Page 52 of The Dravenhearst Brides

My dearest Margaret,

I must confess myself confused though, as you said you intended to visit? I did wait several days before writing, but perhaps you’ve been delayed. Please write back.

I would simply love to see you.

Forever yours,

Pa

The only thing that got her out of bed was when her wedding gown started to appear in the morning again. It was a hideously familiar game.

Draped over the chaise.

At the foot of her bed.

Trussed up on the vanity mirror.

Suspended above the French doors by the noose.

Margot tore it down every morning, bundled it beneath her mattress.

Locked it away in her trunk. Ripped it to shreds with her bare hands.

Even went so far as to emerge from the safety of her bedroom, carry the cursed gown to the sinkhole, and heave it inside.

She weighed it down with a crumbling brick from Rickhouse One, and she stayed, watching until it vanished.

Until she was certain it was gone. Swallowed by the earth.

And yet…

And yet.

The gown was there again the next morning. Strung up in her bedroom. Pristine and unharmed.

Distantly, Margot knew this wasn’t right. She wasn’t right, not in her right mind. When she looked in the mirror, a strange woman with hollow cheeks and frazzled red hair stared back. A woman who wasn’t, couldn’t be her. This was all happening to someone else.

Not to her.

She awoke as she did every night, to the cold.

Margot stirred, raising her boozy laudanum-drunk head. The room spun. She looked around, shadows shifting and curling in every corner. Undulating like living breathing demons, waltzing on air.

Margot slipped out of bed. The floor moved underfoot.

Her steps were lilting. Tilting. A little bit jilting.

She raised her arms and spun. She, too, could waltz like the phantoms in the manor at midnight.

She, too, could hide in the walls, coming out to play in the dark.

Dark like her soul. Dark like her heart. Dark like her grief.

She tiptoed down the hall, just three steps. She cracked open the door.

They hadn’t made plans yet—it had been far too early. But this was where Margot had imagined her baby would go. Right here. Only one door away.

In the corner by the window, an empty rocking chair lurched. Back and forth, back and forth.

This is where the baby goes, Margot thought.

Should have gone. Would have.

The rocking chair halted.

Something frigid brushed Margot’s fingers.

Eleanor materialized, a hairsbreadth away. She shook her head. “That’s not where the baby goes, silly.”

The bride tugged her arm, leading her through the house, humming and towing Margot along like a stumbling, sleep-drunk child. The tune on Eleanor’s lips was familiar. Margot’s own voice thrummed, joining in.

The front door opened. They went outside. Eleanor led her straight to the nearest magnolia. She pointed to the ground.

“That’s where the baby goes.”

The lullaby swelled in her ears. Margot dropped to her knees, pressed her fingers to the earth.

When the bough breaks the cradle will fall,

And down will come baby…

When she woke the next morning, there was dirt on her feet and dried mud under her nails.

“The legislators repealed Prohibition in the state of Kentucky yesterday,” Merrick told her, hovering in the doorway.

He didn’t like to come into the room. He seemed scared to breathe the same tainted air as her.

“Only three more states are needed to make the change nationwide, and votes are scheduled next week.”

“What does that mean for you? For us?” Her toes itched under the sheets; the dried mud was cracking. She hadn’t washed it off. Beau sniffed at the bedding, following the trail of evidence.

Merrick waited several long moments before answering. A muscle jumped in his jaw. “It means we’re free.”

Free.

Were they though? Margot certainly didn’t feel like it. Merrick didn’t look like it.

She picked at the dirt under her fingernails, ruminating.

He would never leave this place, not now when he could make bourbon again. It was the only thing Merrick truly loved. The distillery.

He’d never told her he loved her. Had never said the words.

Margot had never been more aware of that than she was in this moment, when she realized he was choosing the distillery over her.

He always had.

He always would.

When the knock came in the middle of the day, it was disorienting. Merrick only visited morning and evening. She only had to perform twice a day. There were no midday matinees. Those were the rules.

“Yoohoo!” Thudding echoed again at the door. “Knock, knock.”

Beau rustled at her side, a low whine escaping his throat. The dog had taken to her bed with her over the last several days. His warmth was comforting, his growls even more so, keeping Babette and Eleanor away from her dreams.

One final knock. “Margot, sugar?”

She was stunned, recognizing the throaty voice.

But it couldn’t be.

It couldn’t possibly be…Evangeline?

