Inheritance, page 14
As she watched, the woman walked out of the great doors of the manor and into a snowstorm. In the dream Sonya heard the crash of the waves, the feral howl of wind, but the woman, smiling, trudged through the snow in bare feet.
Another female waited at the seawall, in a black dress the wind didn’t seem to touch, her dark hair falling in waves.
They spoke, but Sonya couldn’t hear the voices. She only saw the fury in the second woman’s eyes, and the fear in the one with chestnut hair when the dark woman grabbed her hands.
Now, the woman in the nightgown shuddered in the cold, tried to run back to the manor on feet that must have been frozen.
The manor that stood, shadowed against the whirling snow, its grand doors firmly shut.
She fell while the other watched. Her lips going blue as she struggled up, fell again.
Her eyes, green, Poole green, shed tears that went to ice on her cheeks.
She fell a final time with the snow falling over her like a shroud.
In the dream, Sonya walked the long halls, slid back into bed.
She thrashed in her sleep. And wept.
Chapter Ten
By morning, the dream faded from her mind and memory. She woke eager to work.
She began her routine with coffee, sitting at the counter with her tablet.
A check of her email netted her another inquiry: a recommendation from—bless them—Baby Mine.
Fingers mentally crossed, she answered.
Next she found an email from Trey with information on the rescue organization.
They have photos, what they know of the history of the dog. This one’s just dogs. Ages, temperament, breeds—or the best they can determine breeds. Mookie and I found them pretty terrific. It’s county-wide, but Lucy Cabot works with the county group, and fosters dogs in her home in Poole’s Bay. Let me know if you want/need more.
Trey
She hovered the cursor over the link, nearly pressed it. Then pulled back.
Thanks. I’m not going to let myself look yet because I’m weak, and I still need some time to organize myself before I bring home a dog. Which I now find I want desperately. I hope I last a week without peeking.
Also, I mentioned to your father that I’d like to have your whole family to dinner. I can’t guarantee the quality of the meal, but want to start on the right foot. Are any of you vegan or vegetarian, or does anyone have a food allergy or an extreme aversion to any particular dish? No rush. Need time before that, too. More thanks.
Sonya
She took coffee with her upstairs to change, and stopped short when she saw the neatly made bed, and the fire burning low.
“I didn’t do that. I know damn well I didn’t do that.”
Because the mug shook in her hand, she set it down.
“I wasn’t groggy. I can’t be that forgetful. Can I be that forgetful?”
What were the choices? She had a bed-making intruder, she’d done it on autopilot, or the place was haunted. With bed-making ghosts.
“I’m taking door number two. That’s it. Making the bed’s a habit. Thanks, Mom.”
Because suddenly changing made her uneasy, she decided to work in her pajamas. Not a thing wrong with that.
Taking the coffee and tablet, she walked down the hall, past the staircase, and into the library. After plugging the tablet in, she crossed over to start a fire.
In the clean hearth with logs already set.
Could whoever once cleaned for Collin slip in, do some chores?
And that, she admitted, hit the ridiculous scale as much as bed-making intruders or ghosts.
Autopilot.
She lit the fire, took a steadying gulp of coffee. As she turned to go to her desk, her tablet hit a disco beat with “She Works Hard for the Money.”
After a burst of involuntary laughter, she shuddered.
One more door, she thought. Someone was trying to scare her. Maybe Deuce was wrong about the Poole cousins. Maybe they wanted her out of the house, wanted her to forfeit the inheritance. And they’d found a way to pull some tricks.
“It won’t work. You’re just pissing me off. I’ve got work to do, so back the hell off.”
She grabbed the fireplace poker, took it with her to lean on the corner of the desk.
Just in case.
The work soothed. Here she felt confident, creative. She spent the morning on the layout for Anna’s pottery, organizing by type, by purpose to coordinate with the drop-down menu she’d added to the Shop tab.
She tested, adjusted, tested again. And began to build the shopping cart.
“That’s how it’s done.”
She broke, went down for a Coke and an orange. When she came back, already planning the next steps, her tablet signaled an email.
I peeked. You’re sunk.
As for dinner, thanks in advance. We’re all ravenous carnivores, no food allergies or aversions. Name the date; we’ll be there.
FYI, Anna showed me the website in progress. You hit it dead-on. Nice.
