And yet the sensation persisted—that I was returning rather than arriving, coming back to something I had somehow forgotten.
I shoved the notion away and stepped through the gates.
The path stretched before me, lined with skeletal trees whose branches hung heavy with accumulated rain. Soon, I imagined, they would create a lush canopy overhead, but for now they looked like reaching hands, beckoning the unsuspecting victim toward some inevitable end.
I paused halfway along the path, my breath coming harder than the exertion warranted. Dizziness threatened at the edges of my vision, and I watched my breath materialize in pale clouds before dissipating, trying to anchor myself to something immediate.
My hands had gone numb inside my gloves.
I flexed my fingers, but felt only a distant ache, that sense of my flesh belonging to someone else entirely.
The necrosis was spreading, claiming more territory with each passing minute.
What would happen if I simply stopped fighting it and let it consume me entirely?
I think you should find out,the voice said, anticipation curling through the words.
I lifted my chin and resumed walking, forcing my attention forward rather than inward. The voice couldwhisper all it liked. I would reach Ambrose House, secure the position, and perhaps, find some explanation for what was happening to me—some hope of restoration in Dr. Ambrose's research.
The front door rose before me, heavy wood reinforced with iron bands, the surface aged but well-maintained. The knocker was shaped like a serpent coiled around what appeared to be sprouting leaves—another merging of the natural and the crafted, a small detail suggesting the house's occupant understood botany on an intimate level.
I raised my hand to knock, then caught sight of my reflection in a window beside the door.
I looked like something the weather had tried and failed to kill. Auburn hair escaped its pins in wind-tangled strands, and my skin had paled to the point of translucence, making my eyes appear feverishly bright by contrast. The only real color against my dark coat and the gray world around me, was the green velvet ribbon tied at my throat in a neat bow.
I had woken in the hospital wearing it and had worn the ribbon every day since, though what lay beneath was better left unexamined—never to be seen, even by me. I touched it now, tempted to unfurl the knot and see what gruesome act had been done to pull me back from death, but I could never bring myself to do it.
I turned to the door and knocked. The sound resonated deeply, then was swallowed by the relentless storm.
Doubt began its quiet work as I waited—that familiar, insidious murmur that had followed me for months.
Perhaps Dr. Ambrose had changed his mind, had reviewed my application a second time and decided a woman was unsuitable after all, regardless of her qualifications. Perhaps this too would amount to nothing, and I would walk home through the rain and sit in my father's empty study, simply waiting for the walls to close in around me.
Then the door opened, and every rational thoughtfled my mind.
Chapter 2
Ihad expected a butler, or a housekeeper—someone stern and disapproving who would take one look at my disheveled state and turn me away.
Instead, I found myself staring at the strangest person I had ever seen.
He was tall and thin, with skin that possessed an odd waxy quality beneath its greenish pallor, like flesh preserved too long in damp soil, rotten and altered by the darkness. His face was smooth, almost ageless, his eyes dark and flat, reflecting light while revealing nothing behind them. His hair hung limp, unnaturally coarse—more like dried kelp than anything that should grow from a human scalp. He wore a simple black suit, perfectly pressed, and stood in the doorway without moving, without speaking, only watching me with that large, lifeless stare.
I opened my mouth, closed it, then tried again.
"I—I am here for an interview," I muttered, my voice smaller than I had intended. "For the assistant position. My name is Camellia Reed."
The man, if he was a man, did not respond. He did not smile or step aside. He merely continued to stand there, his stillness so complete he might have been carved and left to guard the threshold.
"Hawthorne."
The voice came from somewhere above, warm and low, edged with what might have been amusement.
"Let her in before she freezes to death on our doorstep."
The tall figure turned his head, the motion unnervingly exact, each degree of movement appeared measured before executed. After a considerable pause, he stepped aside.
I hesitated on the threshold, unease creeping up my spine as I studied him. There was a wrongness about him my mind refused to name, though my body seemed to recognize it all too well.
