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“Isabella!”
A large shape lunged at her out of the darkness, and she screamed. The lantern smashed to the ground, flared briefly then went out.
Two inhumanly strong hands grasped her shoulders and a face appeared before her, its features distorted with pain, teeth bared, eyes dark against deathly pale skin.
She tried to scream but couldn’t draw breath. Her vision blurred and the world began to sway to and fro. She bit her lip, using the sharp pain to pull her back into reality.
She wasnotgoing to faint. Ghosts did not exist, save in the imagination of the fearful and the grief-stricken.
“Isabella…” a voice whispered.
She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the darkness.
It was Mr. Scrimgeour.
“Will you not forgive me?” he pleaded. “Have I not suffered enough from your curse? Release me, I beg you!”
“What curse?” Alice asked.
He let out a mirthless laugh. “The curse you put on me on your deathbed, the day the Almighty took you from me—and our child! The day you said I would kill everything good that I touched, because I deserved my place in hell.”
Dear God! What had happened to the poor man?
He thrust his face closer. “Have I not served my sentence, Isabella? Can you not rest in peace and leave me be?”
The pain in his voice tore Alice’s heart in two.
“I forgive you!” she cried, driven by an urge to ease his torment.
He pulled her close, desperation and hope in his expression.
“Y-you forgive me?”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “I lift you from the curse.”
He tipped his head forward and placed it on her shoulder and she drew him close as his body shook with sobs.
“Shhh…” she soothed.
“Are you at peace now, Isabella?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am at peace.”
“And you no longer hate me?”
“No.”
“Did you ever love me, Isabella? Do you love me now?”
Alice hesitated.
He stiffened in her arms.
“You’re not Isabella.”
His voice grew hard and he lifted his head to stare directly at her. The despair in his gaze was replaced by cold anger, and he tightened his grip on her shoulders, until she gasped with pain.
“Who the fuck are you?”
