Mystified

by Renee Bernard

  It all looked so picturesque—until she saw the iron bars across the windows.

  And until Teddy nudged her, tilting his head toward the farthest and darkest corner of the room. She handed him the fire iron, taking the lantern instead and holding it up.

  Her breath caught in her throat, the gasp that begged to come forth dying before it ever met her lips.

  There, in a wooden chair with a blanket spread over her lap, perched a woman with the same blond hair, the same porcelain skin, and the same stately figure as her own mother. But her nose was wider, if not longer; her face was more square, whilst Mama’s had been heart-shaped. And there were her eyes, the most distinctive feature. Mama had always appeared fragile and childlike, even before her illness had progressed to the point of full-blown mania. This woman’s eyes had a distant quality to them, as though she wasn’t entirely certain of what she was doing or where she was.

  Aunt Evelyn.

  Every day at Brauning Manor, she passed by a portrait of Evelyn DeLisle Hambly on her way to her room. There was no mistaking her. It had to be Aunt Evelyn. But Evelyn was dead.

  “Well, that explains the guard,” Teddy muttered under his breath, with the calmness in the face of logic-shattering circumstances only he could muster. “Your dead aunt is not so dead. Will wonders never cease in this bloody castle.”

  Evelyn didn’t look up from the book she was reading. “Bronson?”

  “My lady!” Bronson—she guessed that was the man who chased them—called from the other side of the door. “Are you fine? Have they harmed you? Just say the word and I will break down this door—”

  Evelyn looked up, that bleary gaze settling upon them. She stood, far quicker than Claire would have suspected she could move. The blanket fell from her lap, the book with it. She noticed neither, stalking toward them, her jaw agape. Her white nightgown flowed around her with every step, giving her an ethereal appearance.

  And for a second—the longest second of her life—Claire suspected she truly had lost hold of her sanity. Was she seeing ghosts? She looked back at Teddy, who met her gaze and nodded. The simplest of gestures, yet all she needed. Together, they’d figure all this out. With Teddy as her witness, she’d know her memory of this encounter was sound.

  “It’s Madalane,” Evelyn said loudly, cocking her head toward the door, though her gaze remained on Claire. “Madalane’s here, finally. I’ve been writing and writing, and she’s finally come. I’m fine, Bronson. It’s all fine.”

  “I’ll be right outside,” Bronson called back. “If you need me…”

  “You’re a dear man,” Evelyn replied, abstractly, the phrase sounding more rout than truth. Claire suspected she said this often to Bronson. “I shall not need you, not with Maddie here.”

  “Aunt Evelyn,” Claire said quietly, handing the lantern to Teddy. Her fingers closed around her mother’s pearl pendant on her neck.

  She took a step closer to Evelyn. Then another when the woman did not retreat.

  Teddy set the lantern on a side-table by the door. He kept a firm hold on the fire iron, but he did not follow her. Still, she felt his quiet, unassuming presence, supporting her from a distance—giving her the space to face Evelyn on her own.

  “Aunt Evelyn,” Claire tried again, hoping for some sign of lucidity in the woman’s unfocused hazel eyes. “I’m Claire, Madalane’s daughter. Your niece.”

  “No.” Evelyn shook her head vigorously. “I know you don’t have any children. That’s why I needed so badly to talk to you. Something bad is coming, Maddie. Something horrible.” She wrung her hands as she came closer to Claire.

  Reaching out, Evelyn ran her hand across Claire’s cheek. Her skin was warm and soft, and very, very real. But whatever comfort Claire could take from Evelyn’s wholly human state was shortened by her next words, delivered with a chilling intensity.

  “People are going to die. You’re going to die, Maddie.”

  She let out another wail, a piercing, terrifying sound. Claire wanted to flee so far from this place that no one would be able to find her again and drag her back to Castle Keyvnor, but she couldn’t. It was as if her feet were bolted to this floor, held in thrall by her aunt. She could only get out one question. “Why?”

