He narrowed his eyes. “Yes. Well, I hate to add to your stress, but I spoke with Mr. Jablonski on the way in. He is tending to the removal of that tree in the street. A most unfortunate incident. So lucky that neither you nor your sister were hurt. He took a step toward Cordelia, and she thought that he might sit, but instead, he continued to stand, looking down on her. “He gave me some news to pass along to you.”
“Oh?” Cordelia tried to scoot farther back on the sofa, but the arm was right behind her. She pressed her back into it.
Bennett finished his scotch and set the glass beside hers, still quite full. “It seems he’s spoken with the wildlife department.”
Cordelia frowned. “Sorry?”
“About the bats,” he reminded her.
After everything else that had happened, the dead bats felt like ages ago. “That’s right. What did they say?”
His brows drew together to form one gray line. “They could find nothing wrong. Not a virus. Not a parasite. No toxins. Not even a fungus.”
Cordelia stared at him, unsure what that might mean. “That’s good, right? If they don’t have a disease we need to worry about?”
Bennett shrugged ambivalently. “Perhaps. Though it does little to explain their deaths. It seems their diminutive hearts stopped all at once. What do you suppose could do something like that?”
“There must be some explanation,” she said, wanting suddenly for him to leave.
“It is a mystery,” he said with a hint of bemusement. “Of course, I would understand completely should you decide it unsafe to remain in the house. There are a number of lovely hotels in Hartford. Arkin would happily transport you.”
Cordelia gave him a flat smile. “We’ll think on it,” she lied.
“You do that,” he said, nodding. “Nothing is worth losing your life over. Even your mother knew that.”
The words hit her with a slap. She couldn’t recover in time to respond.
“Well!” Bennett said with an unusually cheery clap of his hands. “I won’t take up any more of your time. No need to show me out. I know the way perfectly well. Arkin!” He marched into the stair hall, his gangly nephew on his heels.
Cordelia got up to follow him. But he was halfway out the door by the time she cleared the library. Grinning, he tipped an imaginary hat to her before heading into the sunlight, Arkin clambering into the driver’s seat of the old Mercedes.
Such an odd man,Cordelia thought as they started the car. She was grateful, in a way, for his guidance. He was like a bridge to her and Eustace’s history, the only thing between them and the family they’d lost. But his familiarity with the house unnerved her at times. The way he came and went of his own accord. She watched him leave, troubled by his words.
It was only in the blistering silence that followed that she realized he’d forgotten to leave the new paperwork. In fact, she had no idea why he’d come at all.
CHAPTER NINETEENTHELEDGERS
CORDELIA COULDN’T GETthe bracelet off. She’d spent the night before trying everything she could think of—soap, lotion, even olive oil—to no avail. Finally, exhausted, she slept in it and woke to find it still there the next morning. Now, she tugged her sleeve down over it as she called to her sister across the solarium, not wanting to explain the frightening scene in the nursery, reveal what the spirits had written to her. Surely, with a little more work, she would get it off.
Eustace called back from a flowering bromeliad, Marvel emitting rapid squeaks of excitement at her heels.
“Shouldn’t she be resting or something?” Cordelia asked, watching the fox, still astonished.
Eustace beamed down at her scrappy new patient as Marvel twirled around her legs. “She’s made remarkable progress. And so have I.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last night, when I was petting her, we were both just lying there soaking up the other’s energy, and it happened again: I slid into her skin.” Eustace’s face was upturned, remembering, near rapturous.
Cordelia worried about the effect Bone Hill was having onher sister. She was healing physically, but what if this place sent her over the edge, like it had done to Morna and Gordon’s mom?
Eustace grabbed her by the upper arms. “At first, I panicked, and it went away. But then I thought about our conversation. What if we learned how to do these thingson purpose?
“I closed my eyes and got very still, pouring all of my focus into her. It was indescribable. I could actually feel everything she was feeling. I was seeing the world through her eyes. With a little pressure, I could direct her. She got up and went outside, trotted and sniffed around. We were one being. It sounds bonkers, but I’ve never felt so real.”
Cordelia flashed a gentle smile, but her chest tightened. Eustace had always been a free spirit, though she wasn’t usually given to wild exaggeration. Cordelia didn’t know what to make of her impossible claims, but she understood the feeling of wind passing through you, the way the earth could sing if you listened just right, the presence of those who should be long gone.
Eustace put a hand to her heart. “I know you might think I’ve finally lost it, but I swear this wasn’t just the high talking. Not like that time I called you from the desert and said I could taste the sky.”
