Saige shut her eyes and let the hot shower soak her body. She knew she should spend no longer than five minutes under the water. Without power or the luxury of a backup generator, the hot water wouldn’t last long, and there were others in the house who wouldn’t appreciate a cold shower. She washed her hair quickly, did her best to towel-dry it, and changed into a fresh set of jeans.
Maybe it was because the electricity was out, but back in her room, Saige distinctly felt that the temperature had dropped. Someone had boarded the window with temporary storm shutters. Even with a candle going, her room seemed abysmally dark. There was no risk of the window opening mysteriously, but Saige still didn’t want to sleep in the room. At least not alone.
Out in the hallway, she found her brother leaning against the opposite door, massaging his temple.
“Do you have a headache?”
Xav jumped. The contours of his face tightened from exhaustion. “I took painkillers. They haven’t kicked in yet.” He pointed into the bedroom. “Dr Ahmadi is with Zoe right now. I can’t go to bed until I know she’s… comfortable.”
“You make it sound like she’s dying.”
Saige immediately regretted what she said. For all she knew, Zoe and her bridesmaids really could be dying.
Xav tossed her an unappreciative stare.
“I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.” Saige traced her finger along a loose thread in her sleeve. “Maybe Dr Ahmadi will have good news. It can’t be anything more than the common flu, surely?”
She hoped it was nothing more than the common flu, but when Dr Ahmadi returned, she knew it was much worse than either she or Xav was expecting.
The doctor didn’t shut the door all the way, maybe to keep an ear out should his patient call back for him. The lantern he carried revealed all the hard lines in his face. His expression was flustered, as though he had a mathematical equation he had no idea how to solve. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “I have never seen anything quite like it. She’s complaining of a headache and abdominal pain. There’s much vomiting. She has a fever but says she’s experiencing chills. Her glands are swollen. Even drinking water is difficult. The other young ladies have similar symptoms.”
Xav’s chest rose and fell with sharp, urgent breaths. “Is there anything you can give her.”
Vertigo gripped Saige. This entire experience… well, it felt like she’d been transported to the manor’s earlier years, where doctors paid house visits with tonics. Dark, difficult days where leeches were used to alleviate illness.
How many people have died in this house?
Dr Ahmadi’s posture went stiff. “Apart from cold and flu tablets, which she’s already taken six of today, there really isn’t much that can be done other than rest, I’m afraid.”
Saige saw how irritable her brother was becoming, his knuckles white where his fingers balled into fists. Cigarette smoke wafted off him. She wondered just how many of the supposed stress relievers he’d indulged in.
She stepped forward and intervened before he said something he’d regret. “What do you think it is?”
Dr Ahmadi snuck an awkward peek through the gap in the door, as though he was afraid his patient might hear him. He turned his attention back to Saige. “To me, well… it looks like scarlet fever, but of course, without a proper medical examination, I can’t be certain.”
Xav’s jaw dropped. “Scarlet fever? Does that still exist?”
The doctor nodded. “It is incredibly rare.”
Xav squeezed the bridge of his nose.
Saige realised she was shivering, and not entirely from the cold.
The curse… it wants to kill Zoe.
It will kill Zoe if I don’t do something.
She doubted medical treatment would help. This illness sprang from supernatural means, which meant it would require a supernatural cure.
There has to be something in that grimoire. My mother wouldn’t have shown it to me otherwise.
Her voice sounded thick and anguished when she spoke. “Is there anything we can do?”
The doctor silently nodded. “Keep your distance. Anything the young ladies have touched will be contaminated. Scarlet fever is very contagious. They will have to remain isolated. There really is nothing we can do but ensure they keep their fluids up and rest. When the storm finishes, we’ll be able to get them the treatment they require.”
Whatever small restraint Xav had held on to burst. “But the storm is expected to last for days.”
Saige took his elbow, forcing him to take a step back. “I think Dr Ahmadi is right. Zoe needs rest, and so do you.”
Her brother flinched. He opened his mouth, maybe to yell at her, but then his shoulders shook. He gave a relenting sigh. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Xav cry.
No. She could.
Mum’s funeral.
Xav ground the heels of his palms into his bloodshot eyes. A single tear streaked down his cheek.