Trey
I’m not peeking—yet.
I’ll think of something suitable for ravenous carnivores, and try to make it edible.
Glad you liked the in progress. More glad that Anna did, but you count. If Doyle Law Offices ever decides to get an updated web presence, you know who to call.
Sonya
Another email came in as she sent the first. Anna sent photos of the tall vase she’d thrown the day before, after what she called the bisque firing. She’d send more, she wrote, of the glazing process, the completed glaze. And after the final firing, she’d send photos of the finished piece.
Along with it, she’d sent a bio, with an invitation to edit, if necessary.
“Excellent.”
Sonya answered just that, and told her client to give it ninety minutes, then check the Shop and the About tabs on the website.
“Now, let’s see what we’ve got and what we’ll do with it.”
Halfway through the ninety minutes, she texted Anna to make it two hours.
She wanted it perfect.
After she tested it on all her devices, she sat back.
“It’s good. It’s really good. Time to leave it alone, then fine-tune.”
A log fell in the fire, made her jump.
She’d toss another on, then go for a walk. Ten minutes out in the air. She figured she knew Anna well enough to be sure it wouldn’t take her much longer to look the site over.
When she rose, she saw snow falling outside the window. Not a blustery snow like before, but soft and pretty.
She could walk in that.
After she’d added the log, she remembered she still wore her pajamas. Since she considered pajamas outside a bridge too far, she switched to a sweater and winter-weight leggings. Downstairs she pulled on her old reliable UGGs and the rest of her outdoor gear.
Rather than take the house key, she unlocked the front door. And stepped out into the wonderland.
Snow fell, soft as cotton, to cling to branches. It lay thin, for now, on the walkways, drifted over the seawall. The wind only murmured as she kept to those walkways and circled the house.
She smelled smoke from the chimneys, and the chilly freshness of snow, the sharp sting of pines.
The woods looked like a painting, green and white and deep. She imagined the deer she’d spotted before, but saw no sign of it.
If she got a dog, they’d walk there, just wander together in the quiet. She climbed the steps to the deck on the flat roof of the apartment, and just looked.
She recognized a long swatch of hydrangeas, their old wood like bones gathering flakes. What she thought were azaleas, tall and wide enough to rise above the floor of snow.
She’d need to learn more about plants, since most of what she did know applied to Xena. Or she’d need to give in and go with a grounds crew.
She walked down, continued on to make a circle, and told herself she’d make new habits.
Trips to the village, strolls outside—longer ones, she hoped, once spring broke through. She loved her work, and work was necessary, but she’d take time for this. Take time to go through other parts of the house.
She’d put that off, she could admit that. Because it felt so big, so overwhelming, and keeping to a handful of rooms just less so.
The house deserved better. Hell, so did she.
For another moment she stood, looking out to sea, listening to the waves.
Maybe time for some hot chocolate, she thought. Hopefully the Doyles had stocked some instant. Hot chocolate by the fire on a snowy afternoon sounded glorious.
She turned, pressed the tongue on the iron handle of the front door.
It didn’t budge.
She tried again, again, and felt the first tickles of panic in her throat.
She’d unlocked the door. Unlocked it, then checked to make sure. Now she yanked at the handle, nearly pounded on the door.
The wind came up, sudden, frigid, blowing what felt like needles of ice in her face. And with it images blew into her mind—walking barefoot through a blizzard in a nightgown. Walking toward a woman standing at the seawall.
She looked over her shoulder, half terrified she’d see a figure standing there. A woman in black.
But she saw only the snow and the sea behind it.
Shaking now, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She’d call Trey. Embarrassing, yes, but—
Even as she started to punch in his contact, she heard a thunk. Like a lock turning.
And when she tried the door again, it opened smoothly.
She rushed in, slammed and locked the door behind her. As she leaned back against it, heart pounding, she knew her eyes were wide and wild.
Deliberately, she closed them.
“It was probably stuck. Just stuck. I unlocked it, and it was unlocked, so it jammed for a minute. That’s all. And the rest, stupid panic.”
She pulled off her boots, carried them to the closet, carefully hung up her coat, unwound her scarf. Though she’d lost her yen for hot chocolate, she followed the agenda.
