For a moment, no one speaks. The only sound is the breathing of the house, the slow, tidal intake and exhale that can be heard if you know how to listen. I study the arrangement of the place settings, the order of the glassware, trying to guess the rules of engagement.
Larkin is the first to break the silence. “You look lovely,” he says, voice so smooth it slides over the edge of sarcasm and lands in some other, less inhabited territory. “Did you choose it yourself, or did the house?”
I smile, small. “I trust the house’s taste more than my own.”
He laughs—a real, unguarded sound, brief but bright. “Careful. It’s a slippery slope from there to total surrender.”
Lane shifts in his chair, the wood creaking under his weight. His hair is still wet, slicked back in an attempt at civility, but one lock has escaped and curls over his brow. He’s so ruggedly handsome, I want to climb into his lap and kiss his face.
He watches me, not with Larkin’s predatory interest, but with wariness and it breaks my heart a little.
“You look beautiful,” he says. Tears prick my eyes but I hold them back, and smile my thanks.
Whitby sets the first course—a blood-red soup, garnished with a swirl of cream and the barest sprinkling of chive. She serves with a precision that borders on religious devotion, never letting her sleeve brush the table, never allowing hershadow to fall on the food. When she finishes, she retreats to the sideboard and folds her hands, waiting.
I lift my spoon, the silver cold against my palm, and take the first taste. It is beet, and maybe red cabbage, layered with enough pepper to clear the sinuses. The flavor is as bold as the color, a challenge rather than a comfort.
Larkin tastes his, then says, “Whitby never does anything by halves. If she ever poisons us, we’ll die in style.”
Whitby’s mouth tightens at the edge.
Lane snorts, but says nothing. He eats with the focus of a man who knows better than to speak out of turn, each movement deliberate, methodical. When he finishes, he sets the spoon down with the concavity up, a detail I remember from some etiquette book in a waiting room.
“Did you always dine like this?” I ask, more to Lane than to Larkin.
Lane wipes his mouth, looks at me sidelong. “Sometimes, if there were guests. Usually just cold meat in the kitchen for me. No one expects you to know which fork to use if you’re only good for shoveling snow.”
Larkin’s smile sharpens. “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure you’ve learned a trick or two in the trenches.”
Lane doesn’t rise to the bait, but the set of his jaw tightens. Whitby clears the bowls, silent as breath, and replaces them with a second course—fish, translucent and fanned over a bed of pickled fennel, the plate rimmed with what looks like edible gold leaf.
For a while, the only sound is the scrape of forks and the soft, intermittent drip from the ice in the window. I try to focus on the food, but the sensation of being watched is overwhelming, as if the portraits on the walls are less painted than embalmed.
Larkin breaks the silence again. “Tell us, Nora. What didyou do before you became Hemlock’s newest curiosity? You worked in art, correct?”
I set my fork down, consider the question. “Restoration,” I say. “Mostly paintings. Sometimes tapestries. Once, an entire wall of a church. People send me things that are too broken for anyone else to care.”
Larkin’s eyes flash. “There’s a metaphor in that, I’m sure.”
Lane grunts, “Not everything has to be a metaphor.”
Larkin tips his glass, studying me over the rim. “Ha, in Hemlock House it does. Besides, it helps, doesn’t it? The stories we tell about ourselves. The roles we play.” He leans in, voice dropping. “I’ve always wondered which part of the house you’d choose to repair first. If you had the chance.”
I look at Lane, then at the clock above the mantel, then at the dark windows. “The east wing,” I say, surprising myself. “The rot is visible, but if you cut it out, the rest can stand another hundred years.”
Whitby appears, as if conjured by the mention of the house’s bones. She replaces our plates with the next course—meat, rare, sliced thin, resting in a lake of jus so dark it might as well be ink. The aroma is intoxicating.
“Eat,” Whitby says. “You’ll need your strength.”
I take a bite. The flavor is explosive—rich, metallic, a little gamey. I wonder where she sourced it, what animal had to die for this ritual to proceed.
Larkin sets his knife down, dabs at his lips with a linen square. “Do you believe in destiny, Miss Vale?”
I want to laugh, but the earnestness in his eyes disarms me. “No. I think most people get what they can reach, and the rest is luck.”
He leans back, steeples his fingers. “Do you not believe this house is your destiny? Why else would you come here?”
I sense the danger in the question, the way it tightens theair. I meet his gaze. “Because it was given to me. And because I wanted to see what was left of the world that made my mother.”
