Page 85 of When Bones Whisper
The last thing she remembered was locking Charles's head in the bathroom and covering it with a blanket before crawling back into bed. Something had lured her out there, or she had finally lost her mind to the hex.
Her body suddenly jerked forward, as if someone had tugged an invisible string inside her chest. The image of her family twisted, revealing the spirits’ true faces—the witches that haunted Sallow Manor. The demon must have gotten to them, or they hated Nathaniel so much for killing them, that or they were punishing him by trying to get her killed.
“No! Please!” The plea came out raspy, the wound on her side pricking with heat. Blinking rapidly, holding her arms out for balance, she let the scream soaring through her throat rattle into the night.
“No!” she yelled when a second tug pulled her body. Her vision hazed through the tears, the hallucination of her family and all the comfort it offered, gone. No matter how hard she tried to walk backward, something was stopping her.
Duke growled from behind her, his nose nudging at her cold, bare ankles, begging her to turn back.
“I can’t move, Duke!” she cried, panting. “I’m going to fall. Help. Help me. Please. I don’t want to die.”
A gust of wind propelled her forward. Her heart skipped a beat the moment she toppled over the edge, the rush of wind sucking all the air from her lungs.
Flailing her legs, Charlotte grasped around her for anything to hold on to, only clamping her eyes shut when the groundrushed up to meet her and her last second was consumed by a primal screech.
She didn’t feel the impact. The silence of the landing was met with darkness. A breath curled into her lungs, then another, and when she opened her eyes, she realized she hadn’t hit the ground at all.
Nathaniel’s face hovered over her, his arms tight around her. Nothing hurt. He had absorbed all the impact of her fall.
Thick raindrops ran down his horrified expression, his wild gray eyes scanning her face.
Heavy pants left her chest, her eyes trailing up to the rooftop. “You caught me.”
A sound crossed between a sigh and a groan whooshed past Nathaniel’s lips. “I heard your scream,” he husked. After a few deep breaths, he pulled her close to his chest. In a pained voice, he asked, “Why did you jump?”
“I didn’t. It’s the hex and the ghosts. I’m losing my mind, just like my father did. I thought I’d stopped it, but I just woke up out here, on the ledge. Oh God.” She looked up at the dizzying rooftop. “Where’s Duke?”
“I can hear him coming,” Nathaniel said, and she heard his meow from the back entrance of the manor. “He’s okay. Youareokay. I’m going to find Katherine. We’re going to break this hex, tonight, before it damned well kills you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Charlotte closed her eyes, doubling over the moment Nathaniel placed her on his mahogany four-post bed. She breathed in his scent as she wrapped herself in his plum sheets, wincing as heat soared through the mark. Peering around, she noticed the faded pictures hanging over baroque black wallpaper, each one of beautiful landscapes with sunsets. Flames crackled from the small, cast-iron fireplace, smoke pillaring from the burning logs.
“Get Katherine!” Nathaniel’s voice bellowed from the doorway.
She glanced up in time to see Zachariah speed away in a blur, and Alexander walk inside. They shared a quick, heated discussion before he too, left.
After a long exhale, Nathaniel turned to face her, his fingers gripping the deep wood of his dresser.
Coughing, Charlotte doubled over in pain, a fever consuming her mind. “I’m dying.”
She wasn’t sure if she’d spoken the words aloud until she heard his response.
“Youwillsurvive this.” His voice was so certain that she almost believed him.
“Agh!”
Pulled mercilessly from the comfort of his bed, Charlotte was plunged into a hallucination of a memory so potent she could smell her father’s cigar burning from the tray on the table.
“Charlotte,” her father said, smiling from the armchair. “Are you ready for your first ball?”
“I think so.”
She ran her fingers over her cheeks, trying not to wipe away the coverage, but it was so damned itchy. She’d tried her best to coat enough of the powder on her cheeks and nose to counteract the dust of freckles smattered across the middle of her face, but the faint tan still shone through.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“It’s the powder Mother put on my cheeks and nose.”
