By Nora Roberts

Homeport

The Reef

River’s End

Carolina Moon

The Villa

Midnight Bayou

Three Fates

Birthright

Northern Lights

Blue Smoke

Montana Sky

Angels Fall

High Noon

Divine Evil

Tribute

Sanctuary

Black Hills

The Search

Chasing Fire

The Witness

Whiskey Beach

The Collector

The Liar

The Obsession

Come Sundown

Shelter in Place

Under Currents

Hideaway

Legacy

Nightwork

Identity

Mind Games

The Born In Trilogy:

Born in Fire

Born in Ice

Born in Shame

The Bride Quartet:

Vision in White

A Bed of Roses

Savour the Moment

Happy Ever After

The Key Trilogy:

Key of Light

Key of Knowledge

Key of Valour

The Irish Trilogy:

Jewels of the Sun

Tears of the Moon

Heart of the Sea

Three Sisters Island Trilogy:

Dance upon the Air

Heaven and Earth

Face the Fire

The Sign of Seven Trilogy:

Blood Brothers

The Hollow

The Pagan Stone

Chesapeake Bay Quartet:

Sea Swept

Rising Tides

Inner Harbour

Chesapeake Blue

In the Garden Trilogy:

Blue Dahlia

Black Rose

Red Lily

The Circle Trilogy:

Morrigan’s Cross

Dance of the Gods

Valley of Silence

The Dream Trilogy:

Daring to Dream

Holding the Dream

Finding the Dream

The Inn Boonsboro Trilogy:

The Next Always

The Last Boyfriend

The Perfect Hope

The Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy:

Dark Witch

Shadow Spell

Blood Magick

The Guardians Trilogy:

Stars of Fortune

Bay of Sighs

Island of Glass

The Chronicles of the One Trilogy:

Year One

Of Blood and Bone

The Rise of Magicks

The Dragon Heart Legacy Trilogy:

The Awakening

The Becoming

The Choice

The Lost Bride Trilogy

Inheritance

The Mirror

Many of Nora Roberts’ other titles are now available in ebook and she is also the author of the In Death series using the pseudonym J.D. Robb.

PIATKUS

First published in the US in 2024 by St Martin’s Press,

An imprint of St Martin’s Publishing Group

First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Piatkus

Copyright © 2024 by Nora Roberts

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-0-349-43752-1

Piatkus

An imprint of

Little, Brown Book Group

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

An Hachette UK Company

www.hachette.co.uk

www.littlebrown.co.uk

Contents

Part One: Witness

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Part Two: Knowledge

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Part Three: The Living and the Dead

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

To family

Those of the blood, and those chosen

PART ONE

Witness

Can I get a witness?

—Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland

Prologue

The manor stood, as it had for generations, on the high, jagged cliffs above the thrash of the sea. Through the swelter of summers, against the bitter winds of winters, in blooming springs, and in dying autumns, it held its place on the rocky coast of Maine.

Within its stone and cladded walls, inside the gleam of its windows, it had seen births and deaths, it had known triumphs and tragedies. Both blood and tears had spilled on its polished floors; secrets and shadows lived in its many corners.

And it remembered them all.

From its turrets, its widow’s walk, from the seawall beyond its grand entrance doors, many eyes had looked down toward the village of Poole’s Bay.

Many eyes looked there still.

Since those grand doors opened in 1794, a Poole had walked those halls. A Poole had climbed the grand staircase, gazed from the many windows, dreamed their dreams. And some had lived their nightmares.

Some lived them still.

A murdered bride, the first of seven doomed, would—in all innocence—carry the curse that haunted the manor. Generation by generation, it passed its shadow to the next, and the next, through the rage of a jealous witch.

With those lost brides, others walked the labyrinth of rooms. Those who had lit the many fires, made the beds, cooked the meals continued their duties.

Others who had lifted a glass in toast, danced in the ballroom, or rocked a fretful baby in the night toasted and danced and rocked still.

In the many rooms, time came and went. Music played, clocks ticked, floors creaked as the manor waited for another generation.

As it waited for one who might break the curse.

More than two hundred years after Astrid Grandville Poole died in her wedding finery, more than two hundred years after her murderer cursed the manor and leaped off the cliffs to her own death, another with Poole blood walked through those grand entrance doors.

Those who’d come before her watched and waited as she made the manor her own. As she dreamed her dreams—or theirs.

As she walked the labyrinth where music played and clocks ticked and floors creaked. And to the mirror where time came and went.

Carved predators frame this mirror’s glass and seem to snap and snarl and slither. And its glass opens a door to what was for her, and another with Poole blood.

Hands clasped, they step through the door together.

And become the ghosts.

Chapter One

Music that had been dim and distant poured around her now. Colors and shapes that had been blurred and indistinct on the other side of the mirror sharpened.

Sonya gripped Owen’s hand—the hand of the cousin she hadn’t known existed only months before. That hand was warm, that hand was real.

Instead of furniture stored, with white sheets draping it, people swirled around them. Women with hair piled high, long dresses flowing, and men in sharp, dark suits danced, laughed, drank. The room—the ballroom—smelled of flowers. There were so many of them. And of perfume. An orchestra played something lively and quick.

She heard a woman laugh, high and bright, over the music. She saw a line of sweat slide down the temple of a man with slicked-back hair as he led his partner in the dance.

And she heard her own heart pounding louder than the drumbeat.

When her hand trembled, Owen tightened his grip. And he said, almost casually, “This is fucking weird.”

The bubble of hysteria in her throat came out in a breathless laugh. “I’ll say. I’ve done it before, gone through, but this is the first time I was awake when I did. I thought, before, I thought I’d dreamed it. But it’s not a dream.”

“Nope.” He scanned the room. “We know where we are. It’s the ballroom. Any idea when?”

“1916. I read Deuce’s Poole family history book and looked through the pictures enough times to know this is Lisbeth Poole’s wedding reception.”

