. Who do you seek from beyond the veil?”

Up to this point, the séance was purportedly to summon my late mother. Ruan gave my hand a reassuring squeeze and I opened my mouth to speak. “Mariah. I seek Mariah Lennox.”

A hush overtook the room as I uttered her name. I repeated myself a bit louder, sounding far more courageous than I felt. “I’ve come for the viscountess—if she’ll speak to me.”

As soon as the last word left my lips the temperature in the room dropped precipitously. From behind Hecate, the window to the garden slammed open, the wind howling and rattling the glass in the panes as it struck the wall behind. The candles flickered before sputtering out and thrusting the room deeper into shadow.

Young Lady Amelia yelped, clutching onto Andrew’s arm.

Hecate’s hawklike gaze shot to me then Ruan as if we had any part in this. This, whatever it was, was certainly not part of the plan.

My chest tightened.

The autumn winds moaned over the hills, reverberating in the silence of the room and I began to understand why Hecate feared the dead.

“Sh… sh… should we close the window?” Lady Morton asked, her hand clutching her daughter’s. Evidently real spirits were more than either had bargained for tonight. It was a wonder they even came after the scene that first night. It seemed we were to have a repeat performance.

Ruan was intent, fixated on something in the distance out the window—something only he could see. His hand covered mine and with his forefinger he started tracing something.

L-O-O-K.

I struggled to see what he saw, but there was nothing there. Nothing but an open window clattering in the frame. He tapped again to underscore. S-E-E?

Do I see it?

Of course not. There is absolutely nothing out that window but the ruin of a castle.

Growing increasingly frustrated, I shot to my feet and started for the window to close it—but Elijah beat me to it, fastening it back tight.

She broke the circle. The words came, hushed and low, from somewhere behind me. I turned for the source, but couldn’t find the speaker.

She broke the circle.

The voice whispered again, its breath at my ear, ruffling my hair.

Cold fingers wrapped themselves around my throat as I saw what the voices meant. I’d disturbed the salt circle, just as it had been the night Lucy died.

She broke the circle.

She broke the circle.

Again and again the voices chanted in my ears. Did no one else hear it? Had I gone fully mad here in this castle? I looked from face to face, but they all were staring at me, open-mouthed. Perhaps it was their own thoughts I heard? But that made no sense. I couldn’t hear the living any more than I could hear the dead.

Genevieve stood at the far side of the table facing me, my back to the now-closed window. Her rich brown eyes grew darker—nearly black in the dimness of the room—and she began to rock on her feet. “The dead have a message… a message… the dead have a message.”

That unearthly voice returned again, with the same lilting not-quite-song that had taken over Lucy in the hours before her death. Genevieve’s lovely eyes closed.

Hecate shot to her feet, grasping the rod in her hand. “This must stop. It must stop now!” She began to speak in a language I did not understand. It wasn’t Cornish. It was something else. Something older.

But there was no stopping what we’d unintentionally begun.

The spirits ignored the White Witch as the cold air wrapped tighter around me. I could not have moved if I wished to.

“She will not speak to you, Ruby Vaughn.”

I stared at Genevieve, not believing. This could not be real. It could not be. Genevieve herself told me she couldn’t speak to the dead.

With bravery I didn’t feel, I confronted Genevieve again. “Didn’t she rattle the window? Do the dead have a taste for theatrics? Storming in and then refusing to speak to the one who called them? Sounds like my great-aunt Pulchritude.”

“Morvoren, we do not taunt the dead!” Hecate snapped, her eyes possessing strange brightness. “You will sit and restore the circle before you unleash something we cannot trap back.”

It wasn’t real.

It couldn’t be.

Genevieve glared at me, her lovely face contorted. “The dead will have their say.”

“I want to help them. That’s why I’ve come.”

The temperature continued to drop—cold enough I could see my breath coming out in clouds before my face.

Lady Amelia whimpered.

Agreed, Lady Amelia.

“Tears of the mother bring the daughter’s rage, and you think you can help them, Ruby Vaughn?” The strange voice let out a shrill laugh. “ You think you can help, when you do not even know what you are?”

I hazarded a glance to Hecate, whose knuckles had grown white wrapped around the hazel rod. Hecate silently pleaded for me to move back to restore the circle.

This was bad.

Very bad.

Genevieve’s left arm rose as she pointed at the center of my chest. My breath would not leave my lungs. We were trapped there, she and I in some sort of spiritual détente.

Until she screamed.

In that very instant the window shattered, spraying me with shards of broken glass, which fell to the ground like piercing rain and along with them tumbled the lifeless body of Genevieve Demidov.