Amelia insisted on going first, and Mary Louise let her, even though she wasn’t certain the poor girl could walk backwards up a flight of stairs without breaking her neck. Amelia often tripped over her own skirts and had yet to master the waltz.

“You have to turn in a circle three times,” Lenora called in a loud whisper.

“Don’t distract her,” Mary Louise murmured. She didn’t want one of her houseguests falling down the stairs. It would wake the servants, and they’d all be scolded. Her father might even cancel tomorrow’s picnic by the lake.

Amelia turned in a circle and stepped backwards another step, almost catching her heel on the hem of her nightdress. “I believe in the spirit of the mirror,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the hand mirror she held in front of her. In her other hand, a candle flickered.

“This is a strange ritual for a good Methodist house,” Marianne remarked in her lilting Caribbean accent. “Summoning spirits in the middle of the night. Some people would call this witchcraft.”

Mary Louise turned to her cousin and smiled sweetly. “Some people think you practice witchcraft in Jamaica with your beads and candles and graven images.”

Lenora gasped at Mary Louise’s boldness, but Marianne only laughed. “We don’t call it witchcraft in Jamaica.”

“What do you call it?” Lenora whispered in horror.

“Being Catholic,” said Marianne.

Lenora shrieked in laughter, and Marianne joined in good-naturedly. Mary Louise hushed them both and turned back to Amelia, who’d somehow made it to the top of the stairs without mishap. Perhaps she’d even turned three times. No one had been counting.

“I believe in the spirit of the mirror,” Amelia whispered. “I believe in the spirit of the mirror. Show me the face of my future husband.”

The three girls at the bottom of the stairs watched Amelia silently. Mary Louise was the only one who glanced at the other girl among them: Marianne’s maid, seated at the back of the hall and apparently embroidering in complete darkness.

“I see him!” Amelia bounced on her toes. “It’s Will Jameson.”

“Will Jameson?” Mary Louise repeated.

“Her eyesight is as poor as her balance,” Lenora muttered.

“Will!” exclaimed Amelia, beaming with joy.

“Come down and let your sister have a turn,” Mary Louise called.

“Oh, who cares about Lenora?” Amelia descended the stairs with a heavy tread. “I want to know who Marianne will see.”

Marianne accepted the mirror and leaped onto the steps, nimble as a cat. “You need the light,” Amelia said, offering the half-consumed candle.

“Of course.” When Marianne took the candle in her hand, it flared, and then she blew on it. Mary Louise blinked, certain she’d seen events in the wrong order. First one blew; then a candle flared. She frowned at her cousin and looked around. The other girls didn’t seem to have noticed, but in the back of the hall, a pair of eyes glinted. For a moment, Mary Louise held the gaze of Corine, Marianne’s maid, before the Jamaican girl dropped her eyes.

Meanwhile, Marianne mounted the stairs backwards, her feet dancing as she turned three times without stopping. “I believe in the spirit of the mirror,” she chanted, laughing. “I believe in the spirit of the mirror. I believe in the spirit of the mirror.” She came to a halt on the landing, her dark ringlets bouncing around her shoulders. “Show me the face of my one true love.” Her eyes grew wide. “I see someone!”

“Who?” Amelia asked.

“I don’t know him.” Marianne held the mirror at arm’s length.

“What does he look like?” Lenora prompted.

Marianne couldn’t tear her eyes from the mirror. “Hair as red as the setting sun,” she said, “curled like a lamb all over his head.”

The other girls fell quiet. Lenora and Amelia looked at Mary Louise, who stood at the foot of the staircase, hands clenched.

“Eyes like a summer sky,” Marianne finished. Then she gasped. “He’s gone!” She lifted her head and smiled, seemingly oblivious to the cold silence below.

“She’s teasing you,” Lenora said to Mary Louise under her breath, “in payment for the jest you made about her home.”

“Yes, I’m sure she is,” Mary Louise whispered back as Marianne bounded down the steps.

Of course Marianne was teasing her.

Except that Cousin Marianne, newly arrived from her father’s plantation in Jamaica, had never met Mary Louise’s sweetheart, Alec Bradley, even though she’d just described him perfectly.

 

***

 

Rain in the morning threatened to spoil their day, but Mary Louise’s father predicted the sun would win out and sent the servants ahead as planned with the food and the pavilion tents. By the time Mary Louise and her friends arrived at the lake on the edge of her family’s property, the sky had brightened, proving her father correct.

