The thin November light is spreading its fingers across the room when Ivy pads in carrying a kettle of hot water.

“Good morning, Miss.” She pours the water into the basin on the washstand. “Shall I help you dress?”

I lift myself up on my elbows. “No, thank you. I’ll be fine.”

“Very well.” She leaves the room, empty kettle in hand.

I throw back the covers and make my way to the washstand, swirling a hand in the basin to cool the water before I wash. When I am finished, I dry my cheeks and forehead, peering into the glass. My green eyes are bottomless, empty, and I wonder if it is possible to change from the inside out, if sadness can radiate outward, through the veins and organs and skin for all to see. I shake my head at the morbid notion, watching my auburn hair, unbound, brush my shoulders in the looking glass.

I take off my nightdress and pull a petticoat and stockings from the bureau, beginning to dress. I am smoothing the second stocking up my thigh when Alice sweeps in without knocking.

“Good morning.” She drops heavily onto the bed, looking up at me with the breathless charm that is uniquely Alice.

It surprises me still, her effortless swing from barely concealed bitterness to sorrow to carefree calm. It should not, for Alice’s moods have always been mercurial. But her face bears no trace of sadness, no trace of last night’s melancholy. In truth, other than her simple gown and lack of jewelry, she looks no different than she ever has. Perhaps I am the only one to change from the inside out after all.

“Good morning.” I hurry and fasten the stocking, feeling guilty that I’ve lazed in my room for so long when my sister is already up and about. I move to the cupboard, both to find a gown and to avoid the eyes that always seem to look too deeply into mine.

“You should see the house, Lia. The entire staff is in mourning clothes, on Aunt Virginia’s orders.”

I turn to look at her, noticing the flush on her cheeks and something like excitement in her eyes. I push down my annoyance. “Many households observe the mourning period, Alice. Everyone loved Father. I’m sure they don’t mind paying their respects.”

“Yes, well, now we shall be stuck inside for an interminable time, and it is so very dull here. Do you suppose Aunt Virginia will allow us to attend classes next week?” She continues without waiting for an answer. “Of course, you don’t even care! You would be perfectly happy to never see Wycliffe again.”

I do not bother arguing. It is well-known that Alice yearns for the more civilized life of the girls at Wycliffe, the school where we attend classes twice a week, while I always feel like an exotic animal under glass. I steal glimpses of her at school, glittering under the niceties of polite society, and imagine her like our mother. It must be true, for it is I who finds pleasure in the stillness of Father’s library and Alice alone who can conjure the gleam of our mother’s eyes.

We spend the day in the almost-silence of the crackling fire. We are accustomed to the isolation of Birchwood and have learned to occupy ourselves within its somber walls. It is like any other rainy day save for the lack of Father’s big voice booming from the library or the smell of his pipe. We don’t speak of him or his strange death.

I avoid looking at the clock, fearing the slow passing of time that will only seem slower if I watch its progress. It works, in a manner of speaking. The day passes more quickly than I expect, the small interruptions for lunch and dinner easing me toward the time when I can escape to the nothingness of sleep.

This time I don’t look at my wrist before climbing into bed. I don’t want to know if the mark is still there. If it has changed. If it is deeper or darker. I slip into bed, sinking toward darkness without further thought.

I am in the in-between place, the place we drift through before the world falls away into sleep, when I hear the whispering. At first, it is only the call of my name, beckoning from some far-off place. But the whisper builds, becoming many voices, all murmuring frantically, so quickly that I can only make out an occasional word. It grows and grows, demanding my attention until I cannot ignore it a second longer. Until I sit straight up in bed, the last whispered words echoing through the caverns of my mind.

The Dark Room.

It is not entirely surprising. The Dark Room has been at the forefront of my mind since Father’s death. He should not have been there. Not in the one room that would invoke the memory of my mother, his beloved dead wife, more than any other.

And yet, in those last moments, as life slipped from his body like a wraith, he was.

I slide my feet into slippers and make my way to the door, listening a moment before opening it and looking down the hall. The house is dark and silent. The footsteps of the servants cannot be heard in the rooms above our own or in the kitchen below. It must be quite late.

All this registers in seconds, leaving only the faintest of impressions. The thing that gets my attention, the thing that makes the small hairs rise on my arms and the back of my neck, is the door, open just a crack, at the end of the hallway.

The door to the Dark Room.

It is strange enough that the door to this, of all rooms, should be open, but stranger still that there is a faint glow leaking from the small gap between the frame and the door.

I look down at the mark. It shadows my wrist even in the darkness of the hallway. It is this I’ve been wondering, is it not? I think. Whether or not the Dark Room holds the key to Father’s death or the reason for my mark? Now it is as if I’ve been summoned to that very place, called to the answers I have sought all along.

I creep down the hallway, careful to lift my feet so the bottoms of my slippers don’t scuff along the wood floor. When I reach the door of the Dark Room, I hesitate.

Someone is inside.

A voice, soft but urgent, comes from within the room. It is not the same frantic murmur that called me here. Not the disjointed voices of many. No. It is the voice of one. A solitary person whispering inside.

I don’t dare push open the door for fear it will creak. Instead, I lean toward it, peering through the opening into the room beyond. It is difficult to get my bearings through such a small crack. At first everything is only shapes and shadows. But soon I make out the looming white sheets of the covered furniture, the dark mass I know is the wardrobe in the corner, and the figure sitting on the floor, surrounded by candles.

Alice.

My sister sits on the floor of the Dark Room, the glow of many candles casting her body in soft yellow light. She is muttering, whispering as if to someone very near, though from my vantage I see not a soul. She sits on folded knees, her eyes closed, arms at her sides.

