House of Salt and Sorrows(8)

“Back from breakfast already?” she asked.

“Papa wants everyone downstairs. He has something to tell us.”

Her hand paused over a box of jewelry, then reluctantly picked up a jet-black earring. “Did he say what?”

I sat next to her on the bench, running fingers over my own chignon. I hadn’t seen my reflection in nearly a week. “Morella’s blue dress said plenty. Eulalie would have an absolute fit if she knew what was going on. Do you remember after Octavia died, when Eulalie wanted to go see—what was it, a traveling circus or something?—and Papa wouldn’t let us leave the house? He said”—I deepened my voice to a close approximation—“?‘Grief such as ours shouldn’t be seen by the public eye.’ And Octavia had been gone for months!”

“Eulalie sulked for weeks.”

“And now we honor her by wearing black for what, five days? Papa is already wearing gray. It’s not right.”

My sister opened a jar and examined the wine-colored lip stain. “I agree.”

“Do you really?” I asked, pointedly looking at the mirror. I took the pot away from her, spilling some of the color in the process. Running down my fingers, it looked like blood.

She smoothed out a stray ringlet. “I never was any good at doing my hair without a reflection.”

“I would have helped. What if Eulalie—”

Camille rolled her eyes. “Eulalie’s spirit won’t see a shiny surface and get stuck here. She could hardly stand being in this house during life; what makes you think she’d want to stick around in death?”

I set the lip stain down, unsure of what to wipe my fingers on. “You’re in a mood.”

She offered me a handkerchief. “I slept poorly. I couldn’t get Ligeia’s stupid comment out of my head.” She picked up a different shade of stain and wiped a small sheen of berry across her mouth. Guilt weighed heavy on her face. “I’ll never get a husband if something doesn’t change.”

“That’s not true,” I protested. “Any man would be honored to have you at his side. You’re clever and every bit as lovely as Eulalie.”

She smirked. “No one was like Eulalie. But if I hide myself away in this gloomy house, buried under layers of crepe and bombazine, I’ll never find anyone. I don’t want to disrespect the memory of Eulalie or any of our sisters, but if we go through every step of mourning each time someone dies, we’ll be dead ourselves before we’re finished. So…I’m ready to move on. And no amount of hangdog looks from you will change my mind.”

I picked up the mirror cover, sinking my fingers into the dark fabric. I wasn’t upset with Camille. She deserved to be happy. We all did. We all had dreams of greater things. Of course my sisters would rather be out, at court, at concerts, at balls. They wanted to be brides, wives, mothers. I’d be a monster to begrudge them that.

Still, I clung to the cover.

“Papa wants us downstairs,” Rosalie called out, interrupting our moment. The triplets crowded in the doorway, peering in. Caught in the strange morning light, their reflection was a grotesque mass of limbs and braids. For a second, they were one conjoined entity, not three separate sisters.

Lenore broke free of the clump, clearing the strange vision from my mind. “Will you tie this for me?” She held out her black ribbon. “Rosalie does it too tight.”

She knelt beside Camille, lifting her heavy braid to expose the pale length of her neck. The triplets wore their ribbons as chokers. When we were little, Octavia delighted in telling us lurid, spooky stories at bedtime. She’d conjure up tales of pining damsels wasting after their true loves, ghosts and goblins, Tricksters and Harbingers and the foolish people who bargained with them both. Later, certain we were still cowering in terror under our covers, she and Eulalie would creep into our rooms and snatch the blankets from us.

One of her favorite stories was of a girl who always wore a green ribbon around her neck. She was never seen without it, at school, at church, even on her wedding day. All the guests said she made a lovely bride but wondered why she chose to wear such a plain necklace. On her honeymoon, her husband presented her with a choker of diamonds, sparkling like mad under a starlit sky. He wanted her to wear them, and only them, when she came to bed that night. When she refused, he stalked away, upset. Later he returned to find her asleep in their big bed, naked save for the diamonds and the green ribbon. Snuggling next to her, he stealthily removed the ribbon, only to have her head roll off her body, neatly severed at the neck.

The triplets delighted in that horrid story and asked for it again and again. When Octavia died, they wrapped black crepe around their necks with ghoulish affectation.

Bow securely tied, Lenore twisted it around to a jauntier angle. “The Graces are already downstairs. We woke them first.”

Camille rose from the bench. When I offered out the cover, she tossed it aside, leaving the mirror bare and sparkling.



* * *





Mercy, Honor, and Verity sat at the far corner of the dining room table. The older girls worked on plates of eggs and kippers. Verity had a bowl of strawberries and cream but pushed the berries about without eating. I noticed she sat as far from Honor and Mercy as she could without actually switching seats. Apparently, she’d not yet forgiven them for their late-night prank.