“When she died, he buried her beneath the hellebore in the backyard to symbolize the grip she had over his heart and mind, but then he married Evangeline—you saw the portrait—and added an entire wing to the house, just for her, including the bridal suite and the solarium, where she took all herteas.”
“Oh,” Nadine said. Because what did you say to a story likethat? “Are there, um, any pictures of his first wife around the house?” she asked curiously.
“No. He burned them all after her death.”
Okay, that’s dramatic. And creepy.
“She must have liked flowers if he buried her in the garden.”
“She didn’t, particularly.” Odessa’s smile was hard to read. “She liked the forest.”
“The forest?”
“Yes. She enjoyed going for long walks in the forest.”
Nadine told herself that it was the shadow of the pine they were walking through that suddenly made her feel so cold, but she couldn’t help glancing in the direction of the tall trees.
(he buried her beneath the hellebore)
“That’s neat.” She wet her lips. “So what do you do now?”
“Do? Well, I’m currently between jobs at the moment. I lived in New York for a while when I was studying graphic design but Ihatedhow loud it was. Everything was moving, all the time, but nothing was alive. Not like this. So I came back home and now I do all of the social media for the house and the festival. I’ve been doing that for, mm, about two years now.”
Nadine thought of the website she’d found for the house, the one she’d assumed was a scam.I guess now I know who’s responsible for that.“Do you give a lot of tours of the house?”
“Mostly during the festival,” Odessa said vaguely, which Nadine took to meanno. “As we mentioned before, our great-grandfather liked to hunt, and he left behind a large collection of old guns and trophies. Some of the animals are now extinct. Hunters like to come by sometimes and marvel at his collection. A couple of them offer to buy, but of course, we’ll never sell.”
“That’s kind of depressing, though. All those animals . . . shot to extinction . . .”
“That’s how it is, though. People love beautiful things, but it isn’t enough to simply love them from afar. They want to possess them,ownthem. Even if—in the case of living things—the cost of ownership is that it can no longer be alive.”
Nadine thought of all those stuffed and mounted animals. “We’re talking about the trophies?”
“Ha! Of course, silly. What did you think I was talking about?” Odessa turned back, her dark eyes wide. “You’ve been listening to those nasty rumors in town about us, haven’t you? The ones about how we’re a bunch of culty sadists who have orgies in the woods and sacrifice people to the moon gods, or whatever.”
“Nobody said anything about moon gods,” Nadine muttered.
“There’s a lot of close-minded prudes here, Nadine. You should see the way they talk about poor Baby Cal. The girls here can’t stay away from him, but they’d rather die than admit to their mothers that he makes the ice in their little panties melt.”
“Uh—”
“And it’s not much better for Ben, either. He’s like a little angry rose surrounded by a stone fortress. Sensitive and . . . scary. He really did love Noelle, you know. But everyone here thinks he did something to make her disappear. Some people say it’s bad luck to be a Cullraven bride. Worse than Bluebeard, even. They’ve called our houseKillraven Castle.Can you believe that?”
Nadine swallowed hard. “No, I can’t.”
Yes, I totally can, your house is creepy, and now I might accidentally call it that.
Odessa slowed her pace. They had arrived at Ravensgate. She marched through the arch, which was hugged on both sides by a wall of boxwood. “What’s with that statue?” Nadine asked, as they circled around the woman-deer.
“Caledon Cullraven enjoyed hunting deer,” Odessa said. “It was a tribute to his first wife.”
“The one whose pictures he burned.”
“That’s the one.”
“Hardcore,” she muttered.Here, let me burn all your pictures and then commission a creepy statue in your honor. By the way, it’s a deer with your head getting stabbed.
Apparently, the Cullravens didn’t bother locking their doors when they were home, because Odessa threw them both open with a bang without reaching for a key or knocking. She didn’t get more than a few steps in before one of the staff appeared—a male one, this time.