A man, obviously enjoying his gin, stumbled right through her. “Oh my God.”

“That’s beyond weird.” Frowning, Owen turned to her, studied her with eyes a slightly lighter shade of Poole green than her own. “Okay?”

She managed a nod. “We’re the ones out of place or time or whatever the hell. They don’t see us, or feel us. Or most don’t. She’s not here.”

“Who?”

“Hester Dobbs. Murdering witch. She’s not here, not yet. This isn’t her time either.”

“Seeing as she’d be dead over a hundred years.”

“Maybe we can stop her. It’s not a damn dream, so maybe we’re here to stop her. Thirteen spider bites, inside the wedding dress—that’s how Lisbeth dies today. If we can just—”

“What, strip her clothes off?”

“I don’t know. We have to try something. Where is she? Where the hell is Lissy?”

Owen pointed. “Other side of the ballroom? I’m taller, can see over more heads. I’ve seen pictures, too, and that looks like a wedding-type dress to me.”

He shifted Sonya to the left.

“Yes! Yes, that’s her.”

As she started forward, people danced through her. Some gave her a jolt, like a mild electric shock, others a chill that shot straight through her bones.

“It’s like walking through mud,” Owen muttered, and shoved a frustrated hand through his unruly brown hair. “Or fricking quicksand.”

“I know. I know. It happened like this before. I can’t see her anymore. It’s so crowded. Can you see her?”

“Just keep going. She’s moving to our right. She’s dancing. She’s—Shit!”

“What? What happened? I—” Now she saw, through a break in the dancers as they glided. The look of shock and pain on the young, sweet face.

And then the shriek.

“We’re too late, too late.” But she kept pushing forward. “If we can’t save her, we need to stop Dobbs from getting her wedding ring. She needs all seven rings. We need to get it first.”

As Lisbeth collapsed in her husband’s arms, Sonya felt the change in the air, the sudden brittle bitterness of it.

Hester Dobbs, her hard beauty glowing, her dark eyes sparking with venom, all but floated across the ballroom. Her waving fall of black hair seemed to stir in an unseen wind as she approached the dying bride.

Enraged, Sonya cried out, “Stop! You bitch. Leave her alone.”

Dobbs snapped her head around. For an instant, just an instant, Sonya saw surprise, and maybe a hint of fear ripple over the hard beauty of her face.

Then that unseen wind struck her, slamming into her like an icy fist. It broke her hold on Owen’s hand, sent her flying back, flying through people who rushed forward.

She landed hard enough to leave her dazed and dizzy. As she fought to draw in a breath, to push herself up, she watched a spider, wider than her palm, skittering across the floor toward her.

Real, she thought, it was somehow real, somehow now.

The room filled with screams, with weeping, with rushing feet as she tried to scramble up and away.

She saw its red eyes gleaming, and prepared for the first vicious bite.

An inch from her bare foot, Owen stomped on it. Her stomach rolled as she heard the ugly crunch.

“Up.” He hauled her to her feet. “Move!”

“Did you get it? Did you get the ring?”

“It’s gone, and so’s the bride. We’re not.”

He dragged her through the chaos, shoved her through the mirror. And leaped after her.

She tipped straight into Trey’s arms. And he wrapped them tight as the three dogs swarmed them.

“I’ve got you. Jesus, you’re freezing.”

“It got so cold.” Now her teeth chattered with it.

“Are you hurt?” As he ran his hands over her, he looked at Owen. “Either of you hurt?”

“Sonya took a flight like you did outside the Gold Room.”

“I’m okay. It just rattled me.” Leaning into Trey, grateful for his warmth, she looked over at Cleo. “It was Lisbeth Poole. We couldn’t stop it.”

“Let’s get you downstairs.” Cleo stroked Sonya’s hair. “Let’s get you both downstairs.”

“I need a drink.” As he spoke, and his scrappy mutt, Jones, sniffed at it, Owen looked at the bottom of his shoe. “And a new pair of shoes.”

“What is that?” Cleo demanded.

“Evil spider guts.”

“Take them off! You can’t track evil spider guts through the house.”

“Yeah, that was my first thought.”

Cleopatra Fabares, Sonya’s best friend and housemate, took over.

“Trey, take Sonya downstairs. The kitchen. We all need a drink. You. Take those disgusting shoes off,” Cleo ordered Owen again. “Leave them right here until we get something to put them in.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“We’re right behind you. You can pour us both a whiskey. A double.”

As Owen bent to pull off his shoes, Cleo sucked in a breath that put him right back on alert.

“The mirror. It’s gone. It’s just gone.”

He turned. “Son of a bitch.”

“Get those damn shoes off,” she insisted. “And let’s get the hell downstairs. Then you and Sonya are going to start at the beginning, when the two of you just vanished inside that damn mirror.”

“Whiskey first.”

Though a MacTavish—emotionally if not by blood—Sonya wasn’t one for whiskey. Tonight, she’d make an exception. Still shaken, she let Trey lead her down from the ballroom, down hallways, through the house as he snapped on lights.

“I don’t remember anything before I was standing up there in front of that mirror.”

She pushed at her hair, wished for a tie to hold it back, then just let the weight of it fall again.

“I don’t remember getting out of bed, walking up there. And you were there.”

“Cleo called.”

“Cleo called,” she murmured.

Cleo, her closest friend for a decade. Cleo, who’d moved into the manor with her without hesitation even knowing it held a curse, ghosts, and a crazed dead witch.

Being Cleo, Sonya decided, those elements had served as some extra motivation rather than any sort of deterrent. But then Cleo’s Creole grandmother was a self-proclaimed witch—the good kind.

With the dogs, his Mookie and her Yoda, flanking them, Trey led her down to the main floor.

At the base of the stairs, she paused to look at the portrait of Astrid Grandville Poole. The first bride, so lovely, so tragic in her white dress.