No handy packets of Swiss Miss in the cupboards, or in the butler’s pantry. She did find a fancy canister with instructions, so she got out a pan and followed them.
No handy canister of Reddi-wip either, but a small carton of whipping cream.
She was not going that far, so she’d take her hot chocolate naked.
Feeling better, she went up to the library. For whatever reason, that room felt like hers. She sat by the fire, sipped hot chocolate.
Then pulled out her phone when it signaled a text. From Anna.
Somehow I’ve got to not work when you’re doing a big reveal. I’m flabbergasted! And I don’t flabbergast easy. The shopping pages are a kind of miracle. I know you haven’t finished, but everything looks wonderful, and it works so smoothly. The About page makes me impressed with myself. I love the way you used the photos my mother took yesterday.
Great. Now get me a video, with audio. I’m going to do a widget.
And, Sonya thought, use it to launch you on TikTok at some point—but no need to scare you off.
I don’t know what a widget is, but I’m for it. I’ll work on it. When this is all done, I’m taking you to lunch. I swear, if I wasn’t married and pregnant, I’d marry you and have your baby.
While that’s tempting, we’ll stick with lunch. I’ll get your social media up sometime within the next ten days, so watch for that heading your way.
I will. TY. Anna
A good day, Sonya thought. In spite of a stuck door, a good day.
As she put her foot on the coffee table, her tablet played Michael Bublé’s “Home.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
* * *
In the evening, she decided to spend some time with the Poole family tree, a glass of wine. Then maybe she’d start one of the new books she’d bought or switch over to another movie.
As Deuce had told her, she found the book in Collin’s office. A coffee-table style, bound in brown leather.
A caring friend, she thought as she carried it and the wine back to the library.
She read the forward where Deuce explained his interest in genealogy, and his hopes that the book would provide a connection to those who came after with those who’d come before.
It opened with the family tree, meticulously documented on a two-page spread. It started in the early 1600s.
“Holy shit, they had eleven children! Two died in infancy, another before he reached five, and another at sixteen. How do you get through that?”
She followed it down, but would look at details later. And there was her father and his twin brother. Her mother’s name and the date they’d married. The date her father died.
The woman Collin had married—that date and the date of her death the same.
And there, her name, connected to her parents.
So many on those branches, she realized. She’d never thought about it. The only child of an only child—so she’d believed—on her father’s side. One aunt and three cousins on her mother’s.
Now there were so many more.
“Dad would have loved this,” she murmured.
Engrossed, she didn’t notice when her tablet played “We Are Family.”
So many births, she mused, with twins running through them. So many deaths.
She turned the page.
Deuce had gone deep into his research, she realized after spending more than an hour reading through the ancestors in the seventeenth century. There had been lords and ladies, soldiers and farmers in her ancestry, and their share of triumphs and tragedies.
By the time she got to the next century, she decided to make tea—a rarity for her—and take that and the book into bed with her.
Tucked up, fire simmering, she worked her way through to the Arthur Poole, from Liverpool, who’d made his home in Maine and founded the family business. An adventurous man, she thought as her eyes began to blur.
Making his way across the sea at the age of seventeen. Heading to a brave new world and leaving the one he knew behind. A shipbuilder by trade, after years of apprenticeship.
And by the age of twenty-four, he’d started his business, and had married a wealthy young heiress, one Leticia Armond, and begun building what would become Lost Bride Manor.
Love for Leticia, she wondered, or money?
They’d had twin sons followed by three daughters, and had been married for nearly twenty-five years before he died.
A fall from a horse.
So his son Collin inherited the manor. Continued his father’s expansion of the original structure while he and his brother ran the business.
A few months later, Collin Poole married Astrid Grandville.
And tragedy.
As she felt herself fading, Sonya closed the book, set it aside. She switched off the light and dropped instantly into sleep.
* * *
The clock chimed the hour of three, and the music, soft and sad, drifted into her dreams. She studied herself in the mirror, the young, happy bride in her long white dress. Music, quick and lively, echoed up from the main floor where her husband—ah, such a word, husband—hosted family and friends in celebration. Through the open window, the spring breeze came to flutter at the curtains.
On the other side of the mirror, Sonya smiled at her. You look beautiful, she thought.
The bride smiled in return.
