Page 13 of Darkest at Dusk (Revenant Roses)

The walls narrowed even further now, no longer stone but formed by the bent and twisted branches of burnt and blackened trees.

Iron bars jutted from the trunks, wired windows hanging between them, windows ripped whole from St. Jude’s itself.

She saw her reflection warped in the glass, pale and desperate, as though she were the one trapped inside.

She pressed on, the way so narrow that it scraped her skin with every inch she gained.

Mr. Caradoc was there in the darkness, his form barely discernable far ahead, broad shoulders and an uneven gait, moving through the tunnel with far more ease than her. And she knew that if she did not follow now, she would never have this chance again.

The tunnel widened and she ran forward, the branches like talons as they tore her hair and scratched her face.

Scorched roots sprang from the earth, catching her ankles, twisting in her skirt.

She tugged and pulled until she heard the material tear, only to be caught again and again no matter how carefully she stepped.

Sweat prickled along her spine. Her breath came in shallow gasps.

With a desperate yank, she tore herself free and ran, faster, and faster still, lungs heaving.

But she gained no ground. He was always too far away to catch.

Go back. Do not follow. The warning came in Papa’s voice, rough and urgent. But Papa was gone, buried beneath the cold earth.

From somewhere far ahead came the crack and snap and roar of a fire she could not see.

The fog grew thick and heavy, smelling of mildew and copper, of things dead and rotting, and underlying that, the stink of smoke and soot and tar.

The damp cold sank into her bones. It stroked her cheeks, her lips, her limbs, like webs twining about her.

She brushed them away, but they came again, thicker now, sealing her lips, covering her eyes, hissing softly, like dozens of whispering voices.

She struggled to lift her hands, but the webs were too strong, trapping her in a cocoon that forced her legs together and her arms to her sides. Sick with fear, she struggled against them, but they held her fast, growing ever tighter.

She was bound, unable to move, unable to see, unable to scream. Terror was her world. Her heartbeat became a hammer, each strike cinching the bindings tighter.

Voices came to her, soothing and soft. The wraiths pulled at her bindings, aiding her struggles, working the threads.

The sun flashed, blinding her.

With a cry, she sat upright, panting and drenched in sweat, cheek cold where it had pressed against the window. The scents of coal-smoke and hot metal stung her nose. Her chest heaved, her limbs shaking. The sound of her own breathing, loud and ragged, rasped in her ears.

There was no graveyard, no man, no webs, only green velvet and thin daylight bleeding through the carriage window. Yet the whump and roar of hungry flames and the scent of smoke and ash clung to her as real as the blood pounding at her temples.

Papa’s key had bitten half-moons into the tender skin of her palm. She unclenched her fist and tucked it back beneath her bodice to lie warm against her chest.

It had only been a dream. A nightmare. And yet… the echo of her father’s voice lingered in her ears, and she could not shake the feeling that the nightmare was a portent of things to come, a warning…or a summons.

Moments later, a uniformed guard leaned into the corridor to call, “Maidenhead! Maidenhead Station.”

The train slowed and pulled into a modest station, the red brick walls dark with soot, the platform edged by cast iron lamps. Isabella gathered her things and stepped down onto the platform, her boots landing on the wood with a thud.

“Where might I find the post-chaise?” she asked a porter.

He gestured toward the exit. “Just there, miss. Man in the black coat with the gray bays.”

Isabella stepped from the shelter of the station into the cobbled street, the porter following at a short distance, trundling her trunks on a hand cart.

The chaise waited, its body black-lacquered and mud-splattered, reminding her of the carriage in which she had ridden to Papa’s burial.

The gray horses stamped and snorted, restless in the cold.

The driver, a tall, stoop-shouldered man, touched the brim of his hat in greeting.

“I am Miss Isabella Barrett,” she said. “I believe you are expecting me.”

“Right then, Miss Barrett.” He glanced at her trunks. “Those’ll go in the luggage cart behind. My lad will fetch it round and follow us to Marlow. We’re just waiting for two more, then we’ll be off straightaway.”

He opened the door, and she stepped up into the narrow compartment. The seats were worn but clean, the interior close and smelling of leather and horse.

She had barely settled when she saw two elderly women approaching. They were both short and plump, bundled in thick brown coats, matching bonnets tied beneath their chins.

Isabella slid along the seat to the far side as one of the women climbed in with surprising agility and settled opposite.

The second woman followed more slowly and sat beside the first, the door clicking shut behind her.

