“I know more than you think, and I want to stop you right now if you even for a second start feeling guilt. Those women who attend the ball, and the woman you choose to go through the trials with you are not forced. They know exactly why they are there. The Order of the Silver Ghost are the kingmakers and the dreammakers You will walk out of that manor a king.”
Her fingers clutched around mine. “That woman will walk out of there with her dreams come true. She is there because she chose to be. Chose to. I want you to remember that.”
The kingmakers and the dreammakers. How true that was.
“What if I’m asked to do something I am morally against?”
Her jaw tightened as her eyes darkened. “You will be.”
“You said it yourself, that I’m a good man,” I reminded. “Am I supposed to just forget that part of me because of the Order?”
She shook her head. “There is a very fine line between good and evil. Everyone has a seat in their soul for the Devil. The trials will pull the chair out and invite the dark angel to sit.”
She leaned forward. “And though the man you go in the manor as tomorrow will be pushed to a breaking point, and you will indeed tango with the demons inside of you, you’ll come out mightier and more in tune with the real person you are. You’ll see the completed portrait. All the shades and shadows blended with the light from before.”
“And the poor woman who agrees to this? What about her?” It felt freeing and slightly scary to even ask the questions out loud, hesitations I hadn’t even admitted to myself. It had always been like this with my mother. She was the one person on earth I could say anything to. “Maybe she’ll have no idea what her acceptance to the invitation really means.”
“True. She has no idea. Not really. But that’s the point. She’ll also have to dance with the demon. And the goal will be to break her. Shatter the woman she believed herself to be. She won’t be the belle of the ball without having to earn it. And the price is high.”
I sighed, hating the Order, despising tradition, and loathing my lineage for the first time. Why couldn’t I just be handed the family business like a normal man who had earned the title?
Why couldn’t my father just pat me on the back and tell me how honored he was to have his son right by his side?
Instead, I had to go through this ritual of sin.
“I want you to remember something, Montgomery. Every little girl grows up loving the fairytale of Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast. They all want their Prince Charming and their happily ever after. Some women will never get that perfect narrative. For many, it will simply be nothing more than a childish bedtime story. When the invitations are sent out to all the surrounding counties, though, this is so many young ladies’ chance at being plucked from nothing and given everything they ever dreamed of. It’s win-win.”
I nodded silently, agreeing with that statement.
“And yes, what the Order does to them… what you will do to someone… may have them walk down a very dangerously corrupt lane. But keep reminding yourself that there will be a happily ever after for that woman in the end.”
“Would you have done it before marrying Father? Accepted an invitation?”
She chuckled, her eyes drifting back to the willow tree as if gazing back into the past. “I was a rich Southern belle by birth. My path was already chosen for me. Unlike those women who get the invites, I didn’t get to choose my fate. Wealth, arrangements, and the Southern way did that for me.”
She rocked back and forth in her chair, the wood of the floorboards beneath her creaking loudly. “And though you have grown up with privilege as being the only child of the Kingstons, and you have had so many opportunities in life, I often wonder what it would have been like for you if wealth, arrangements, and the Southern way didn’t control your life as well.”
I stared at my mother, again shocked by her words. I thought she was content with the sacrifices she’d made in her life, that she was more than satisfied by her place in society and on all the charity committees she filled her days with. Then again, lately she had been spending more time working with her hands in the dirt amongst our extensive gardens rather than out doing the society circuits.
“Mrs. Kingston,” the housekeeper said softly as she walked onto the porch, interrupting our conversation. “Mr. Kingston just called to inform you he wouldn’t be home for supper tonight. He said he would be home late and not to wait up.”
Mama kept rocking in her chair, her cool elegance as stately as ever as she inclined her head ever so slightly without looking at the girl. “Thank you, Liza.”
“Is there anything you would like for supper in particular, Mrs. Kingston?”
“It doesn’t matter. Whatever is in the refrigerator.”
“Will your son be joining you?”
I cleared my throat. “No, thank you, Liza. I’ll have to be leaving shortly.”
Liza left and I turned my attention back to my mother. “You gave me a wonderful life, Mama. I love you for it.”
She reached over and patted my hand. “I know you still have a lot to do, so I don’t want you to feel you have to visit your old mama any longer. But promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“When you feel you have lost your soul in the rooms of the Oleander—and trust me, you will—I want you to know you haven’t. This entire process is a fairytale. A dark, twisted, and depraved tale you will be experiencing. But there will be a happily ever after. Keep telling yourself that to maintain your sanity.”
“I promise.”
“And one more promise,” she added. “Allow yourself to truly explore the deep, hidden desires inside of you. Don’t hold back. Discover the bad. Explore the side of you that has always been suffocated by Southern charm. This is your time to be broken too. Don’t fight it.”
“All right, I will.”
I said the words because I knew it was what she wanted to hear. But to be honest, I had no idea if I truly believed them myself. I had no idea what I would be walking into.
I only knew one thing. I had 109 days.
109 days to endure a rooted history interwoven with thorns and strangled with poison ivy.
5
Grace
I woke up the next morning and everything was… the same.
Because duh, obviously.
Last night, Delilah had made it all sound so dire and important. But now that I blinked my eyes and looked around the dingy master bedroom of my trailer, the dirty brown carpet, the peeling linoleum of the bathroom that I could see from my bed…
I flopped back on my pillow.
I was such an idiot. Some weirdo in a Halloween costume probably high on meth came into the diner last night and gave me a pretty piece of paper—and of course Delilah romanticized the hell out of it and got dreams of grandeur.
It was probably just a prank. The Order of the Silver Ghost. The name sounded familiar, so I googled it when I got home last night. There are conspiracy theories about it, but they all sound as fake as crap about the Illuminati.
I wanted out of my life so desperately, I was willing to grasp at straws.
But I wasn’t Cinderella and there was no such thing as dreams come true.