“It started with her. Everything that’s happening now started with her, and on her wedding day in 1806. When Hester Dobbs murdered her and pulled the ring from her finger.

“It has to end with me. It has to.” She looked up at him, into those deep blue eyes she’d come to trust.

“You came. Cleo called, and you came. After three in the morning.”

“Of course I came.”

“But . . . you were with a client. The hospital.” It flooded back. “Oh, that poor woman. Her husband—ex-husband—attacked her. Her kids—”

“They’re okay.” He kept his voice soothing. She was still so pale. “They’re all going to be okay. Don’t worry.”

“You were worried. And so angry. I could hear it when you called to tell me.”

“Her mom and sister are with her now.” Trey turned her, steered her back toward the kitchen. “The police have him, and she’s with her family. The kids are with them.”

“And you’ll take care of the rest, because that’s what you do. Not just the lawyer business. Taking care’s what you do.” She tipped her head toward his shoulder as they walked. “I feel a little off.”

“Really? I can’t imagine why.”

He turned on the kitchen lights, noted the fire crackling in the kitchen hearth, another roaring in the huge dining room.

Bringing the light, bringing the warmth. He wasn’t the only one taking care.

Then he led Sonya to the table. “Sit. Do you want wine? Tea? Water?”

“Whiskey.” She blew out a breath.

He thought of Owen getting a bottle only a few hours before when he’d needed to vent out that worry and anger, and all the frustration that came with it, to a friend.

“It seems to be the night for it.”

With the worst of the cold fading as the fires snapped, she watched Trey get out biscuits for the hovering dogs, set out one for Owen’s dog, Jones, before he walked into the butler’s pantry, easy and confident in jeans and flannel shirt.

Like the first time she’d met him when he’d shown her through the manor, she mused with her head still swimming. The third-generation, long-limbed, lanky lawyer with his black hair, his deep blue eyes.

His seemingly infinite patience.

He knew the house as well as she did—better, she corrected. He’d roamed its rooms and hallways, welcomed from childhood on by the uncle she’d never known she’d had. Her father’s twin—the classic separated at birth.

But they’d met through that same mirror, hadn’t they? Those twins. As children, as men. Both artists, both so much alike in so many ways. Twin memory, Cleo called it.

One to become Andrew MacTavish of Boston, son of loving parents, husband of a loving wife, father of a loved and loving daughter. All of whom mourned and remembered him.

And one to grow up a Poole of Poole’s Bay, to inherit the thriving family business, to inherit and live in the manor, as the son of a woman who was really his aunt, and all at the cold-blooded whim of the matriarch, Patricia Poole.

Just thinking about all of it hurt her mind, her heart. She covered her face with her hands, breathing slow as she tried to steady herself.

As Trey came back with a bottle and glasses, the phone in his pocket played Grand Funk Railroad’s “Please Don’t Worry.”

On a half laugh, Sonya dropped her hands. “Clover never misses. Just a little musical pick-me-up from my nineteen-year-old ghost of a grandmother.”

Trey set down the bottle. “Did it work?”

“I guess it did.” When Yoda put his paws on her lap, she scratched his head. “And here’s more,” she said when the eye-patched Jones pranced into the room on his sturdy legs ahead of Cleo and Owen.

“We stopped by your room to get you a sweater in case you’re still cold.”

“Better now, but thanks.” She took the sweater, then Cleo’s hand. “Big thanks for looking out for me. For calling Trey and Owen.”

From Cleo’s phone, Dionne Warwick announced “That’s What Friends Are For.”

“True enough.” Cleo sat, looked at Owen. “Buy me a drink, sailor.”

He poured three generous fingers in each glass. “To being here,” Owen decided. “Right here, right now. That’s a damn good deal right now.”

“It is.” Sonya lifted her glass, took a gulp. Shuddered.

“All right. Okay. I know you want to know what happened, but can we start at the start? I don’t know how I ended up in the ballroom, but you were with me, Cleo. Did I wake you up?”

“No. But somebody did.” She took a long, slow sip, let it slide, let it settle. “I heard the clock at three, the piano, and someone crying, and someone who sounded like they were in pain. You know.”

She looked at the others, shoved at her curling cloud of hair. “The usual middle-of-the-night manor entertainment. I’m just going to roll over and go back to sleep, but . . . Somebody touched me. My shoulder,” she said, laying her own hand on it now. “And they said your name. ‘Sonya,’ just ‘Sonya,’ but there was an urgency in it.”

“My name?”

“That’s right. I turned on the light, and thought I’d probably dreamed it, but that urgency? It stuck, and I got up. I was going to check on you, but there you were, just coming out of your room. Sleepwalking, trance-walking, or whatever the hell it is. I ran back for my phone, and I called Trey as I followed you.”

She turned to Trey. “Owen told me you were at his place. He filled me in on your client, your friend who was hurt by her drunk bastard of an ex. I’m glad she’s going to be okay, her and her children.”

“I was pissed off. You were right about that,” Trey said to Sonya. “I went to get Mookie from Owen’s, and dumped on him. Crashed in his spare room.”

“A good thing you did,” Cleo continued. “You went up to the third floor, Sonya, and I could hear that weeping woman, so clear. You stopped outside that room—a nursery once, right? You opened the door, and I swear, Son, I could see and hear the chair rocking along with the sobbing, and you said . . . Something like how night after night, year after year, Carlotta grieves for her boy.”

“Hugh Poole’s second wife, about six years after Marianne died in childbirth—having twins, Owen and Jane. They had three more kids, Carlotta and Hugh. One died as an infant.” Sonya drank again, shuddered again. “It’s in the book.”

“I remember, too. I texted Trey so he’d know where we—you—were going, and I kept telling you I was there. I was afraid, I’m not ashamed to say, that you’d go down to the Gold Room, that bitch’s room. I could see a red light glowing around it, and smoke curling out. You looked right at the door, and I thought, well, Jesus, just don’t. You said she exists to feed, on fear and on grief. I should’ve turned the recorder on my phone to get it exact, but I didn’t think of it.”