There was an odd symmetry to them, like two halves of a cracked porcelain doll.

“Off to Marlow, are you?” the first woman asked, her voice high and lilting, almost childlike.

“I am, yes,” Isabella said.

“Visiting?” the woman pressed.

“I have a position waiting for me,” Isabella murmured.

The second woman stared at her in silence.

With her cocked head and brown clothing, she reminded Isabella of a wren perched on a branch, sharp-eyed and twitching.

She tipped her head, first one way, then the other, pale blue eyes fixed on Isabella’s face.

There was something unsettling in her stillness, in the way her gaze never wavered, probing, assessing, as though Isabella were a curiosity laid out on a tray for inspection.

The chaise lurched forward then. The wheels struck uneven stone, then settled in a rhythmic clatter as they wove through the narrow streets of Maidenhead.

The women stared at her in silence as the chaise passed beyond the outskirts of the town.

Fields swept out on either side, hedgerows blurred by a low mist.

“I am Miss Viola Burns,” the first woman said. “This is my sister, Miss Pansy Burns.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Miss Isabella Barrett.”

“We live in Great Marlow,” Pansy said.

“In the white cottage at the very end of Chapel Lane,” Viola said.

“You must visit,” Pansy said.

“We are always happy for company,” Viola said. “Life in Marlow can be quite?—”

“Boring,” Pansy interjected.

“Uneventful,” Viola said, ignoring her sister’s interruption. “Going through our days without someone with whom to converse?—”

“Other than ourselves,” Pansy said.

“Is hardly exciting,” Viola said.

They both leaned forward in unison, peering at Isabella expectantly.

“I…” Isabella looked back and forth between the two. “I do not yet know all the details of my position. I do not know when I will visit the village.”

“ Visit the village?” Pansy said.

“Is your employment not in Marlow?” Viola asked, then cast a speaking look at her sister, one that made Isabella wary.

“Near Marlow, I believe,” she said. “I am expected at Harrowgate Manor…”

Both women froze. Pansy’s eyes widened and her hand darted to her mouth.

“Harrowgate?” Viola said.

“Oh, my dear. You do not want to go there,” Pansy said. “I suggest you turn right back around and go home.”

Isabella stared at her, a bubble of uneasy laughter rising. She held it back. Something in Pansy’s tone, intense and utterly certain, scraped against her nerves.

“Pansy…” Viola warned. “Do not gossip.”

“Gossip?” Pansy’s eyes gleamed and her lips curled in a tight smile. “It’s hardly gossip when anyone in the village could tell the same tales.”

“What tales?” Isabella asked before she could think better of it.

Pansy leaned forward, her breath smelling of cider and cloves. “Madness. Death. Scandal. Tragedy. And a curse,” she said. “People die there.”

“People die everywhere,” Viola said. “Death is a fact of life.”

The word madness made Isabella’s stomach clench and her thoughts swirl to Mr. Christopher’s revelation about St. Jude’s. The asylum’s wired panes flashed across her memory, and she pictured Rhys Caradoc’s gray eyes staring through them. What had he endured in that place?

But she had not the opportunity to ponder because Pansy leaned closer still and said, “A maid from Harrowgate was found dead in the woods two years ago, her eyes open wide in terror, her mouth full of dirt.”

Isabella’s fingers curled into fists in her lap as the terrible image took shape, lodging cold and heavy in her belly.

Viola gave her sister a long-suffering look. “She took a fever, poor thing. She was not in her right mind and slipped out in the night, unnoticed. She was found the next day. It was very sad, a tragedy to be sure.”

“They say you can see her ghost in the woods whenever there is a full moon,” Pansy whispered. “That you can hear her cries of terror.”

“ I have never seen her ghost,” Viola said to her sister. “ You have never seen her ghost, either. Because there are no such things as ghosts.”

“There most certainly are,” Pansy said with a pout.

The two women stared expectantly at Isabella, as though waiting for her to side with one or the other. Instead, she looked to the window and said, “It seems the sky is clearing.”

“It does,” said Pansy.

“It certainly does,” said Viola.

But Pansy was like a dog with a bone. She pressed her lips together, then said, “There is more to the tale. More death, more tragedy. The house is cursed, as is the house’s master. Everyone knows it.”

Isabella looked back and forth between the two women, certain that Pansy would have her say regardless of her sister’s protests.

“The fire had nothing to do with any curse,” Viola muttered.