Page 1

PART ONEWitness

Can I get a witness?

—Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland

Prologue

The manor stood, as it had for generations, on the high, jagged cliffs above the thrash of the sea. Through the swelter of summers, against the bitter winds of winters, in blooming springs, and in dying autumns, it held its place on the rocky coast of Maine.

Within its stone and cladded walls, inside the gleam of its windows, it had seen births and deaths, it had known triumphs and tragedies. Both blood and tears had spilled on its polished floors; secrets and shadows lived in its many corners.

And it remembered them all.

From its turrets, its widow’s walk, from the seawall beyond its grand entrance doors, many eyes had looked down toward the village of Poole’s Bay.

Many eyes looked there still.

Since those grand doors opened in 1794, a Poole had walked those halls. A Poole had climbed the grand staircase, gazed from the many windows, dreamed their dreams. And some had lived their nightmares.

Some lived them still.

A murdered bride, the first of seven doomed, would—in all innocence—carry the curse that haunted the manor. Generation by generation, it passed its shadow to the next, and the next, through the rage of a jealous witch.

With those lost brides, others walked the labyrinth of rooms. Those who had lit the many fires, made the beds, cooked the meals continued their duties.

Others who had lifted a glass in toast, danced in the ballroom, or rocked a fretful baby in the night toasted and danced and rocked still.

In the many rooms, time came and went. Music played, clocks ticked, floors creaked as the manor waited for another generation.

As it waited for one who might break the curse.

More than two hundred years after Astrid Grandville Poole died in her wedding finery, more than two hundred years after her murderer cursed the manor and leaped off the cliffs to her own death, another with Poole blood walked through those grand entrance doors.

Those who’d come before her watched and waited as she made the manor her own. As she dreamed her dreams—or theirs.

As she walked the labyrinth where music played and clocks ticked and floors creaked. And to the mirror where time came and went.

Carved predators frame this mirror’s glass and seem to snap and snarl and slither. And its glass opens a door to what was for her, and another with Poole blood.

Hands clasped, they step through the door together.

And become the ghosts.

Chapter One

Music that had been dim and distant poured around her now. Colors and shapes that had been blurred and indistinct on the other side of the mirror sharpened.

Sonya gripped Owen’s hand—the hand of the cousin she hadn’t known existed only months before. That hand was warm, that hand was real.

Instead of furniture stored, with white sheets draping it, people swirled around them. Women with hair piled high, long dresses flowing, and men in sharp, dark suits danced, laughed, drank. The room—the ballroom—smelled of flowers. There were so many of them. And of perfume. An orchestra played something lively and quick.

She heard a woman laugh, high and bright, over the music. She saw a line of sweat slide down the temple of a man with slicked-back hair as he led his partner in the dance.

And she heard her own heart pounding louder than the drumbeat.

When her hand trembled, Owen tightened his grip. And he said, almost casually, “This is fucking weird.”

The bubble of hysteria in her throat came out in a breathless laugh. “I’ll say. I’ve done it before, gone through, but this is the first time I was awake when I did. I thought, before, I thought I’d dreamed it. But it’s not a dream.”