“She had a key,” said Fiona. She reached forward, trying the doorknob, but it was locked. “We’ll have to climb over the wall.”
Volunteering to go first, she climbed into Alan’s open palms and he hoisted her up over his shoulders. She gripped the vines near the top of the wall for balance and then hooked her feet into the gnarled vines below. With a grunt, she cleared the top of the wall, taking in the view of marble angels weeping in the moonlight.
Bracing herself, she dropped into the cemetery, landing hard on both feet. Byron weaved around the statues. She stepped away from the wall as she heard Mariana hoist herself over. The weeds flattened near the wall as her friend landed with a thud.
“Are you clear?” Alan asked from atop the wall. She was grateful at this moment that he spent enough time working out to pull himself up with ease.
“It’s clear,” said Mariana.
The ground thumped as Alan landed. Fiona reached out to touch her friends just to be sure they were there. An overgrown path led to the crypt through crooked marble statues. The crypt’s entrance was a peaked arch flanked on either side by pointed towers.
“Oooh,” said Mariana as they stole toward it. “Now this is a place I’d love to photograph.”
Fiona could hear her friends’ quiet breaths as they walked through the rows of grave markers. Thorny brambles enshrouded the feet of the vacant-eyed angels. A breeze ruffled the tall grasses that grew from the graves and rippled over Fiona’s skin like ghostly fingers. She eyed a winged marble angel who tore her hair in grief. Glancing at the hollow eyes, goose bumps rose on her skin.
Though she could feel the warmth of her friends’ arms near hers, she wished she could actually see them. As it was, it looked to her as though she were alone in the cemetery, and she had the unsettling feeling that she was approaching her own resting place.
Closer to the crypt, she could see writing on the top of the entrance. Something glimmered over the arch—blood red gems in the Ranulf family crest. Etched words spanned either side. As she approached, she could see it was Latin: Quod tu es, ego fui it said on one side, and Quod nunc sum, et tu eris on the other. She shuddered as she translated the words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Fiona
“What you are now, I was,” she whispered as they stopped in front of the crypt entrance. “What I am now, you will be.”
“Dead,” Mariana muttered.
“That’s always fun to think about,” muttered Alan. “What do we need to accomplish here before we can back across the fields and inside the house?”
Behind the iron gate, the marble angels reflected on the glass surface.
“Mrs. Ranulf unlocked this door,” said Fiona, stepping closer to the glass. The wind whistled over the stone cemetery walls. She tried to peer inside the glass, but in the moonlight she could see only her own reflection, and the wild brown hair curling around her face.
Her heart began to race, and she had a sudden desire to get as far away from this dead-eyed garden as she could. But she forced herself to lean in further. “Hello?” Her mouth went dry as Mariana’s grip tightened on her arm, but she could see only her own reflection and the lamenting statues behind her.
“I think we should go back now,” whispered Mariana.
Fiona had hoped to come back with something concrete—something that would force Tobias to tell her what was going on. She pressed her face between the iron bars, closer to the glass. Something scraped against the floor on the other side of the glass, and Fiona shivered. “I hear something. But all I can see is my enormous hair.”
Byron flapped around her head urgently. Mariana pulled on her arm, but she inched closer to the glass. It must have been a trick of the light, because her eyes looked enormous—black and cavernous below her furrowed brows, and her skin was pale as bone. The curls around her head seemed to writhe like snakes. Shivering, she edged back—but the reflection lurched toward her. A horrible thought sent ice racing up her spine. She was invisible. I shouldn’t have a reflection. Transfixed, she could see sunken eyes full of fury, a tear of blood rolling down a hollow cheek to an open mouth, contorted in rage. A pale hand pressed against the glass, and a broken chain hung from an emaciated wrist.
She couldn’t breathe. “Guys.” She stumbled back. “It’s not me.”
“What?” shouted Mariana. “Oh God.”
Thunk. On the other side of the door, the grotesque reflection banged against the glass, leaving a drop of blood where the forehead hit. A deep, guttural wail rumbled through the cemetery. Am I screaming, or is that the monster?
A long hand smashed through the glass, chains rattling. Yellow-clawed fingers wrapped around Fiona’s wrist, a thumbnail spearing her skin, drawing a fat drop of blood. Fiona stared at it and screamed.