Page 102 of House of Roots and Ruin

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“Do what?” Each word fell from my lips like stone boulders and I was struck by the dreamy sensation that we were moving too slowly, caught in a moment of time gone wrong.

“Touch things,” she admitted. “Move things. Be here.”

My hand, clutched so tightly around hers, was suddenly empty.She’d disappeared, flickering from sight like a candle blown out by a draft.

My mouth fell open as I looked around, acknowledging I was the only one in the kitchen.

“Constance?” I asked, my voice carrying small and stupidly through the empty space.

She was gone.

“Constance?” I repeated, and I could hear a note of hysteria rising up, threatening to break me.

There was no response.

Of course there wasn’t.

Constance, Gerard’s Constance, was gone.

Gone, as if she’d never been there at all.

Gone, like the ghost she was.

A ghost.

Constance.

Constance was a ghost.

“How?” I asked aloud, feeling foolish. The room was empty. No one was going to answer. Least of all…

Constance.

Who was….

I shook my head.

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be.

I’d worried she was a ghost the day I’d first seen her, standing in the parlor, drawn to that enormous confection of a dress. I’d thought she was a spirit until…

I’d grabbed her hand.

Or she’d grabbed mine.

Something.

There’d been something that day. Something that had assuaged my fears and convinced me she was real.

But I’d touched her tonight too. I’d seen her pick up the tin of poppy tea. I’d watched her pull down the canvas covers in the storage room.

Hadn’t I?

I rubbed at my forehead, trying to remember.

I hadn’t touched her. Not in the hallway. Once I’d realized she was Gerard’s mistress, my stomach had churned with disgust, holding me from her. But the tea…

The tea had fallen through her hands.

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