  This castle was going to be the death of Teddy. First the damned black-wearing ghost, then that blastedly secluded hedge maze, and now this, the very living—not dead in the least—appearance of Claire’s aunt. He had never visited Lady Brauning with Claire, but if she’d been anything like Lady Banfield, then he would have needed a stiff drink, or seven, to burn off the chill from him.

  Lady Banfield’s hand was still on her niece’s cheek, even as Claire stood there stock-still. He came closer, the fire iron clenched in his hand, ready to use it if need be to get Evelyn away from Claire. He wouldn’t strike Evelyn—there had to be some sort of circle in hell for men who struck madwomen—but he could use it to pry her off and put enough distance between the two that Claire could escape.

  As if sensing his intentions, Evelyn took a step back, snaking her fingers into the fabric of her nightrail. “You’ve arrived just in time. There’s no time left me, Maddie, no time at all…but for you, maybe there is.”

  He didn’t understand what she meant by any of that, but the sadness in her voice was unmistakable. Her eyes never left Claire’s face, even as she sank into one of the armchairs by the fire, so slowly, so pitifully, as if the mere act of standing had been too much for her.

  “He’s gone, Maddie. Paul’s dead. My baby, my son, is dead!” The agony in her words clung to the room, like a thick layer of sludge, making it harder to think normally. Her melancholy seemed to permeate every surface, from the barred windows to the once-cheery fire that now burned with lost dreams. “They tell me he drowned. But I see him sometimes…I don’t know what to think anymore, Maddie.”

  Claire followed her over to the two armchairs, taking a seat in the chair next to her aunt’s. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn,” she murmured, reaching out to take the woman’s hand in her own. “I heard. That’s why I’m here.”

  The fear had left her eyes, replaced with only compassion. Teddy’s grip on the fire iron loosened. He doubted this distraught, disjointed woman wanted to harm them. Her son’s death had made her a puzzle with the key piece removed, put back together with paste, never the same afterward.

  “The blackness comes, and I’m lost to it. All the devils with their fancy black suits, carrying Paul’s coffin, over and over again.” Tears rolled down Evelyn’s cheeks. “I hear music every day. The funeral dirge. Paul would have hated that. He was—is?—such a happy child.”

  “Do you hear it now?” Claire asked, passing her a handkerchief from her pocket.

  Evelyn dabbed at her eyes, frowning. “No. Bronson tells me it doesn’t exist.” She tapped her cranium, a forlorn look in her eyes. “He says it’s in my head. But I know it’s there.”

  Teddy didn’t know what to say to that. Hell, he didn’t know what to say to any of it. All he knew was that he couldn’t let Claire suffer this same fate, trapped in her own head.

  “I wrote you a letter,” Evelyn said. “So many letters. Bronson, sometimes he brings me your letters too. They make me happy, Maddie. Maybe that’s the only happiness left, in letters, where you can scratch out what goes wrong.”

  Teddy set the fire iron down by the door, crossing slowly to stand behind Claire’s chair. He wanted to be there to support her. “That’s why I’ve always liked books,” he told Evelyn. “Particularly ones with happy endings.”

  “There are no happy endings, Christopher.” A deep frowned etched into Evelyn’s lips, as she addressed him by Claire’s father’s name. “No more. Paul’s dead.”

  When Claire pressed her hand, Evelyn straightened up slightly. “But maybe there’s one for you, Maddie. Maybe you’ve got time.”

  “What do you mean?” Claire asked.

  Evelyn’s brow wrinkled, as if she was struggling to remember. “The witches…once, they tr
ied to help me.”

  Claire winced. “The witches cursed us, Evelyn.”

  Evelyn shook her head again. “One witch. Not all. There are some that are good, out there in that forest.”

  “Can they fix the curse?” He’d blurted out the question before he could stop himself.

  Evelyn blinked up at him. “They can’t bring back my baby, but there are things they can do. Things they tried to do for me. But my baby’s gone still, he’s still gone and I just can’t—” The tears streamed down her face, fast and furious, and her shoulders shook from the power of her sobs.

  Claire stood up from the chair, coming to Evelyn’s side. Balancing lightly on the armrest of Evelyn’s chair, she slipped an arm around her aunt’s shoulder. Teddy came to stand on the other side of them, and together they held Evelyn as she cried.

