I screamed then, the sound tearing through my damaged throat like broken glass.
The world convulsed and I was thrown backward out of her body with such violence that I struck the greenhouse floor on my hands and knees.
I gasped for air, choking.
I still tasted the blood in my mouth and felt the hideous pressure beneath my throat, shifting against the tissue.
A strangled sound escaped me.
My hands flew to my neck.
I clawed at the green velvet with such force that the knot tightened before it gave. Panic overtook reason entirely. I was still trapped in the dying woman’s terror. My nails scraped at the ribbon, frantic and clumsy. I needed to get it out. I needed to tear open my flesh and pull free whateverhad been placed inside me before it rooted too deeply to remove.
But there was nothing there.
My fingers trembled against velvet, the ribbon loosened, hanging crookedly at my neck. I adjusted and tied it quickly, realizing what I had done.
I looked toward the door.
The ghost was gone.
The greenhouse stood silent around me, damp and overgrown, the cuttings on the table pulsing softly as though nothing had happened.
I rose on unsteady legs, every part of me shaking, and crossed to the door.
There, on the inner surface, were claw marks. Dozens of old gouges scarred the wood, some shallow, some deep enough to have splintered the grain. Dried blood had darkened in the grooves, black-brown with age, and gathered in a stain beneath the handle where desperate hands had slipped over and over again.
I stared until the marks blurred.
Then I fled, limping rapidly through the garden. I pushed through the door into the manor, moving as quickly as my compromised mobility allowed back through the silent house toward the safety of my room.
My ankle screamed with every step, tears of pain streaking down my face by the time I reached the stairs, but I did not dare slow—driven by fear and confusion and the terrible need to reach my room before I collapsed or simply lost what remained of my composure entirely.
I slipped inside my bedchamber, crossed the room and sank onto the bed. My injured ankle throbbed viciously. My breaths came in ragged gasps. The laudanum fog had vanished, leaving my thoughts sharp enough to wound me.
I reached up, whether for comfort or reassurance, I was not certain. The green velvet ribbon rested, still and soft, against my skin.
Nothing moved there. No blood oozed from my own throat. No vine burrowed beneath the skin.
There was nothing.
I sat there in the dark, with my fingers at my throat and my heart beating too fast beneath them, trying to decide what had happened.
Had I imagined it? Had the laudanum dragged some nightmare from the sickest part of my mind? Or was she becoming more desperate to show me what had happened to her?
Was she trying to warn me?
I looked toward the locked door, half expecting to hear scratching on the other side.
Nothing came.
I searched for the voice in my head, but it refused to say anything.
Chapter 21
Three more days passed before my ankle healed enough to bear my full weight without the sharp, breathless agony that had kept me confined to my room.
Three days to lie in bed and think about what I had seen in that greenhouse.