“Come on,” Saige pressed. “There’s a gas cooktop in the kitchen downstairs. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
“There is? Which kitchen?”
“The original, down in the old servants’ halls.”
She fancied a cup of tea herself. And food. She’d need all her strength to attempt what she had planned later that night.
* * *
Saige didn’t know how the original household staff survived the cold in the servants’ quarters. She knew this part of the house had been preserved for the tourist groups. Except for a new stove and cooktop for hygiene reasons, the downstairs hadn’t seen much modernisation in the last hundred years.
Venturing past the sleeping quarters, scullery, pantry, and various larders, Saige and her brother entered the kitchen. It was an oblong room, dominated by a large kitchen bench where the household cook had once tended to the meals. Xav sat on a stool and hunched over the table, looking increasingly like a drunk brooding at a bar. Saige set to work with the tea. She boiled a pot of water on the gas cooktop and searched through the two commercial storage fridges that had been brought in for the wedding.
Probably not enough room for them in the upstairs kitchen.
Without power, she wondered how long the food would last. She found a loaf of bread, cheese, avocado, ham, and tomato and made two sandwiches.
They ate in silence. Xav picked at his food. Saige devoured hers and wouldn’t have minded eating whatever her brother left. Apart from tea at both Aunt Prue’s and Mildred’s, she hadn’t had anything all day. A headache had formed at the tip of her skull, but the food and tea helped. She already felt stronger. But her brother? Sadness seeped off him. His head drooped down, like he might have fallen asleep.
A worried stirring churned in Saige’s stomach. “I’m sorry about the wedding.”
He looked up. His voice took on an edge she’d never heard before. “Why? Evidently it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Maybe it’s for the best. You can marry soon enough, just not here at the manor.”
And far away from Ashvall, where the curse can’t find you.
Xav smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “Yeah. If there even is a wedding.”
“What do you mean?”
He tossed his head back and threw an aggravated sigh to the ceiling. “Zoe never wanted to get married at the manor. She blames me for all of this.”
“She didn’t?”
“No, of course not. You have met my fiancée, right?”
“Fair point.”
“She wanted to get married in the Bahamas or someplace like that.”
“So why did you come here?”
The temperature in Xav’s cheeks rose. “Because that’s what Dad wanted.”
Saige’s skin tingled ominously. “Dad?”
“Yeah. He wrote a letter to us. Told us it was our responsibility to honour the Wolvercraft name… to marry at our ancestral home or some crap like that.”
“A letter? But why didn’t he just call you?”
“I don’t frigging know, Saige. The man is obsessed with family image.”
She couldn’t deny that part about him. The Wolvercraft legacy was everything to their dad. Sometimes she thought he didn’t belong in this era and would have been better suited to living a century ago.
She bit her lip, pondering why their father always intervened. “I’m sorry, Xav. Let’s not worry about the wedding, okay? Let’s focus on surviving this storm and getting Zoe better. I, for one, would rather enjoy a trip to the Bahamas… but this time,” she added with a bitter tone, “please don’t invite Jasper Young to perform at the reception.”
Xav jerked his head up. “I didn’t invite Jasper.”
“Then make sure your fiancée doesn’t invite him.”
“No, Saige… I meant neither Zoe nor I invited Jasper to the wedding. I hadn’t spoken to him in years, and, honestly, I was surprised when he contacted me and asked to perform.”
Saige was silent for a moment.
That did not add up with what Jasper had told her.
Why would Jasper lie to me?
Xav snorted, a low sound of amusement. “Probably used the wedding as an excuse to get away from his current girlfriend. You have been keeping away from him, haven’t you?”
Saige swallowed her tea. It burned her mouth. “Of course.”
“It’s just… when you returned to the manor this evening, you looked like you’d spent the entire day rolling with him in the mud.”
“Don’t be crude.”
“Well?”
She set her mug down. “We shared a cab back to the manor. The road was flooded. We had to hike the rest of the way.”
Xav had his eyebrow raised. “If you say so.”
They ate in silence.
Xav downed his tea and took a flask out of his coat. “Want some?”
Saige nodded.
Somehow, drinking seemed like the only way she’d survive the night.
