“I think it is admirable,” Charles said. “Living from the land is a lost art.”
I wasn’t the only one who raised an eyebrow at my brother-in-law. As a recent transplant to the country life, he still looked much more suited to the fast-paced life of the city than one of working the land. Though he may have genuinely admired the Wilds—I suspected he didn’t admire them as much as he claimed—I could not imagine Charles Cresswell fending for himself.
“You don’t go into town for any supplies?” I asked.
Abigail shook her head, her jaw set. “Rarely. Between the vegetable garden and our foraging, we have everything we need.”
“We also have several people kind enough to give us discarded items that we can repurpose,” Margaret explained. “Charles and Catherine are two such people.”
“Our house was full of the previous owner’s belongings,” Charles explained. “It was nothing to give them to you for whatever you may need. Truly, it was a favor to us. You saved me having to dispose of them myself.”
“No, it was very kind,” Margaret insisted. “After waiting a few days so we could perform a cleansing ceremony under the full moon, we’ve used the tea cups every day since.”
Margaret lifted her teacup into the air to show it off, but I couldn’t pay any attention to the painted flowers around the rim of the cup. My mind had caught on another detail.
“Cleansing ceremony?” I asked, looking from the Wilds to Charles.
Charles pressed his lips together, his nostrils flaring in barely disguised frustration. Otherwise, he didn’t move.
Margaret and Abigail, however, moved in closer. Each of the sisters sat up in their chairs and leaned in.
Margaret said, “The previous owner died in the house, so the items had to be cleansed. We have enough ghosts of our own without bringing in another.”
Abigail nodded, clearly in agreement with her sister’s every word.
“You believe in ghosts?” There didn’t seem to be any way to ask the question without it sounding insulting, but it had to be asked. I needed a definitive answer.
Margaret set her cup down on the saucer and looked me in the eyes. “Absolutely, don’t you?”
At that, I turned to Charles. He was sitting perfectly still, refusing to look towards me and meet my gaze, and I knew why.
His wife was currently locked away in her room at their house because she thought she’d seen a ghost. She was being forced to sleep multiple times a day and secluded because she believed she’d been attacked. All the while, he was visiting his eccentric neighbors for dinner who, it so happened, also believed in ghosts.
The irony could not be downplayed, and I felt my face growing hot with anger.
Whether Catherine truly was insane or not no longer mattered because, worse than being insane, Charles Cresswell was a hypocrite.
The stew began to bubble in earnest, and Margaret left to tend to it. Abigail went to slice more bread, grunting as her knife slowly worked through the loaf.
Charles and I were momentarily alone.
“They believe in ghosts,” I whispered.
“It isn’t the same thing, Alice,” Charles hissed back. “They are old superstitious women. They live on the moors alone and have survived this way for decades. You and I both know Catherine is not like them.”
“So you think they are mad, too?” I asked, shifting towards him, eyes narrowed. “If so, I’m not sure why we are here. Catherine has been deemed too dangerous to even be near her child.”
His cheeks went red. “No one has said that. Catherine can see Hazel whenever she wishes.”
“Whenever your sister allows it.”
Finally, Charles looked at me, and I flinched away from the anger in his eyes. “Do not judge me, Alice. You’ve only been here one day. You don’t know what it has been like. I allowed Catherine to invite you here because I thought you would help, but if you make things worse for Catherine and upset her, I’ll happily take you back to the train station and send you home.”
“You allowed Catherine to invite me here?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Did Catherine allow you to invite Camellia or did you make that decision yourself?”
“You don’t understand that situation, either.”
Abigail shifted slightly and looked back at us over her shoulder. Charles smiled at her, though it was obviously forced, and then leaned in closer to me, his voice low. “We can talk about this another time.”
“We will,” I assured him.
Dinner was so much worse than I expected.
I’d eaten rabbit meat plenty of times before, but I didn’t recognize the meat in Margaret’s stew as belonging to a rabbit. Or any other earthly creature, for that matter.
Biting into it felt like taking a bite out of a brick, and swallowing it was even worse. The meat was so dry it leeched moisture from my throat. I became so desperate for liquid that I took a sip of the tea Camellia had warned me against just to try and force the meat down my throat.
Unfortunately, her warnings were not for nothing.
The sludge inside of my teacup could barely be called tea. On first look, it sloshed around the cup like liquid, but once I tipped it into my mouth, the sediment at the bottom of the cup revealed itself and a thick brown slime dripped down my throat. I had to disguise my gag as a cough.
Despite our earlier argument, Charles reached over and patted me on the back.
“Are you all right, Miss Beckingham?” Margaret asked.
“Eating too quickly,” I choked out. “The stew is wonderful.”
Margaret smiled in a self-satisfied way, and I knew without a doubt that she believed my compliment to be sincere. If believing ghosts could haunt teacups was not a sign of insanity, then believing this stew to not only be edible, but delicious, certainly was.
I forced down a few spoonfuls of broth and a few cuts of crunchy carrot before I sat away from the table,