Amelia peered near-sightedly at the guests from town, no doubt hoping to see Will Jameson, and Lenora eyed all the young men with speculation, selecting her next conquest. Marianne, however, dashed off to consult with Corine over the contents of the picnic baskets.

Mary Louise had already observed that her cousin seemed more attached to her maid than was proper. Allowances could be made for homesickness, and everyone knew Marianne was worried about her father facing financial ruin on his plantation. She’d arrived last week without warning, looking like a refugee with her baggage and her maid and no indication of how long she’d be staying.

Mary Louise had also noticed, when Marianne and Corine put their heads together, that the coloring and curl of their hair was identical. If it hadn’t been for Corine’s caramel skin and honey-colored eyes, they might have been mistaken for sisters.

If rumors regarding Mary Louise’s uncle and his wild ways were correct, it was quite possible Marianne and Corine were sisters.

How embarrassing—to be related to the help!

“’Twas overcast all morning,” said a familiar voice, “but Miss Worth has arrived and brought the sun with her. It’ll be blue skies now, while the heavens try in vain to match her beauty!”

Mary Louise turned with a smile. Alec Bradley bent his curly ginger head over the hand she extended, brushing his lips against the backs of her fingers and lingering longer than necessary. Reluctantly, she pulled her hand away and glanced over her shoulder. She didn’t mind Lenora and Amelia seeing. They knew about Alec. But her father was another matter entirely.

Alec winked at her before turning to her companions. “I don’t wish to slight the delightful Dempsey sisters.” He kissed each of their hands in turn, although not with such blatant affection.

“We all know you’re a hopeless flatterer, Alec Bradley,” Lenora chastised him. “No one believes a word you say.”

“You devastate me,” Alec said, putting a hand over his heart. “I invite Providence to strike me dead if I’m not in the company of the three most beautiful girls in the county.”

Amelia blushed, but Lenora, who knew Alec better, swatted him with her parasol. Then she said, “Only three? Are you slighting the other Miss Worth? That’s not a very kind way to welcome Mary Louise’s cousin to our country.”

Mary Louise tried to squelch her friend with a look, but Alec had already turned around. “Is this your cousin?” Alec asked as Marianne approached them. “Why, she must be!” He bowed in greeting, and when Marianne saw him, she drew a breath of surprise before dropping into a curtsy.

Mary Louise watched them with a tightening of her lips. “Alec Bradley, this is Marianne Worth. And why must she be my cousin?”

“She looks just like you!” Alec exclaimed. Mary Louise frowned. Having already noticed the resemblance between Marianne and her maid, she didn’t like the implication.

“Mr. Bradley,” Marianne protested. “We look nothing alike.”

“Stand right here!” Alec took Marianne by the elbow and moved her next to Mary Louise. “Except for the hair, you are bookends—the same complexion, the same face, the same arch to your brows.” His hand traced a shape in the air. “I wish I had my sketch book. I’d draw the two of you together—one all golden sunshine and the other an elegant night sky!”

Marianne smiled fetchingly. “Are you an artist, Mr. Bradley?”

“A piddling one,” he murmured, still examining their faces with his eyes. His fingers twitched as if itching for charcoal.

“Don’t believe him,” said Lenora. “Alec has a gift.”

“How do you like our mountains, Miss Worth?” Alec asked. Mary Louise winced, surprised how much it hurt to hear him say her name while addressing someone else.

“They’re lovely,” Marianne replied. “I adore your green hills and hidden lakes. But it’s colder than I’m used to, even though you call this summer.” She shivered, and her shawl slipped from her shoulder.

Alec caught the cloth and tucked it back into place. “Let’s get you out of the shade.” He offered Marianne his arm and then, before Mary Louise could find fault with him, extended his other to her. “Miss Sunshine,” he prompted. “We can’t possibly make do without you.”

 

***

 

Alec was always kind to Mary Louise’s friends. It was one of his most endearing traits. When Amelia fell into a bramble bush, Alec fetched her out. When Lenora discovered that her latest interest hadn’t come to the picnic, Alec found another young man to distract her.

It was natural he’d extend the same kindness to Mary Louise’s cousin, but she still felt injured when he invited Marianne on an outing to the gravity railroad.

