Page 77

She shook her head. “It was in Grandma Iris’s room,” she said.“I took it, but when I touched it, I felt this overwhelming sadness. I couldn’t stand to look at it.” She shuddered.

“What about this?” I asked, picking up the plastic barrette. It was purple and old-fashioned. I’d seen it before.

“It was in Grandpa’s office. In his desk drawer,” she said nervously.

Haley Cotter had been wearing a pair of barrettes just like that in her photo. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands.

“Is it okay if I take this stuff?” I asked.

“Okay,” she said meekly. “You won’t tell anyone?”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” I promised her.

I walked back to my room with Celia’s stolen items tucked surreptitiously in my pocket, the journal under my arm. A letter, a barrette, and a ring. What was the connection between them?

Once the door was closed behind me, I set the journal on the desk and took out the letter. I smoothed the paper carefully and unfolded it. My stomach twisted as I read.

You know by now that all of this is my fault. Twenty years ago, I failed to do what I needed to. I do not ask you to forgive me, but I ask you to understand: it was love that was my downfall. I thought a gentle surcease would be sufficient and could not bear to take the further steps that were demanded of me. And because of this, Jessamine is dead, and it did not even repair the damage that I caused. Her death accomplished nothing.

I do not ask you to forgive me. But I promise you that I will put things back in their proper order.

I traced my fingers over one jagged line where the paper had been crushed and smoothed again. Leopold must have written this.It was love that was my downfall, he had written, and he’d kept her barrette.

He’d killed Haley Cotter, but he’d regretted it? He’d messed it up, and they’d tried again with Jessamine. But that hadn’t worked either.

I needed to understand the ritual, the sacrifices. I needed to know how exactly these girls had died. And how my death was supposed to fix what was wrong with Harrow.

—

By this point, I had enough of Desmond’s work to be able to decipher the journal on my own, though much slower than he might have. Entry by entry, I reconstructed the record of my ancestor’s sin, and by the end of it, I felt sick.

Sick and lost. I’d gotten the journal back, and it had told me what I already knew—in more horrible detail than I’d had before—but without a way forward. I didn’t know how to escape my fate. How to escape Harrow and the dark soul.

I set my pen down, looking at the copied-out words. There was no salvation there. Only proof of my family’s evil, and of the evil that they’d killed to contain. I knew how to bind the dark soul. But I didn’t know how to end this cycle. Everyone who mighthave told me—Nicholas Vaughan, Samuel Raymond, hell, even Leopold—was dead.

There was someone who’d witnessed all of it. The dark soul itself. But the figments spoke in riddles and fragments. They were broken. They couldn’t help me. Unless I could find a way to make them whole again. Or if not whole, then less broken than they were now.

I could gather their bones and let them speak.

—

Shadows deepened and the heat of the summer air relented. I went to the folly with my ancestor’s journal, my grandfather’s confession, and a child’s bones in a satchel. Above, the sky was a blue as perfect as a lie.

Bryony was the first one there when I arrived. “Are you sure you want to bring them into this?” she asked me. She still didn’t think we could trust anyone but ourselves. She didn’t know yet the way her own story was enmeshed with theirs.

“We need their help,” I said, as Desmond and Celia appeared.

“What is this about?” Desmond asked. I hadn’t told them anything other than where to be. I only wanted to have to explain this all once.

“It’s about answers,” I said. “But first, Bryony—did you talk to Elizabeth Cotter?”

“Not Lizzie herself. She’s got early onset dementia—she was pretty out of it. But her sister was happy to talk. She said Lizzie dated your grandfather in high school, over a couple summers.Then he went off to college and got engaged to asuitablewoman. That should have been the end of it. Except it wasn’t. They kept seeing each other, and Lizzie had a daughter who was obviously his. The sister says he gave her gifts all the time, and she saw him at the house sometimes, sneaking in and out. When she disappeared, Lizzie Cotter suddenly had a million dollars in her bank account and no more visits.”

“Grandpa Leopold had a kid we didn’t know about?” Desmond asked.

I nodded. “Desmond, I translated more of the journal based on your notes.”

“You found the journal?” he asked, perking up. “Where?”