The scrape of a key in the lock, the jiggle of the tumblers, the final, heavy turn, is a hook in my gut, twisting.

  James's heart, my heart, seizes. Not them, don't let them see this.

  My eyes find them. The iron poker. The blood soaking the floorboards. The red handprint on the wall. Three open mouths, ready to scream the truth.

  The poker lies on the floor, slick with red along its full length. A dark, obscene thing. I lunge, my gait a clumsy, broken rhythm. I shove the poker into the hearth. The cold ashes puff up, swallowing the evidence whole.

  The blood, a wide, dark mouth on the floor, weeps into the grain of the wood. No time to scrub it clean. I grab the heavy wool rug from the chair, the one Nora always complained had a loose thread. My fingers snag on the thread, and for a heartbeat, refuse to let go. I drag it over the stain. It lands with a heavy, final thud.

  Then, the handprint on the wall. The family portrait above it is the only thing that will cover the stain. Nora. Evangeline. Pip.

  And me.

  My hand, reaching for the portrait, freezes in mid-air. The tremor starts in my thumb. Then my hand clenches into a fist, crushing the hesitation.

  I take the portrait from the wall. My other hand closes around the nail head and wrenches it from the plaster.

  A film of dust coats the glass, dulling Pip's face. A father's instinct moves my hand. I reach to wipe the dust from Pip's cheek. But the thumb that touches the glass is slick with his father's blood. It leaves a thick, red line across Pip's painted smile.

  I stare at the smear for a heartbeat. A hot, gnawing thing twists in my gut. My thumb grinds the blood and dust into the glass.

  Then, I stop.

  I look down at my thumb. At the mess I have made of him. Of them.

  A heave rises. I force it down.

  It is just a painting.

  I hang it. The nail groans under the weight.

  My sleeve, the coarse wool of James's tunic, scrubs the glass. The red vanishes, leaving a greasy, translucent streak in its place.

  I wipe my hands on my trousers, the dark wool drinking the last of the evidence.

  The door swings inward.

  A white rectangle lies on the floor. The letter.

  I dive for it, my clumsy leg protesting, and snatch it from the ground. I shove it into my waistband as Evangeline and Pip step inside.

  Her face.

  Something in my chest kicks, flooding my ribs with a fierce, protective warmth.

  This heat. It's not a husband's. It feels deeper. A memory from another life.

  Her eyes go straight to the crumpled paper. "James? What is that?" Her voice is a sharp probe, piercing and cold.

  I force the words past the knot in my throat.

  "A carving pattern," I say. "For Pip."

  My eyes find the floor.

  Her focus on my face does not waver. "You look pale. Where is your grandmother?"

  The boy. I must get him away from this.

  I lead Pip to his bedroom door, my hand on his back. A small, stubborn flake of dried blood, caught under my fingernail, scrapes against the rough wool of his shirt. "I need to talk to your mother. Can you be a big boy for me?"

  He nods and closes the door. The latch clicks shut, a small, quiet sound in the cold room.

  I face Evangeline. I don't have to act. The grief is a physical pressure, pushing at the back of my eyes.

  "She's gone." The words are stones in my mouth. I let one drop. "To Darkwater." Then another. "To see him."

  I look her dead in the eye, forcing her to see the stolen sorrow there.

  "She said a mother has to face her son. I tried to stop her. She wouldn't listen."

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  Her mouth trembles, just once, before the hard lines of her face dissolve.

  I feel the muscles in my face soften to match hers.

  She crosses the space between us in two quick steps and collapses against my chest. Her sobs are small, wet sounds, muffled against my tunic. Her tears soak through the wool, hot against my skin.

  "Oh, James," she says, her voice shredded.

  Her head shakes against my chest, a small, frantic motion.

  "No. Not her."

  A choked, shuddering breath. "She did it for Pip." Then another. "For us."

  She pulls her head back just enough to look at me, her eyes a ruin. "That brave, stupid woman."

  My arms close around her. James's soul surges, a desperate, loving ache. But something else, something buried deep, flinches from her touch.

  Whose ghost is this? Eli?

  Her hands frame my face. "Promise me you won't go anywhere, James. Promise me you'll stay. With us. Safe."

  Her thumbs press into my jaw. Her grip is a cage of bone. "Promise me."

  A cold, clear path leads out the door. Survival. But two ghosts rise against that instinct. James, the husband. Eli, the lover. They see her pain, and they will not allow it.

  My mouth opens. The words are not mine. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stay. We're safe here."

  Her shoulders, once rigid, slump. Her hands slide from my face. She sags against me, and I feel a shuddering breath leave her body.

  The house settles into a deep, grieving quiet. I find Pip's door open a crack. Moonlight cuts a sharp, white line across the floor.

  He is in bed, but not sleeping. A line of small, carved animals is arranged on his blanket. He is talking to them, his voice a low, steady stream of quiet words.

  He doesn't look up from the wooden figure in his hand. "The wolf is sad," he says to the wood.