“A coal chute,” Marianne repeated, her dark eyebrows turning down. “In a coal mine?”

“No, in the open air,” Alec assured her. “They swap out the cars on Sunday, replacing the coal bins with passenger compartments. But they do send us down the mountain just like coal.”

“Don’t do it, Marianne,” said Amelia. “It makes your stomach swoop.”

“Oh, you must go!” Lenora exclaimed. “It’s like flying, isn’t it, Mary Louise?”

Mary Louise opened her mouth, but Alec beat her to a response. “Miss Worth crushed my fingers during her first ride, but I think she enjoyed it.” He looked at her, and she melted. The gravity railroad had won him his first kiss. How else was she to reward him for his strong hand and comforting shoulder after a wild ride over a mountainside?

“I think I’d like to try it,” Marianne said, but Alec was no longer listening to her. He was watching Mary Louise blush. The smile on his lips suggested he, too, remembered how that ride ended—which led to the memory of other things: letters passed through trusted servants and secret meetings at the boathouse. The Dempsey sisters, who knew everything, giggled, and Marianne looked puzzled.

Later that afternoon, the guests raced boats in couples, with the young men rowing out and the ladies rowing back. It was meant to be humorous. The boys competed against each other, racing to the center of the lake, and the girls were supposed to make a muddle of things on the way back. Obligingly, Mary Louise took up the oars when it was her turn and steered their boat away from shore, behind an island of rocks and scraggy shrubs.

Alec made no effort to intervene while she mired the boat in the shallows beside the island. “For shame, Miss Worth,” he said when they were good and stuck and out of everyone’s sight.

“I’m hopeless at this,” she replied, batting her lashes at him.

“Mary Louise, you can steer this boat better than I can.”

“Prove it.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, reaching for her. She had the presence of mind to drop the oars in the bottom of the boat before his lips met hers.

 

***

 

“It wasn’t Alec.”

Mary Louise glanced at her cousin as they packed the left-over food into the picnic basket. “I don’t know what you mean,” she lied.

“The face I saw in the mirror. It wasn’t Alec.”

“I know it wasn’t Alec,” Mary Louise said. “How could it have been?”

Marianne’s dark eyebrows rose, and she eyed her cousin with speculation. “Your mother didn’t tell me you had a serious suitor. Or doesn’t she know?” Mary Louise continued packing the basket and didn’t answer. “How many times have you seen Alec in the mirror, Cousin?”

Mary Louise had been playing the mirror game ever since she was a child, but she had never seen anyone’s face in the glass except her own. Furthermore, Alec had never expressed his intentions toward her or asked her father’s permission to court her. As the son of one of Mr. Worth’s business associates, he was a welcome visitor at her house, but her parents had no idea he was anything more than that.

Turning on Marianne now, she hissed, “There is no spirit in the mirror, Cousin. It’s not witchcraft—just a childish game in the dark.”

“You’re right,” Marianne agreed, closing the lid on the picnic hamper. “It takes a lot more than a candle and a mirror to summon a real spirit.” She rose with the basket in her hand, and Mary Louise could have sworn the grass and flowers flattened before her passage as she walked briskly towards the house.

 

***

 

Pain kept Mary Louise awake all night.

It had been very foolish to eat the remaining sweets from the picnic before bed. Cook had warned them so before retreating to the servants’ quarters. But having crept downstairs in their nightdresses a second night in a row, the Dempsey sisters would not be denied. They prevailed on Corine to serve them, and they put away more marzipan and gingerbread and butter cakes than a crowd of schoolboys. Even Marianne joined in the gluttony, licking frosting off her fingers and encouraging Lenora to tell them more about Peter Ludwig, who’d partnered her in the boat race.

“He was gallant and kind and as beautiful as Adonis.”

“But he wasn’t the one you saw in the mirror last night,” Amelia mumbled over a mouthful of sugared strawberries.

“It was dark.” Lenora waved her hand. “It might have been Peter. In fact, I’m certain it was.”

Hours afterward, Mary Louise moaned, rolling over in bed and holding her stomach.

The spirit in the mirror was nothing but a game. According to the rules, if a girl didn’t see her future husband in the mirror, she would die before marriage or become an old maid. During the last year, Mary Louise had always pretended to see Alec. Lenora changed her mind every time, and Amelia … Poor Amelia wasn’t capable of lying. She probably did think she’d seen Will Jameson.