“I will always be beautiful. Young and beautiful. A bride to my groom, a wife to my husband. A mistress of the manor. And I will always return to this day when I held true love and joy in one hand, despair and grief in the other.”
It happened so fast, the woman with the knife rushing in. On the other side of the mirror, Sonya shouted, but the sound couldn’t penetrate the glass. As the knife plunged, she pushed and beat on the mirror to try to get through somehow. But she could only watch in horror as the blood spread red over the long white gown.
As the young bride fell, and the woman cursed her. The murderer took the ring from the dying bride’s finger, put it on her own.
For a moment, an instant only, darkness flooded her, swept through the room.
And she was gone.
The bride, blood seeping through the fingers she pressed to her belly, staggered to her feet. Through the glass, her eyes met Sonya’s.
Again and again, over and over, year by year, and bride by bride. Find the seven rings. Break the curse.
Like the woman in black, she was gone. The music, the soft and sad, the lively and quick, went with her.
* * *
With the dream having faded, Sonya woke just after first light to the sound of the snowblower. Remembering her duty, she went down to make coffee and took some out to John Dee.
A bear of a man with a brown beard and eyes to match, he grinned at her.
“Get ya up?”
“I’m a working girl. I need to start my day, too. That’s a seriously blue sky.”
“Yep. Should have a stretch of clear days coming. Only got about six inches with this last one.”
They stood, drinking coffee, him in his bulky navy coveralls, her in a coat tossed over her pajamas.
“Heard you ventured into the village.”
She had to laugh. “Is that news?”
“Most everything is in Poole’s Bay. That was my brother’s wife sold you a scarf. Friend of my mother’s daughter’s who makes them.”
“It’s wonderful work.”
“You oughta be wearing it. It’s a cold one.” He polished off his coffee, handed her the mug. “Appreciate it. How about I stack some more wood by the back door for you? You’re going through it.”
“Oh, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Happy to. I’ve gotta get back to it.” He winked at her. “I’m a working boy.”
“Here’s to the workers of Maine.”
She’d unlocked the door, and put the keys in her pocket as backup. As the snowblower started up again, the door opened smoothly.
“Okay then.”
A working girl did best with routine, she decided. Hers began with a quick breakfast, a check of emails and texts. Yesterday’s inquiry moved to a consult. Fingers crossed, she scheduled one for late morning.
Another female waited at the seawall, in a black dress the wind didn’t seem to touch, her dark hair falling in waves.
They spoke, but Sonya couldn’t hear the voices. She only saw the fury in the second woman’s eyes, and the fear in the one with chestnut hair when the dark woman grabbed her hands.
Now, the woman in the nightgown shuddered in the cold, tried to run back to the manor on feet that must have been frozen.
The manor that stood, shadowed against the whirling snow, its grand doors firmly shut.
She fell while the other watched. Her lips going blue as she struggled up, fell again.
Her eyes, green, Poole green, shed tears that went to ice on her cheeks.
She fell a final time with the snow falling over her like a shroud.
In the dream, Sonya walked the long halls, slid back into bed.
She thrashed in her sleep. And wept.
Chapter Ten
By morning, the dream faded from her mind and memory. She woke eager to work.
She began her routine with coffee, sitting at the counter with her tablet.
A check of her email netted her another inquiry: a recommendation from—bless them—Baby Mine.
Fingers mentally crossed, she answered.
Next she found an email from Trey with information on the rescue organization.
They have photos, what they know of the history of the dog. This one’s just dogs. Ages, temperament, breeds—or the best they can determine breeds. Mookie and I found them pretty terrific. It’s county-wide, but Lucy Cabot works with the county group, and fosters dogs in her home in Poole’s Bay. Let me know if you want/need more.
Trey
She hovered the cursor over the link, nearly pressed it. Then pulled back.
Thanks. I’m not going to let myself look yet because I’m weak, and I still need some time to organize myself before I bring home a dog. Which I now find I want desperately. I hope I last a week without peeking.
Also, I mentioned to your father that I’d like to have your whole family to dinner. I can’t guarantee the quality of the meal, but want to start on the right foot. Are any of you vegan or vegetarian, or does anyone have a food allergy or an extreme aversion to any particular dish? No rush. Need time before that, too. More thanks.
Sonya
She took coffee with her upstairs to change, and stopped short when she saw the neatly made bed, and the fire burning low.