* * *
After Saige made sure her brother finished his sandwich, crusts and all, she helped him back upstairs to his room and waited beside him until he fell asleep. His freckles were more pronounced in the lantern light, his pale skin soft beneath the tangerine glow of the flames.
I’m so sorry, Xav. You came here to get married, and now it looks like your bride might die.
She cringed, aghast by her own macabre thought.
No. I will do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen. The curse will not claim Zoe.
Saige tiptoed out of the room, shut the door gently behind her, and moved silently down the hall. Except for the resonant tick of a grandfather clock and the storm outside, everything was quiet. She imagined things moving in the shadows, imagined faces in the flashes of lightning, but blamed it on tricks played by the weather. The window at the end of the hall hadn’t been boarded up. Maybe there hadn’t been time.
Large, swirling flakes of snow drilled into the glass like flying bullets. She hurried to her bedroom, not wanting to remain in the hallway a second longer. Her hand paused just above the door handle as a frigid draft crept over her skin.
She turned around.
Zoe’s bedroom door was open.
Did Dr Ahmadi forget to shut it?
She doubted it. He’d made it plainly abundant that no one besides himself was to enter Zoe’s room.
But then… why is the door open?
Saige stepped forward.
Maybe Zoe, in a delirious state, could have felt feverish and overly warm. She may have wanted fresh air.
Saige stood in the doorway and examined the room. A pungent, sickly odour permeated everything. Apart from a small candle burning fiercely on a side table, the room was shrouded in shadow. It was a deep black… almost an unearthly darkness.
A small voice at the back of Saige’s mind protested that this wasn’t a good idea, but as if driven by a trance, she stepped inside.
Zoe was asleep on the bed, the blanket pulled back, her white nightdress soaked from sweat. Her face appeared as bleached as driftwood. Raised blotches ran down the entire length of her neck, chest, and arms, scratched red-raw. To Saige’s horror, they were oozing. Zoe’s long hair was splayed across her pillow. It no longer looked sleek and stylish but damp and knotted.
My God! Zoe.
You look like a plague victim.
For one terrifying moment, Saige thought Zoe might actually be dead, but then she saw the model’s chest rise shallowly. Soft, wheezing spurts broke through her lips. Saige wondered whether there was too much fluid in Zoe’s chest.
Perhaps I should get Dr Ahmadi.
She was about to leave when a bright flash of lightning lit the room. Zoe’s wedding gown came into view. For the briefest second, Saige could have sworn a pale figure was inside it, arms long and loose by the bodice, but then another streak of lightning must have branched over the house, and the image disappeared.
Saige’s heart resumed a normal beat.
Jesus, I really am jumping at everything now.
The dress was certainly an over-the-top garment and something she’d never wear, but seeing it reminded her of an opportunity ripped away. She had searched for a wedding dress during her engagement, something simple and elegant. She’d been certain she’d found the right gown, but then Jasper’s true colours had shown, and all her dreams had shattered.
Saige didn’t want to be in this room anymore. The wedding dress was a reminder of a happy time that had crumbled into misery. She turned around, ready to run out the door, but slammed straight into a body.
She let out a stifled cry. Her foot slid out beneath her.
Arms gripped her. In the lightning, Jasper’s face merged into focus. His expression shifted from pity, to disbelief, to shock. “Saige, what are you doing in here?”
She slapped his hands off her. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“I saw you enter and thought, ‘Jeez, that can’t be good.’ Do you want to get sick?”
“No, of course not. And I won’t get sick. What Zoe has… it’s the curse.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes.”
Jasper fixed a steel-like gaze on the immobile woman. “I think you might be right. That there is something straight out of The Exorcist.”
Saige punched his shoulder. “Quiet. She’s waking up.”
Zoe had started to stir. She mumbled something incoherent, words that didn’t sound English. No, not a mumble. A chant! The more Saige listened, the more her heart throbbed. Fear prickled through every fibre of her body.
Zoe’s voice was scratchy and hoarse. She arched her back suddenly, legs ramrod straight, arms flapping about like fish out of the sea. Her head twisted at an uncomfortable angle. When she opened her eyes, there was nothing remotely human about them. They were black and ringed in red.
Saige inadvertently gripped Jasper’s hand. “Out! Out now!”
She didn’t have to tell him twice.
They ran into the hall, Zoe’s demonic hymn resonating behind them.