“I wonder why?”

At Owen’s comment, Cleo managed a snicker. “You said more, about her drinking tears, night after night, year after year. Then, thank the goddess, you turned in the other direction.”

She held out her glass to Owen. “Hit me again.”

And she drank some more.

“Someone cried out in pain, in what had been the servants’ quarters. You went to a door, and I swear to you I could smell the sick, and the bed creaking like someone was in it, tossing and turning. You said, sad, so sad, you couldn’t help poor Molly O’Brian.”

“Molly,” Sonya murmured. The spirit who made the beds, lit the fires, tidied up.

“You said she came from Cobh and found a home here, how she loved to polish the wood, and you cried for her. You said you could only bear witness.

“When you turned, I thought: Shit, Gold Room. But you started toward the ballroom, so I let Trey know that. I turned lights on because it was so damn dark. Then you opened the ballroom doors, and I turned the lights on in there.

“And there was the mirror. It hadn’t been there. We’d all been up there not long ago, and it wasn’t there. But it was. It was so goddamn cold, and I could hear the pulsing from the Gold Room. Like the damn ‘Tell-Tale Heart.’ ”

Now Cleo shuddered, just a little, before she continued.

“The way you looked at the mirror, Son, I knew, I knew you saw something I didn’t. I couldn’t. Then, oh, such relief, I heard Yoda barking, then the other dogs. I heard them running, and I told you to wait. ‘Please, just wait.’ Trey and Owen rushed in, the dogs, too. And you woke up.”

“I don’t remember any of that. Or . . . some, like a dream that’s blurry and faded when you wake up. I heard you tell me to wait. I think. And the dogs barking. I felt half-in, half-out, I guess. Then I was awake and standing in front of the mirror.”

She shifted to Owen. “You saw what I saw in it.”

“Light, movement, color.”

“Trey and I didn’t. We’re not Pooles. It’s a portal,” Cleo said with absolute certainty. “But not for everyone. You said it was pulling you.”

“It was. There was music. I heard music.”

“Yeah,” Owen confirmed. “I didn’t feel that pull, but I saw something, heard something.”

“You didn’t feel it, but you went with me.”

This time Owen’s phone sang out with “We Are Family.”

“One weird trip,” Owen said, and poured himself another shot of whiskey. “Five minutes, ten tops, but memorable.”

“Closer to an hour,” Trey corrected. “Fifty-six minutes.”

“It couldn’t have been.” Shaking her head, Sonya looked at Owen for confirmation. “Just a few minutes.”

“That just says time’s different here than wherever you were. Where the hell were you?” Cleo demanded.

“Lisbeth Poole’s wedding reception. In the ballroom, in 1916,” Sonya said, and told them.

“She didn’t expect us.” Nudging her glass away, Sonya sat back. “When I called out, it threw her off. I . . . I don’t think she saw us, but she heard me. And I think it scared her, for a minute. Half a minute. But it didn’t stop her.”

“It was already too late.” Owen frowned into his glass. “No way to stop it, stop her.”

“I thought if I could get to the ring first. Take Lisbeth’s ring so Dobbs couldn’t. But—”

“You flew,” Owen said. “She didn’t aim at me, but dead on at you. Shot you back, ten, twelve feet, and right through people who were running forward.”

He picked up his glass a last time, drained the whiskey. “That’s something you don’t see every day. The spider was different.”

“The one whose guts are on your shoe?” Trey asked.

“That’s the one. Bigger than a wolf spider, but with black widow markings. People went right through it, as it went straight for Sonya. Fast fucker, too. I stomped its ugly ass, and we got the hell out of there.

“Lisbeth Poole was dead,” he said to Sonya, “as she’s always going to be dead on that night in 1916.”

“Then what’s the point of all this?” Sonya demanded, shoving impatiently at her long brown hair. “If it’s always going to be too late, if there’s no stopping her from killing them, what’s the point?”

Cleo’s phone played Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings.”

“It’s never been about saving those brides, those women, Son.” Cleo spoke gently. “It’s about finding their rings, the seven rings, and breaking the curse. Expelling Hester Dobbs from this house, and breaking her curse.”

“Dobbs has the damn rings.”

“We’ll figure it out.” Trey laid a hand over hers. “We’ll figure it out,” he repeated, “but we won’t figure it out tonight.”

“This morning,” Owen corrected. “I’ve got to be at work in . . .” He tapped his phone for the time. “Shit, about an hour and a half. And I need some damn shoes. I’m scrambling some eggs.” He pushed up. “Got bacon?”

“You’re scrambling eggs?”

“Cousin, if I’m awake to see the sunrise, I want breakfast. I’ll take care of the bacon.”

Trey gave Sonya’s hand another pat. “I’m going to let the dogs out for a bit.”

When he rose, Sonya shifted to look outside. Yes, morning was coming, and the night was dying away.

She had work of her own, and a life of her own. If the manor had given her a purpose beyond that, she’d do her best to fulfill it.

But morning was coming, and the day would follow.

She pushed away from the table to get started.

“I’ll make coffee.”

While the day bloomed, they sat and ate breakfast as they’d sat and shared whiskey and ghost stories.

After the dogs gobbled their own, Trey let them out again.

“I need you to drop me off,” Owen told him. “I’ve gotta clean up, get to work. Have you got a bag or box I can dump those shoes in?”

“I’ll take care of them,” Cleo said.

“By take care of, you mean—”

“Burn them.”

“Oh man.”

“Outside,” she added, “with a heavy dosing of salt.”

“Jesus.”

“That’s how it’s done,” Cleo countered. “It’s not like they were new. I could see that for myself.”

“They were really well broken in.”

She turned, patted his cheek, gave a couple days’ worth of stubble a rub. “I’m sure you have others. A successful businessman and craftsman such as yourself.”

