Page 14 of House of Roots and Ruin
I nodded.
“Roland?” Camille called out, raising her voice.
Her valet entered my chamber, still wearing his suit despite the late hour. “Madam?”
“I wondered if you could go and fetch Hanna for me, please?”
He cocked his head, squinting. “Madam?”
“Hanna Whitten? Our old nursemaid?”
“I…I remember who she was, madam.” Roland made no motion to leave and find her.
His words struck me like a bolt of fire from the sky.Was…
Camille was not to be stopped. “Could you go get her, please? For Verity?”
Roland glanced uneasily between us. “I don’t understand, milady. Hanna Whitten has been dead and gone these last twelve years.”
Drip. Drip.
Drip, drip, drop.
Water plinked into the tub, sending ripples across the surface to lap against my bare skin.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d sat in the bath, naked and shivering. The water was cold now, beading against my skin like icy diamonds, the bubbles long gone.
As I sat in the water, hunched over my bony knees, the drip echoed against the glazed jade tiles and lulled me into a dissociative trance.
Far from Roland and his ludicrous pronouncements.
Far from Camille.
Far from ghosts I wasn’t fully sure I believed in.
Far from Highmoor.
Far away to a place where it was just me.
Me.
Me and the water.
Me and the leaky faucet.
Drip. Drip.
Drip, drip, drop.
Drip. Drip.
Drip, drip—
Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeak.
I froze, my muscles tensing into a painful rictus of dread as the sound ripped me back into the present. Back where it was too cold and too dark and anything could have been hiding away in the shadowy depths of the bathroom. Watching. Waiting.
Waves of pebbled gooseflesh rose and every bit of me stood at attention as I noticed the burnished seahorse doorknob turn, listing to the left as someone on the other side fumbled with it.
