“You buried the tree?”
Margaret hummed in assent. “We burned the wood in the fireplace and scraped out the ashes. The tree’s ashes deserved to be back in the ground.”
“So, you gave it a funeral?”
“Exactly.” Margaret smiled. “Every living thing deserves to be celebrated.”
“And if we didn’t, there was a chance the other trees would fall to the same illness,” Abigail added.
If anyone else had made that claim, I would have assumed it had something to do with the disease and the proximity to the other trees—something scientific. But with the Wilds, I suspected the women were worried about a curse from a vengeful tree spirit.
“I’m sorry, but I have to ask—”
“Ask us anything.” Margaret smiled.
I dropped several more apples into my bag and then let it slide from my shoulder to the ground. My arms ached from the work. Unlike Margaret and Abigail, I wasn’t accustomed to physical labor. I rolled my shoulder and took a deep breath. “You said people can carry spirits with them…so, I wonder whether…well, if you’ve noticed any spirits attached to me?”
Margaret set her apple bag on the ground. Her cheeks and nose were red from the cold, and she rubbed her hands together to spread some warmth in them. “Are you worried about that, Alice? Because if so, I can tell you there is nothing malicious around you at all. If there had been, we wouldn’t have let you into the house.”
“Or onto the property,” Abigail said over her shoulder, still picking up fallen apples. “We don’t allow evil spirits into our home if we can stop them.”
“I’m not afraid. Only curious.” The breeze picked up and a chill slid down my spine, spreading goosebumps across my arms. “I’ve…experienced death before. I just wonder—”
“Catherine told us about your brother.”
I snapped my attention up to Margaret and frowned. “She did?”
The woman nodded. Her white hair blew freely in the wind, and she looked more like a spirit herself than a human being. True to their surname, there was something wild about the two sisters. Something untethered.
After the way Catherine had reacted to my offer of joining me to visit the women, I was surprised to learn she’d divulged anything personal to them at all.
“When she first came to visit, I told her I sensed a ghost following her,” Abigail said, walking over to stand behind her own sister, a bag of apples hanging from each elbow. “She seemed uncomfortable, and I’m afraid we may have frightened her with such talk.”
Last night I would have assured the women that wasn’t the case. But after the way Catherine became so upset this morning, I couldn’t be sure.
Once all of the apples were gathered, we took the bags inside and dropped them on the kitchen table. The same pot from the night before was boiling in the fireplace, and I was worried I’d have to try and stomach more of Margaret’s stew, but when I walked over to the fire to warm up, I could smell the sweetness. It was sugar syrup for the apples. One of the cooks we had growing up had let me help her preserve fruits once before. I couldn’t remember her name, but I remembered stealing bites of the fruit when the woman’s back was turned.
Abigail handed me a knife, handle first, and we all sat down at the table with a bag of apples on one side and a bowl on the other. We peeled, cored, and sliced the apples, being sure to save the scraps to be composted for the garden.
“You never actually answered my question,” I said after a particularly long stretch of silence.
“Huh?” Margaret asked, tongue between her teeth while she focused on peeling her apple in one cut. She and Abigail had been challenging each other to see who could have the longest unbroken stretch of peel. My attempts were laughable, but Abigail had nearly peeled an entire apple without lifting her knife once.
“Are there any spirits attached to me?”
Both women set down their apples immediately, their competition forgotten, and looked at me. Their attention made my neck tingle, and I lowered my knife, too.
“You aren’t as open to it as your sister,” Margaret said. “You are a charming young woman, but your energy is suspicious.”
“There is nothing wrong with that,” Abigail cut in.
“Especially since Abigail is the same way,” Margaret smiled, pointing a thumb towards her sister. “No, there is nothing wrong with being hesitant. It is wise. But it does not mean you are safe. There are shadows around you. Vague and hazy, but present.”
I looked around my head, feeling foolish. “Do you mean actual shadows?”
“No, but wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy?” Margaret laughed.
“It just means you have been touched by death.” Abigail pressed a finger to her chest, just above her heart. “Here.”
Before I could get a grip on my emotions, moisture sprang to my eyes. Immediately, I blinked away the tears and went back to peeling my apples. A few moments later, the Wilds did the same.
Once I had my emotions under control, I asked the other question that had been weighing heavily on my mind. “You two knew Nurse Gray before she came to work for my sister and brother-in-law, correct?”
“Right,” Margaret said, laying down her stretch of peel next to Abigail’s and wrinkling her nose in disappointment when it was a few finger widths short. “It was many years ago when she was still only a midwife.”
I frowned, and Margaret understood my confusion before I could even voice the question. “Neither of us have children, but our sister did.”
“There were
