House of Salt and Sorrows (Sisters of Salt #1)

The room was hot.

I lay next to Lenore, unable to sleep. Sheets stuck to my legs, twisting and pulling. I tried to flatten them with my foot, but it only tangled them more.

How much do we really even know about him?

Fisher’s voice welled up, repeating the question over and over again until each word ceased to have meaning, leaving only a jumbled echo of consonants ringing in my mind.

It didn’t make any sense.

It couldn’t.

But his cheeks had been so red….

I bunched the pillow up beneath me, trying to get more comfortable, but it only served to further agitate me. I slammed my fist into the downy softness, wishing I could pummel my thoughts into such submission.

“He wasn’t even in Salann when Eulalie fell,” I reminded myself.

You mean you only met him after she’d died….

I shook my head, longing to silence the little voice. Cassius had no motive to kill Rosalie or Ligeia, and he’d been with me when Edgar died. It couldn’t be him.

But Eulalie…

I took a sharp breath, remembering the oil painting in the hall the morning we’d gone to the berry bushes.

He’d known Eulalie’s name.

He’d known all my sisters’ names.

There was no way he’d been able to read the small, smudged plaque beneath the portrait. So how, then?

With a hiss of frustration, I flipped over. Moonlight cast the room into stark highlights and shadows. Catching sight of the two empty beds, I turned away, coming face to face with Lenore.

Her eyes were open, staring at me. It was the first time we’d made direct eye contact since I’d returned from the thicket.

“You’re awake,” I said needlessly. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep. Did I wake you?”

Predictably, she didn’t respond.

“Is it always so hot in here?” Silence. “Perhaps the fire was built too high.” I sat up, struggling to free myself from the bedsheets. “Can I get you anything? You didn’t come down for dinner. What about tea? Would you like tea?”

I was used to one-sided conversations in the mausoleum with Mama but found it unnerving to carry one on when there was a living, breathing person next to me, never answering.

She rolled over and studied the canopy. Minutes passed.

Finally, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. My nightgown clung to me, clammy and suffocating. “I’m going to take a bath to cool off. I’ll bring up some tea after, if you’re still awake?”

I didn’t wait for her to not respond.

It would have been easier to use my own tub on the third floor, but the pipes were loud and I didn’t want to wake the Graces. Lenore was the only one who would hear me down here.

As the bathtub filled, I stripped out of the sodden nightdress, leaving it in a pile near the sinks. It was well after midnight—too late to wash my hair and have any hope of its drying before sunrise—so I twisted up my braid, pinning it off my shoulders.

The bathroom, all marble tiles and porcelain, held a sharp chill at odds with Lenore’s room. I stepped into the bathtub, appreciating the warmth of the water. This tub was so much bigger than ours, I could float on my back without touching the sides.

I closed my eyes, listening to the last drops of water trickle from the spout and echo in the arch overhead.

Drip. Drop.

Drip. Drip. Drop.

It fell with a hypnotic pitch, lulling me toward tranquility. For the first time that day, my muscles felt as though they could truly relax, my mind felt empty and at peace.

How much do we really even know about him?

Eyes flashing open, I jerked back with a curse of surprise. Lenore stood beside the tub, peering at me in glassy-eyed silence.

Water splashed over the sides and onto her, but she didn’t acknowledge it, only continued to stare at me with a curious blank expression. Her face was shrouded in shadows, long and drawn, and her hair hung in obscuring strands, having come undone from the braid I plaited for her that evening.

“Did you change your nightgown?” I asked, studying the unfamiliar lace trim. “What’s the matter? Did you want tea? I’ll bring it to you when I’m out,” I promised, sinking into the water, angling to cover up as much of myself as I could. I’d never felt the need for modesty around my sisters—we spent half our lives changing in front of each other—but something in her eyes made me long for a bath towel to hide behind.

She blinked once, then slowly turned around and stumbled toward the doorway, moving as though her legs had fallen asleep.

“Lenore!” I called after her.

When she didn’t return, I pushed myself from the steaming water and toweled off. Wrapping my dressing robe around me, I hurried after her.

Lenore was already at the landing of the front staircase.

“What are you doing? I’ll bring you the tea. You should be in bed.”

She turned back to me but then started down the steps, still moving with an awkward gait. With a sigh, I pulled the robe more securely around me and followed her.

Reaching the first floor, I could only guess at where she’d gone. I tried the kitchen, but it was empty, as was the larder.

“Lenore?”

Returning to the main hallway, I caught a flash of a white dress and red hair crossing into the library. I hurried to catch up, but the door across the room was already closing as I entered.

“Lenore, wait for me!”