“I didn’t do that. I know damn well I didn’t do that.”
Because the mug shook in her hand, she set it down.
“I wasn’t groggy. I can’t be that forgetful. Can I be that forgetful?”
What were the choices? She had a bed-making intruder, she’d done it on autopilot, or the place was haunted. With bed-making ghosts.
“I’m taking door number two. That’s it. Making the bed’s a habit. Thanks, Mom.”
Because suddenly changing made her uneasy, she decided to work in her pajamas. Not a thing wrong with that.
Taking the coffee and tablet, she walked down the hall, past the staircase, and into the library. After plugging the tablet in, she crossed over to start a fire.
In the clean hearth with logs already set.
Could whoever once cleaned for Collin slip in, do some chores?
And that, she admitted, hit the ridiculous scale as much as bed-making intruders or ghosts.
Autopilot.
She lit the fire, took a steadying gulp of coffee. As she turned to go to her desk, her tablet hit a disco beat with “She Works Hard for the Money.”
After a burst of involuntary laughter, she shuddered.
One more door, she thought. Someone was trying to scare her. Maybe Deuce was wrong about the Poole cousins. Maybe they wanted her out of the house, wanted her to forfeit the inheritance. And they’d found a way to pull some tricks.
“It won’t work. You’re just pissing me off. I’ve got work to do, so back the hell off.”
She grabbed the fireplace poker, took it with her to lean on the corner of the desk.
Just in case.
The work soothed. Here she felt confident, creative. She spent the morning on the layout for Anna’s pottery, organizing by type, by purpose to coordinate with the drop-down menu she’d added to the Shop tab.
She tested, adjusted, tested again. And began to build the shopping cart.
“That’s how it’s done.”
She broke, went down for a Coke and an orange. When she came back, already planning the next steps, her tablet signaled an email.
I peeked. You’re sunk.
As for dinner, thanks in advance. We’re all ravenous carnivores, no food allergies or aversions. Name the date; we’ll be there.
FYI, Anna showed me the website in progress. You hit it dead-on. Nice.
Trey
I’m not peeking—yet.
I’ll think of something suitable for ravenous carnivores, and try to make it edible.
Glad you liked the in progress. More glad that Anna did, but you count. If Doyle Law Offices ever decides to get an updated web presence, you know who to call.
Sonya
Another email came in as she sent the first. Anna sent photos of the tall vase she’d thrown the day before, after what she called the bisque firing. She’d send more, she wrote, of the glazing process, the completed glaze. And after the final firing, she’d send photos of the finished piece.
Along with it, she’d sent a bio, with an invitation to edit, if necessary.
“Excellent.”
Sonya answered just that, and told her client to give it ninety minutes, then check the Shop and the About tabs on the website.
“Now, let’s see what we’ve got and what we’ll do with it.”
Halfway through the ninety minutes, she texted Anna to make it two hours.
She wanted it perfect.
After she tested it on all her devices, she sat back.
“It’s good. It’s really good. Time to leave it alone, then fine-tune.”
A log fell in the fire, made her jump.
She’d toss another on, then go for a walk. Ten minutes out in the air. She figured she knew Anna well enough to be sure it wouldn’t take her much longer to look the site over.
When she rose, she saw snow falling outside the window. Not a blustery snow like before, but soft and pretty.
She could walk in that.
After she’d added the log, she remembered she still wore her pajamas. Since she considered pajamas outside a bridge too far, she switched to a sweater and winter-weight leggings. Downstairs she pulled on her old reliable UGGs and the rest of her outdoor gear.
Rather than take the house key, she unlocked the front door. And stepped out into the wonderland.
Snow fell, soft as cotton, to cling to branches. It lay thin, for now, on the walkways, drifted over the seawall. The wind only murmured as she kept to those walkways and circled the house.
She smelled smoke from the chimneys, and the chilly freshness of snow, the sharp sting of pines.
The woods looked like a painting, green and white and deep. She imagined the deer she’d spotted before, but saw no sign of it.
If she got a dog, they’d walk there, just wander together in the quiet. She climbed the steps to the deck on the flat roof of the apartment, and just looked.
She recognized a long swatch of hydrangeas, their old wood like bones gathering flakes. What she thought were azaleas, tall and wide enough to rise above the floor of snow.