“Is that a dig?”

She just smiled, sweetly. “You sacrificed your really well broken in shoes for my closest friend. No dig—this time. In fact, if I knew how to bake a pie, I’d bake you one.”

“You could learn. I like pie. Come on, Jones. Gotta move, Trey.”

“I’m with you. You’re okay, cutie.” Trey made it a statement as he took Sonya by the shoulders and kissed her.

His certainty served to boost her own.

“I’m okay. It’s my house. As long as that mirror’s in it, that’s mine, too.”

“Good. I owe you both dinner. I can pick you up at seven.”

“Come for dinner. You, too, Owen. I’m making pot roast.”

Trey blinked at her. “Really?”

“I did it once, I can do it again. I think.”

“I’m in.” Owen shoved his phone in his pocket.

Sonya stepped to him, rose up to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for the save.”

“I could say anytime, but . . . Hell, anytime.”

“Call if you need me,” Trey said. “Come on, Mooks.”

When they’d trailed out, Sonya turned to Cleo. “You were flirting with him.”

Cleo widened her tawny eyes. “With Trey?”

“Owen. You had your flirt on. I know your flirt.”

“He walked into that mirror with you—ahead of you, actually. He didn’t think twice about it, just did it. And he saved you from harm. He earned my flirt.”

“You’re really going to burn his shoes, aren’t you?”

“You’re damn right.”

Nodding, Sonya went in a cupboard for a garbage bag.

“Then let’s go get them, get it done. Then I want a really long, hot shower before I start the rest of my day.”

“There’s a plan.”

Chapter Two

Since Cleo volunteered to take the long list for the pot roast dinner and do the marketing, Sonya settled down at her desk in the library. She set down her water bottle, her tablet.

Over the past few months, she’d gotten into the habit of letting Clover, her house DJ, run the tunes. So without pulling up a playlist, she looked over at her mood boards.

Considering the early hour she’d eaten breakfast, she could afford to take a part of the morning to work on the Ryder Sports proposal.

She had time yet before she had to go to Boston and present it, and she thought she had a decent shot at the account. But her former bosses at By Design stood as formidable competition.

Matt and Laine had trained her well, and she’d worked hard for them for seven years. She knew how to put a major campaign together.

But she couldn’t ignore the fact that she’d formed her own graphic design company, Visual Art by Sonya, less than a year ago. As a freelancer, a one-woman operation, she’d generated jobs since, and done some damn good work.

But the multigenerational, well-established sports equipment company would be, by far, her biggest client.

And she couldn’t discount the point of pride when she knew she’d surely be in competition for that client with her ex-fiancé.

The cheating bastard.

Didn’t matter, she told herself. Brandon Wise didn’t matter.

All that mattered? The work.

She had a really good concept, and an excellent start.

“Time to push forward,” she said, and opened the file.

With Yoda curled under her desk, she put in a solid two hours before she heard Cleo come back.

“Quick break.” She saved the work and started down with Yoda following.

“Another two bags in the car,” Cleo called out.

“Did we need that much?”

“Well, I was there.”

Sonya ran out to fetch the bags, then stopped, breathed in air that tasted of spring.

She’d first come to the manor and the coast of Maine in the dead of winter. Now the air warmed, and daffodils bloomed. The big, bony weeper beside the house had fat buds, still closed and secret, on its branches.

Holding out her arms, she turned in a circle.

“This is my place now.”

The view of the sun streaming down on the water, hers. The sound of waves crashing against the rocks, hers. Flowers blooming or budding, hers, too.

And if the curse on it was hers, too, now? She’d deal with it, somehow, some way.

She grabbed the bags and sailed back into the house.

In the kitchen, Cleo put groceries away. “That’s a big slab of meat, Son.”

“I know. It’s scary, but I can do it. You bought an awful lot of apples. Are we getting a horse?”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet? But no. I’m making an apple pie.”

“You’re making an apple pie? From actual apples? Who are you, and what have you done with my Cleo?”

“I’m now Cleo, chief cook of the manor. Owen doesn’t think I can do it, and I thought, well, I’ll never know unless I try. So I called Mama, and she texted me her recipe while I was in the store. We had most everything except the apples anyway.”

After getting out a bowl, Cleo began to put the apples in it. “And if I screw it up, nobody knows but you and me. And a houseful of ghosts.”

“I’ll never tell.”

Sonya’s phone popped out with Maroon 5’s “Secret.”

“Good, that’s settled.” Cleo tucked the cloth grocery bags away. “What time do you need to get started on that big slab of meat?”

“I think about one, one-thirty. I’m going to work until one for sure, then get it on.”

“Then I’ll meet you here by one-thirty. I’m grabbing a Coke and heading up to my studio. Want a Coke?”

“Yeah, I could use the boost. Don’t go near the Gold Room, Cleo.”

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s mermaids for me today, not witches. And if the illustrations go well enough, I might work some on the painting.”

They started upstairs together.

At the library, Cleo tapped her Coke to Sonya’s. “Let’s go get our art on.”

Back at her desk Sonya put the Ryder proposal aside. While she didn’t consider it pie in the sky, she needed to get down to her bread and butter.

She worked on her newest job, a store down in Poole’s Bay.

Consistency, creativity, user-friendly, she thought as she disregarded Gigi’s current, clunky, and altogether boring website.

Fun should be the theme there, she decided. Fun, casual clothes, surprising and fun scents in soaps and lotions, candles and bath salts. Toss in some—again—fun accessories.

She started a new mood board, keeping the fun up front.

The place really needed a fresh new logo. Though that hadn’t been part of the package, she decided what the hell. She already saw it in her head.

The silhouette of a long-legged woman in heels, a short skirt, swinging a handbag, a scarf trailing behind. Just a hint of Paris, she thought as she worked. It fit with the name of the shop.

It said casual sophistication, female energy. And, of course, fun.

When her alarm beeped at one, she pulled herself out.

