Finally, a message from Jude.
I told myself I wouldn’t reach out to him unlesshe reached out to me first. Yesterday was radio silence. Today, contact. I can’t send my reply fast enough.
Absolutely! Twig and I are at Evermore. We found another mention of the curse.
I snap pictures. The letter from Raphael II, the notice of Lydia Mabel’s death, along with all three mentions inTittle Tattle from the Hollow. I send them off with an invite to join us at town hall. His reply comes five minutes later, when Twig and I are already cutting through the square.
In no time, we’re stepping into the cool, quiet foyer, which smells faintly of lemon. We walk past a young receptionist who doesn’t look up from her phone, and follow the hand-lettered sign that reads, “Public Records Office.” Inside, a fluorescent light buzzes over rows of filing cabinets and labeled boxes. The grumpy clerk sits behind the counter, hunched over his Sudoku puzzle book.
“Hi,” I say, my voice full of cheer. Anticipation, too. If Lydia Mabel was with child, surely this information would be in the coroner’s inquest.
The older gentleman looks up, his wary eyes moving from Twig to me. “You again.”
“Yep, it’s me.” I smile brightly, determined to catch my flies with honey. I set my elbows on the counter between us. “We’re hoping to look at a coroner’s report from 1795. It’s for a girl namedLydia Mabel. She lived in the River District. The death was ruled a poisoning."
He blinks slowly. “Fromseventeenninety-five?"
“It may have been filed with the physician’s notes or burial permits. Possibly under deaths of interest.”
He rubs the bridge of his nose, an exaggerated gesture of long-suffering. “Miss, as you must know, most of those records disappeared in the fire.”
I hold up my finger. “Molly Ludwig’s didn’t.”
At least, not her record of birth, anyway.
He bowls past my objection. “And even if it does exist, it’ll be sealed up in archives, not open for public curiosity."
“But we’re not just curious. It’s for historical research. I—we work for the historical society."
"Then let Maggie Henshaw come ask me herself."
The door opens behind us.
Jude steps in—cool and understated, wearing a perfectly tailored coat, the shadows under his eyes extra dark. A fact that makes the knots in my stomach tie tighter once again.
Behind the counter, Mr. Grumpy Pants’s demeanor changes visibly. Jude is a Vandenberg after all, andtittle tattleon the street says the stepmother is a bully not to be crossed. Never mind Jude himself, who radiates a my-family-built-this-town energy. The man is several decades Jude’s elder, but becomes as deferential as Mr. Denis Tulane.
I can’t help feeling a mixture of gratitude and annoyance.
The clerk comes to his feet. He unlocks a cabinet, removes a ledger labeled1770-1799 Coroner’s Inquests. He brings it to the counter and flips to June of 1795. Lydia Mabel’s is one of two reports made in that year.
“Those archives sure are sealed up tight,” Twig mutters under his breath.
I stifle a laugh.
It took the clerk approximately two minutes to dig this up. The magic word was obviouslyVandenberg. The three of us lean over the handwritten report, held on the fourth day of June, ordered by the town physician, and investigated by the sheriff. It includes a testimony of witnesses—who found her, where she was found, the description of the body.
The conclusion?
Suspected poison, consistent with arsenic. Murder by person unknown. There’s no mention of a pregnancy. But there is mention of a strange birthmark, which is accompanied by a sketch.
With wide eyes, I look at Jude.
But he refuses to look back at me.
He just stares down at the sketch, his face as pale as wax.
The same symbol that marked my mother, marked Lydia Mabel, too.
