Page 34

Cold covered her like a second skin as she struggled against the lashing wind. Something pounded against the entrance doors below like a battering ram, and her fireplace roared to furious life.

Dimly, under the shrieking wind, the roaring fire, the pounding, she heard the phone by her bed play “Bad Moon Rising.”

Afraid for him, Sonya scooped the shivering dog up under one arm and pushed her way to the balcony doors.

Behind her, Cleo shouted, but Sonya kept her focus, all her energy, on reaching the doors.

When she closed her fingers around the door handle, she let out a cry. It was like holding on to an iceberg.

But she held on, put her shoulder against the door. As she fought to close it, she saw the figure on the seawall.

Not facing the sea, but the house. The white ball of moon illuminated her as the wind she conjured whipped at her hair, her dress.

Gritting her teeth, Sonya put all her strength against the door.

“Go ahead, bitch!” She shouted it. “Take that first step to hell. I swear I’m going to kick your ass the rest of the way there before I’m done.”

“And I’ll help her.” Cleo, hair flying, put her shoulder to the second door.

They fought the doors closed and, braced against them, watched Dobbs turn toward the sea. And jump.

The moon waned to a crescent; the wind died. Downstairs, the furious pounding stopped as the flames in the fireplace snapped off.

Both Sonya and Cleo slid to the floor, and with the shivering dog between them, clung together.

“We’re okay.” Sonya pushed the words out as her heart sprinted from her chest to her throat and back again. “You’re okay?”

Nodding, Cleo whooshed out a breath, then another.

Sonya kissed Yoda’s nose. “We’re all okay.”

“I’d say hanging that third portrait seriously pissed her off.”

“Looks like it. Did you see her? Dobbs? Standing on the seawall?”

“Yeah. Looking at the house. I don’t know if she looked at us, or it was a replay of what happened a couple hundred years ago.”

Exhausted, Sonya shifted to lean her back against the door.

“She lured Catherine Poole outside, took her wedding ring outside. I think when she pulls enough power together, she can use it out there. But it’s stronger in the house. She’s stronger in the house.”

“And you think she used some of that up tonight, to put on this show. I can see that,” Cleo decided. “She wanted you to see her, wanted you to be afraid.”

“She still jumped. At the end, she still jumped.”

“Didn’t she have to? You can’t take back death, Son. And it was her suicide, her death, her blood that sealed the curse.”

“You can’t take back death,” Sonya repeated, and the truth of that squeezed her heart like a vise. “I’m never going to be able to help the brides.”

“That’s not true. You can’t save their lives because their lives are already gone. But you help them just by being here to start. And we hung three portraits—that’s help. Hell, Sonya, you—both of us—have a really sweet relationship with your grandmother.”

Clover responded with “We Are Family.”

“She was here. She used John Fogerty to shout out a warning. And you came running.”

“I heard Yoda barking, then the booms downstairs and all the rest. She’s backed off now, you can feel it. The manor’s settled for the night. I can stay with you.”

“No, I’m fine. I really am. I won’t say I wasn’t scared, but you know what, Cleo? I was a lot more mad.”