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“Surely there’s someone else who could tell me about her?” My mind flitted to the man in the white coat outside. If this Dr. von Keller wasn’t here, then who was that man?

The priest shook his head. “No. Von Keller was particular in her care. Only he saw to her. No other physicians could evaluate her. He scarcely let her out of his sight, particularly in these last few months.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose in warning. None of this sounded good. Guilt made it hard to speak. “And where did they bury her?”

The young priest approached with a brandy in his hand. Father Crawford took it, offering it to me. “By the river. Whenever she’d wander off von Keller would find her sitting down there by the cemetery watching the water.”

I let out a strangled sound in my chest. She couldn’t have drowned; it made no sense. Yet the priest had no reason to lie to me.

Father Crawford squeezed my arm again. “It’s best you have the brandy, my dear.”

Perhaps he was right and a drink would do me good. I took it, swallowing it down in one long gulp. There was a trepidation in the way Father Étienne watched me. As if the young priest knew something about me that I did not.

“Thank you—” I fingered the glass, tilting it in the dim light of the church. It didn’t make sense. Mother was a strong swimmer. She’d survived two shipwrecks and drifted on flotsam for weeks in open water. A woman like that did not drown in a lake.

“As I said, Father Étienne here interred her yesterday before the storm set in. I had been called away to Ghent for a few days. In truth I’m still reconciling myself to her passing. I just learned of it myself. I returned last evening during the storm. You must understand, our dear Eva had not been herself in months. She’d grown erratic. Distant. Von Keller grew concerned that she was having another episode. Falling into one of those periods of melancholy that she’d succumbed to not long after arriving here. It only grew worse after she ran away last fall. The entire hospital was in an uproar before they found her wandering the village.” The old priest looked up to the vaulted ceiling, the plasterwork still damaged from the war. “Poor soul.”

I shuddered as Mrs. Wauters’s words returned from when we arrived. It isn’t safe to wander at night in these parts. Was that what befell my mother—could she have wandered too far from the priory and something attacked her? I did not fear beasts. Men, however. Men were an entirely different sort of monster.

The brandy had loosened my tongue, numbing the pain of her loss just as it had in those bleak days of the war. This was precisely why I’d tried to drink less. It became a never-ending self-destructive cycle. “Why did she leave?”

Father Étienne, the young priest, sat in the pew before me. His sharp Roman features in profile. “We do not know exactly. She and another patient slipped out of the priory that night. I am sorry to say it, but your mother is not the first life that lake has claimed, nor will she likely be the last. There is something terrible about that wood. A darkness that does not rest.”

Something about his words gave me pause. “What do you mean?”

The older priest, Father Crawford, made a low sound, waving off the younger man. “Only that there are legends about this place. Young Étienne was raised here … grew up on the stories. Simple superstition. Tales that predate the priory. It’s nonsense of course. The lake is a deep one, with roots and the good Lord only knows what else beneath that smooth surface. It’s no wonder it doesn’t always give up its dead.”

I swallowed hard at the image. “The other patient … did they return to the priory?” Perhaps I could speak to them about what happened to my mother.

Father Étienne shifted, his expression shuttering. He folded his arms across his broad chest and settled into the pew watching me. The silver bird pin catching in the light and drawing my attention yet again. His voice sounded strained as he answered at last. “No. No. Both died that night.”

I wet my lips, scarcely able to voice the question. “Do you think the other patient had something to do with her death?”

Father Étienne, the younger of the two, shook his head, voice cracking with the words. “I cannot imagine such a thing.”

Father Crawford took me by the arm, drawing my attention away from the younger man. “Perhaps Dr. von Keller can share more about her life here … answer any questions you might have? I am certain he will tell you what you wish to know when he returns. He should be free tomorrow at a quarter past eight when he finishes his rounds. Go see him then. Perhaps it will be a balm to your pain.”

Again, something flickered in Father Étienne’s expression.

I stared unblinking at the wooden pew before me, unable to focus upon either the young priest or his curious reactions. My gloved finger traced the wooden pew as a sickening thought came to mind. Mother ran away from Saint Oda’s three days ago and died shortly thereafter. Had I simply gone to London and come after Hari summoned me, I would have reached the priory a week ago at the very latest, long before she died. Which meant that if I’d not been such a blasted coward my mother and the other patient might still be alive. I could have helped her. For even with the years separating us, my mother would have entrusted me with her fears. She, unlike me, was not a coward. She would not have run from danger. She’d have run toward it.

This was a nightmare. Worse than any of the ones I’d had before. The only problem was this was no dream. These were the consequences of my own inaction.

My hands began to tremble as I stood and silently fled the church.

The voices from the arguing men echoed in my mind … how many more will die when you do?

Had my mother been murdered? Is that what they meant?

The fact she’d drowned, combined with the fear in those men’s voices certainly pointed that way. I wiped the tears from my face as I stepped into the dappled sunlight, unable to contain the sob that escaped my chest. The pain so exquisite I feared it might consume me whole.

Well … I might be the reason she’s dead, but by God I would find out who did such a thing if it was the very last thing I did.

CHAPTER FIVEThe Hare

RAGE, grief, and guilt swirled within me as I ran across the priory green, scarcely registering where my feet were taking me. My eyes pricked as I started toward the gates and down the path leading to the village. Across the river in a field of green, winter barley rolled out like an undulating sea. The clouds in the once blue sky had grown increasingly gray as I peered over my shoulder to the hospital—half-tempted to storm inside, demanding answers of the doctor. Insisting to know every single fact of her care here and what he had been afraid of. But it would not change the truth. She was dead. And I’d learned long ago when trying to ferret out the truth that running in bullheaded never got anyone anywhere.

I needed to control my emotions. To stop feeling so much and think logically.