Page 19 of House of Roots and Ruin
She nodded and tried for the hairbrush again. A sigh of frustration escaped her. “It doesn’t feel right. I fear that something will happen to you.”
“Happen to me?”
“Stop parroting everything I say. I’d explain it better if I could.”
On her third attempt, the brush clattered to the floor. I hadn’t seen her hand move toward it. It simply zipped through the air, seemingly of its own accord, and for the briefest moment, I pitied Camille and anyone else who’d ever had to witness the result ofHanna’s movements without seeing the cause behind them. It would be terrifying.
“It will only be for a few weeks—a month at the most.”
She shook her head. “It could be for far longer than you think.”
“Meaning what?” I snapped. Having everyone around me speak in careful half-truths and vague admonishments was exhausting.
Hanna turned to face me. “Don’t go, Verity, please. Another opportunity will present itself. Just don’t go to that house. To Chauntilalie.”
“Why?” I pressed. “What’s wrong with it?”
Her pale eyebrows drew together. “I don’t know.”
“Is it the people within it?”
“I don’t know,” she repeated.
I pushed down a growl of irritation. “Then tell me something you do!”
“I don’t…” Her voice cracked, breaking as her throat thickened with tears. “I don’t want you to go there.”
Her words echoed in the air, ringing like the clang of a bell, and I straightened as I heard what she’d really meant.
“It’s not that you don’t want me to go there,” I said slowly, spelling it out for her and for me. “You don’t want me to go. Anywhere. At all.” I stalked away from the chaise, disgusted. “You’re just like Camille.”
She glanced past me, her eyes growing unfocused. “I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Try.”
I knew my words were hurtful, my tone too strong. I was taking all of the frustrations that had been festering with Camilleand lashing out at Hanna. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. But I was powerless to stop it.
I didn’t know how to end the conversation, how to stop this fight. I seemed doomed to repeat it with everyone I encountered here. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least to find Artie tapping at my door tomorrow morning, begging me to stay, suffocating and smothering me with a sense of duty and his persistent, unflagging love.
I turned to my window, overlooking the darkened gardens. The topiaries were cut like jellyfish this year, a ridiculous choice—something so free and fluid had no business being stiltedly trimmed into stagnant poses—but Marina and Elodie had pleaded. The low moon limned over their rigid surfaces, casting long shadows across the lawn.
I knew every inch of that garden. Its curving pathways, its fountains and benches. They were all as familiar to me as family. I could walk through it blindfolded and not catch my sleeve on a single barbed bush.
Everywhere I turned on this island was known. Known and drawn over and over so many times I felt as though I was going mad, repeating the same lines again. How many sketchbooks could I fill with the cliffs at slightly different times of day, capturing the same angles, just moving the shadows about?
I needed something strange and new.
I let out a long bone-weary sigh. “I think I’d like to go to bednow.”
Behind me, I felt Hanna’s appraisal, pausing to study me before turning down my bedsheets. I walked on wooden legs to the side of the bed, allowing her to tuck me in and press a good-night kiss to my forehead.
I pictured the same movements, the same gestures being played out every night for the rest of my life. I would grow older, my dark hair turning silver, my face filled with more and more deep lines, but Hanna would still be there, exactly as she was now, pulling up my sheets, offering a quick burst of affection.
“I hope you sleep well, Miss Verity,” she wished from the middle of the doorframe—Where did ghosts go to sleep? Did they sleep?—before lowering the gas lamps. “Everything will look better in the morning.”
A crushing wall of fear threatened to crumble before me, burying me with its tons of bricks. I nodded, my throat too thick to answer, and she slipped into the hallway, carefully shutting the door behind her.
I lay in bed, listening to Highmoor’s familiar creaks and groans, counting to one hundred to make sure she’d really gone and left me alone. Then I threw off my quilt and went to find the large leather valise kept in my wardrobe.