The door swung open, and a pair of wide batty eyes peeked into the room. “May I come in?”

Margot nodded, too surprised to speak. Evangeline never came into the house. Not for almost thirty years, she’d said.

She clucked her tongue like a mother hen.

“Xander said you weren’t getting out of bed, but I hoped…

I didn’t want to believe him.” She stopped beside the mattress, a small porcelain bowl in her hands.

She placed it on Margot’s bedside table, then looked around the room, peering into every corner. “Are you alone?”

Margot blinked twice. “Merrick only comes in the morning and evening.”

Evangeline shook her head. “Yes, but are you alone? Or…?”

Ah. Margot understood. “No. They aren’t here.” She didn’t want to say their names in case it summoned them. The ghosts.

Beau gave a low growl.

“Right, very good.” Moving swiftly, Evangeline lit a taper and tilted the flame into the porcelain bowl. Its contents sparked, then caught aflame.

“What’s that?” Margot asked, the bedroom air filling with the scent of herbs.

“It’s a blend of lavender and sage to keep malevolence at bay, but it won’t protect us for long.” She thumped the bed once before dragging back the blankets, forcing the dog to leap away. “Get up, sugar.”

“Up?”

Evangeline pulled her bodily from the bed and plunked her into the chair at the vanity. She lifted Margot’s hairbrush, starting to work through the snarls. “You need to get dressed and get out of this house.”

Out of the house? She shuddered at the thought.

The house—her bed—was safe.

“It’s not. It’s not safe, Margot,” Evangeline said. “It won’t be safe until the women here find rest, and I haven’t been able to figure out how to do that in nigh on sixty years. All the lavender in the world won’t bring them peace.”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed. “It’s quite a long story, sugar.”

“I’ve got time.”

Evangeline bit her lip, dragging the brush through her hair.

“I was born on this estate. I worked in the main house as a girl, and Eleanor was my first mistress.

She was a kind but nervous woman, married to a man who liked to drink bourbon more than he enjoyed making it.

That man lived his life at the bottom of the bottle, and the drink made him… unpleasant.

“I was still a child myself when Richard was born. Eleanor was different afterward. She’d always been prone to nerves, but after a baby finally came, she changed.

She stopped sleeping, would stand over the crib to guard the child through the night.

She wore her winter coat in the heat of summer and walked the halls in her wedding gown.

She attacked a nursemaid once, claimed she was plotting to kidnap the baby.

It made no sense, the things she would say and do. ”

Evangeline shook her head. “Some women take to motherhood like a duck to water. Eleanor was a drowning cat, striking out and clawing anyone who came near. One evening, I came upstairs to light the fires. When I went to the nursery, Eleanor was dressed in her wedding gown, standing over Richard’s crib with a blanket over his face.

She was smothering him. I knew she didn’t mean it…

she would never hurt that baby boy. She’d kill anyone who tried.

She quite simply wasn’t right. I saw it in her eyes when I stopped her, the horror.

” Evangeline shuddered. “We found her in the rickhouse the next morning.”

“Gracious,” Margot gasped.

Evangeline helped Margot to her feet. She plucked a day dress from the closet. “Put this on.”

Margot complied, mesmerized as Evangeline continued her story.

“Xander and I were childhood sweethearts. After we married, I was late several times, but I never carried a child to term. That was when I started seeing Eleanor again, during my pregnancies. I thought she was my friend. She was the one who showed me what Babette was doing…” Evangeline trailed off.

“I never told Xander I saw him with Babette. Eleanor showed me, but the way she did it was needlessly cruel.”

Evangeline looked away, blinking back tears. “I quit working in the main house the very next day. I was finished. The women in this house hurt, and so they like to hurt others. It’s a vicious cycle, a circle with no beginning and no end.”

“And now,” Margot said, chewing her lip, “I’ve been hurt.”

“You have. You are but a piece in their game, a projection for their own pain.” She offered Margot her hand, and when she took it, Evangeline squeezed. “How are you truly doing, Margot? You can tell me, sugar.”

“Not good,” she squeaked.

“No? Tell me about it. Tell me everything.”

And so she did. But Margot’s story didn’t start at Dravenhearst Distilling.

It started so many years before, at Greenbrier Estates.

With Elijah. She started with Elijah and ended with Merrick, bookending her losses.

The story poured out of her almost like vomiting—once she began, she just kept going until it all came out. A total purge.