  As they sat there, Teddy tried to process all he’d learned. Was the curse real? He still didn’t know. He hadn’t been able to find real, definable proof of it. Yet Evelyn was most certainly mad, and Madalane had been too. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, madness could be hereditary. Perhaps the curse was just an easier way of understanding the sad history of the DeLisle sisters.

  He didn’t know how to save Claire from a hereditary illness. If the lunacy came from a curse, however, and there were a coven of witches out there in the nearby forest who could break that curse…maybe, just maybe, there was hope. It gave him something to do besides pretend everything was fine. An actionable plan. Teddy loved plans, for they allowed him to prepare for the worst, while remaining cautiously optimistic about a positive alternative.

  He’d had a plan for his life with Claire too, but he hadn’t included all the possibilities. He’d pretended this curse didn’t exist.

  And that had just made things worse.

  Claire still feared her own mind, and he had nothing to give her peace. If there were something that could save Claire, give back her faith in herself again, then he’d do anything to make that happen.

  Even trust in a coven of witches who worshiped gods he did not understand, gods that defied his ordered, methodical existence.

  Even believe in a magical curse.

  Chapter 8

  The next day, Claire visited the village of Bocka Morrow with her cousins, Letty and Violet, and some of the other lady guests. Kinney insisted on accompanying her—she hadn’t left her side since Claire told her about the strange occurrences the night before.

  When the other girls decided to go into the apothecary shop, Claire held back, hesitant to enter territory that was often associated with the local coven. The very witches Evelyn had told her to seek counsel from.

  “You’ve got to go in, Peach,” Kinney said. “Don’t you want to know if she’s right?”

  She did. More than anything, Claire wanted to believe the curse could be broken, and she could be happy with Teddy. But hope was a fragile, fickle creature, stirring in her heart and spreading throughout her body, until the desire for happiness was so paramount she did not know if she could survive without it. Wasn’t it better to stick with the known, to accept her sad fate, and never have her precarious hopes crushed?

  She remembered the soft glide of Teddy’s skin against her own, that eager smile of his she found so utterly arousing. The way he had groaned out her name as he reached release.

  God, she wanted him. A future with him. Children with him.

  She pressed Kinney’s hand in return, and nodded swiftly. “Yes. ’Tis better to know.”

  Once inside the shop, she waited with Kinney, letting the other ladies proceed with their various purchases. The fewer people who knew of her true business here, the better. She watched as the woman behind the counter helped Jane Hawkins with an order of soap, taking careful note of the woman’s physical reactions as she interacted with Miss Hawkins.

  “You can’t hear from that far away,” Kinney murmured, tugging her closer. “Nothing good ever came to the tentative, lass.”

  Claire allowed herself to be led forward, because she knew Kinney was right. Seven Seasons of fear had kept her from Teddy’s arms.

  Soon, the rest of the ladies were ready to leave. Claire begged off of returning with them, claiming she wanted to explore the village further. Since Kinney was with her, she wouldn’t be unchaperoned.

  Only when the door closed behind them did she approach the counter.

  Except she’d failed in her errand, because Elethea Fairfax, whom she had met in the village before, hadn’t left. Claire hid back behind the shelves again, ignoring Kinney’s attempt to pull her toward the counter. Here, she was close enough to hear what was going on but she couldn’t be seen. Neither Elethea nor the other woman seemed to know she and Kinney remained in the shop.

  She watched as Elethea and the woman behind the counter talked—they spoke far too familiarly not to know each other. They talked of the festival of Allantide, and the village practice of bewitching the apples. Young women would mark their apples in a certain way before dropping them into the vat, hoping that their true love would bite into their apple.

  “Of course, it’s simple magic at best,” the woman called Brighid said with a chuckle. “But it makes them happy.”

  “And it makes them less likely to hate us,” Elethea said with a wry smile. “Would that everyone viewed us with such good regard.”

  “Your young man will prove his worth,” Brighid said. “Or he’ll show his heart as black, and you ought not to be with a man who’s so fickle anyhow. You deserve the best, Elethea.”