Pain stabbed Mary Louise through the abdomen. Marianne had been pretending, just like everyone else. Why then, if she’d wanted to reassure Mary Louise, had she claimed to see someone other than Alec, instead of admitting she’d seen no one at all?

In the morning, the ache in her stomach had become so great, Mary Louise could barely tolerate her corset. “Are you all right, miss?” her maid Emma asked, pulling the strings taut.

“Yes. Just be quick about it.” Mary Louise gripped the bedpost and stared straight ahead. Alec was bringing a carriage to the house to take them all to the gravity railroad. The thought of plummeting down the mountainside made Mary Louise break out in a cold sweat, but she bit the inside of her cheek, fighting to maintain composure. As Emma helped her dress, she told herself that the other girls would be suffering from over-indulgence even more than she was.

But they weren’t.

Her friends and her cousin were chattering gaily in the hallway when Mary Louise left her room. Marianne’s voice rose in laughter. How high and piercing it was, Mary Louise thought. Once again, she felt cold and flushed at the same time.

“Cousin,” Marianne exclaimed suddenly, causing Lenora and Amelia to turn around. “Are you ill? You look so pale.”

Mary Louise wanted to deny it, but what came to her lips was not speech. She turned back to her room and lunged for the china wash basin, violently spewing yellow bile.

Things spun out of her control very quickly after that. Retching consumed her, robbing her of any dignity or reason. At some point during this misery, her father’s face appeared in the doorway, and she thought she heard her mother’s voice in the hallway. But her father had an aversion to illness, and her mother was prone to fainting spells. It was the servants who bathed her forehead with cold compresses and brought hot water bottles for her stomach.

Nothing lessened the pain. An infusion of spearmint came back up instantly and vigorously. Mary Louise shivered convulsively, though she was drenched in sweat. The room spun and grew dark, and she could barely lift her limbs. The head housekeeper, Mrs. Hutchins, advised Emma to tell Mr. Worth to fetch a doctor and be quick about it.

Then a face of caramel complexion leaned over Mary Louise and smoothed hair away from her damp face. “Miss Worth,” Corine whispered. “You must drink this.”

“I can’t,” Mary Louise whispered. Every morsel or sip she’d taken had made her worse.

“You must,” the Jamaican girl insisted, pressing a cup of warm liquid against Mary Louise’s lips.

“What are you doing?” Mrs. Hutchins exclaimed. “She can’t keep anything down.”

“It’s a remedy we use in the islands,” Corine said. “Miss Worth, drink.” Her hand roughly cupped the back of Mary Louise’s head, lifting it off the bed.

The warm liquid spilled into her mouth. It was bitter—sharp and biting. Mary Louise tried to pull away, but Corine kept a firm grip on her, and when her stomach didn’t immediately reject the substance, Mary Louise took another gulp, and then a third.

“What are you giving her?” demanded Mrs. Hutchins.

Corine drew back, satisfied. “That’s enough, for now,” she said. “We’ll see if it takes.”

By the time the doctor arrived, Mary Louise was resting more comfortably, the pain subsiding and the vomiting over. The physician held his fingers against her pulse and lifted her lids to look at her eyes. “She hasn’t purged in how long?”

“Two hours now. The Jamaican maid gave her a remedy,” Emma said, but the doctor only harrumphed.

“The thing has run its course, that’s all,” the doctor said. “Let her sleep and keep her stomach empty. She’ll recover in due time.”

After the doctor left, Mary Louise groped for Emma’s hand.

“Yes, miss?” her maid leaned close.

“Are the other girls sick?”

“No, miss. Don’t worry. They’re all well. Mr. Bradley took them out as planned.”

Mary Louise’s eyes flew open. “Took them out as planned?”

“Yes, miss. Your father asked Mr. Bradley to take charge of them, and he said he would.” Emma patted her hand briskly. “Everyone thought it best to get them out of the house. Especially Miss Marianne, who was so worried. I can’t think of anyone better to distract her from this unpleasantness than Mr. Bradley, can you?”

 

***

 

Mary Louise slept on and off, vaguely aware of the passing hours. Mrs. Hutchins and Emma took turns sitting with her, but when she opened her eyes in the very deepest part of the night, the chair by her bed was empty. She turned her head toward the other side of the room—and cried out.