Down the corridor, a door clicked shut. It sounded like the glass door of the solarium. What could she possibly be doing in there at this hour?

I stepped into the thick and humid air. When we were little girls, we loved to while away winter afternoons in the solarium. Sitting in the midst of a jungle with snow swirling outside the tinted glass windows felt magical.

“Lenore?” I called out again, taking a step forward. “Where are you?”

There was no answer, but a fern frond swayed back and forth. I closed my eyes and listened carefully. The trickle of the indoor pond couldn’t quite obscure the rustle of long skirts dragging on the stone pavers.

Turning, I followed. The gardeners were given the first month of winter off, and the palms grew wild in their absence, spreading out across the paths with no regard for those who needed to walk by. I shifted a particularly large leaf out of the way but nearly tripped on something in the middle of the path.

It was Verity’s sketchbook.

I’d not seen it since that day in Elizabeth’s bedroom. What was it doing in the solarium? Had Lenore somehow brought it with her?

The paper cover flipped open as if caught in a breeze, revealing the drawing of Eulalie ripping the bedclothes from Verity while she slept.

As I bent over to retrieve the morbid book, the pages turned again, though I felt no draft. Images of my sisters, horribly twisted and decayed, flashed before me in rapid succession. Sketches of Eulalie, Ava, Octavia, Elizabeth, and even Rosalie and Ligeia flipped over and over, turned by unseen hands. The book came to an abrupt stop at the final drawing.

It was me.

I lay in the middle of a grand ballroom, with crowds of partygoers leering behind masks. My satin skirts spread around me like a puddle, revealing the unnatural angles of my splayed ankles. Every one of my joints faced a wrong direction, like a puppet with severed strings.

My head was tipped back, and I stared directly off the page with dead eyes. My mouth hung open, soft and slack. One hand reached out, curved as if beckoning the viewer in.

Swallowing a cry of horror, I slammed the horrid book shut, kicking it away from me.

Why would Verity draw such a thing?

Or had she?

“Lenore?” I called out, my voice creaking as my throat closed in fear.

My drawing looked different from the others, its style more subtle and refined. Had Lenore drawn it? She’d been silent ever since our sisters were found. We’d all assumed it was her way of grieving, but what if we were wrong? What if she’d snapped?

I glanced around at the palms surrounding me. Distracted by the book, I now had no idea where she was. She could be anywhere in the solarium, watching me, stalking me with those haunted eyes.

A chill raced down my neck, and I bolted down the path, zigzagging through the plants to avoid being an easy target. Rounding the bend, I stopped short, seeing her silhouetted in moonlight by the window. Her hand pressed against the glass, as if trying to grab at something just out of her reach. She looked back at me, then headed to the left.

I peered out to see what she’d been looking at. The West Wing was clearly visible from this vantage, jutting out across the front lawn. It was dark, save for the light coming from one window on the second floor.

Lenore’s room.

My breath caught in my throat, nearly choking me, as I spotted a dark shape looking out from the window.

It was Lenore.

I froze, the hairs on my arms rising. The palms shifted again, and the rustle of a skirt that was not Lenore’s approached me. Mouth dry with dread, I turned and saw not Lenore but Rosalie and Ligeia, standing side by side, hands clasped together, with matching blue lips and frost in their hair. Their eyes were like milky marbles.

“Rosalie?” I dared to ask. She swayed back and forth, giving no indication she heard me. “Ligeia?”

Rosalie extended her free arm, pointing a finger at me. No, not me. At something just past me, over my shoulder. Slowly, as if pulled by an unseen string, their heads turned toward the right. Their bodies followed, crossing down the path, drawn by something I couldn’t see or hear.

I turned to see if Lenore had spotted her sisters, but her window was now empty and dark. Was she on her way down here? My heart jumped as I put it together.

They were on their way to her.

I broke into a run, pushing aside palm fronds, my bare feet slipping against the slick stones. I fell once, bashing my knee against a statue. Blood ran down my leg, trickling between my toes, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was getting to Lenore before my sisters did.

Every time I seemed to gain ground, they sped up, their movements a jerky blur, a vibrating haze painful to watch. The air buzzed as they shivered, and my eardrums felt as if they might burst.

My sisters reached the door. One moment, they were in the solarium with me, and the next, they were on the other side of the glass. I shook my head, certain it was a trick of the light, but Rosalie put her hand up to the pane of glass, pushing the door shut. It caught with a loud click.

I tried the handle, but they’d locked me in. I beat on the windows with my fists. When they grew too tender, I used my palms, then my feet, trying to shatter the glass.

My sisters watched me with a flat curiosity. Ligeia tilted her head to study the streak of blood across the glass after my knuckles split open. She pressed her fingers across the scarlet smudge.