And as she began the process of saving her work, shutting down, for the first time she heard the bouncing of a ball in the foyer downstairs.

Jack, the little boy who hadn’t lived to see his tenth birthday, loved playing with Yoda. And the love was mutual.

Maybe it was odd how easily she accepted that, but she’d lived in Lost Bride Manor long enough to learn not just to accept, but to embrace.

Because she didn’t want to scare him—though how you scared a ghost was beyond her—she called out before she started down.

“I’m shutting down work for the day. I have work in the kitchen now.”

She saw no sign of Jack until she got to the kitchen and found all the cabinet doors open.

“I guess you weren’t finished playing with Yoda.” She closed doors as she spoke. “But I’m on a schedule.”

She got out the enormous heavy pot and Cleo’s big slab of meat.

“Not as scary this time,” she told herself. But she didn’t actually believe it.

She seasoned the roast, began to brown it in oil. While it browned, she started peeling carrots.

She had a browned slab of meat and a pile of carrots and had started on the potatoes when Cleo dashed in.

“Sorry! I got caught up.” Cleo grabbed an apron. “I started on a mer family. Cute little merbabies and toddlers. Then I thought: Where’s Nana and Paw? They should have grandparents. I’ll help you peel potatoes, and you can help me peel apples.”

Before getting another peeler, Cleo pinned her cloud of burnt-honey hair up.

“I forgot a tie. Let me have that one.” Sonya peeled the one off Cleo’s wrist, tied her hair back. “When we were in college, did you ever see us peeling potatoes together?”

“I have to say no. But I didn’t see myself peeling them with anybody.” Cleo’s eyes danced as she looked at Sonya. “Shame-the-devil truth? I kind of like it.”

Sonya studied the mound of peels. “I like when it’s all done, and doesn’t suck.”

“I kind of like the process, like art. The finish is what brings you pride, but you can’t have the pride without the process.”

“I’m working on the Gigi’s job. I’m liking that process. And I can admit this process isn’t as fraught as when I did it by myself the first time.”

“I hung with you on FaceTime.”

Sonya gave her a hip bump. “This is better. No regrets, right? About moving in?”

“Not a single one. I love it here. God, I love my studio. I’m going to love taking time to paint outside before much longer, and spending a Sunday afternoon sailing Poole’s Bay when Owen builds me my sweet little Sunfish.”

“I’d have stayed without you, because I knew this was my place, my home as soon as I saw it. But I wouldn’t have been half as happy.”

When they had all the vegetables prepped, Sonya heaved a breath. “Okay, here goes. You dump them in the oil and juices, with the herbs, stir them all around, let them cook awhile, brown a little maybe.”

“All right, you’ve got that. I’m going to start on the pie crust.”

“You’re actually making pie crust. With flour and—whatever else is in pie crust.”

“Process, Son, process. If you just do the inside part, it’s sort of a cheat. I just—What is that noise?”

Sonya kept stirring even though her heartbeat sped up. “It’s the dumbwaiter.”

“The . . . well, God.” Rubbing her hands on her apron, Cleo walked into the butler’s pantry, frowned at it. “I’m going to look. It better not be something awful or it’s going to piss me off.”

Sonya held her breath, and didn’t release it until she heard Cleo say, “Aww! Oh, it’s sweet. Look here, Son. It’s a pretty pie plate.”

She carried it in. “Bright red, all fluted, and with an apple on the white inside bottom. It’s perfect. I was just going to use this plain old glass one I found up here.”

“Molly. She sent me up a platter for the pot roast I made for the Doyles. Lissy’s platter. A wedding gift.”

Cleo set the pie plate down, hugged Sonya’s shoulders. “It’s hard, I know it’s hard, but Owen was right. We can’t change what happened to her. Well, to either Lisbeth Poole or Molly O’Brian. To any of them.”

“It’s terrible watching them die, Cleo. Worse somehow knowing it’s not just a dream, but that I’m somehow there and can’t do anything to stop it.”

“I know it. But, Sonya, you’re bearing witness. Just like you said outside Molly’s room. And I think it’s important. And I think there’s a reason Molly looks after us the way she does. Like sending me this dish, so I can make a pretty pie—hopefully. It matters to her. You matter.”

“They all matter to me now. I want to stop Dobbs. I want to make her pay for all the misery she caused. I want—”

Doors began to slam; windows flew open and closed.

“Oh, blow it out your ass,” Cleo shouted. “You blackhearted old bitch!”

Despite herself, Sonya let out a peal of laughter.

The iPad began to rock out, inviting them to celebrate good times.

“That’s right, that’s right, Clover.” Cleo waved her fists in the air, shook her hips. “We’re going to have a good time tonight.”

“Come on!” Sonya sang, and plopped the roast on the vegetables. She picked up the wine she’d already opened, and poured it over the meat. “A whole damn bottle.” She put the lid on the pot, then slid it into the oven, wagged a finger at Cleo. “Hours. No peeking.”

“This already smells amazing. And I’m making pie.”

“Show us how it’s done.”

It didn’t live up to the phrase easy as pie, but they agreed it looked pretty when, after the measuring and the rolling and patching and peeling and slicing and stirring, Cleo slid it into the second oven.

“Son of a bitch! They better appreciate every bite of that. That’s a ton of work.”

“Let’s take Yoda out, get some air.”

Sonya waited until they walked outside in air cool after the heat of the kitchen.

“She stopped banging and bitching when we made fun of her.”

“Yeah, I noticed.” Cleo sent a smug glance back at the manor. “She feeds off fear and grief. That’s what you said last night.”

“We can’t stop all of it, but we can fight back some with a few well-placed Blow it out your asses.”

“I’m all for that. And we’re going to throw that party, hold our Event in a few weeks. We need to start planning the details of that one.”

“We do. We will.”

“It’s going to piss her off, having the house full of people. Happy people.”