Her own face loomed out of the darkness.

A second later she recognized her cousin. “Are you in pain?” Marianne whispered.

Mary Louise swallowed painfully. “Where’s my maid?”

“Stepped out for a minute. We were all very worried about you.”

Not too worried to go with Alec for a ride on the coal chute. Mary Louise licked her cracked lips. “Fetch Emma.”

“Do you need water?” Marianne moved an unlit candle to the bedside table, and it flared instantly into flame, even though Mary Louise never saw her strike a match. Then Marianne poured water from a china pitcher into a glass.

With a shudder, Mary Louise suddenly remembered her cousin and her cousin’s maid serving the leftover sweets last night:

Corine arranging marzipan roses on a plate.

Marianne picking up the plate and rotating it, offering each girl the nearest rose.

Corine slicing the butter cake.

Marianne tipping a wedge of it onto Mary Louise’s dish.

Staring at the water glass in Marianne’s hand, Mary Louise pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her swollen tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

“Don’t be silly.” Marianne moved the glass closer. A drop splashed on Mary Louise’s face. “You must be parched with thirst. Drink.” Like Corine earlier, she slipped a hand beneath Mary Louise’s head, lifting her from the bed and pressing the glass against her lips.

But Mary Louise was stronger now. She raised a hand and knocked the glass from her cousin’s hand. The water splashed Marianne’s nightdress, and the glass fell to the bed and rolled onto the floor with a loud thump.

Marianne surveyed her with displeasure. “Very well then. Do without.” She retreated into the shadows and departed the room, leaving the candle flickering on the table.

 

***

 

Although the dire pain and stomach upheaval had subsided after her first sip of Corine’s remedy, Mary Louise’s weakness lasted several more days. Sometimes, when she stood up too quickly, the entire room rocked, as if she were standing in a rowboat on the lake.

Lenora and Amelia departed the morning after she took ill, called home when their parents heard there was sickness in the Worth house. After the other girls were gone, Marianne often sat at her ailing cousin’s bedside, but Mary Louise feigned sleep whenever she came. She could not forget how strange it was that only she became ill after eating food shared by all the girls—or how quickly Corine’s remedy had worked.

Alec Bradley sent a note expressing his concern and best wishes for a quick recovery. His words were stiff and formal, and—since she was handed the letter by her father, who’d opened it and read it before passing it on—Mary Louise understood why. Nevertheless, she’d been sitting by her window on the afternoon Alec delivered the note to the house, and she remembered seeing Marianne dash into the garden, smiling as if she were off to meet someone, her shawl trailing from her shoulders. That evening, while the family was at dinner and the maids enjoying their hour of leisure, Mary Louise roused herself from bed and made her way to her cousin’s room.

It smelled of snuffed candles and burnt incense. Obsidian beads were draped over the mirror, and in front of the glass stood a small statuette with a burnt-out candle at its feet. Mary Louise peered at it closely, not knowing if it was part of some Catholic ritual—or something else entirely. Exhaling a breath of frustration, she cast her eyes over the rest of the room. Corine was not as diligent a servant as Emma. There were garments lying across the bed and toiletries strewn willy-nilly across the dressing table. Then, on the night stand, Mary Louise spotted a thick sheet of white paper. It had a jagged edge, as if it had been torn from a book.

Mary Louise knew what it was even before she picked it up. Didn’t she have several samples of her own, torn from the very same sketch book? Her heart thudded as she surveyed a drawing of Marianne seated in the garden, her dark hair curling on her shoulders and her shawl askew. Alec did have a gift. Even in charcoal pencil, he had conveyed the flush in Marianne’s cheeks, the flirtatious gleam in her eyes, and the swell of her bosom where her shawl failed to cover her. Mary Louise folded the sketch in half, creasing it directly across her cousin’s face, and left the room with it clutched in her fist.

After that, she bided her time, keeping to her bed for the next few days and claiming a weakness she didn’t feel. She searched through her secret collection of notes from Alec until she found the perfect one. The trick was tearing it in just the right place, so that it contained only the words she wanted but still looked natural, as if he’d ripped it carelessly. She sacrificed one of her favorite sketches as well—a drawing of irises in bloom with a scrawled message at the bottom: A bouquet for you. A.B.

