I set the thermos of hot cider beside me and settle the small stack of books in my lap—on the bottom, the no-longer-locked tome, and on top, my journal of dreams. The glow from Twig’s bedroom spills softly through the open window behind me, illuminating each entry as I thumb through the pages.
So far, I’ve dreamt of Molly, Florence, Rose, and Jude’s mother. All four, victims of the curse. And two centuries before I was born, Ezra Vandenberg painted me, looking exactly how I look today.
“Why me?” I say. Not in a powerless, frustrated way, either. My question isn’t rhetorical. I want to know the answer. “He paintedme, Twig.” Not Molly or Florence or Rose or my mother. “Then he wrote those strange words on a scrap of journal in Maggie’s office, referencing a revelation.”
Balm or blight.
Beacon or burden
A blessing sent to end his suffering, or a promise that it shall endure.
Surely, his suffering was the curse. Which didn’t die with him, but continued on.
“You think you’re the balm,” Twig says.
“Is that really such a crazy thing to think? Imean, what if this is my purpose? What if this is the whole reason I’m here?”
“To end the curse?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know, Selah. Something tells me Jude isn’t going to risk your life to find out.”
And just like that, my optimistic bubble pops. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I believe. Jude won’t change his mind unless he believes it, too. I picture the manic collage spread across his wall, the tormented look on his face when he answered his bedroom door. Maybe if it weren’t for his nightmares—ones in which I die and he’s responsible—he wouldn’t be so quick to assume the worst. Maybe, if he’d just take one of my phone calls, or talk to me at school, I could get him to see the bright side of things.
I set the journal aside and run my hand over the tome’s cover, embossed with the same symbol Ezra painted on the locket and drew on the sketch of Molly. It was found on Lydia Mabel, postmortem. Jude wanted the autopsy report for Violet Underwagon. No doubt to see if she had the mark, too. If we could get autopsy reports for Helena Pisel, Mary Donovan, Rose Vandenberg … would they have similar marks? Could Jude get the autopsy report for his mother?
Is this symbol a mark of the curse?
And what does this old English story about two angels named Seraphina and Dante have to do with it?
I rub my eyes.
Sleep has been nearly impossible.
For the past two nights, I’ve lain awake with a scrambled mind and a heart in tatters. I want to be in the Vandenberg ballroom, dancing with Jude while Miss Applewhite demandseye contact, eye contact, eye contact!Instead, I’m here, feeling as hollowed-out as that skeleton across the street.
As if on cue, it starts to cackle again.
I lift my gaze to the stars, searching for Cygnus, a cross-like constellation in the western sky. Somewhere out there, Dante’s comet hurtles through space. A fiery snowball? Or an angel unhinged by love?
Twig keeps searching.
I sip my cider and open the fable, trying to distract myself with the illustrations. They mimic stained glass. The colors are rich and saturated, the outlines bold—Seraphina with long raven hair and radiant wings spread across two pages. The handwritten text tells of her three special gifts.
The first: power over darkness and shadow.
I run my fingers across the page. The pad of my thumb brushes over a symbol I haven’t noticed before. Embedded in the stained glass design is the outline of a candle with a white body and a black triangular flame.
Just like the onyx.
I turn the page to the angel’s second gift: the power to see what is hidden.
This time, I study every panel of glass,carefully searching. Then I find it—an eye with a white circular iris.
Just like the pearl.
I turn another page, to the angel’s third and final gift: the power over human hearts. She can stop them. Break them. Seduce them. Start them. And apparently, make them pound, because mine is doing just that as I scan the illustration.