  Then his head lifts, his eyes locking onto mine. "Mama's crying. Because of Grandma Nora?"

  I sit on the edge of the bed. The small frame groans, the mattress sinking under my bulk.

  "Yes," I say. "Grown-ups get sad, too."

  Pip looks from me to the wolf in his hand. "Is that why you're sad? Like the wolf?" He points a small finger at the worry lines James carved into the wood. I hadn't noticed them before. He's right.

  "He's not sad," I say. "Just lonely."

  "He's the last one. He met a magician who could change his shape. One day, he became a monster to scare away a bigger monster. But he forgot how to change back."

  I lean forward, my voice lowering, the story a secret meant only for his ears. "So now he walks the woods, and he waits. He waits for someone who might still see his eyes inside the monster's face."

  Pip stares at me for a long time. The skin between his eyebrows creases. Then he takes the worried little wolf and places it next to a larger, carved bear.

  "He's not alone now," he says. Then he turns his attention back to his animals.

  His small hands move the figures across the blanket, the only sound the soft scrape of wood on wool. The movements become slower. Less certain. Finally, his hand comes to rest on the carved bear, and he is still.

  He gives a small, contented sigh and pulls the blanket up to his chin. His breathing evens out. Sleep takes him. His fingers are a small, warm cage around my own.

  The urge to pull my hand free, to stand and walk out of this house and never look back, is a jolt of adrenaline that makes the muscles in my back and legs tremble. My body prepares to rise. To flee. But two ghosts hold me to the floorboards. The husband. The lover.

  I sink beside his bed. A monster held captive by a child's trusting hand.

  The sun begins to rise, a thin, grey light in the window. I have not moved. A cold stiffness has locked my back into an aching knot against the floorboards. My hand is still trapped in his.

  Evangeline appears in the doorway. She sees me on the floor, my head resting against the side of Pip's bed.

  She does not speak. She just watches. A small, sad smile touches her lips.

  Three sharp taps strike the door. The sound sends a hopeful lurch through my chest, followed by a cold drain in my gut.

  Evangeline lets Belladonna in.

  She stands in the doorway, her mouth a thin, straight line. "James. Evangeline. I came for Nora," she says, her voice a level, toneless thing. "She had an herb for me."

  My gut clenches. I let the grief I am already wearing break me. I let my shoulders slump, my breathing go shallow.

  My voice is a shred of James's real pain. "She left."

  Belladonna's head tilts. Her pupils widen, two black pools drinking in the sight of my panic.

  My mouth works, a frantic, wet motion. A fish gasping for a lie.

  Her focus leaves my eyes and settles on my throat, as if she can see the lie lodged there.

  "It happened too fast," I say, the words a rush. "She wasn't thinking straight."

  Evangeline's face crumples. Belladonna's face is still. For a heartbeat, a cold fury flashes in her eyes, then it is gone. Her face is a calm, blank slate once more.

  "Left?" she asks. "What do you mean?"

  "She went to Darkwater. To face him. My father." My voice cracks on the last word. The confession is a jagged piece of glass in my throat. "He's the one in charge there. He's the monster."

  The silence in the room deepens. Evangeline's sob is a sharp sound in the heavy quiet. She moves to me, her hand a frantic grip on my sleeve. Belladonna remains still, her mind a silent, whirring machine behind her unblinking eyes.

  Then Belladonna's voice changes, becoming a warm, gentle thing. The shift is so sudden, so complete, it is more terrifying than her coldness. "James, an idle mind is a dangerous thing. You need a task to keep your hands busy. The tavern cellar needs to be cleared out. Before the damp ruins what's left."

  Evangeline's body goes rigid. "He's not going anywhere," she says, her hand on my arm a shield. "He's staying with me."

  Evangeline's hand holds me. Belladonna's eyes pin me. One promises safety. The other holds answers.

  The letter is a hot coal in my waistband. A proof of my own monstrosity. Belladonna knows what it is. I have to know what she knows.

  I uncurl Evangeline's fingers from my arm, one by one. "No," I say. "She's right."

  The life in her eyes goes out, leaving them grey and still.

  Belladonna gives a short, sharp nod. "The tavern. Now." She turns and disappears into the cold morning.

  I look at Evangeline. I want to say her name. The name does not come.

  I turn my back on Evangeline. I walk out. I pull the door shut. The click of the latch is a final, severing sound.

  I take one step. Two. But the ghosts inside me are a sharp, tearing pain in my spine, a hook that drags me to a halt. My body turns against my will. I look back through the grimy window.

  The grime on the glass makes her a blurry, distant thing, a memory forming even as I watch.

  She stands for a moment, a pale, still shape in the grey room. Then, her body gives out. She sinks to her knees. Her hand lands on the edge of the wool rug, her knuckles brushing the floor inches from the hidden stain.

  A dark thread has come loose from the hem. Her fingers find it.

  My vision tunnels, the edges of the world blurring into a smear. The blood.

  She will lift the rug. She will see it.

  But there is no time. Belladonna is waiting.

  I tear myself away from the window.

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