  Elethea’s smile did not reach her eyes. “So my grandmother claims.”

  “Then you should believe her,” Brighid said. “Maevis is the wisest of the nine in the circle.”

  The circle.

  Claire knew that term—it referred to the mossy clearing in the woods where the witches practiced their magic. If she’d had any doubt that Elethea and Brighid were part of the coven, the last exchange dispatched it. Beside her, Kinney wrung her sleeve in excitement.

  “I know, I know,” she whispered, shaking her head at the maid’s antics. “I’m going.”

  Claire stepped out from the shelves and cleared her throat. Brighid stopped mid-sentence, and Elethea dropped the bar of soap she’d picked up.

  “Lady Claire,” Elethea said, somehow managing to turn picking up the soap into a fluid curtsy. “Brighid, may I present Lady Claire Deering. I’m sorry—we didn’t know—”

  “Please, I don’t mean any harm,” Claire broke in, with a shake of her head. “I’m not in any place to judge you, not when half of Society already thinks me as mad as my mother and my aunt.”

  A light of recognition dawned in Brighid’s eyes. “Your mother and your aunt, you say? The DeLisle sisters. Oh, my lady, we tried so hard to help them…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

  “So she said.”

  Elethea’s brows furrowed. “Who said?”

  Claire darted a glance at Kinney, who nodded reassuringly. She hated to tell Evelyn’s secret, but since her aunt herself had advised her to seek out the witches, she supposed it was acceptable. “My Aunt Evelyn. Last night.”

  Brighid’s nose scrunched up. “Her ghost appeared to you?”

  “No.” Claire bit her lip. If ever there were a statement that was going to make her sound insane, this was it. But she had to take the chance they’d believe her. “Evelyn is alive and locked in a turret at Castle Keyvnor. A manservant named Bronson waits on her and keeps her safe.”

  “That’s horrible!” Brighid exclaimed, hurrying out from the counter. “We must free her.” She was already untying her apron by the time she stopped in front of Claire.

  Claire reached for her arm to stop her, her grip gentle but firm. “Please, please, please don’t. If anyone finds out that Evelyn is alive, they’ll force her to leave the castle. They’ll take her to an asylum, and she’ll die there, just as my mother did. The things they do to patients—no one should ever be put through that torture.”

  She’
d expected the two women to disagree with her. It’d taken her a half hour last night to convince Teddy to let Evelyn be, and he’d been there after each of her visits to Ticehurst. He’d known just how upset the doctor’s methods of “treatment” made her. But instead, Elethea nodded, quietly understanding without Claire having to say more. The two witches exchanged a glance, and soon, Brighid nodded too.

  “Very well,” Brighid said. “What exactly did your aunt say to you?”

  After Claire recalled the meeting for them, Elethea and Brighid exchanged another glance, longer this time, fraught with tension Claire did not understand. She grasped Kinney’s hand in her own and prayed that they could help her.

  “You’d better come with me,” Elethea said finally, motioning for Claire and Kinney to follow her as she headed toward the front of the shop. “You need to meet my grandmother.”

  Elethea led Kinney and Claire through the woods. Even in the bright sunlight, Claire’s heart was in her throat for the entire journey—she didn’t know what to expect. Much of her knowledge of witches was gleaned from Macbeth, and the history of her family’s curse. Neither painted the coven in a good light—yet Evelyn had insisted that Hestia was not indicative of the rest of the witches. Given Evelyn’s fragile mental state, Claire wasn’t sure she should trust her aunt’s word…yet there was something comforting about Brighid and Elethea.

  Elethea picked her way through the woods with easy agility, leading through thick glens with no discernible trail. Claire followed hurriedly, grateful she’d worn her sturdy walking boots for the trip into the village. Beside her, Kinney panted at the swift pace Elethea set, but still kept up.

  A quarter of an hour or so later, they emerged into a clear, moss-covered grove with oak trees lining the perimeter. A fire pit sat in the middle, while off to the side was a circle made out of six stones. Claire’s stomach sloshed at the sight of the circle, but she kept on going. No turning back now.