I nodded silently and turned to go up the stairs.
“Oh. And, Bram?”
I stopped. “Yes?”
“It’s probably best if you stay away from Nolan Turner. I know it’s crazy, but his father thinks you might be a bad influence.”
I would have been mortified if I’d thought it was true. But I had a hunch that it wasn’t, and that felt even worse. I’d come to expect low blows from my mother. I hadn’t thought they were James’s style. It hurt even more to be caught off guard.
* * *
—
An hour later, there was a knock at my door. When I opened it, I found Miriam standing in the hall with a tray of food.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said. “May I leave this on the vanity?”
“Sure.” I had no interest in eating. I crawled back into bed.
She set the tray down and then walked over to where I sat. She stood over me for a moment. There seemed to be something she wanted to say.
“May I show you something?” she asked at last.
“Sure,” I said.
Miriam gestured for me to get up. Then she carefully pushed the bed away from the wall. Plugged into an outlet was a small beige device with a green light. I knew what it was the moment I saw it.
“I have carbon monoxide detectors hidden all over the house,” Miriam said. “I put them where no one can see them. Your uncle can be quite prickly when it comes to such things. But I promise you’ll hear the alarms if there’s a leak.”
I didn’t know what to say. Sam had known how James would react when he saw the detectors. He and his mother were savvier than they were letting on.
“I chose this brand because it’s electric, with backup batteries in case the power goes out,” Miriam continued. “I wouldn’t sleep in the manor without them.” She pushed the bed back against the wall, concealing the carbon monoxide detector from view. “Now,” she said. “May I please have my lemons? I can’t make a lemon tart without them.”
I woke up that night to find a girl standing by my bed, wearing a white dress and veil. I wasn’t scared when I saw her. More than anything else in the world, I wished she would stay. Real or not, she was on my side. I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
Still half-asleep, I slowly pushed myself up and glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning, and I’d left the curtains open again. The moon was a sliver short of full, and I could see my room clearly. When I turned back, the girl was gone, but my bedroom door, which I’d been careful to lock, was ajar. That’s when I knew for sure that I wasn’t dreaming. I slid out of bed with my phone in my hand. I could hear someone in the hall.
I tiptoed to the door and peeked outside my bedroom. When I saw the figure at the far end of the hall, I almost ducked back inside. Her tattered gown glowed faintly in the moonlight. The fabric seemed to be satin, but it was no longer pure white. The hem and sleeves were black with soot, and the train of the dress left a trail of dampness on the floorboards.
I lifted my phone, but I didn’t dare take a picture. I knew that the girl didn’t want to be seen. She slouched toward the north wing, her back hunched with her eyes on the floor. Her head swiveled slowly from side to side, the movement as regular as a pendulum keeping time. The floorboards creaked and groaned with each step she took. I wondered if I was hearing the same sounds Lark used to hear.
I followed her, doing my best to remain hidden in the shadows. That night, I was the one haunting her. We entered the burnt-out north wing of the manor. Every room I passed through was colder and darker than the last. And with each room, the girl’s search seemed to grow more urgent. She examined the walls and scoured the floor, but she never looked behind her. I could tell she was searching for something—something she never managed to find.
I thought of all the stories I’d read about poor, lost souls forced to relive the same terrible moments for all of eternity. The jilted lover would always jump off the same cliff. The condemned woman would flee down a hall. The murdered hitchhiker sought nightly rides back to town. I’d always wondered if it was some kind of cosmic punishment. But maybe they kept going because they hoped the next time would be different—that the universe would eventually let their story end happily.
I followed the girl through the blackened chambers until we reached the room with plywood boards nailed to the wall. The balcony from which Lark had jumped lay on the other side. There, the girl came to a stop. A cold breeze squeezed through the boards and ruffled her tattered veil. I watched her head slowly tilt until her ear was up in the air. She was listening to something. Then I heard the sound through the cracks in the boards covering the windows—heavy footsteps in the snow outside the manor, making their way to the front door. There wasn’t much light in the north wing. When the girl turned around, I couldn’t make out a face behind the veil. There was no way to know if she was looking my way. I stayed perfectly still, hoping I’d blend into the shadows. Downstairs, there was someone at the door.
“Run!” she whispered.
And I did.
I raced back through the north wing, my arms stretched out in front of me, my hands treading the darkness. I was sure that I’d touch something—or that something would reach out and grab me. When I finally emerged from the north wing, the moon came out from behind the clouds, and I could see my bedroom door open ahead. I’d almost made it to safety when I heard a loud bang in the entryway.
I ran to the stairway banister and looked down. The front door stood open and snow was blowing inside. My uncle lay sprawled out on the floor below. A bottle still clutched in his hand was leaking what little was left of its contents. As I stood watching, his body began to convulse. Then a low moan rose from his throat. When it was over, he began to sob.
“What’s going on?” Miriam stood outside a room down the hall, wearing her plaid flannel robe. She raced right past me when I didn’t answer, the robe floating behind her as she took two stairs at a time and dropped to her knees by the body. “James,” she said as she rolled my uncle over onto his back. “James, can you speak?”
I’d never seen a living person look so dead. His face was a chalky white, and his lips and the tip of his nose were blue. His hair remained frozen, its stiff silvery tendrils reaching out in every direction.
“She’s gone,” he wailed pitifully.
Miriam looked up and saw me still standing at the top of the stairs, with my fingers clenched in terror on the banister.
“It’s okay, Bram,” she said. “You can go back to bed. Your uncle will be fine. He’s just very drunk.”