I scan the room, careful not to touch the door lest it should spring to life and glide open even farther. But there is no one else there. No one but Alice, murmuring to herself in a strange sort of ceremony. And even this, this dark rite that sends tendrils of fear racing through my body, is not the strangest thing of all.

No, it is that my sister sits with the rug pulled back, a large well-worn rug that has been in the room as long as I can remember. She sits, as naturally as if she has done it countless times before, within a circle carved into the floor. The angles of her face are nearly unrecognizable, almost harsh, in the candlelight.

The cold from the unheated hallway seeps through the thin fabric of my nightdress. I step back, my heart beating so loudly in my chest that I fear Alice will hear it from within the Dark Room.

When I turn to make my way down the hall, I have to resist the urge to run. Instead, I walk calmly and step into my room, closing the door behind me and climbing into the safety and comfort of my bed. I lay awake for a long time, trying to force from my mind the image of Alice within the circle, the sound of her murmuring to someone who wasn’t there at all.

The next morning, I stand in the clear light streaming through the window, sliding the sleeve of my nightdress up and over my wrist. The mark has become darker still, the circle thicker and more prominent.

And there is something else.

In the stark light of day, it seems quite obvious what it is—the thing that encircles the circle itself, making the edges less clear. I trail a finger across the surface of the mark, raised as a scar, following the lines of the snake that coils itself around the edges of the circle until its mouth is eating its own tail.

The Jorgumand.

Few girls of sixteen would know it, but I recognize the symbol from Father’s books on mythology. It is at once familiar and frightening, for why should such a symbol rise from my skin?

I only briefly consider telling Aunt Virginia. She has had her share of grief and worry over Father’s death. Our well-being is now left to her, our only living relative. I’ll not add another worry to the ones she already has.

I chew my lower lip. It is impossible to think of my sister without remembering her posture on the floor of the Dark Room. I resolve to ask her what she was doing. And then I will show her the mark.

After dressing, I step into the hall, preparing to search for Alice. I hope she is not walking the grounds as she has since she was a child. Locating her as she takes sun in her favorite spot on the patio will be considerably easier than searching the fields and forests surrounding Birchwood. As I turn away from my chamber, my eyes slide to the closed door of the Dark Room. From here, it looks as it always has. It is almost possible to imagine that Father is still alive in the library and that my sister has never knelt on the floor of the forbidden room in the mystery of night. And yet she has.

My mind is made up before I fully realize it. I make my way swiftly down the hall. I don’t hesitate on the threshold of the room. Instead, I open the door and step through it in seconds.

The room is just as I remember it, the curtains drawn against the daylight, the rug back in place over the wood floor. A strange energy pulses through the air, a vibration that seems to hum through my veins. I shake my head, and the sound almost disappears.

I move to the bureau and open the top drawer. I should not be surprised to find my mother’s things there, but somehow I am. Most of my life, she has been no more than an idea. Somehow, the fine silk and lace of her petticoats and stockings make her seem very real. I can see her suddenly, a flesh-and-blood woman, dressing for the day.

I force myself to lift her underthings, looking for anything that might explain Father’s presence in the room at the time of his death—a journal, an old letter, anything at all. When I find nothing, I do the same with the other drawers, lifting and searching to the very back. But there is nothing there. Nothing but the paper drawer liner that long ago lost its scent.

I lean lightly against the dresser, surveying the room for other possible hiding places. Crossing to the bed, I kneel and lift the ghostly coverlet, peering beneath the bed. It is spotless, doubtless cleared of dust and cobwebs only during the maid’s latest round of cleaning.

My eyes settle on the rug. The image of Alice within the circle is etched in my mind. I know what I saw, but I cannot keep myself from looking. From being sure.

I move toward the rug and am at its edge when my head begins to buzz, the vibration closing in on my thoughts, my vision, until I think I might faint. The tips of my fingers become numb, a prickly tingling beginning at my feet and radiating upward until I fear that my legs will give out altogether.

And then the whispering begins. It is the same whispering I heard last night before coming to the Dark Room. But this time it is threatening, as if warning me off, telling me to go back. A cold sweat breaks out on my brow, and I begin to tremble. No, not tremble. Shake. I shake so violently my teeth clatter together before I sink to the floor in front of the rug. A small voice of self-preservation shouts at me to leave, to forget the Dark Room altogether.

But I must see for myself. I must.

My hand weaves and shakes in front of my eyes, reaching for the edge of the rug. The whispering grows louder and louder until the great buzz of many voices becomes a shout within my head. I will myself not to stop, grasping the corner of the rug with fingers that can hardly close around the fine weave of the carpet.

I pull it back, and the whispering stops.

The circle is there, just as it was last night. And although the whispers are silent, my body’s reaction to the circle only becomes more violent. I think I may be sick. Without the cover of darkness, I see that the gouges are fresh where the wood has been dug away to form the circle. This is no remnant from my mother’s time in the Dark Room but an addition much more recent.

I pull the rug back over the carving, rising on wobbling legs. I will not let it drive me from the room. My mother’s room. I force myself to the wardrobe as I had planned, though I must step around the rug, for my feet cannot, will not, allow me too close.

Flinging open the wardrobe doors, I perform a quick search, knowing it is not as thorough as it could be and knowing just as well that I no longer care. That I really must leave the room.

In any case, there is nothing of note in the wardrobe. Some old gowns, a cape, four corsets. Whatever drew Father to this room is as inexplicable as the reason for Alice’s presence here last night and the thing that draws me to it now.

I step around the rug, making my way to the door as swiftly as possible without actually running. The more distance I put between myself and the rug, between myself and the circle, the better I feel, though still not well.

I close the door behind me more loudly than I should, leaning against the wall and forcing down the bile that has risen in my throat. I don’t know how long I stand there, catching my breath, forcing my physical symptoms into submission, but all the while my mind is full of fierce and frightful things.