The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

“Scared?”

Sonya lifted her shoulders. “Little bit.”

“Me, too. It adds to the fun.”

“There are times your idea of fun and mine don’t approach intersection.”

When the tablet played the Beastie Boys, Sonya had to laugh.

“Okay, okay. We’ll fight for our right to party.”

“Which takes us to music. Do you think Trey and Owen can convince Rock Hard to play?”

“Won’t know till we ask. It goes on the task list.” Sonya noted it down. “Task for me: I’ll generate the invitations.”

“When you do, I’ll get them mailed. You get the list from Trey’s mom, and I’ll talk to Bree.”

“Good division of labor.” Sonya clinked her water glass to Cleo’s. “I know there are some folding tables in the basement. Not the scary basement where I’ll never set foot again. I vote we assign Trey and Owen to hauling them up so we can clean them.”

“Again, unanimous. Flowers. We’re probably going to have to plant some, Son, and that’s a learning curve for both of us. And we’ll want some on the tables outside, and inside.”

“So a trip to the nursery, and the florist. Both of us on those. I don’t worry about making it pretty. We’re good at that. I wanted to plant some flowers anyway. Like in the pots in the garden shed.”

“I want to plant some herbs.”

“You do?”

Cleo gave a decisive nod. “If I’m going to cook around here, I’m doing it right.”

“You’re in charge of those. Totally in charge.”

“I can handle it. Now, let’s go make ourselves pretty, and we’ll come back and do the same with the table.”

“What happened last night.” Sonya gathered the sketch pad, her notes, her tablet. “It’ll happen again. I know that, and so do you. But we’re here, making a meal—with a freaking pie—and we’re here, planning a party.”

“An Event,” Cleo corrected, and made Sonya smile as they walked from the kitchen.

“An Event. Sometimes my head says it’s all crazy. But I know it’s not. I know we’re doing exactly what we should do.”

“Live, work, plan,” Cleo repeated.

“All of that. Just like I know there’s so much more good in this house than bad. Some of the bad, it’s just what happens when people live and work and plan in a house for over two hundred years. The worst of the bad? That goes back to one… I won’t call her a person.”

“Entity.”

“Entity then. And even with that, with what happened to them, Clover plays music, Molly makes the beds, Jack plays with Yoda.”

They turned into the library, where Sonya put the notes and sketchbook on her desk. “And there’s more.”

“A lot more,” Cleo agreed. “I feel them all the time.”

“Why do they stay? The brides, and the ones who mourn them, maybe they stay because of the curse. But why do the others?”

“I don’t know.”

Sonya looked around the library, looked to the window where the African violet Cleo had given her years before bloomed.

“I think it’s because this is home. I think they stay for the same reason I do—and you do now. This is home.”