Page 10 of The Witch's Heart
“I see.”
The doctor frowns, and I hate that I notice how beautiful he looks even when he’s unhappy. My thoughts are scattered as I resist the memories that threaten to pull me under, a driving current intent on drowning me where I sit.
He’s the answer.
He’s not what he seems.
They’re all monsters here.
“That must be hard, to have lost both of your parents and your sister.”
Since it’s not a question, I don’t bother to answer.
He looks up from the file now open in his lap. My whole life boiled down to shorthand notes probably transcribed by some intern. “Do you think your mental health struggles are genetic?”
Yes.
“I don’t know.”
Something moves in the corner.
My eyes dart to a girl. She’s crying, but the tears that stream down her cheeks are crimson. Blood. She wears a faded gown like the one I woke up in. When our eyes meet, her mouth opens in the shape of a scream and freezes there.
She never makes a sound, but her terror vibrates within me, and then she’s gone, vanishing as if she were never there.
I blanch, frozen where I sit as I try desperately to make sense of what I just saw.
Am I hallucinating?
Has my legacy finally caught up to me then?
Is this what Estelle felt like before—
“Celeste.”
I blink and refocus on the doctor. He’s frowning again, much more deeply than before.
“Yeah?”
He tilts his head, studying me. “Where did you go?”
“I don’t know what you . . .”
“I called your name several times. You didn’t respond. What were you thinking about?”
Tell him about the curse.
“Your artistic technique is old school,” I say, flipping the subject around because this is safer. Easier. And I can be sure of myself in this. “Reminiscent of William Turner and Henry Fuseli. You have Turner’s talent for expressionist landscape and Fuseli’s way with hinting at the supernatural. Where did you study?”
“London.”
“Did you attend university there?”
“I did my PhD at Oxford.”
“For psychiatry. But not art?”
“Miss D'LeLune.”
