Lillian Hawthorne.
From so close, Signa could see that the spirit’s mouth was something from a nightmare, filled with pus and bleeding sores that festered over her gums. Her tongue was a useless purple mush, as though it had burned away. Lillian tried to speak, but all she could do was moan, and the louder Signa screamed at the monster to get away from her, the louder the monster moaned back.
Lillian reached out as if to snatch at Signa, but Signa dug her fingernails into the roots and tore at them, ripping them from her ankles. Enraged, Lillian screamed as Signa scrambled to her feet.
“Stay away from me!” Signa snarled at her. The spirit flinched at the steel in Signa’s voice. But the pause was only temporary, and with a deep frown Lillian started forward again.
Signa bent to scoop up a handful of soil and tossed it at the spirit’s face. “I don’t care who you are, just leave me alone!” So as not to awaken all of Thorn Grove, she had to hiss words she wanted to yell, and she hated the spirit for that, too. “Leave me alone, or I’ll find your body and burn it until you’re nothing more than a pile of ash!”
As Lillian brushed the dirt away, her blackened lips twisted into what Signa thought must be a sneer. But the threat kept her at bay.
“What do you want?” Signa grumbled. “Why did you draw me here?” Lillian wasn’t anyone Signa wanted to get involved with, and yet Lillian had died in a way that, admittedly, made Signa more than a little curious. And curiosity was a hungry, persistent thing.
Lillian’s spirit hesitated, then pointed to her black lips.
“You can’t talk?” Signa asked, and the spirit shook her pale waves with a grunt. It wasn’t the first time Signa had seen a spirit unable to speak. Some streets were filled with soldiers or warriors from ancient wars she didn’t care to know more about, and too often the spirits were riddled with holes in their chests or faces.
“I know who you are.” Signa drew several steps back for her own assurance. “I know it was you waiting for me inside the house earlier. What do you want from me?”
Spirits didn’t need to breathe, but it looked as though this woman was drawing in a long breath and attempting to gather her patience. She didn’t move toward Signa but snapped a frail branch off a tree. For a moment Signa debated running, but instead of skewering Signa’s flesh, Lillian lowered herself to the ground, kicked a clear path in the dirt, and used the branch to write words upon the earth. When she was finished, Lillian tossed the branch away and pointed at her work.
Though Signa knew her nosiness could very well be her undoing someday, she obliged and read the words. Her stomach twisted the moment she did, and she looked to Lillian for an explanation. The spirit’s body was flickering away at the ends like little tendrils of smoke. If Signa’s years seeing spirits had taught her anything, it was that they weren’t free to wander. The farther they ventured from where they had died, the more they struggled to remain on Earth.
Clearly, Lillian’s spirit was far from where she had passed, and her time here was running out. She retreated toward the woods at the outskirts of the property, until the only remaining trace of her was the words she’d carved into the earth:
Come to my garden and save her.
Signa knew at once that Lillian was referring to Blythe.
Blythe, who Death had proven he was after.
Blythe, who Signa had felt tethered to for reasons she couldn’t explain.
Blythe, whose death would make rumors surge. Whose death would likely put Signa out of yet another home she could not afford to lose.
The realization struck: If she could stop Blythe from dying, then she would stop Death. She would beat him. And if she could manage that, perhaps he’d finally leave her alone and allow her the life she yearned for. A life out of the shadows, where she’d never have to deal with him or these God-awful spirits again. A life with people and parties and companionship, and where she could just be.
Foolish as it was to get herself into a bargain with a spirit, if it meant beating Death, Signa would do whatever it took.
NINE
MARJORIE WAS TRUE TO HER WORD THAT SIGNA’S MOURNING WEAR would soon be a thing of the past.
The modiste arrived at dawn, dragging a trunk full of fabrics into Signa’s suite.
Signa had gotten hardly a wink of sleep, and—coupled with the past several days of traveling and the fact she’d spent the previous night being haunted—there was little she wanted more than to curl up in bed for the remainder of the day.
Until she remembered that today marked the start of her lessons.
“Come now, Signa. Only the dead sleep at such an hour.” Marjorie sighed as she followed behind the modiste. “The master won’t have you walking around looking like the grim reaper. It’s time we add a bit of color into that wardrobe of yours and prepare you for the season.”
Signa roused like the dead resurrected, limbs heavy and her eyes stinging against the waking sun. It felt like only minutes had passed since she’d fallen into bed. Only minutes since she’d had the misfortune of meeting Lillian’s spirit. And yet she summoned all her wakefulness at the promise of new clothing and shuffled into the sitting room. A pleasant young woman who Marjorie introduced as Elaine, Signa’s new lady’s maid, took to combing Signa’s dark waves out of her face as the modiste fussed over her waist with a measuring tape.
The modiste was old, with as many wrinkles as the years she’d lived carved into her face. Beady brown eyes were covered by round spectacles, though they seemed to be of little help, given how closely the woman bent toward Signa, stooping to read the numbers on the tape.
“You are too thin, girl,” the woman tutted. “Nothing more than a twig with breasts.”
Signa turned toward the window, determined not to let them see the shame upon her face. Her sheer nightgown did little to disguise the sharpness of her ribs, and she brushed anxious hands over them. Marjorie glanced at them, as well, those too-sharp bones protruding from her skin. Signa had done what she could, living with Magda, but she was too young to access her inheritance on her own, and the modest allowance Magda had been given from it went straight to the gambling dens. That woman likely would have been happy, should Signa have starved to death. All she’d cared about—all most of her guardians had ever seemed to care about—was how to claim a piece of Signa’s fortune.
“Leave room in the gowns,” Marjorie told the seamstress, looking away from Signa’s ribs and pretending to busy herself by helping Elaine fix her hair. “She’ll be baby cheeked in no time.”
The seamstress grunted, satisfied. Once she’d jotted down Signa’s measurements in a leather pocket notebook, she held swatches of fabrics in a wide array of colors to Signa’s face. They worked before an ornate silver mirror, which Signa used to sneak glances at herself, half expecting to see her reflection begin to move on its own as it had the previous night. There was soil beneath her fingernails still, as well as on the soles of her feet. It was all she could do to feign ignorance when the modiste inspected them with a frown.
Though Signa knew little of the cost to have a wardrobe made, she could imagine. And it was far more than any guardian had spent on her, ever. Elijah truly must have wanted Signa out of her mourning wear. While Marjorie gasped over muted tones like blush, champagne, and periwinkle, Signa’s eyes strayed to greens dark as the forest and reds deep and rich as blood. Yet she said nothing of her opinions, for what did she know of fashion? If she wanted to fit in with society, surely she should trust Marjorie to make the decisions and settle for the dull tones without complaint.