“It really is. We need to have your parents. I hope your grand-mère and my mom are up for that. And I should have my grandparents, all of them if they can make it. My aunt Summer and uncle Martin.”

“We’ve got plenty of room for them.” Cleo paused, looked back at the manor. “The house was meant for what we’re doing in it, Son.”

“And what’s that?”

“Living, working, planning. And in your case,” Cleo added, “having really good sex.”

“It is really good sex.”

“And as your friend, I applaud you. But she doesn’t want any of that. She only wants the grief and the fear.”

“We’re going to give her plenty she doesn’t want. And I’m going to find those rings, Cleo. I don’t know how, yet, but I’m going to find them. And meanwhile, we’re going to live and work and plan.”

She watched Yoda chase a squirrel.

“You’re going to get that slinky cat.”

“I am,” Cleo agreed. “I’m going to start that search real soon.”

“And tonight we’re going to serve a hell of a good meal, and we’re going to do it in that big-ass dining room.”

“That’s what I’m talking about! When that pie comes out, we’re going to get ourselves and that table looking extra.”

“You always look extra. I should hate that about you.”

“But you love me.”

“I really do. Let’s go check on your pie. And then I’m making beer bread.”

Cleo smiled. “You figure Molly’s cleaned up our cooking mess by now?”

Sonya didn’t bother to look ashamed. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Seems to me everybody’s getting what they want.”

They deserved a day like this, Sonya thought. A day to do good work, and to set that work aside early. A day to fiddle and fuss and spend time together.

With the scents of baking and cooking filling the kitchen—now spotless—they sat at the counter to work on the details of what they called An Event, scheduled, after some debate, for the second Saturday in June.

“The open house deal keeps it friendly, casual,” Sonya decided. “But I vote for formal invitations.”

“Make that unanimous. Adds elegance. An illustration of the manor.”

“You read my mind. I’ll go get a sketch pad.”

By the time the pie and bread sat cooling on a rack, and they’d risked one quick peek inside the pot, they had their template of the manor in spring, with the weeping tree blooming, flowers spreading lush.

Sonya MacTavish and Cleopatra Fabares

Invite you to The Manor for an evening of

Food, drink, and fellowship.

Saturday, June the eighth, at four p.m.

“I like it,” Cleo decided. “It’s simple and welcoming.”

“Not too simple?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Good. We need to include an RSVP.” Sonya began to fiddle with the wording there. “A please respond by, say, May twentieth, so we have an idea of the count. Trey’s mom will help us with names and addresses.”

“We can hit Bree up for help with a menu. Head chef of the Lobster Cage, that’s a solid connection.”

“And she likes us, so yeah. We tap her for help on lining up servers, a couple bartenders. We order food from restaurants in the village.”

“We’re going to have to drag tables and chairs out of storage,” Cleo pointed out. “Or rent them.”

“Add glassware, dishes, linens. You know, I’ve designed invites for countless events, done websites for caterers, restaurants, bars. But neither one of us have ever planned and executed something like this.”

“Scared?”

Sonya lifted her shoulders. “Little bit.”

“Me, too. It adds to the fun.”

“There are times your idea of fun and mine don’t approach intersection.”

When the tablet played the Beastie Boys, Sonya had to laugh.

“Okay, okay. We’ll fight for our right to party.”

“Which takes us to music. Do you think Trey and Owen can convince Rock Hard to play?”

“Won’t know till we ask. It goes on the task list.” Sonya noted it down. “Task for me: I’ll generate the invitations.”

“When you do, I’ll get them mailed. You get the list from Trey’s mom, and I’ll talk to Bree.”

“Good division of labor.” Sonya clinked her water glass to Cleo’s. “I know there are some folding tables in the basement. Not the scary basement where I’ll never set foot again. I vote we assign Trey and Owen to hauling them up so we can clean them.”

“Again, unanimous. Flowers. We’re probably going to have to plant some, Son, and that’s a learning curve for both of us. And we’ll want some on the tables outside, and inside.”

“So a trip to the nursery, and the florist. Both of us on those. I don’t worry about making it pretty. We’re good at that. I wanted to plant some flowers anyway. Like in the pots in the garden shed.”

“I want to plant some herbs.”

“You do?”

Cleo gave a decisive nod. “If I’m going to cook around here, I’m doing it right.”

“You’re in charge of those. Totally in charge.”

“I can handle it. Now, let’s go make ourselves pretty, and we’ll come back and do the same with the table.”

“What happened last night.” Sonya gathered the sketch pad, her notes, her tablet. “It’ll happen again. I know that, and so do you. But we’re here, making a meal—with a freaking pie—and we’re here, planning a party.”

“An Event,” Cleo corrected, and made Sonya smile as they walked from the kitchen.

“An Event. Sometimes my head says it’s all crazy. But I know it’s not. I know we’re doing exactly what we should do.”

“Live, work, plan,” Cleo repeated.

“All of that. Just like I know there’s so much more good in this house than bad. Some of the bad, it’s just what happens when people live and work and plan in a house for over two hundred years. The worst of the bad? That’s goes back to one . . . I won’t call her a person.”

“Entity.”

“Entity then. And even with that, with what happened to them, Clover plays music, Molly makes the beds, Jack plays with Yoda.”

They turned into the library, where Sonya put the notes and sketchbook on her desk. “And there’s more.”

“A lot more,” Cleo agreed. “I feel them all the time.”

“Why do they stay? The brides, and the ones who mourn them, maybe they stay because of the curse. But why do the others?”

“I don’t know.”

Sonya looked around the library, looked to the window where the African violet Cleo had given her years before bloomed.

“I think it’s because this is home. I think they stay for the same reason I do—and you do now. This is home.”

“I never thought of that,” Cleo said as they walked out and down the hall. “And it feels right. It’s a good house, Sonya, despite her. It’s a really good house.”

“It’s our house, and it’s their house. A year ago, I might’ve expected you to say something like that. But it’s a hell of a surprise that I can say it, and mean it.”

