“Elodie.”
The whisper came from behind me, a cool breath tickling my nape. My hands gripped the edge of the dark sink as my gaze fixed on the little swan’s silver beak, the water dripping from it in a slow, chilling rhythm. Something brushed against my shoulder, where the towel didn’t hide me, making me turn.
Green eyes that I knew better than my own stared back at me.
“Elodie,” she murmured, her voice silken and melodic, like a distant echo of an old memory.
My mother. She stood there. Her hair, dark as ash, her skin polished pearl. She looked the same as I remembered, and not. There was something softer, ethereal about her. Her features glowed faintly, not with the candlelight, but with something gentler, colder, like the moon itself. Except the bathroom didn’t have any windows. I could barely breathe…still, I managed to force out a faint word.
“Mum?”
She smiled, her expression reaching her almond-shaped eyes. My heart ached at the sight.
“It’s alright, bug,” she said, her voice like warm breath on winter skin. Her fingers reached for mine, brushing just above them, not touching.
“Are you real?” I swallowed, my pulse hammering in my throat, trying to break skin.
She nodded gently, and the weight on my chest grew, pressing me like a heavy rock. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
I bit my tongue, keeping the words that tried to burst out of me locked.How?Why now? Why here?
“I’ve missed you, too,” I whispered instead.
She leaned in, her hand brushing a lock of wet hair from my cheek. I leaned into her touch, but I felt nothing. Not really, not in the way I craved.
“Why did you come here, bug?”
My eyebrows twitched.
“For the money,” I whispered after a moment, the words tasting like poison on my tongue. “They promised me your inheritance…and I didn’t want to work for Tony anymore.”
I felt a rush of shame at how shallow I’ve become. My mum nodded, but there was no disapproval in her gaze. She just watched me, like I was a puzzle to be solved.
“The only matter is that you’re here now,” she said, her hair billowing around her in soft curls. “I need your help.”
I blinked, the words settling over me like rain on a thirsty ground. I nodded eagerly.
“I need you to find me a book,” she added softly. “It’s calledTome of Fates.”
Tome of Fates.I played with the title in my head. It rolled off her tongue with a captivating, eerie edge.
“How do I find it?” I asked, my fingers finding the cold crystals around my wrist.
“You need to—” A ripple passed through the room. Her voice echoed strangely, like a melody played backward.
And then—she was gone.
The room fell silent. The kind of heavy silence you would find in a cemetery. I was alone, the towel clinging to my skin like a second heartbeat. She was here. She had come back. It didn’t matter if she was a trick of my imagination, after monthsI’d finally seen her. And it felt so real. More solid than anything before. She had resonated with the air.
Not like a memory, but like a ghost.
CHAPTER NINE
ELODIE
My first night at Thornhill was nothing like I expected. Instead of falling asleep on the enormous bed after a warm bath, I could barely keep my eyes closed before I was up again, expecting to see my mum’s cloudy gaze standing over me in the dark.
I didn’t know what to believe. Ghosts weren’t real. They were hallucinations out of fear or grief. So, was that what happened to me too? Was I hallucinating? Her voice, her eyes, the echo of her fingers over mine, I could see it all. Feel it all. Even now, as dusk’s grey hands brushed over the misty ground.
