House of Salt and Sorrows(100)

A wave of relief washed over Papa’s face. “Thank you, Annaleigh. Can you get it for us?”

Feeling like a marionette being jerked and tugged by strings against my will, I crossed to the bookcase the statue had fallen from. I pulled the thick volume off the shelf and ran my hand over its worn cover.

On my way back to Papa, I skirted around the mess of porcelain and marble, then froze. Written in the dust, by an unseen fingertip, was a message.

I EXIST.

Mercy and Honor were the only two who’d been near the mess, but they’d run away as soon as the bust fell. They wouldn’t have had time to write this. A faint flicker of hope warmed my heart. Had Cassius somehow written it? My head swam as I realized Kosamaras could have just as easily written it, wanting to drive me mad with uncertainty.

“Annaleigh?” Papa prompted.

I glanced back down at the floor before giving him the book, certain the words would be gone, that they were only in my mind, just as everything else had been. But they remained in place.

“Papa, there’s something you should see—”

A fresh scream cut through the air.

“Not now,” he said, rushing from the room with Camille.

A hot flash of lightning shot across the sky, followed seconds later by a rumble of thunder. It echoed in my chest, knocking my breath away. Even it could not drown out the sounds coming from the fourth floor.

“Someone ought to send for the midwife.” Honor crossed to the window, watching another bolt of lightning. “Do you think they’d make it in such a storm?”

“I’ll go,” I volunteered. It was a fool’s errand, but I was desperate to show my sisters I wasn’t the monster they now believed me to be. “I can take the skip, or the dinghy if the winds are too strong.”

Before anyone could talk me out of it, the gold clock sailed off the mantel, smashing to the floor in a pile of cogs and gears. Across the room, the piano came to life, clanging and clunking out an ugly series of notes as the keys pressed down on their own accord. It looked as though someone was walking down the length of ivory, stomping their feet. Our poltergeist had returned.

Mercy howled, bolting from the room, with Honor fast on her heels. Lenore silently looked to me, clearly uneasy.

“You should go after them. They’re likely to run right up to Morella’s room, and they don’t need to see anything that’s going on there.”

She bit her lip, then nodded.

“Lenore?” I asked as she got to the doorway. “You really don’t remember Cassius?” She shook her head. “What about the balls? The dancing? Did I make that up too? You were with me at nearly all of them.”

She opened her mouth, looking as if she was about to deny the memories, but paused. She shook her head once, twice, as though clearing it from a fog. For the first time since the funeral, she spoke. “I do remember dancing, but—”

Another crash of thunder interrupted her train of thought, then a pair of shrill screeches.

“Go. I’ll stay here, I promise.”

She turned and raced down the hall after the girls.

Lightning danced dangerously close to the window, and the responding boom was so loud, I ducked, covering my ears. The glass panes rattled in their casings. Had that bolt struck the house?

An unearthly howl came from upstairs. Memories of Mama’s labors sprang to mind, but it was far too early for Morella, wasn’t it? Even if the twins were conceived before she’d married Papa, as Camille was so very certain, she was only six months along. Maybe. It was too soon. Far too soon.

I paced the room, feeling like a caged animal.

Morella’s cries of anguish grew louder and louder, spilling into my mind as pervasively as Kosamaras’s laughter. Were the twins part of the bargain? Was Morella? How many people were fated to die today?

One loud, long scream rang through the house before it fell into an eerie stillness. The storm raged on, with flashes of lightning and rumbles of thunder, but there was only silence from the fourth floor. I dared to cross into the hallway, straining my ears for the sound of a baby’s cry.

Only silence.

Then Camille. “Annaleigh? Annaleigh, we need you now!”





Rushing into the bedchamber, I was struck by a wall of iron-tainted air. The sheets were a tangled horror of blood and viscera. The babies had come.

Morella sprawled back into a pile of pillows, dozing or unconscious, I couldn’t say for certain. For a moment, I worried she was dead, but even from across the room, I could see her chest heaving. Papa knelt at the side of the bed, his hands enveloping hers as he whispered a silent prayer.

“The babies?” I asked stupidly, struck by how silent the room was.

Camille turned, holding out a blanket-covered bundle. I feared she’d cringe from me, as Honor and Mercy had. Tears streamed down her face, and I knew my math was right. It was too soon.

Wordlessly, she offered me the baby. Peeking inside the stained swaddling clothes, I spotted a beautiful tiny face, eyes closed. They would never open. He was a boy. Papa’s only son. Stillborn.

“What happened?” I kept my voice low. There was no other bundle in the room. This boy had been the first. Morella needed all the rest she could get if she was to deliver another child on this hellish day.

Camille glanced uneasily at the bed, then beckoned me into the hallway. I couldn’t bear to leave my brother, however small, however dead, by himself, so I took him with us. I rubbed his back, wishing that could return him to us.