At the head of the table, a lady sits, swathed in a gown so purple it might be black. Her brilliant gold hair is scooped at the nape of her neck, curls like spools of the finest thread. Her ruby lips part when she sees me. And then—
“Adelaide.”
I fall to my knees at the sound of that voice.
Mother.
twenty-two
After a long moment of silence, my mother screams. It is a happy scream, but it shocks me to my core all the same. The idea of sound coming from her mouth.Thatmouth. The mouth I wiped blood from, that sang me lullabies and coughed until her lungs dried up. The mouth that pressed kisses to my fevered skin, taught me about flowers in the garden, laughed when I toddled haphazardly across the kitchen floor. The mouth that curled inward, turned red to black to gray.
The mouth that couldn’t even say goodbye when all was done.
Making sound. It feels impossible.Shouldbe impossible. All along, I have known finding her was my goal. Bringing her home, back to life. And yet here I stand, gazing into her eyes, like pools of deepest blue, itching to touch her golden hair. Her cheeks almost rosy in all the blistering candlelight. The pallor of sickness is gone, as if it never was. I want to believe it, and I wait for the sweet relief to course through my veins.
But all I feel is the cold.
“My Addie!” Mother shoves her seat back and runs at me with open arms.
When she enfolds me, she smells like lemons, lavender, and earth. Warm, good earth. But I keep myself from breathing it in fully, from believing this is real and happening. I reach through her hair and press a finger to her throat.
Nothing.
My mother is dead. I watched the men take away her body, lay her in a grave, and cover it with dirt and a stone cross.Esme Thorn, Devoted Mother, Dutiful Wife. Died Age 36. Blessed be she by Ithrandril.Those words always made me angry. Mother. Wife. She was so much more than that. More than what she gave to other people. An artist, a light, a place of warmth and growth.
My arms hang limp at my sides while she squeezes.
“My darling, how I’ve missed you.” Her voice is soft and calm, sweet as river water. Her hand runs over my tangled hair, and I almost break at the touch. So gentle, so familiar, it hurts.
I push away. “How—”
Her face is full of tears. They glisten in the fire’s glow, each one a diamond. I fight the urge to brush them away, to throw myself back into her arms. But I smell something else beneath the scent of earth and citrus.
Iron. Sulfur.
I step back, holding out a hand for Bram to catch. His fingers wrap solidly around mine, and I press my thumb to my throat.
A-live, a-live, a-live.
But my mother is not. There is a tug of unease in my belly. I should feel happy, relieved at finding her. But I don’t. There is something wrong, a catch in the air. Not of lemons or ripe soil, but a sour tang. Mother’s face is too perfect, toonew.
She is supposed to be dead. Her eyes go soft as egg whites, and I brace myself against Bram.
“Adelaide, you have no idea how long I’ve waited for this. Please.” She puts her arms out again, beckons me in.
But if I go, if I accept this reality, what do I do if it proves to be false? Can a ghost be trusted?
Bram is steady at my back. He is real and solid and there. And even if heisdead, he is the most alive person I have ever met. Violent and fierce and wildly unyielding. I knead my thumb against his hand.
“How do I know it’s you?”
Mother’s face twists at this, her lips curving down. “Oh, my Morning Glory. Of course it’s me.”
But it isn’t. There is something wrong. Something in the way she smells. In the way she carries herself—as though she is the most important creature in all the world. Her dress is finer than anything she ever owned in life, and her ears and neck drip in pearls.
My mother wore linen and wool. Simple, hardy fabrics to get her through a day in the gardens, in the kitchen, tearing after me when I toddled down to the banks of the river. She wore her simple flame-shaped locket for Ithrandril about her neck, nothing else, and smelled of soil, flowers, and rainwater.
But the face is right. And that’s what scares me the most.
