“What for? You’re never going to change.And then he left.” Everything John had done to her—the affair, the gaslighting, the outrageous debts, torching her reputation, stealing their clients and her identity… Cordelia still couldn’t believe she’d let it all happen.
The shrill ring of the doorbell echoed up the stairs, interrupting their moment of closeness.
“What is that god-awful noise?” Eustace asked, rising. “It’s murder to the ears. Is that supposed to be a doorbell?”
Cordelia nodded. “Sounds like we have a visitor.”
Her sister wrapped her robe tight. “Must be Mr. Togers, the attorney. I’ll get the door. You get dressed.”
Cordelia looked down at her bare legs. All her clothes were in the other room, the one she’d begun her night in. There was nothing for it; she’d have to go get them.
Padding down the hall, she reminded herself that bats were nocturnal. They should be tucked safely away by now, crawled back through whatever chink they’d found in the plaster, though it did little to ease the fisted nerves in her stomach. But when she reached the door and tried to open it, there was resistance, like pushing against a crumpled rug. Cordelia leaned into it with a shoulder, determined to get her things, and with effort finally shoved it open. She immediately wished she hadn’t.
The room was littered with their dead, limp bodies, scattered across the floorboards and bed, piled against the door. Dozens of glassy eyes reflected the morning light, and brown, leathery wings were spread at wrong angles or tucked stiffly at their sides. A sharp, skunk-like smell pervaded the air, backed by the beginnings of rot. The evidence of last night’s frenzy stained the walls and cracked the windows, even the mirror over the washstand.
Cordelia began to quake, a prick of pain flaring to life inside her skull, like thetap, tap, tapof a sharpened fingernail from the inside. She tried stepping over them, the honey-orange glow of her pill bottle calling to her, but it was impossible not to feel the give of flesh and tickle of fur beneath her bare feet. Horrified, she stumbled forward squealing, catching herself on the washstand, clutching it for dear life. She squeezed her eyes closed.
There was something unnatural about so much death in one room. The floating woman in the photograph they’d found the day before etched herself anew across Cordelia’s mind.
Had her own presence done this? That thing deep inside her she could never let out? Had it drawn them here, possessing theirtiny bodies and minds, sending them into a collective paroxysm, driving them to their end by some invisible means?
When she opened her eyes again, she read the answer in the mirror before her, her heart icing over. In the blood dripped and spattered across the opposite wall, righted only by the reversal of its reflection, one gruesome, gut-twisting word had formed.
Witch.
CHAPTER SIXTHETRUST
“READY TO JOINus?” Bennett called like a teacher scolding a tardy student as Cordelia slunk down the stairs. Eustace was at his side near the vestibule. “I trust you had a restful night’s sleep?”
“Not exactly,” Cordelia said under her breath. Without her morning dose of caffeine, she was in no shape for this meeting.
“These old houses can take some adjustment,” he countered with an indulgent smile. “Should you need anything, I can send my nephew, Arkin, to fetch it for you. In the meantime, I’ve brought a basket of supplies to get you started.” He lifted a large, handwoven bushel basket overflowing with produce and food items. She prayed there was coffee in there.
Cordelia wasn’t sure she wanted Arkin fetching her anything. She tried to imagine these men in the same family, the aging, overly cordial attorney and his taciturn nephew, pale as skim milk.What a gene pool that must be.“I think we can manage our own groceries.”
“Of course.” Bennett puckered, then forced an agreeable smile. “In due time, I’m sure Bone Hill will grow on you.”
“Due time?” Cordelia asked, wrinkling her nose. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the arrangement here.”
“Arrangement?” Now it was the attorney’s turn to wrinkle his nose, as if the word left a bad taste in his mouth. He pressed his lips into a thin line and glared at her.
Sensing the tension, Eustace quickly jumped in. “Mr. Togers was just telling me that it was our great-great-great-grandfather who commissioned this house. What did you say his name was again?” she asked.
“Erazmus Bone,” he drawled with a hearty nod.
Cordelia quickly recalled the glowering man in the study portrait with the little plaque.
“His father and uncle were born here after his grandparents immigrated with the Scottish,” Bennett told them. “They were very industrious men, but Erazmus was the one who really built the family fortune in America.”
“Surely they weren’t Scots,” Cordelia wondered aloud. “With a name likeBone.”
“They came from England,” he answered.
“You seem to know a lot about our family, Mr. Togers,” Eustace said.
“Bennett,” he insisted a little less warmly than the day before. “Yes, well—my father was an attorney before me. He worked for your great-grandfather, Linden, handling the estate. So, you could say much of the Bone history has been passed down.”
Cordelia thought it strange they should both work for the same family. And yet, isn’t that what small-town people often did? Follow in their parents’ footsteps, inherit the family business? Wouldn’t a family like hers—the most affluent in the area—provide the most work?