“Let me out, please,” I begged. “You can’t leave me in here!”

She tapped at the spot once, then clasped Rosalie again. Her free hand reached out reflexively for Lenore, but it swung free, missing its mark. She looked down at the air beside her, clearly perturbed her hand remained empty.

With a nod from Rosalie, they were gone, buzzing down the hallway again with that awful vibrating movement. It was a relief to see their nightmarish visages go, but then I remembered Lenore and began banging on the doors again, crying out for help. I didn’t care if I woke the entire manor and everyone thought me mad. My sisters’ ghosts had to be stopped.

A series of soft clicks on the other side of the door woke me.

I lay crumpled against the glass panes, completely spent. My hands were raw and bloody, and I’d gone hoarse from screaming. After my sisters had blurred away, my eyes hadn’t seemed to work right, couldn’t focus on anything. I’d let them flutter shut, intending to rest them for just a moment, maybe two.

Suddenly the door opened and I fell, my head striking the wooden floor of the hallway with a painful crack. Gazing up, nearly cross-eyed, I saw the dark silhouette of Cassius peering over me with a candle, his face masked in concern.

“Annaleigh, what are you doing down here? You’re injured,” he said, taking my hands in his.

“Get away from me!” I jerked from his touch, tumbling down the steps into the solarium. My head spun as the room tilted sharply to the right, blurring to a fuzzy haze before sharpening with too much clarity, too many colors. My stomach lurched, fighting with the room’s off-kilter equilibrium. I grabbed at a potted palm to keep from turning upside down with it.

He straightened. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. Are you all right? I heard screaming.”

“Just stay back!”

I brushed bits of dirt and leaves from me, suppressing a whimper. Each sweep of my swollen hands was agonizing, but I couldn’t let him know I was in pain.

Seeing my sisters’ ghosts had convinced me Fisher’s theory was true. They had been murdered and had come back, haunting us until their killer was found. And though it broke my heart to think it, Cassius was the most likely suspect.

His every move now seemed deeply calculated to me. A sly hardness glinted behind his eyes, appraising the situation with care, taking in every possible detail.

My vision rushed in and out of focus again, and I briefly entertained the thought of a concussion before realizing Cassius was using my distraction to slowly cross into the solarium.

“Annaleigh, what happened? Your hands look awful.”

“I told you to stay away from me!”

He paused on the final stair, and I tripped over the hem of my robe, stumbling into the foliage. If Cassius truly had killed my sisters, I could only assume he would come after me as well.

Awful visions crowded my mind. Verity discovering my body floating facedown in the pond. Camille tumbling over my half-hidden ankle as they searched the house. Lenore waking up to see my corpse laid out beside her. Another funeral.

What would they do with my body? I couldn’t fit in the crypt with Rosalie and Ligeia still there. Would they dump me out at sea? Would I end up in the Brine with the rest of my family, or would I be doomed to toss about on the waves for all eternity, like a ghost ship never reaching port?

The room flipped on its axis again, and I struggled to keep sight of Cassius.

“You poisoned me,” I accused as black dots swam into my vision. This couldn’t be a concussion. I’d been drugged.

His face was a perfect mask of incredulity. “Poisoned? What are you talking about? Annaleigh, tell me what happened!”

He rushed toward me, and I wheeled around and raced down the path. I knocked over potted plants and small statues, anything I could to slow his pursuit, but his footsteps trailed closer and closer.

Bursting through the ferns onto the tiled area by the pond, I grabbed a little metal table and wielded it between us.

“Stay away from me! I know what you did.”

Even as I hurled the accusation at him, I knew I wasn’t making sense. Poisoned? How? When? But what else could explain my disoriented state?

Cassius’s eyes were wild with confusion, and he held his hands up, presumably to show he meant no harm. “What I did? Annaleigh—I’ve done nothing!”

“Then why are my sisters dead?”

Once the words were out, they couldn’t be taken back. They cut through the air, sharper than a serrated blade, slicing deeper still.

I’d never forget the look of horror on Cassius’s face.

“You think I killed your sisters?” He let out a short, dry laugh.

“Someone did. Someone on the island.”

His jaw clenched. “So you assumed it was me, the outsider.”

He turned to go, and a cold wave of dismay crashed over me. Why was he leaving? A killer wouldn’t walk away from a witness. A killer would make certain they were silenced. His retreating footsteps hammered doubt after doubt into my heart.

Had I been wrong again?

“You knew my sisters’ names!” I shouted after him.

Cassius whirled around, wounded outrage constricting his face. “What is going on, Annaleigh? Is it your head? When you fell?”

