“The rats. We don’t want them nesting in the hay.”
“Yes, you’re right. A good idea.”
I return to his side, my pulse thudding in my ears. We resume our work, but my mind is distracted, the pull toward Weston’s portrait unmistakable. I touch my neck, where my Saint Michael’s medal usually rests. It’s gone. I search frantically, pawing at the hay-strewn floor with my feet.
“What’s gotten into you, Sadie?” Beckett frowns.
“I lost my necklace. My Saint Michael medal.”
“I’m sure it will turn up.”
But it doesn’t. I can’t find it anywhere. And that night, when I go to our room, the ever-burning candles on my protective altar are out. I relight them, speak the protective prayer aloud, and turn in, exhausted from my day of chores.
I wake sometime later, to the feel of my husband’s caress, his hand trailing up my thigh and across my belly, his fingers teasing me. I sigh as his tongue flicks against my neck, as he cups my breasts. I roll over, offering myself to him fully. But when I open my eyes, Beckett isn’t there. No one is there. The room is pitch black, the altar’s candles extinguished once more.
I scream and hurtle myself from the bed, fear bristling beneath my skin.
The door creaks open, letting in a cone of yellow light. Beckett squints at me. “Sadie?”
“Don’t ... come in,” I say. “He’s here.”
“Who?”
“Weston.”
Just then, the candles fly from the dresser as if thrown, one after the other. I chant the Saint Michael prayer. The lights flicker on and off, the bed shaking like a child’s plaything. Then everything stills.
Beckett rushes to me, taking me in his arms. “It’s all right. You’re all right.”
I sink down on the bed next to him, trembling. I think of what might have happened, had I not come to my senses. Weston might have ravished my all-too-willing body. Or killed me. Helplessness floods my limbs. I was foolish to think I was safe. That we were safe. It will take more than white candles and incantations to protect us.
Beckett and I go to the kitchen, where he makes a mug of warm chocolate for me. Marguerite shuffles in a few minutes later, no doubt roused by the noise. After I’ve calmed down, Beckett presses a kiss to the top of my head. “I’m going up to bed,” he says. “I’ll make sure the candles stay lit in our room.”
After Beckett leaves, Marguerite leans toward me across the table. “He was here again, wasn’t he?” she asks. “Weston.”
“Yes. I found his portrait in the barn, where Beckett hid it. I think I stirred things up again by looking at it.”
“I told you he wouldn’t let you go. He’s angry. Angry that he can’t have what he wants anymore. He wants to keep you captivated, just as he did Florence.”
“What is he, Aunt Marg?”
She smiles sadly. “My invention. Mine and Florence’s. She wrote the story. I painted him. Made a graven image for her to worship, like a god. One that should never have existed.”
“Your . . . invention.”
“You saw us there, in the past—I know you did. I could feel you there, watching me paint.” Marguerite shakes her head. “I had to paint my way back to the beginning, to remember everything. Now I know what I must do to make things right. To protect you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have to return to that day, a week before Florence’s eighteenth birthday, and unmake the past. Unmake Weston.”
“Is that possible? Even if you could somehow undo your part in his existence, if Florence wrote the story, created the original idea of him, how can you unmake him all on your own?”
Marguerite sighs. “I’m not sure. But if I don’t try, you’ll always be in danger. Just like Sybil. Just like Claire.”
“Claire?” I ask.
“Yes, Claire. She fell into his orbit as well, child.”
