“What an odd expression on your face,” she mused, tilting her head with playfulness that read as strained and strange and utterly wrong. “It’s as though you’re surprised to see me.”
“I…I…” My head felt heavy, listing to one side as I struggled to speak.
“You look like a fish out of water, dear heart. Though”—she paused, looking around the greenhouse—“I suppose you rather are.”
“Who…who are you?”
The black eyes flashed, their luster as cold as snakeskin. “Don’t you remember? We’re old friends, you and I.”
“We’re not.” I fought to push myself up, even as white, threadlike roots inexplicably grew out of my arms, splitting open my skin, burrowing deep into the soil, and securing me in place. Vines from nearby trees crept in to wrap themselves around my ankles, spiraling up my legs, digging into my flesh as I squirmed from their groping grasp. Creeping green things burst from my chest, blooming into nightmarish flowers that snapped and bit at me. “I don’t know you.”
“Of course you do. I know you…I know them…,” she said, glancing back to my sisters.
Eulalie, her head hanging low against her chest, collarbones shattered, vertebrae crushed, raised her hand and offered us both a little wave. “Verity,” she said, sounding sadder than I could ever remember hearing her.
My mind struggled against the thought, bucking like a horse gone mad.
Icouldn’tremember hearing her.
Not Eulalie.
Could I?
“Verity,” the black-eyed woman crooned. “I need you to listen to me, girl. I need you to hear me well.”
I blinked and she was gone, off me and across the greenhouse, in the trees, hanging down from branches miles away.
“Can you hear me?” she mouthed, and Ididhear her, her voice directly in my ear, in my mind, thrumming through my bloodstream, squirming and sick.
Weakly, I nodded.
“Good,” she said, and in an instant, she was back, her weight pressing me farther into the earth. “You need to leave this place.” She leaned forward, digging her pointed elbows into my neck and cutting off my breath. “Do you understand me? Leave Chauntilalie.”
Dark stars spun over my eyes and I felt as though I were gasping for air even though my mouth was heavy and full.
“Do you hear me, Verity?” the wraith asked, but I couldn’t respond.
Peat and loam coated my mouth. I was suffocating on soil.
“Verity?” Her face was so close to mine, too close. Her eyes swam large, growing bigger and bigger until all I saw was the endless stretch of their inky depths.
“Verity!”
A swift hand came out of the terrifying void and slapped me hard across the cheek.
I sat up, gasping, wincing at a world gone too bright.
Gerard sat beside me on a wicker lounging chair. We were outdoors, in the garden. I could feel the fresh air against my face. The woman—the monster—was nowhere to be seen. My sisters were gone, leaving only an echo of Eulalie’s forlorn voice in my mind.
“Oh thank Arina,” Gerard praised, out of breath as though he’d just sprinted a marathon.
Someone out of sight pressed a glass into my hands and Gerard helped me tip it back, letting the cold water flow down my throat, bringing back a rush of clarity.
“What…what happened?”
“The laurel hedge,” he stated, as if it explained it all. “I’d pruned it this morning. I didn’t even think—” He stopped, berating himself with a string of curses beneath his breath. “It was so foolish of me.”
“I don’t…I don’t understand.”
