Page 67 of This Haunted Heart

I put my back to the house and squatted down, leaning against the gray stone. I patted my knee. “I’ll give you a boost. Then you can have a quick look inside.”

It took a moment for my plan to register with her. It was still early. We didn’t usually rise at this hour, and neither of us liked to do much of anything before we had our coffee.

“All right.” She smirked at me, then she placed a damp foot on my bent knee and began to climb. I helped her, holding her hand, then steadying her waist, then her thighs as she stepped onto my shoulder and hoisted herself higher.

“I can see in!” she exclaimed. “It’s . . . it’s just a parlor. And not a particularly exciting one,” she said, sounding deflated.

“Well, yes.” I held as still as I could so I didn’t topple her. “What were you expecting?

“I don’t even know.” Rynn peered down at me. “What sort of ghosts get themselves trapped inside a boring parlor?”

I grunted as she shifted her weight. Carefully, she climbed down the way she’d come. I waited until she had both feet back on solid ground before I answered her.

“The sort that refuses to believe they’re dead, that’s who. The troublesome kind. They’re ill-tempered and easily confused. They’re trapped in there because theybelievethey can’t get out. Eventually, they come to accept their lot and walk out through the walls, and I don’t see them again. More come. Iorder them inside and start the process over.”

“They listen to you?”

“They do. I think they’re so surprised someone is finally speaking to them that they do what I say. But if they don’t, touching them gives them a jolt.”

“They aren’t thwarted by your locks at all, then. Not really,” she surmised.

“Those are to keep out the curious living. Like you.” I leaned my weight against the wall. “Spirits are drawn in by fear and wrath like iron to a lodestone. You remember what Gertrude did. Given the chance, those spirits might try to do worse.”

Above us, the windows fogged, like the glass had been bathed in hot breath. Ghostly fingerprints streaked through the condensation. Rynn shivered at the sight.

Eager to be off, she slipped her hand back in mine and walked me to the weeping willow tree to check on our offering for the weaver women. I lifted the drooping branches so she could slip under them. Bending low, she removed the wicker lid from the basket.

It was full of cream-colored goose eggs. A gift from the witches. Rynn let out a cheer, and her infectious excitement warmed my haunted heart.

Chapter 17

Lochlan Finley

The next evening, a great crash of wood resounded from down below, and I abandoned my business correspondence in the office to go and inspect the cause of the commotion. I sensed that the cause had a name and that the name was Rynn.

I climbed down the main staircase, and a chuckle rumbled out of me as I reached the bottom, entering the foyer. Rynn had given up on trying to pick the lock to the central room. She’d removed the hinges instead, and the heavy doors had fallen inward, revealing the great library.

The space had once been a ballroom. A grand piano still sat in the western corner where the floor was marble tile and the wall was one large gilt-framed mirror, but now the back walls were floor-to-ceiling shelves of books. Wheeled ladders werebuilt out from the shelves to roll across gleaming hardwood floors. Plush furniture was situated along massive windows in the east to catch the morning sunlight.

Rynn stood beside a carved writing desk, holding a cold lantern in her hands. Her floral tea gown was so long it draped the floor behind her. She craned her neck, taking in the great room. The domed ceiling was painted to resemble a night sky and included all her favorite constellations, like Cassiopeia and Orion. The central window was a stained-glass image of her favorite fairytale: Hansel and Gretel after they bested the wicked witch. Everything smelled like lacquer and that brilliant book smell. The curtains were a color of violet she loved. There was no denying that this room had been built for one singular purpose.

“There was never another woman,” she said, awe in her hushed voice. Quietly, she set the lantern down on the desktop as though it had gotten too heavy for her to hold aloft.

“There never was,” I said, stepping fully into the library around the fallen doors. “What a silly notion. Me in love with anyone but you . . . What do you think of your library?”

“It’s exactly like what we used to talk about. Every. Single. Detail. It’s like you reached into my brain and pulled this brilliant room out of it. I’m astonished, Loch.” She turned to face me, brow furrowed. But why’d you tell me your lover had died?”

“Because I thought you had,” I said sadly, still struck by grief at the thought, even though she was right here with me alive and well. “All I knew from that night was that you’d stolen from the safe and fled into the woods. Father gave chase. Then he came back. You didn’t. Younevercame back.”

“You thought . . .” Horror rounded her eyes.

“I thought he murdered you, Rynn. Everyone did. He didn’t even deny it when I confronted him later, demanding to know what he’d done with you. He was such a proud man, he’d rather people believed he killed you then think some young kitchen maid had bested him at anything.”

She grabbed at the fabric of her floral tea gown, just above her heart, then she cast a glance around the room I had crafted with such intricate care to be a beacon for her lost spirit. “Oh, Loch . . .” she murmured.

“I built all of it for you. Nightingale House is yours,” I confessed.

She squinted at me like she was struggling to make sense of my words. “Because you thought I was dead?”

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