“Ava and Eulalie. Octavia and Elizabeth. I never told you their names. You knew them in the portrait.”

“And this makes me a murderer?”

“It doesn’t make you look good. And there are other things…. Verity never told you about the sea turtles,” I guessed, grasping.

“She didn’t, but…” He blanched, losing his composure for just a moment, but I saw it.

“How long have you been watching my family?”

The table clattered from my hands as a fresh horror swept in, spreading across my mind like a red tide, poisoning everything it touched.

“Eulalie wasn’t the first, was she?” My lips trembled. “Elizabeth didn’t kill herself. And Octavia didn’t fall.” A sob burst from my chest. “You’ve been behind all their deaths.”

I fell to my knees, the room shrinking around me. My head spun in dark chaos, throbbing with terror. A low hum, similar to the noise Ligeia’s and Rosalie’s ghosts had made, buzzed from the corners of the solarium. I shriveled against it, pressing my hands over my ears, but nothing could muffle the roar. It grew louder and louder, and I cried out, screaming against the chaos. I was certain my eardrums would burst.

And then it was suddenly gone, and the only noise I heard was Cassius’s footsteps as he approached me.

“Get up.”

I remained where I was, wishing the ground would swallow me whole.

“Annaleigh,” he warned.

Certain I was about to take my life’s final breaths, I rose to my knees, shivering before him.

“You honestly believe I killed your sisters?” His eyes roamed over me, his disappointment a tangible weight.

The pressure in my head tightened, like a fist clenching around my brain, knuckles unmercifully white. I turned to the side, retching. Cassius was immediately at my side, supporting my frame, holding back my hair. He murmured meaningless noises of assurance, his fingers tracing soothing patterns across my back as I threw up. When I dared to meet his gaze, it was as though I’d been lost on the water in a soupy fog, unsure of which way I was heading, before a swift wind picked up, revealing the shoreline had been in front of me all along.

As clarity rushed over me, my confusion turned to horror. What had I done?

“Cassius, I’m so sorry. I don’t…I don’t know what’s happening to me.” I wiped my mouth, wishing for water.

“It could be a concussion,” he muttered, probing the growing knot at the back of my head. “Let me see your hands.”

With far more tenderness than I deserved, he took them, examining the sides, swollen and split, the nails broken from trying to pry the doorframe free.

“What caused this?”

“I…I thought I’d been locked in.”

I could see in his eyes he didn’t believe me.

“And you couldn’t wait until someone came for help?”

We were much too close to one another. Color stained my cheeks and chest, and I looked down, ashamed to meet his eyes. “I saw my sisters.”

“Camille and Lenore locked you in here?”

I shook my head.

He frowned. “The little ones?”

Another shake.

“Oh.”

The jagged ends of my fingernails dug deep into the palm of my hand. “Do you believe in ghosts?”

He paused for such a long moment, I worried he thought me mad, but he nodded. “I do. We need to do something about your hands.”

“My hands?” I echoed. My hands were the least of my problems.

But Cassius drew me from the solarium and down the hall before I could protest. The sconces were unlit; the corridor was silent. It felt as if we were the only two people awake in the house, in Salann, in the whole of Arcannia.

“Hanna keeps a little box of gauze and ointments in a kit in the laundry room,” I offered, but he walked past the hall without pause. “Where are we going?”

He stopped at the door leading into the garden. Cassius traced his fingers down the wood’s grain, unable to look at me. “You need to know I was going to tell you all of this eventually, Annaleigh, truly I was.”

My guard flared up, gooseflesh scouring my arms. “Tell me what?”

He pushed the door open, letting in a blast of icy wind. “Come with me.”

I dug my feet into the carpet runner. “We can’t go out there like this. We’ll freeze to death in minutes.”

“It won’t take minutes. But I have to be outside.”

“For what?”

He pulled me out after him into the snow. I gasped, my breath squeezed from me as a thousand frozen knives bit in. My feet rebelled, painfully numb with every step I took. The winds sliced through the thin silk of my robe, and my body trembled against his as he dragged me after him.

“Cassius, this is insane!” I protested, shouting to be heard over the gusts.

“I need to be away from the trees. We can’t be under any branches.”

Once in the open, he pressed me flush against the length of his body. I burrowed into his embrace, seeking all the heat he had to offer, propriety be damned. With my head tucked beneath his chin, nestled close to his chest, I couldn’t see what was happening, but it felt as if we were in a sudden waterspout, all wind and icy water droplets. Pressure built in my ears, making my head spin. I sank to my knees, feeling light-headed and sick.

The air was suddenly warm. Balmy, even, and scented with honeysuckle.

I opened my eyes and let out a shriek of disbelief.