I nodded. “I am.” I wanted to be where Lark had been.
James frowned. He’d hoped for another answer. “Then you have my blessing to stay. There’s only one thing I have to ask.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s focus on life and let the dead rest peacefully in their graves. There’s been too much tragedy in our lives, Bram. I don’t think I can bear anymore. How about you?”
“No,” I told him. “I’ve had enough, too.”
He brushed my cheek with a knuckle. “You were always such a sweet little thing. I wish your father could be here to see you so grown-up and mature,” he said. Then he took my hand. “I think we’re going to get through all of this together, don’t you?”
“I hope so,” I told him. It wasn’t a lie. There was honestly nothing I wanted more.
“Then I’ll let Miriam know that the rose room is yours. You don’t need to explain yourself—or tell her we had this conversation. In fact, the less you say to Miriam the better. The locals here love to gossip—and most of them are not fond of outsiders. There are a million crazy stories floating around about this place.”
That was something I had no trouble believing.
After breakfast, I went for another wander. This time, I checked out the devastation on the top floors of the north wing. The third-story rooms appeared to have sustained the most damage. The floorboards seemed so brittle that I worried I might plunge right through them. But the second story seemed safe for exploring. Pieces of charred furniture still stood where they had the night of the fire. But everything was black—as if the rooms had been hosed down with an industrial paint sprayer. So, when I entered the final chamber, my eyes were instantly drawn to a splash of yellow on what must have once been a small table. A fresh box of safety matches lay beside it.
All candles look alike, but the moment I picked it up, there was no doubt in my mind that the candle was the same one that Miriam had given me the previous night. I could see the half-moon marks where my fingernails had dug into it. It wasn’t until that moment that I remembered falling asleep with it lit. The candle should have burned all the way down. But it hadn’t. Instead it had found its way to the other side of the manor.
Someone had been in my room—and they’d returned after I had fallen asleep. I’d known that coming to Louth might not be safe, but I’d figured I would have a few days to settle in before things got dangerous. The candle felt like a warning, and the sight of it made my skin crawl. I left it right where I’d found it, and told myself I’d have to be more careful. But I didn’t even consider changing rooms. The rose room was where I needed to be.
As I made my way back out of the burnt wing, I stopped in a room with plywood panels nailed to the wall where a pair of French doors should have been. The wind whistled through a thin crack between two of the panels, and a thin sliver of daylight cut across the floor. I put my eye to the opening and saw that the snow had resumed falling. Fat, lazy flakes settled on the railing of a little balcony on the other side of the plywood. It was a twin of the balcony outside the rose room. Six months earlier, Lark Bellinger had jumped from that very spot.
I knew all about Lark. I had for months.
I’d been under house arrest in Manhattan when the manor had burned. My mother hadn’t said a word. I’d had to read about the tragedy in the New York Times. The story was too juicy to be passed up—even by the most serious newspapers. I suppose I should have been grateful. If not for all the lurid details, I never would have known.
Even the Times coverage read like the plot of a movie. A wealthy former Manhattanite spends years restoring an old Hudson Valley mansion. He marries a beautiful local woman, and she and her teenage daughter move in. A few months later, the mansion catches fire, and the new bride tragically dies trying to save her daughter. The girl is later discovered outside on the grounds, raving unintelligibly. Police claim she sustained a serious head injury after jumping from a balcony on the second floor. No one could explain why she was at the mansion in the middle of the night when she’d recently been sent to live with her father nearby.
I’d studied the pictures that accompanied the articles. I even pulled them off websites and made my own file. The makeup and piercings didn’t fool me. Lark had tried so hard to make herself look tough. That wasn’t what I saw at all. What I saw was a girl just like me.
The newspapers never mentioned what happened to Lark after the fire. I had to ask my mother. “The girl lost her mind,” I was told. “She started a fire that killed her mother. They had to send her away.”
That was when I knew there was something wrong with the story. It sounded like a million old tales I’d been told—simple and tragic with a clear villain and victim. But in the real world, girls don’t just lose their minds. If they kill their mothers or beat up their boyfriends or burn down their houses, they tend to have reasons. So when it became clear I couldn’t stay in Manhattan, I suggested that my mother send me to Louth. She would have preferred I go to a boarding school where no one had heard of me. I knew that would be pointless. No matter where I went, my shame would soon follow. My own innocence would never be proven, and my reputation couldn’t be salvaged. But I thought maybe, if I went to Louth, I could find out what had really happened to Lark.
I was still standing with my eye pressed to the crack between the boards when I heard footsteps enter the room. I figured it was Miriam coming to find me. I wasn’t going to let her startle me again. I stayed right where I was.
“Do you need something?” I asked.
There was no answer. I heard the footsteps stop and turn back the way they’d come. As I listened, a strange thought entered my mind. The footsteps sounded softer than they should have—as though the person behind me weren’t wearing shoes. I spun around to look, but there was no one there.
At lunchtime I pulled on my boots and headed outside, toward the town of Louth. Even with all the snow on the ground, it took less than twenty minutes to see all the sights. The manor sat on top of a hill. The Hudson River flowed in the valley below. Between the hill and the Hudson were five streets that ran parallel to the river, each one no more than a few blocks long. The first streets I strolled down were lined with old houses. Most were in various states of disrepair, but every fourth or fifth house looked like something you’d see on Instagram. And there were always a couple of houses on each street that were under construction. It was like a virus was spreading through all the old wood, slowly turning the town into a rich people’s retreat. When I hit the fourth street, I saw just how far the disease had progressed. Grace Street (named after my new dead friend, I later discovered) was Louth’s sad excuse for a commercial thoroughfare—three blocks long, with little shops on both sides. Half were the sort of shops you’d expect to see in a tiny town on the banks of the Hudson River—stores that sold crap people might actually need. The rest of the storefronts showcased pine-infused chocolate bars and cashmere pajamas that cost four hundred dollars.