“And that’s why they’re with you, Son, because you say it, and you mean it. Now, go make yourself pretty.”

She could do that. Funny, she thought as she continued to her room, though she’d gotten about three hours’ sleep, she really wasn’t tired.

She wanted an evening, this evening, of—well—food, drink, and fellowship.

She walked through her sitting room to the bedroom. There, under the late afternoon sun, the sea spread outside her windows, the terrace doors.

And there, on the bed, lay a dress she’d bought with her aborted honeymoon in mind. A dress she hadn’t worn since trying it on.

Molly’s choice, she thought, and why not.

She held it up, turned to the mirror.

She didn’t wear pink often, but this color skewed more deep rose. A simple, sleeveless sheath she’d imagined wearing to a romantic dinner. As a bride.

“That would’ve been a mistake. But the dress isn’t. Okay, Molly, nice choice. Thank you.”

She took her time, and as she dealt with her hair, let out a sigh. Time, she determined, to bite the bullet and make an appointment with the local hairstylist. It had been way too long there.

And still many more weeks before she’d travel to Boston for the Ryder presentation.

Which still left time, if she hated what the new stylist did, to correct it.

“Nothing wrong with a little vanity,” she told herself as she zipped up the dress. “And appearances for that presentation matter.”

Clover agreed with “Looking Good.”

Amused, Sonya turned in the mirror. “Yeah, I know I look good. Let’s see if Cleo’s ready.”

Cleo had gone for lightning blue, a little shorter, a little flirtier, and was currently working her hair into a complicated braid.

Her eyes met Sonya’s in the mirror. “I remember when you bought that dress. I talked you into it.”

“I remember. Molly laid it out.”

“Mine, too. She’s got excellent taste. And considering we were both in watch-a-double-feature-and-go-to-bed clothes last night for our strange little party, it’s nice to put on a dress.”

“I’m making a hair appointment tomorrow. In the village.”

Cleo’s hands paused. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve gotta commit. And if they screw it up, I have time to fix it before the big presentation in Boston.”

“I see your point, but hair adultery’s a big step.”

Sonya nodded solemnly. “The long-distance relationship isn’t going to work out.”

“I’ll support you in your decision. I’m not sure I can be that brave with my multicultural do. Creole, Asian, a hint of Jamaica, a whiff of Brit? You’ve got white girl hair.”

“I do. I’m risking it. Ready?”

Yoda pranced down with them, then danced in front of the entrance doors.

“Time to go out? You come around back when you’re done.” She opened the door for him. “You’ve got company coming, too.”

“I thought I’d contact the one you got the adorable Yoda from. For that slinky cat.”

“Lucy Cabot. She’s great. Also works with a cat rescue. I’ll send you her info. She’d know.”

Sonya paused by what she knew Collin Poole had called the Quiet Place, where the old grandfather clock with its moon face stood silent. At three.

No matter where they put the hands, they always returned to three.

“I don’t remember hearing it chime three last night. But I must have. I don’t always, but I got up, made my way to the ballroom, so I must have. When I do hear it—when I’m aware I hear it—I don’t feel that pull.”

“If you ever do, you get me first.”

“Count on it. Have you thought any more about making an office? Separate from your studio?”

“Maybe. The studio makes me so damn happy, but it might be smart to have a separate space for business.”

“I like the idea of using more of the house. Really using it. That’s why—”

She broke off when they walked into the big kitchen.

The pie and bread sat on the cooling rack and the air smelled glorious.

And the platter sat on the island.

“Oh, isn’t that gorgeous. What a beautiful dish! It looks old and important.”

“It is,” Sonya murmured. “It’s Lisbeth’s. It’s the one I used before. A wedding gift.”

Lifting it, Sonya turned it over so Cleo could read the inscription on the back.

“She never got to use it, and that makes you sad. But, Sonya, I think using it—not just letting it sit somewhere in storage—it’s a way of remembering her.”

“I saw her, across the ballroom. Just for a minute. There were so many people. She was so young, Cleo, and she looked so happy. Honestly, she just glowed.”

She set the platter down.

“You’re right. It shouldn’t just sit in storage.”

They set the table, added candles, the good wineglasses. Since the April evening was cool enough, they lit the fires in the kitchen, in the dining room.

“How about some music to set the mood?” Cleo began.

Clover answered with “Tangled Up in You.”

“Maybe a little direct,” Cleo decided, “but I like it. Glass of wine, partner?”

“You pour. I need to take the pot roast out, make the gravy.”

“Grab an apron for that. I’m going to be watching how you do it.”

The minute Sonya took the pot out of the oven, lifted the lid, Yoda scrambled up to stand on his stubby back legs, wave his front paws.

“That’s a Jack trick, and yeah, you’ll get a taste test.”

“I want one myself.” Cleo poured the wine. “It just sits in there all damn day, then smells like that. I think the pie was harder.”

“You’re forgetting the mountain of peels that went into the composter.”

“Some of those were apple peels. Just look at that,” she added as Sonya set the roast in the center of the platter and began to surround it with vegetables. “I believe you’ve become a pot roast genius.”

“Let’s make sure.” Sonya sliced off a bit, divided it into three. She handed one to Cleo, tossed one to Yoda, then sampled herself. “I believe you’re right. I am, officially, a pot roast genius.”

“There may not be room for my pie after this.”

“They’re men.” Sonya put the platter in the warming oven. “They’ll have room for pie.”

Hip cocked, sipping wine, Cleo watched Sonya whisk up gravy.

“I am seriously impressed. Here, I’ll whisk awhile. Take a wine break.”

They switched positions.

Yoda scrambled up with a joyful bark to race toward the front of the house. The doorbell bonged, and Clover switched to the Black Eyed Peas singing about how tonight’s gonna be a good night.

“I agree.” Reaching over, Sonya turned down the heat. “Let’s let them in and get it started.”