Her sister pointed a half-eaten cookie at her. “I resent that. I make a mean pizza burrito. Best cure for the munchies in a thousand square miles. Besides, I’m feeling inspired.”
Slumping across the island, Cordelia’s eyelids were drooping as if there were lead weights in her mascara. “I’ve got to go liedown. I’m heading upstairs for a short nap.” She trudged past her sister in the pantry.
“You do that!” Her sister called through a full mouth. “I’ll wake you when the food is ready.”
Cordelia lifted a weary hand and dragged herself up the stairs.Have there always been so many?she wondered as she stumbled down the hall. By the time she made it to Arabella’s room, it was all she could do to kick off her shoes and climb onto the enormous bed, grabbing one of her pills and swallowing it dry in the process.
Her eyes began to close, the thrum in her head dulling at the edges, and Cordelia could just make out a crowd gathering at the boundary of her vision, their blurred forms staggering toward her, but she didn’t have the energy to tell them to get out. Someone bent over her, a head full of dark reddish hair and sad eyes, and Cordelia lifted a finger to say,I know you,but the words didn’t make it past her lips. She was out before she could even mouth the name,Morna.
She woke to the smell of something savory and fragrant. Her sister’s humming echoed throughout the second floor, as if the house were magnifying it through the rooms. She knew the house was old, but sound didn’t carry normally there. Things that should be loud were quiet, and things that should be quiet were loud. She still didn’t understand how Eustace had never heard her outside the bathroom, banging to get in.
Bleary-eyed, she made her way downstairs. Her head was no longer hurting, but it felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton in her sleep. The light filtered through the tower windows like liquid gold, as it did when the sun was sinking. Cordelia frowned and headed for the kitchen.
It was a mess. Pots were bubbling on the ancient stove, flour coated everything, empty boxes littered every surface—cookiesand crackers and cans full of nuts, jars of old jam, bags of goodness-only-knew-what. Cordelia lifted a mostly eaten can of deviled ham and sniffed. It smelled of cat food. She made a face and set it down.
Eustace bustled in from the solarium, fistfuls of something leafy and green in her hands. A ragged apron was tied around her waist.
“I’m sorry,” Cordelia said, staring at her. “Who are you and what have you done with my sister?”
Eustace laughed. “You’re up! That’s excellent.”
She glanced around the room. “Eustace, what is all this? You didn’t eatallthis food, did you?”
But before her sister could answer, Gordon strode in. He was still wearing his white dress shirt from that morning, though he’d lost the jacket and unbuttoned the top, rolled the sleeves to the elbow. He had a bottle of wine in one hand. “My mother taught me never to come empty-handed,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” Cordelia blurted, realizing how rude it sounded after it was out.
His eyebrows rose.
“I invited him,” Eustace told her. “So be nice.” Turning to Gordon, she added, “You’re just in time.”
Cordelia’s brow wrinkled. “Invited him to what?” She felt like she’d woken up inThe Twilight Zone.
“To dinner,” Eustace said, as if it made all the sense in the world.
“Dinner?What time is it? How long did I sleep?” She reached up to check her hair and could feel the tangles her waves had made. She tried to run her fingers through it, to little avail.
Eustace checked her phone. “Ten and a half hours, by my estimation. That was some nap!”
Cordelia shook her head. That couldn’t be right. “You didn’t wake me?”
“I’ve been busy,” Eustace told her, gesturing with a wooden spoon around the kitchen.
“Doing what? Eating everyone’s feelings?” Cordelia couldn’t quite get a handle on what was happening.
Eustace scowled at her. “I told you, I washungry.Now, you two go in the dining room and open that wine, let it breathe,” she commanded. “I already set the table.”
Gordon did as he was told. Begrudgingly, Cordelia followed, but not before turning to hiss at her sister, “You could have warned me!”
Eustace only grinned and smacked her playfully with the spoon.
Sure enough, in the dining room her sister had set out several tarnished candleholders and lit tapers of varying lengths. Three plates with black trim and coral roses were set alongside matching bowls, etched flatware, and a trio of crystal coupe glasses. Cordelia picked up one of the glasses and stared at it.
“Those are all wrong for wine,” Gordon said, pulling a corkscrew from the long sideboard. “You can’t swirl with no headspace, and the scent just leaks out of those wide rims. I hope you like Riesling.”
“Well enough.” She sat and tried to find somewhere safe to put her eyes. She’d not really pegged him as a wine drinker. Blood, maybe. Ox horns brimming with dark beer. Viking mead out of the skulls of his enemies. Something less…couth.
“The food smells good,” he added as he poured her glass, then Eustace’s, then his own.
