The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

“Apparently.” On her way to choose vases, she stopped, looked over Cleo’s shoulder at the trees with their curving branches, the waterfall dropping into a winding stream. An arched bridge spanned it.

“Yeah, you shine.”

“It’s going to be fun. I hope they go for it, and let me have my way with the colors, the animals. Like maybe something between a monkey and raccoon hanging off a branch.”

She reached over to stroke the cat, who’d perched on the stool beside her. “A cat, but with a long, braided tail.”

Sonya carried back the first of the vases. “If she teared up thinking about it, she’s going to fall to pieces when she sees your sketches.”

“Hope so. Flowers,” she said as Sonya began arranging. “But nothing you’d find at the local florist. Anyway, I’m going to play with it. I really enjoyed having lunch with her.”

“Me, too. And I will help in the nursery, but assisting as I sometimes do when you’re cooking.”

“You downplay your fine art talents.”

“Maybe, but I know I wouldn’t come up with an animal that’s a cross between a monkey and raccoon.”

When she’d filled the last vase, she carried a couple at a time. Another homey task she enjoyed, Sonya thought. Walking through the manor with flowers, finding just the right place for the right arrangement.

Sometimes, she’d found, Molly disagreed with those choices, and she’d find flowers moved. But she had to admit, she’d come to enjoy that, too.

Once she’d spread flowers out on the first and second floors, she carried an arrangement to the third for Cleo’s studio. As she did,she realized she hadn’t come up to the third floor alone—at least knowingly—for weeks.

When even her brief hesitation irritated her, she walked straight down to the studio.

With the mermaid in the drying rack, Cleo had a blank canvas on the easel. Sonya suspected it wouldn’t stay blank for long, as the rigorous organization in the studio had slid into Cleo’s creative jumble.

Since sketches, folders, pads, pencils littered the old desk, Sonya put the flowers on the table by the sofa.

Then she walked to the closet, held her breath. Opened it.

She saw nothing but Cleo’s still-organized supplies.

“Okay, not yet.”

But she didn’t doubt that sooner or later, either she or Cleo would open that door and find Agatha, the fourth bride.

She’d just closed the door when the banging started.

Steeling herself, she walked out.

The door of the Gold Room bowed out, sucked in as she walked toward it.

My house, she thought. Mine, not yours.

She said just that, then repeated it, lifting her claim over the banging.

The door flew open, and wind rushed out with it.

The cold bit into her bones.

Hester Dobbs stood in the center of the room, arms outstretched, palms up.

Under the wind, she heard whispering, urgent, but couldn’t make out the words. Her phone blasted out with the chorus of Nirvana’s “Stay Away.”

“This house is mine!” Dobbs shouted, and her voice blew cold like the wind. “You’ll die here. You’ll all die here.”

When the walls bled, even the whites of the witch’s eyes went black.