She’d need to learn more about plants, since most of what she did know applied to Xena. Or she’d need to give in and go with a grounds crew.
She walked down, continued on to make a circle, and told herself she’d make new habits.
Trips to the village, strolls outside—longer ones, she hoped, once spring broke through. She loved her work, and work was necessary, but she’d take time for this. Take time to go through other parts of the house.
She’d put that off, she could admit that. Because it felt so big, so overwhelming, and keeping to a handful of rooms just less so.
The house deserved better. Hell, so did she.
For another moment she stood, looking out to sea, listening to the waves.
Maybe time for some hot chocolate, she thought. Hopefully the Doyles had stocked some instant. Hot chocolate by the fire on a snowy afternoon sounded glorious.
She turned, pressed the tongue on the iron handle of the front door.
It didn’t budge.
She tried again, again, and felt the first tickles of panic in her throat.
She’d unlocked the door. Unlocked it, then checked to make sure. Now she yanked at the handle, nearly pounded on the door.
The wind came up, sudden, frigid, blowing what felt like needles of ice in her face. And with it images blew into her mind—walking barefoot through a blizzard in a nightgown. Walking toward a woman standing at the seawall.
She looked over her shoulder, half terrified she’d see a figure standing there. A woman in black.
But she saw only the snow and the sea behind it.
Shaking now, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She’d call Trey. Embarrassing, yes, but—
Even as she started to punch in his contact, she heard a thunk. Like a lock turning.
And when she tried the door again, it opened smoothly.
She rushed in, slammed and locked the door behind her. As she leaned back against it, heart pounding, she knew her eyes were wide and wild.
Deliberately, she closed them.
“It was probably stuck. Just stuck. I unlocked it, and it was unlocked, so it jammed for a minute. That’s all. And the rest, stupid panic.”
She pulled off her boots, carried them to the closet, carefully hung up her coat, unwound her scarf. Though she’d lost her yen for hot chocolate, she followed the agenda.
No handy packets of Swiss Miss in the cupboards, or in the butler’s pantry. She did find a fancy canister with instructions, so she got out a pan and followed them.
No handy canister of Reddi-wip either, but a small carton of whipping cream.
She was not going that far, so she’d take her hot chocolate naked.
Feeling better, she went up to the library. For whatever reason, that room felt like hers. She sat by the fire, sipped hot chocolate.
Then pulled out her phone when it signaled a text. From Anna.
Somehow I’ve got to not work when you’re doing a big reveal. I’m flabbergasted! And I don’t flabbergast easy. The shopping pages are a kind of miracle. I know you haven’t finished, but everything looks wonderful, and it works so smoothly. The About page makes me impressed with myself. I love the way you used the photos my mother took yesterday.
Great. Now get me a video, with audio. I’m going to do a widget.
And, Sonya thought, use it to launch you on TikTok at some point—but no need to scare you off.
I don’t know what a widget is, but I’m for it. I’ll work on it. When this is all done, I’m taking you to lunch. I swear, if I wasn’t married and pregnant, I’d marry you and have your baby.
While that’s tempting, we’ll stick with lunch. I’ll get your social media up sometime within the next ten days, so watch for that heading your way.
I will. TY. Anna
A good day, Sonya thought. In spite of a stuck door, a good day.
As she put her foot on the coffee table, her tablet played Michael Bublé’s “Home.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
* * *
In the evening, she decided to spend some time with the Poole family tree, a glass of wine. Then maybe she’d start one of the new books she’d bought or switch over to another movie.
As Deuce had told her, she found the book in Collin’s office. A coffee-table style, bound in brown leather.
A caring friend, she thought as she carried it and the wine back to the library.
She read the forward where Deuce explained his interest in genealogy, and his hopes that the book would provide a connection to those who came after with those who’d come before.
It opened with the family tree, meticulously documented on a two-page spread. It started in the early 1600s.
“Holy shit, they had eleven children! Two died in infancy, another before he reached five, and another at sixteen. How do you get through that?”
She followed it down, but would look at details later. And there was her father and his twin brother. Her mother’s name and the date they’d married. The date her father died.
The woman Collin had married—that date and the date of her death the same.
And there, her name, connected to her parents.
