“The girl from the portrait?” My frown is instant as I watch her arm lift again, and I catch sight of the linen and silver bracelet wrapped there. She tugs at it without looking, gaze still locked with mine.
“You asked me how I knew where Thomasin’s body was… At first it was just this invisible presence in my nursery. She’d play dolls with me, and for a while I thought I made her up. But then she started leaving me clues, telling me that she wanted to play outside but she’s trapped. So she led me, hint by hint, until I found what was left of her.” She exhales shakily, watching for my reaction. “I buried her. In the cottage garden. I was nine at the time, and Tommy’s been with me ever since.”
With another tug at the bracelet, the smell begins to creep in. My skin crawls as the recognition ofEau De Spectral Fungushits. The sensory hell of it calls me out, arguing that I should’ve trusted my nose over my scepticism.
“Mildew…” I breathe, my heart kicking into overdrive.
She nods, and my hand falls from her face to rest on the rim of the tub. “The smell clings because she died in it, wrapped in old linen to protect her from the cold as she starved to death.” Water ripples when she drops her hand and leans forward to rest her chin on her knees. “I used to cry for her, thinking about how she waited, counting footsteps, thinking help was so close. But nobody opened the door. Not until me. Not until almostsix hundredyears later.”
“Francesca—”
“Iknowit sounds insane.” She shakes her head, grip constricting around her knees. “But if he wins… I’ll end up just like her. Just waiting for a future heir to stumble across my body and praying she’ll be luckier.”
Every part of my brain scrambles to keep up with what she’s saying, and they all come to a simultaneous halt upon detecting the very real fear that coats each word. I catalogue that terror, the way she holds herself, how her breath hitches when saying Tommy’s name, but cataloguing is all I can do.
Translation comes only moments later, when a tiny, cold hand presses against my nape. I shove to my feet so hard that my ankle whacks into a gilded clawfoot. Logic bulldozes its way through any adrenaline, and my ears are now pounding with a deafeningba-dum ba-dum.
I shove the panic away and scan the room in a slow circle, searching for something that would permit me to laugh this all off. There’s the faucet, the hamper with Francesca’s ruined nightdress, and my phone on the counter. A heap of towels is on the extravagant armchair, and some robes line the far left wall. Nothing out of the ordinary. Still silent, I shift into a hopefullynot-panickedpace, keeping an eye on Francesca as she watches.
Waits for me to point it out.
Just as I open my mouth to admit that I’m freaked the fuck out and my thoughts are hitting dead ends, I feel the next touch, and it stops me in my tracks. There’s the ghost of a hand, tiny and childlike, slipping its phantom fingers between mine. I haven’t held a child’s hand since my mother used to take my brothers and me to carnivals, and the pressure is so familiar that I can almost imagine a younger Henrik at my side. Mildew and damp cloth grow in strength, and my chest contracts. I glance down and see nothing, but I feel it.
I feel Tommy.
I’m about to have a fucking stroke. Any minute now, my face will go numb, and I’m going to hit the tile. I’m going to die with a fourteenth-century ghost and a cursed witch watching over me. I risk a glance at Francesca, and she’s wearing the most sickeningly pretty smile, and I want to ask herwhat the fuck is going on. She needs to tell me I’m not insane. Needs to check for my fucking pulse.
No, she’s worse than Catherine Earnshaw ever was, because she’s smiling at me—a grown man clutching air—and I can’t breathe because she looks like she’s been waiting so long for this.
For someone to see what she sees.
“Belief doesn’t need to be magic,” she tells me. “It’s just another kind of pattern, you know. Let me teach it to you.” The bruises only make her grin sharper, and she does that little nose scrunch again. It’s the sort of sight that makes my chest burn, and I’m rendered to nothing but ashes when she confesses a quiet, “Please, I want to.”
I’m still trying to process everything before the universe dishes out the final taste of its humour. Something hard slams into my stomach; there’s no time to brace, and I stumble as the backs of my knees hit the tub. The last thing I see is Francesca’sstartled eyes, and a muffledshitleaves my mouth before water fills my nose and ears.
Mercifully, the tub is huge, and I hit the area somewhere close to her ankles. My trousers stick to my legs, and I feel Francesca’s toes nudging my ribs. For one endless, stupid moment, I remain underwater before pushing up and shaking my head like a wet dog.
Fuck, my socks are soup.
“Tommy!” Francesca is scolding, but it’s futile considering she’s fighting laughter. “That was rude!”
I blink slowly, pushing hair from my face as my socks give the most miserable fucking squelch. There’s a crown of foam on my head; I can feel it. Marinating with a naked cryptid wasn’t on my bingo card, but here we are.
“Congratulations, duchess. Apparently I’m a man of faith now.”
She opens her mouth, dimples already weaponised in preparation for a half-assed apology, but she’s interrupted by her own little squeak when my fingers close around a dainty ankle. I tug gently, dragging her closer until our knees knock, and her smile melts into surprise. Bubbles rise like a shield between us, and she blows some of it at my face.
There’s still laughter in her voice when she speaks. “So, what—you weren’t religious before this?”
I pull my shirt over my head and toss it somewhere behind me, cringing at the sound of wet fabric hitting tile. “Never saw the appeal in kneeling for somebody invisible.” A droplet trickles down her throat, pilfering what’s left of my attention. “Need something I can see.”
I realise too late that I’ve let something slip, something so ruinous that even luck flees me, unable to withstand how comprehension hits her. She knows. Knows exactly what I meant.
Reason wears a smug little smirk, folds its arms and takes three exaggerated steps towards the exit.You’re visible, I almost say, but she already knows that. Steam has pinked her cheeks, the flush doing a wicked thing to my self-control, and I’m left trying to remind myself that I’m the kind of man who prioritises restraint.
Here’s the thing though: how the fuck am I to do that when she’s looking at me like I’ve resurrected her? Like I’ve opened the casket, forced her before a mirror and made her stare down the truth that she exists. Like I’ve chained the horror of her mortality to the ankle in my hold. She keeps my stare until it’s too much, until she registers that I’ve held her image up against God, and it wasn’therI found wanting.
The concept of worship had been mutilated and buried in my mind’s graveyard for years. Seven years old, maybe, knees pressed against the narrow pews, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for everything to be over. Father Bariston said, ‘Love thy neighbour,’while the king hated every person he shook hands with. The latter made me sit still and learn the script so I wouldn’t embarrass him. He thought the eternity of worship would cure me of myself, but I could never trust the man preaching eternity when he couldn’t go one hour without checking his phone for word from his mistress.
