“Titus has had my back more times than I can count. I’ll kick his ass in the competition, but I’m not going to sabotage him. You may not believe this, but I take friendship seriously.”
“You’re right.” She grabbed her bow and held it across her chest like a medieval knight. A memory flashed in my mind – Faye and I collapsing into giggles as we had a swashbuckling sword fight with our bows. “Idon’tbelieve it. Now get out, I’ve reserved this room.”
“So you won’t—”
“Get out.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Faye
I can’t believe him.
I dragged the bolt across the door and shoved a chair under the lock for good measure. My hands flew to my violin, the agitation and fear in my body desperate for release. I drew the bow across the strings, launching first into Paganini’s caprices and then divulging off along an unknown path, following the music where it led.
I wasn’t even thinking – this was pure improvisation, conjuring images from my past that meshed with the present. I craved Dorien. I hated him. I wanted to crawl inside his spice and violet scent and live there forever.
Three Broken Muses. All I smelled, all I could feel, were Dorien, Titus, and Ivan. They flowed in my veins, inseparable from their music – the magic that stirred my soul and made me feel things I didn’t understand.
With a cry of frustration, I tore the violin from my chin, spinning across the room in a reckless dance. From the corner of the room, a faint scratching sound echoed from the wall, followed by the creak of receding footsteps.
“You’re the most useless fucking ghost I’ve ever met!” I yelled at the wall.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Faye
That Sunday, I had a spare block of time I’d set aside to visit my mother. But Harrison was conspicuously absent when I went to find him. Tears pricked in my eyes. I knew it wasn’t that he’d forgotten. Someone was deliberately keeping me from her.
I called a taxi company to see if I could get someone to pick me up – it would cost every cent of Madame’s allowance that I’d saved, but it was worth it. Suddenly I wanted nothing more in the world than to be in Mom’s presence, even if she was asleep. But when I called to order a taxi to Manderley, the guy on the end of the phone laughed at me.
“You’ll never get anyone to make the trip out there. Even if they were willing to travel that far, they wouldn’t do it because that place is haunted.”
“That’s ridiculous. It’s just an old house owned by an eccentric lady.”
“Eccentric? Hah. We all know the stories – footsteps in the night, noises in the walls, music playing when no one’s sitting at the keys. And that girl died there not two months ago, all mysterious like. Manderley is haunted, you mark my words.”
My heart leaped into my throat. Those were the exact same things that were happening to me. But ghosts?Really?Manderley was old and creepy, sure, but I was fairly certain its creep-factor was entirely down to the dickweasels who inhabited it.
What about Dorien’s face when you confronted him with the violin?
He looked horrified. Completely taken aback. He insisted he onlymovedmy violin. Every other awful thing he’d done to me he freely admitted. He reveled in his cruelty – that was part of the torture. He wanted me to know he was out to bring me down. But he refused to admit he destroyed my violin.
And none of the guys admitted to being that face in my window, or breaking into my room to switch off the light. I remembered how I’d checked every corner of my room, how I’d never heard anyone creep down the stairs, how my fancy new lock hadn’t been disturbed and I found no trace of a hidden panel. It seemed impossible that anyone could have been there and yet, Iknewwhat I saw.
Unless it was a ghost—
Stop it. I shook my head.You’re being ridiculous. Don’t let Manderley get to you. There’s no such thing as ghosts.
The urge to throw myself down on my bed and sob into my father’s book threatened to overwhelm me, but I squared my shoulders and put on my war face. If I couldn’t see Mom, I’d at least make sure my day was productive.
All the practice rooms were taken, but I still had an essay to finish. It wasn’t due for months, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a head start. Perhaps if I handed it in early I could claw back some of Master Radcliffe’s respect. I wasn’t ready to give up on the Manderley Prize just yet. I headed toward the library.
Dorien glanced up from a table by the window as I pushed open the door.Great.I shot him a ‘don’t fuck with me’ look and pointedly sat down as far from him as possible, pulling books from the shelves with venom.THUMP THUMP THUMP.I slammed volume after volume on the table, relishing the loud noise echoing throughout the high-ceilinged room.
I slumped down in a cubby and got to work on the essay, but it was impossible to concentrate with Dorien in the same room being all Dorien-like. I read the same page on Paganini’s performance techniques five times before I gave up. I let my hair curtain over my face, and I dared a glance through the strands across the room.
From over his laptop, Dorien’s grey eyes peered back at me.
