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“Nicholas Vaughan is the one who trapped it here in the first place, isn’t he?” I asked.
“That’s my understanding, but he didn’t exactly leave records laying around,” Caleb said.
I thought of the journal. For a moment, I considered telling him about it, but something kept my mouth shut. “Why do you think he did it?” I asked instead.
“Because he had to, maybe,” Caleb said. “Unrestrained, it would be very dangerous. It might be that he discovered it and realized that it needed to be caged, for everyone’s sake.” There was a note of doubt in his voice.
“You don’t think that’s why though,” I said, leaning forward slightly in my chair.
“No, I don’t,” he said. He folded his arms. “I think he did itbecause he could. And now we’re paying the price. We’re bound to this place, whether we like it or not. I want to find a way to end that, Helen, but I hardly know how to begin. And I don’t know how to help you now.” He sounded frustrated, almost angry. “When did it start? You seemed fine at first. If we could figure out what changed...”
I thought back. There wasn’t any clear pattern, was there? There’d been the migraine after I went exploring, the missed days before Thanksgiving—but they’d felt like separate incidents. This steady decline had started right around Thanksgiving. After the lost time.
And after the folly.
“Helen?” Caleb prompted gently. “What is it?”
I swallowed. “I did something. The night before Thanksgiving,” I said. Caution kept me from mentioning the others’ names. I didn’t want them getting into trouble. “I went out to the folly, and we—we spoke to it.”
“You spoke to the Other?” Caleb asked, incredulous. “Directly? How?”
“I, uh, I put a few drops of my blood in a fire and called it, and it came,” I said. He gaped at me. “I asked it questions. And then it was like—like it was inside of me. Or I was inside of it. I was talking, but they weren’t my words, and then there was smoke coming off my skin, and...” I took a deep breath. “But it stopped. And I was fine.”
“Except you’re not,” Caleb said hoarsely. “Helen, you opened yourself up to that thing. You let it in, made yourself defenseless. What were you thinking?”
“I needed answers, and you wouldn’t give them to me,” I snapped.
“God,” Caleb said. He covered his eyes with one hand. “We were wrong not to tell you, Helen. I thought it was the right decision.”
“You let me agree to stay without warning me,” I said. “You let me walk in here blind.”
“I thought there was no way you would agree if you knew the truth,” Caleb said. “And it had to be you. I’m so sorry. I should have told you to run.”
“It was already too late,” I said softly. He looked at me sadly, guilt and despair in his eyes.
“We’re going to figure this out,” he said. “You will make it to the Investiture. I promise. It’s only eight more months.”
“Right,” I said. “Only eight months.”
I wouldn’t last that long. But I smiled like I believed him and pretended I didn’t see the dark worry in his eyes.
—
The beginning of February marked Grandma Iris’s seventy-fifth birthday. Thanks to my health problems, I’d been spared from doing any of the planning—not that there was much. Iris said that every birthday after fifty was a countdown, not a celebration, and she’d insisted on nothing more elaborate than a family dinner. Still, everyone was coming into town. I was dreading it. I’d agreed ages ago to give a speech at dinner, but that was when I wasn’t feeling quite so terrible every day. I hadn’t even summoned up the energy to leave the house and see Bryony in over a week.
But on the morning of Iris’s birthday, I woke up feeling halfway human. My headache had receded, and the fog seemed to have lifted from around me.
Maybe, I thought with fragile hope, I was finally getting better.
The day began with brunch. It was only for the “ladies,” which was a word that created a level of pressure I resented. Luckily, Caleb’s wife Sandra arrived, carrying a burgundy dress with lace sleeves, just as I was zipping up my trusty blue dress, the only formal wear I owned.
“It’s time to retire the funeral wear,” she said, setting the dress at the end of the bed.
I hadn’t had much chance to talk to Sandra, but despite her outbursts, I couldn’t help but like her after her reaction to the inheritance. Laughing at the absurdity of it all was the sanest response I could imagine. “Thank yousomuch. It was this or pajamas, and I don’t think Iris would approve.”
She chuckled. Sandra looked nothing like the Vaughans, and there was something about her that made me think that she was used to a different kind of wealth—she was too modern, her hair cut in a sleek blond bob, her makeup designed to be sharp and bold, her dress silhouetting her rail-thin body with elegant architectural lines.
“You’re a funny little thing, aren’t you?” she said suddenly.
