Page 9

And yet it hurt so damned bad. My mother was dead. And it did not matter whether it had been ten years or ten minutes since she last drew breath, the end result was the same.

Except this time, it truly is your fault. I’d blamed myself for my family being upon the ship for years. And now with this news, it was as if I’d caused their deaths twice over. I could not bear the thought.

A hare darted out across the dirt path, nut-brown and smaller than it ought to be. It stopped in its tracks and stood upon its hind legs. Its dark humanlike eyes were fixed upon me for a half a heartbeat—no more than that—before it took off again down the slope between the broken stone fencing and into the cemetery. I raked a hand over my face, digging my fingers into my skin.

I leaned upon the fence, looking down at the cemetery where the hare waited. The wind whipped at my hair, tugging at the green silken kerchief that I’d hastily covered my head with before entering the church. It slipped loose, borne upon the breeze, and went tumbling down the embankment, settling alongside the peculiar little creature.

Oh, I get your point.

I looked behind me, over the empty green before shifting my stance, then hefted my leg over the side of the ragged stone wall and sidled my way down the steep embankment in pursuit of my kerchief. For someone who had spent far too much time in close contact with Mr. Owen’s otherworld, I knew good and well chasing a hare into a graveyard was a terrible plan. But that was my favorite kerchief, and I wasn’t about to let it get washed downstream over superstition on the same day I learned my mother had been murdered. A girl must be able to have some bit of joy amidst her dismal existence.

My leather-soled shoes slipped in the cold mud, which then splattered up onto my woolen stockings and skirt. The wet, sucking sound that followed made my stomach churn. My left foot was particularly stuck. As I tried to dislodge it, I lost my balance altogether, landing on my rump. The force of the fall sent me sliding the rest of the way down the embankment, damaging what was left of my already battered and beleaguered pride.

I skidded to a stop alongside an ancient grave, skirt up to my knickers and mud stuck in places I’d rather not think upon. I quickly sprang to my feet and darted between the old graves and snatched up the kerchief lest the wind decide to send it sailing yet again.

A cold, mocking rain began to fall in earnest as I shoved the damnable thing into my pocket. I brushed what leaves and twigs I could manage from my skirt, before I realized where my errant scarf had brought me. To the washed-out grave.

My mother’s grave.

Heart hammering in my chest, I glanced back to where the hare had been. It was gone.

Of course it’s gone, you ninny. It’s a damned rabbit. They do that.

Rabbits and hares are different species, I snapped back to the voice in my head before shaking the thought away. Well, I was here now.

There was something strange about this cemetery, nestled as it was against the river, outside the priory grounds. Then it struck me. It was not on hallowed ground. They’d buried my mother in a strangers’ cemetery—a place for those who died outside of the church’s embrace. The hair on the back of my neck pricked as I walked between the graves. Some centuries old, from when travelers would come through this part of the world, trading or resting at the priory before continuing on their journeys. Others, who might have come seeking the healing waters of the wood and died before they could return home.

Good God, Ruby Vaughn! You are sounding like Mr. Owen.

There were no healing waters. No peculiar hares leading me to clues as to my mother’s curious death. The wind rose up again, ripping through the field of barley across the river, with a soft and echoing moan.

No restless ghosts either for that matter.

I drew nearer the shallow, exposed grave. The graves closest to the river were the most recent. Some with only a wooden cross to mark them. My mother’s did not even have that. Simply another of the nameless dead that had been squeezed into the last few feet of land before it fell away to the river.

I crouched down in the grass as the rain began to fall harder. With the amount of mud already splattering my dress—the rain was a boon. Perhaps it’d salvage the frock after all. I caught my lower lip in my teeth, studying the grave, wondering why being this close to her didn’t hurt as much as it ought.

Even if I disregarded what I’d overheard outside the church, the facts of her death made no sense at all. Why would she be trying to escape the priory hospital? And who was that other patient? Mother had endured two shipwrecks, taught me everything I knew about sailing. The woman swam like a fish. It was an utter impossibility that she would drown in still waters.

Yet here she was, dead all the same. My breath was shallow as I stared into the washed-out grave, the edge of the exposed coffin visible—not even five feet beneath the surface. The tears that fell so easily in the church had dried now. I could no longer feel them. Only hollowness and regret lived inside me now.

So close. My mother was so close. I could reach out and touch her. Pull the earth from the wood and exhume her body and see her once and for all. I laid myself down on the damp grass by the grave, reaching my palm down into the hole, brushing the partially exposed wood of the casket.

“Oh, Mother … who did this to you?” I asked her.

The air around grew sharp, almost electric, as I focused upon the edge of the exposed wood within the washed-out grave, wishing I possessed an ounce of the magic Ruan had running through his veins. If I did, perhaps she’d return to me and I could atone for my fear and for letting her down. Perhaps this time I’d be worthy of her. Worthy of love. The wind picked up around me—a wild restlessness crackling through the rain.

A prickle of awareness lifted the hairs on the back of my neck. Someone was here. I sat up half expecting to see the little hare sitting behind me again—but there was no one there. The rain fell harder, splattering my cheek like cold tears. I wiped at my face, and that was when I noticed the child. A little girl in a blue pinafore the color of a winter sky. She crouched alongside a nearby grave, partially hidden behind it with a handful of snowdrops in her left hand along with a tiny poppet. Her hair had been plaited into two thick braids, each tied with a cerulean ribbon just as Mother had done my own hair when I was a girl. Someone had taken great care to keep her neat, despite her threadbare clothes.

Solemn and still, the child watched me. She could be no more than nine, if that. A skinny little thing. All knees and elbows and awkward angles. Her skin was tawny, like mine, and she had a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose that put me in mind of my younger sister Opal. My chest tightened.

Opal is dead, like your mother, Ruby. You killed her too. Remember?

I swatted the thought away. I could not give way to guilt. Not now.

The poor mite must think I’m mad, covered in filth and mucking about in a grave. I certainly felt mad. I hastily rubbed at my face, smearing yet more mud across my cheek.

The child’s eyes were a brown so dark they were nearly black, with little flecks of gold in them that possessed a peculiar light all their own. I looked up at the priory where the other children had been earlier, but the green had grown silent. Had she been separated from the others? Some of the little girls playing on the green wore similar uniforms.