Page 12 of House of Roots and Ruin
“Drink this,” she said, pushing a small glass of amber liquid into my hand.
I sat up, swaying as my head dipped, listing back toward the pillows. Back to the bed and unconscious sleep where I could pretend I’d never seen my two lifeless sisters walking through the corridors of our home.
But Camille’s insistence kept me in check.
The brandy was strong, biting and sharp. My eyes wateredas I swallowed the fiery spirits, but oddly it helped. My mind focused on the present, the now. On Camille, sitting at the edge of my bed, a rose-colored robe cinched around her waist.
Rose like Rosalie…
No.
I kept my eyes on Camille as I finished the wretched drink and tried not to notice how the angle of her cheekbones, the curve of her eyes, even the way she held her head now, tilted with unchecked curiosity, were exactly the same as Rosalie’s. As Ligeia’s.
Why did we all have to look so agonizingly similar?
“Who did you see?”
I licked my lips, considering the careful phrasing she used. She’d askedwho,notwhat.“What were they?”
“The triplets, then,” Camille said thoughtfully.
I imagined Lenore joining their ill-fated duo and shuddered. “Sort of.”
“Sort of,” she agreed unhappily.
“Camille…”
Her eyes met mine, dark as the rosin Elodie used on her violin bow. She looked so lost. “I…I’d always hoped that somehow, Pontus willing, we’d never need to have this conversation.”
I waited for her to go on, but she didn’t seem to know how, so I went ahead and said it, said the one word that was guaranteed to crack her silence wide open. “Ghosts.”
She nodded.
“Our house is haunted,” I continued. “With ghosts.”
She shook her head. “Not the house…just you.”
She grabbed my empty tumbler and made a beeline for thelittle cart of spirits someone had brought in. Hanna, most certainly. I wondered if she’d helped Camille take me downstairs or if it had been Roland who’d carried my listless form down the long halls.
She poured herself a glass, then added another finger into mine. “If we’re going to do this, we should at least be comfortable,” she said, dropping onto the wingback chair and leaving the chaise for me. “Verity?” she prompted, holding out the tumbler.
With reluctance, I left the bed, took the brandy, and sat down, facing her. My stomach heaved as she gestured for me to begin. “I thought it was Lenore at first. I saw her down the hall and went after her. But…but it wasn’t her.”
“I know.”
I straightened with interest. “You’ve seen them then? You’ve seen them too?”
“No.” She sighed. “I guess it would be best to start at the beginning of everything. It’s just…” She pressed her lips together, reluctance clouding her face. “Ever since you were little, you’ve seen them.”
“Rosalie and Ligeia?”
“Not just them. All sorts of them. Of…ghosts.” She visibly shivered and took a large swallow of the brandy. “Annaleigh noticed it first…. You had sketchbooks full of our older sisters. Ava and Octavia. Elizabeth. You were too young to remember them but they were drawn with such detail, such painstakingly accurate features….”
“I don’t remember,” I said, pushing against that gray fog of lost memories. “Where are the sketchbooks now?”
“They burned in the fire. There’s so much about that timethat you don’t know. It would take more than one night to explain it all but for now, please trust me when I say it’s better that you don’t remember. After the fire, after…everything…you went to Hesperus. Annaleigh said she thought you were better, that everything you’d seen before had just been part of those…nightmares. But then you started telling her about Silas….”
I squinted, dredging up the memories from my time at the lighthouse. There’d been an older man there, with craggy features and soft tufts of hair. “The Keeper of the Light,” I said, remembering. He’d shown me the best ways to polish the curved glass windows of Old Maude. He’d taught me how to tie knots, spot constellations I’d never heard of, and ways to predict the weather. I frowned, my words echoing in my mind. “Only…that can’t be right. Annaleigh is the Keeper….”
