She scowled at its greasy black feathers as it launched into the air and sailed over her roof, an ominous blight on her perfect specimen of a house. As it disappeared, her gaze dropped to one of the dormer windows, curtains parted. She stood between them, the stern-faced woman dressed in black, a bonnet of whitehair piled on her head as she stared down at Cordelia malevolently, pale as death itself.
Cordelia fell back a step, heart grinding to a halt within her chest, breath trapped inside as she gave over to little-girl terror.Not again,she thought, squeezing her eyes shut.Not again, not again, not again.
Her fingers began to buzz with a pins-and-needles effect she couldn’t ignore. She opened her eyes to check her cell phone, the home screen lighting up with a picture of her and John on their wedding day—flushed faces pressed together, electric smiles dazzling. They were probably four glasses of champagne in when she snapped that shot. It used to be her favorite. Now, it filled her with equal parts doubt and longing.
The first few chords of Cher’s “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” began to play. She used that ringtone for only one person, but it had been years since she’d heard it.
Cordelia caught Molly watching her with a curious expression, one she’d seen on many faces over the years. She gave a weak smile, registering that she’d pulled the phone outbeforeit rang, then carefully turned her back, pressing it to her ear as she walked a few steps away. “Eustace.”
“Cordy,” her sister breathed into the phone. “I didn’t know if you’d pick up.”
“You caught me between engagements.” Cordelia wandered up the drive as she glanced back to the dormer window, now thankfully empty. Eustace always managed to call in the middle of important meetings or unexpected crises, as if she could feel her sister’s tension from eight hundred miles away. But after their falling-out five years ago, she’d remained conspicuously silent.
It wassoEustace—showing up late and stoned off her ass, pretending she knew John better than Cordelia did, a man she’d barely said five words to, insisting they call the wedding off. She knew her sister was only trying to protect her after their motherdied, but they had each said things that couldn’t be unsaid that day. They’d always seen the world differently, had disagreements and fights. But for the first time, there had been a real disconnect. As if their grief had eclipsed their bond.
Or maybe it was the fear.
Cordelia had meant to reach out after the wedding, but with MaggieandEustace out of the picture, she’d found it so much easier to put everything behind her, to forget where,whoshe’d come from, and pretend her upbringing had been asCriss Cross Applesauceas the next person’s.
Now, she was wondering what had changed.
“You sound…off,” Eustace replied.
Cordelia had never been a fan of her sister’s ability to read her so accurately. She could read houses, but Eustace could take one look at someone and know their whole life story. Or at least think she did. She’d hoped the distance had put an end to that irritating trait. Apparently, it hadn’t. “I ate a bad egg at breakfast,” she lied.
Without Perry Ellis to stymie them, the moving guys were already in action. Her Victorian walnut console table was resting beside the hydrangeas. Rolled up next to the silk rug she’d ordered from Jaipur. Cordelia wandered into the side yard to avoid them, her reasonable three-inch heels sinking into the freshly watered ground. They were streaked with mud when she pulled them up. Doubly annoyed, she felt the hum of pain radiating between her eyes grow.
As much as she longed for reconciliation, Cordelia couldn’t face this conversation today. TheI told you sos would finish her. And the mysterious envelope from the mailbox was burning a hole through her palm. “Eustace, this isn’t a great time. If you just want to catch up, I can call you ba—”
“She died,” Eustace interjected. “Aunt Augusta. She’s dead.”
Cordelia stabilized herself on the concrete. Her eyes creptup the spotless brick of the house to the empty dormer window where the frightful woman had been, the curtains still parted conspicuously. She swallowed. This wasunexpected.
“Cordelia?” Eustace asked after a moment. “Did you hear me?”
Molly came rushing out of the house with a pinched expression, waving her hands as she darted toward her.
“Uh, yeah,” Cordelia said, eyes shifting to Molly’s sack dress. She was really going to have to talk to her about smartening up her business attire. But then, remembering Allison’s slinky pencil skirts, she thought better of it.
“Is that all you have to say?” Eustace pressed. “Our great-aunt, the matriarch of our estranged family—the one our mother disavowed with such vehemence we didn’t even know they existed until I had that family-tree project—has finally passed into the hereafter, andUh, yeahis your response?”
“Sorry.” Cordelia pressed her lips together as Molly approached, a little out of breath.
“I think you’d better come inside,” Molly said. “You need to see this for yourself.”
She frowned, her head beginning to feel like Molly had pounded theFor Salesign directly into her brain.
“It’s the bedroom,” Molly whispered loudly.
Cordelia placed a finger over the speaker of her phone. “I just need a minute.”
“Okay,” the girl said, sheepish, but then she continued to stand there wringing her hands with worry.
“Fine,” Cordelia snapped, immediately contrite. She softened the edge in her tone. “After you.”
“Cordelia? Are you still there?” her sister beckoned on the other end of the line.
“Yes, sorry,” she said as she followed the assistant into her house. “There’s just a lot happening right now.”