She put the torn note and the sketch into an envelope and wrote Miss Marianne Worth in as close a facsimile to Alec’s handwriting as she could manage. Then she slipped downstairs and left the envelope on the foyer table with the rest of the post.

 

***

 

On a property as large as the Worth estate, it was difficult to avoid the staff coming and going about their duties. Clever Alec usually suggested the hour before dinner for their clandestine meetings, a time when the family would be dressing and the servants busy preparing the meal or taking their own. It worked just as well for Mary Louise’s purpose. She left the house without notice, walked down to the lake, and slipped into the boathouse. Once she had things arranged the way she wanted them, she sat on a bench in the darkest corner of the building and waited. The sound of the water lapping against the wooden boards and the rowboats bumping against the dock comforted her and steeled her nerves.

The door to the boathouse flew open of its own accord two paces ahead of Marianne, who entered in a rush, breathless and flushed. “Mr. Bradley?” she called. Frowning, she looked at the slip of paper in her hand.

“He’s not coming,” Mary Louise said, standing up and emerging from her corner.

Marianne’s lips parted in surprise; then she looked at her note again with enlightenment. “What are you doing out of bed?” she exclaimed in exasperation. “And here, of all places?”

For answer, Mary Louise held up the sketch of Marianne in the garden, unfolding it with a snap of her wrist.

Marianne nodded grimly. “Corine said you must’ve taken it. What a fuss you’re making, Mary Louise! Mr. Bradley told me he’s drawn all your friends.”

“But they didn’t hide the sketches from me.”

“Neither did I hide that one. You stole it before I had a chance to show you. And you were so sick.” Her dark brows turned downward. “Or were you? Corine also said you were more recovered than you let on.”

Mary Louise shrugged and took another step toward her cousin. “Corine ought to know how the antidote works.”

“Antidote?” repeated Marianne. “You mean the tea she gave you to quiet your nausea?”

“I mean the antidote she gave me to counter whatever you poisoned me with.”

Marianne’s face flushed, and the tone of her voice changed. “What are you saying?”

“You set your sights on Alec the night you looked into that mirror.” Mary Louise crumpled the sketch in her hand and cast it into the water. “Either you or Corine gave me something to make me ill—probably some poison you brought from that wretched island. For all I know, you’ve given something to Alec, too. Something to make him love you.”

“You’re talking madness,” Marianne said impatiently. “You’re jealous because Mr. Bradley is not the committed suitor you think he is, and sickness has made you fanciful.”

“I know what I’ve seen,” Mary Louise hissed. “How things happen in the wrong order when you’re around. Candles light; doors open. You jest about witchcraft, but I know what you are. Probably you and Corine both.”

Marianne dropped her hand. Her eyes grew cold. “Prove it.”

“I can’t.” Mary Louise picked up the oar she’d left purposely within reach and swung it with all her strength at her cousin’s head.

The edge of the oar struck the upper part of Marianne’s face, throwing her bodily off the wooden planks and into the lake beneath the boathouse. The rowboats rocked wildly, thrust apart by her plunge into the water, and for a second it looked as if she were going to bob and float on the surface, just like a witch was supposed to do. But the boats rebounded against the sides of the docks and came together again, pushing her under, and she began to sink.

Mary Louise stood on the edge of the dock, watching the water grow darker and darker around the bottoms of the boats, which bounced against each other and eventually returned to their former positions. Once the water had subsided to its normal, quiet lapping, she rinsed the oar in the water and replaced it with its mate hanging on the wall.

Then she walked to the door of the boathouse and began to scream.

 

***

 

Under the circumstances and in the face of Mary Louise’s hysteria, no one questioned why the cousins had decided to go for a boat ride this time of day, even with one of them barely out of her sick bed. That Marianne, unused to rowboats, should slip and strike her head was understandable. That she should fall between the boats and be trapped underneath—tragic.

Of course, it was one thing to comfort the bereaved Miss Worth and another thing entirely to deal with a servant who overstepped her bounds. No one had any patience for the Jamaican maid, who threw herself across the body of her mistress, calling her by her Christian name and sobbing as if she’d lost her closest kin. She could be heard all the way through the house, wailing and shrieking.

The noise seemed to set Mr. Worth’s teeth on edge. “Someone quiet that girl!” he growled at Mrs. Hutchins while pouring a glass of restorative sherry for his daughter.