So many on those branches, she realized. She’d never thought about it. The only child of an only child—so she’d believed—on her father’s side. One aunt and three cousins on her mother’s.
Now there were so many more.
“Dad would have loved this,” she murmured.
Engrossed, she didn’t notice when her tablet played “We Are Family.”
So many births, she mused, with twins running through them. So many deaths.
She turned the page.
Deuce had gone deep into his research, she realized after spending more than an hour reading through the ancestors in the seventeenth century. There had been lords and ladies, soldiers and farmers in her ancestry, and their share of triumphs and tragedies.
By the time she got to the next century, she decided to make tea—a rarity for her—and take that and the book into bed with her.
Tucked up, fire simmering, she worked her way through to the Arthur Poole, from Liverpool, who’d made his home in Maine and founded the family business. An adventurous man, she thought as her eyes began to blur.
Making his way across the sea at the age of seventeen. Heading to a brave new world and leaving the one he knew behind. A shipbuilder by trade, after years of apprenticeship.
And by the age of twenty-four, he’d started his business, and had married a wealthy young heiress, one Leticia Armond, and begun building what would become Lost Bride Manor.
Love for Leticia, she wondered, or money?
They’d had twin sons followed by three daughters, and had been married for nearly twenty-five years before he died.
A fall from a horse.
So his son Collin inherited the manor. Continued his father’s expansion of the original structure while he and his brother ran the business.
A few months later, Collin Poole married Astrid Grandville.
And tragedy.
As she felt herself fading, Sonya closed the book, set it aside. She switched off the light and dropped instantly into sleep.
* * *
The clock chimed the hour of three, and the music, soft and sad, drifted into her dreams. She studied herself in the mirror, the young, happy bride in her long white dress. Music, quick and lively, echoed up from the main floor where her husband—ah, such a word, husband—hosted family and friends in celebration. Through the open window, the spring breeze came to flutter at the curtains.
On the other side of the mirror, Sonya smiled at her. You look beautiful, she thought.
The bride smiled in return.
“I will always be beautiful. Young and beautiful. A bride to my groom, a wife to my husband. A mistress of the manor. And I will always return to this day when I held true love and joy in one hand, despair and grief in the other.”
It happened so fast, the woman with the knife rushing in. On the other side of the mirror, Sonya shouted, but the sound couldn’t penetrate the glass. As the knife plunged, she pushed and beat on the mirror to try to get through somehow. But she could only watch in horror as the blood spread red over the long white gown.
As the young bride fell, and the woman cursed her. The murderer took the ring from the dying bride’s finger, put it on her own.
For a moment, an instant only, darkness flooded her, swept through the room.
And she was gone.
The bride, blood seeping through the fingers she pressed to her belly, staggered to her feet. Through the glass, her eyes met Sonya’s.
Again and again, over and over, year by year, and bride by bride. Find the seven rings. Break the curse.
Like the woman in black, she was gone. The music, the soft and sad, the lively and quick, went with her.
* * *
With the dream having faded, Sonya woke just after first light to the sound of the snowblower. Remembering her duty, she went down to make coffee and took some out to John Dee.
A bear of a man with a brown beard and eyes to match, he grinned at her.
“Get ya up?”
“I’m a working girl. I need to start my day, too. That’s a seriously blue sky.”
“Yep. Should have a stretch of clear days coming. Only got about six inches with this last one.”
They stood, drinking coffee, him in his bulky navy coveralls, her in a coat tossed over her pajamas.
“Heard you ventured into the village.”
She had to laugh. “Is that news?”
“Most everything is in Poole’s Bay. That was my brother’s wife sold you a scarf. Friend of my mother’s daughter’s who makes them.”
“It’s wonderful work.”
“You oughta be wearing it. It’s a cold one.” He polished off his coffee, handed her the mug. “Appreciate it. How about I stack some more wood by the back door for you? You’re going through it.”
“Oh, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Happy to. I’ve gotta get back to it.” He winked at her. “I’m a working boy.”
“Here’s to the workers of Maine.”
She’d unlocked the door, and put the keys in her pocket as backup. As the snowblower started up again, the door opened smoothly.
“Okay then.”
A working girl did best with routine, she decided. Hers began with a quick breakfast, a check of emails and texts. Yesterday’s inquiry moved to a consult. Fingers crossed, she scheduled one for late morning.
