I shrug. “Sure. I don’t think I could sit still, anyway. Too much nervous energy.”
“Perfect,” he says, jutting out his arm. “Our exploration awaits.”
Laughing, I loop my arm through his and follow his lead.
The past few months have been a blur of epic proportions. I barely remember my own name, let alone all of the events that have happened since I found out my dad was dead and haunting the manor as a Lemure.
I vaguely remember asking Wade to move in with me so I didn’t have to be alone. To this day, I still don’t know if he’s technically all in, or if his apartment is still his.
All I know is, he’s here and it’s where I want him to be. We’re safer together.
“What about that corridor?” Wade asks, pointing to the wing that goes past the kitchen and heads toward the pond.
“Sure,” I say, shrugging. In all honesty, it makes no difference to me. They’re almost all the same, anyway. Strange bedroom-like rooms with old furniture from times gone by. Most of it smells like mothballs and dust.
The exceptions, of course, are the rooms like the art room upstairs I discovered last year or the study.
“What is it you hope to find?” I ask as we start walking down the dim corridor. The old electric sconces are lit, but the wattage on the bulbs is so low you practically need a flashlight to walk down them anyway.
Wade shrugs. “Nothing, really. It just gives us something to do other than sit in the bedroom or on the couch.”
“True,” I say, nodding.
The house is beautiful, and seeing some of the other rooms has opened my perceptions to its true size. It’s almost like a map that’s colored itself in further, inviting you into places you never knew existed.
The first few rooms are pretty standard. Dark, gothic wallpaper with gold embellishments. Plenty of furniture draped with white sheets.
“Your family sure did like having lots of rooms. Do you think they were ever all in use?” Wade asks as we close the fifth door behind us.
I shrug. “I’m not sure. I never really…”
Wade squeezes my hand. He already knows why.
“Well, I think it’s pretty amazing. And to think… all of this is going to be yours. No worrying about housing or money, really. It must be a relief,” he whispers.
I blink back my surprise and stop walking. “You know, I never even thought about that.”
“Really?” he says, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah. I guess I’ve been so consumed by everything that I haven’t given much thought to the house or whatever…”
“Not even when the lawyer called?” he chuckles. “Wow, trauma brain really has hit you hard.”
“I guess it has.”
“This whole house, the history that comes with it. Plus, you have your own family ghost…” he says, nudging me with his shoulder. “I wish I had something left of my family. Something…enduring.”
I turn to him, my eyebrows tipping up in the middle. “Oh, Wade. I’m sorry.”
He brushes his hand in the air. “Hey, no… It’s no big. It’s the way it’s been my whole life.”
“No, it’s not. You always had one thing to carry with you,” I say, reaching out and touching the spot on his chest where the mark now resides.
He presses his palm to my hand, pulling me in close. “Yeah, well. Now I start a new family tradition. I can be the one who leaves a new legacy for them.”
A smile spreads across my lips, but it quickly dies back. “If we live long enough to start new legacies. If the Fates…”
Wade presses a fingertip to my lips, cutting off my words. He shakes his head. “Thou shall not speak of them in this holy place,” he says, mimicking Abigail’s accent.
“Yeah, well, speak or not…they’ll find their way in. We’re not clear of them. Especially after the mall,” I say, reaching out to turn the handle of another door midway down the hall.
“I know. But until we have a concrete plan, we can’t let that hang over our heads. We’ll kill ourselves with worry,” he says.
As I fling the door back, I pull up short at the surprisingly sparse setting. The decor on the walls is mostly the same—wallpaper and gold embellishments. But it’s the single white cloth draped over a piece of furniture that pulls me up short.
“What do you think it is?” Wade asks, eyeing me mischievously.
“I have no idea,” I mutter, trying to make sense out of the shape.
“Then let’s take guesses. Hmmm…” he says, scratching at his chin. “I think it’s an old workout room—that’s why there’s nothing else in here.”
“Okay, so what’s your guess,” I chuckle.
“A bit obvious, really. It’s an old-fashioned stationary bike,” he declares.
I stare at it, surprised by how accurate a possibility his guess is.
“How am I going to compete with that?” I say, thrusting my arm out and pointing my upturned palm at the item.
“Just make a guess,” he laughs.
I lower my eyebrows and cast him a sideways look. Stepping farther in the room, I edge a little to the left to get a different vantage point.
“I think you were close, but no cigar. It’s clearly one of those old circus bikes with one wheel that’s bigger and one that’s smaller,” I say, holding my chin up high.
Wade shakes his head, chuckling under his breath as he walks forward. “All right… and the winner is…” In one fell swoop, he lifts the sheet. Dust flies into the air in a great plume, and we both take a step back, coughing.
There, underneath the sheet, is an old-fashioned spindle.
“Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. My girlfriend is actually…Sleeping Beauty,” Wade says, laughing as he turns to me.
But for me, it’s no laughing matter at all. I remember what we learned about the Moirai.
Is this another one of their warnings?
Chapter 4
Pomp and Circumstance
Anxiety wells up inside me, making my