But instead of growing quieter, Corine’s screams intensified. Mary Louise cringed into the fainting couch of her mother’s private parlor, where she’d been carried by the servants. She felt the approaching knot of hatred and fury as if it were a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus. Corine burst through the door, her face streaked with tears and her eyes aflame. “You!” Corine cried, pointing her finger. “I saw what you did to her face! You will be marked, Mary Louise Worth—as you have marked her!”

Mr. Worth stepped forward and slapped Corine so hard she staggered backwards into the hands of the valet and the footman who had chased her into the room. “Get her out of my house!” Mr. Worth roared at his servants.

Corine howled in fury and grief as the men picked her up. She reached toward Mary Louise with hands curved like claws. “In her image, you will be marked!”

Mary Louise turned to her mother, seeking comfort, but Mrs. Worth collapsed against the fainting couch as if she needed it herself. “Albert,” she gasped at her husband. “Your brother said … ”

“I don’t care what he said!” Mr. Worth roared. “His daughter—his rightful daughter—is dead, and I want that girl out of my house!”

Mary Louise crumpled into a ball, hiding her face in her hands. While her father shouted and her mother cowered, Mrs. Hutchins gathered Mary Louise into her arms. “There now,” the housekeeper said. “They’ve taken her away, Miss Worth. Don’t you worry.”

 

***

 

The Worths held off the funeral as long as possible, waiting for word from Marianne’s father. But telegrams went unanswered, and no one knew if he’d received their messages. Finally, Mr. Worth declared that common decency required they put his niece to rest. “And the Devil take my blasted brother!”

For her part, Mary Louise was relieved to see the coffin go into the ground. She played her part as required, shedding tears but keeping a brave front. What’s done is done, she told herself. That was from Shakespeare, wasn’t it? Mary Louise had only done what was necessary. Her cousin had poisoned her once and might have tried again if she were determined to have Alec. Who knew what other kinds of witchery Marianne and Corine might have brewed up together if they’d continued to live here, abandoned by their father and dependent on the charity of unwary relatives?

According to servant gossip, Corine had been put on a train to Philadelphia with the clothes on her back and nothing else. Almost certainly she would have been dumped into the street when the train reached the city, and everyone considered themselves well rid of her.

Returning from the cemetery after the burial, Mary Louise felt light at heart for the first time since the night she’d played the mirror game on the staircase. The house was finally free of the Jamaican pair, and Mary Louise was hard pressed to suppress her smile of relief.

When the funeral party entered the front door, Mrs. Hutchins was uncovering the hall mirrors, pulling down the black mourning drapes that had covered all mirrors in the Worth house since the death. The first shroud came down with a rustle of silk, and Mary Louise looked up into the mirror and saw Marianne’s reflection where her own should have been. Her dead cousin stood in the center of her own funeral entourage, with dark hair dripping lake water and gaping bloody wounds where her eyes used to be.

Mary Louise’s scream shattered the quiet conversation of her parents and their friends. Pushing past them, she ran across the tiled floor and pulled the heavy gilded frame off the wall. Mrs. Hutchins dodged as the glass hit the floor with a crash. Mary Louise felt flying shards slash her ankles and lower legs, but she ignored them, turning on her heel to face the second mirror hanging on the opposite wall.

Her cousin was there, too. Marianne raised her hands and pressed them blindly against the glass, as if trying to claw her way through.

Fingernails dug into the flesh around Mary Louise’s eyes.

Then her wrists were seized in a vise-like grip, and someone forced both arms behind her back. “Mrs. Hutchins, take everyone to the drawing room,” Mr. Worth commanded. His voice echoed in the foyer over the outcries of his guests and the whimpering of his wife. He marched his daughter by force to the staircase and all but shoved her up the steps to her room.

“Did you see her?” Mary Louise gasped once her father had slammed the door closed behind them.

“See whom?” Mr. Worth snarled. “I saw my daughter in the throes of hysteria!”

“Marianne! She tried to scratch my eyes out!”

“You did that yourself. Look!” Her father grabbed her hands and showed her the blood on her own fingernails.

Mary Louise pulled her hands free and tenderly touched the delicate skin around her eyes with her fingertips. They came away dotted with blood. She’d clawed at her own eyes. “Corine cursed me,” she choked, staring at her own hands in disbelief. “She said I would be marked. You heard her.”

