Page 52 of Petrify

What am I being accused of?

“He hasneverdone something like this,” she hisses.

Instinctively, I raise my palms as she nears. “Mrs. Beauchene, I’ve been in my room all night, I’m not sure?—”

She stops only when she is an inch away, glaring down her nose at me. Her manicured nails are claws, her finger pointing right at my chest, the threat to gouge my ribs hanging in the air. “This is your fault,” she repeats. “This isnotwhat we hired you for—I should send you away?—”

“Miss Doyle did not do this.” Maxim grabs Mariane by the shoulders, and it’s like the touch shocks her back to the present. She realizes what she’s doing, inches away from me, hurling accusations I’m still not sure I understand.

That mask of cool composure falls over her face again. She shrugs off Maxim’s hands. Blinks a few times. “I’m sorry.” She clears her throat, smoothing down her robe, her frizzy hair. “You must understand that waking up to snakes in your bed is a bit—jarring.”

Why would she assume I had anything to do with this? And who ishe?

My heart stutters, for only a few beats.

Hehad left me angry last night. Is this my fault? Was I the one to push him to do this? I replay the moments before he left in my mind.

Haven’t you thought aboutwhythey are so scared of me?

It’s not just rage in Mariane’s eyes. They are glistening with fear, even as she straightens her spine and becomes the image of the perfect matriarch again.

The chill scatters across my body, the realization that I should have listened when Bastien warned me.

Do you think that’s smart? Offering yourself to me like this?

My hands are still frozen before me as Mariane and Maxim step away, the latter ushering her back in the direction of her rooms. He only gives me a furtive glance before they round the corner.

A breath shudders through me.

“Does… she mean the Ghost?”

Nathan and I meet each other’s gazes, and we’re both equally stunned by Mariane’s loss of composure.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Then he tilts his head, inspecting the snake, which is inching closer, its small tongue darting out every few seconds.

“You know, this one is a black racer. Isn’t even venomous.”

All I can do is laugh.

I resign myself to acting like nothing happened. My lesson with Henri will still go on. The snake was just a misunderstanding. Nathan didn’t wait much longer to grab it, insisting he would letMariane know she’d never been in any real danger as he carried the animal elsewhere.

Just a misunderstanding.

I’d always assumed I got this job because of my ties to the symphony, that the director had recommended me. The Beauchenes reached out tomeabout this position. It had all fallen into place so conveniently, so easily. In between jobs, after a long string ofnothing, practicing the music when I could on the broken electric keyboard in my room, occasionally taking the trip to campus to play their concert grand in an empty hall. Wasting the days away, movingnowhere.

Until that call. A job tutoring the son of one of the oldest families in the northeast. Which meant connections, networking, finding somethingbetterafter. Getting everything that I deserve. Gettingoutof that apartment in the city.

There’s a game being played in this manor, and I’m not sure of the rules.

Mariane Beauchene hates me. I don’t think I could have prevented it. And if she hates me, if they fire me, if they kick me out, I won’t get all that was promised to me.

The girl in the mirror is breathing heavily, her shoulders rising with each deep inhalation. Fingers digging into the wood of the vanity—the same wood she was fucked on top of last night by the ghost haunting this manor.

I shut my eyes. Because everywhere I look, I seehim.

All of that can be yours again. That, and more.