Mr. Worth glared down at his daughter with a face like stone. “Yes, I heard what she said, Mary Louise. I saw your cousin’s face, too. That injury did not come from falling between two rowboats.” Mary Louise sucked in her breath and looked up at her father in horror. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. “Master your affairs,” he said softly. “Control yourself or I won’t hesitate to put you away where you cannot disgrace the family name. Do I make myself clear?”

She nodded, her lips trembling.

He pushed past her, brushing at his suit and straightening his sleeves as if contact with his daughter had soiled him. Once he was gone, Mary Louise took up her hand mirror and, without looking into it, smacked it briskly against the corner of her dressing table, cracking the glass like a spider web.

 

***

 

In her image, you will be marked.

Very well, then. Mary Louise would avoid all images. It was simple enough to cast her eyes away from mirrors and darkened windows and even polished silver trays. At the slightest glimpse of her own reflection, she looked away. It could be done—for as long as it took. Mary Louise had an idea witchcraft would weaken over time, just as her memory of Marianne’s bleeding face had dimmed.

If Corine died on the streets, surely her curse would die with her. Mary Louise wished the girl a quick and vulgar end, alone and friendless in a strange city.

Her fear was fading—and so were the scratch marks, according to Emma—when her faithful maid delivered a secret note from Alec Bradley. Mary Louise opened the envelope eagerly. He did not suggest the boathouse this time—not after what had happened there. Instead, he named a secluded corner of the garden. She found him there that evening, standing beside an ornamental pond and throwing berries in for the goldfish. Mary Louise seated herself on the bench beside the pond with her back to the water and smiled flirtatiously over her shoulder.

He tossed the remaining berries into the water, walked around the bench, and knelt on one knee. “My darling Sunshine, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve been worried for you. I heard—” He paused, his brow furrowed.

Mary Louise hung on to her smile, refusing to let it waver. He’d heard that she was hysterical, that she threw mirrors from the wall and tried to harm herself in front of the funeral guests. “I was distraught, Alec. But I’m better now.”

“Are you?” His eyes searched her face. “I can’t imagine what it was like to lose her that way.” He dropped his gaze. “I’ll say no more about it—except that Miss Worth was the kindest, most genuinely sweet soul I’ve ever known, present company excluded. I had occasion to speak to her several times while you were ill.”

“She told me so,” Mary Louise lied, her face stiffening with the strain of keeping her expression placid.

“I found her easy to talk to, perhaps because of our similar circumstances.”

“Similar circumstances?”

“Financial ruin,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers again. “Her father. My father. She understood what it meant to suddenly have no prospects. Dearest Mary Louise, didn’t you wonder why, after all these months, I’ve never declared my intentions to you? Why I ask you to meet me secretly—and improperly—rather than face your father and court you the way you deserve to be courted?”

Every single day. She touched his face. “Alec, I didn’t know.”

“I’m sure your father knew,” Alec said with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “He would never have permitted me … ” He shook his head and broke off, then smiled. “But the tide has turned. My family affairs are resolved, and I’m free to speak to your father—to ask to court you properly. Because I intend to marry you.”

“Alec,” she breathed.

“This is our last secret meeting,” he said with a grin, rising to his feet. “But I had to see you first. I wanted to explain. And I wanted to see with my own eyes that you were well, in spite of the grief you must feel.”

“With you,” she said, beaming back at him, “I shall always be well.”

He held up a finger, as if remembering something. “I brought you a gift. Not the sort of gift I’ll give you once I speak to your father, but something from the heart.” He reached inside his frock coat and removed a folded sheet of paper. Mary Louise smiled. He’d brought her a drawing. That was her Alec.

“I hope this will lighten your heart,” he said, handing it to her. His cheeks flushed with pride, and he stepped away from the bench to pluck more berries from the bushes. “It’s an image that keeps coming to my mind.”

Mary Louise unfolded the sketch. Two girls sat on a blanket by the shore of a lake. One had golden hair, brilliant eyes, and the smile of a carefree heart.

The other had black hair, dripping wet, and two bloody wounds where her eyes used to be.

One of them screamed.

“Mary Louise!” Alec shouted, whirling around. “What are you doing?”

Mary Louise lost sight of him. The world grew bright red—and then very dark.