By the time she got to the next century, she decided to make tea—a rarity for her—and take that and the book into bed with her.
Tucked up, fire simmering, she worked her way through to the Arthur Poole, from Liverpool, who’d made his home in Maine and founded the family business. An adventurous man, she thought as her eyes began to blur.
Making his way across the sea at the age of seventeen. Heading to a brave new world and leaving the one he knew behind. A shipbuilder by trade, after years of apprenticeship.
And by the age of twenty-four, he’d started his business, and had married a wealthy young heiress, one Leticia Armond, and begun building what would become Lost Bride Manor.
Love for Leticia, she wondered, or money?
They’d had twin sons followed by three daughters, and had been married for nearly twenty-five years before he died.
A fall from a horse.
So his son Collin inherited the manor. Continued his father’s expansion of the original structure while he and his brother ran the business.
A few months later, Collin Poole married Astrid Grandville.
And tragedy.
As she felt herself fading, Sonya closed the book, set it aside. She switched off the light and dropped instantly into sleep.
* * *
The clock chimed the hour of three, and the music, soft and sad, drifted into her dreams. She studied herself in the mirror, the young, happy bride in her long white dress. Music, quick and lively, echoed up from the main floor where her husband—ah, such a word, husband—hosted family and friends in celebration. Through the open window, the spring breeze came to flutter at the curtains.
On the other side of the mirror, Sonya smiled at her. You look beautiful, she thought.
The bride smiled in return.
“I will always be beautiful. Young and beautiful. A bride to my groom, a wife to my husband. A mistress of the manor. And I will always return to this day when I held true love and joy in one hand, despair and grief in the other.”
It happened so fast, the woman with the knife rushing in. On the other side of the mirror, Sonya shouted, but the sound couldn’t penetrate the glass. As the knife plunged, she pushed and beat on the mirror to try to get through somehow. But she could only watch in horror as the blood spread red over the long white gown.
As the young bride fell, and the woman cursed her. The murderer took the ring from the dying bride’s finger, put it on her own.
For a moment, an instant only, darkness flooded her, swept through the room.
And she was gone.
The bride, blood seeping through the fingers she pressed to her belly, staggered to her feet. Through the glass, her eyes met Sonya’s.
Again and again, over and over, year by year, and bride by bride. Find the seven rings. Break the curse.
Like the woman in black, she was gone. The music, the soft and sad, the lively and quick, went with her.
* * *
With the dream having faded, Sonya woke just after first light to the sound of the snowblower. Remembering her duty, she went down to make coffee and took some out to John Dee.
A bear of a man with a brown beard and eyes to match, he grinned at her.
“Get ya up?”
“I’m a working girl. I need to start my day, too. That’s a seriously blue sky.”
“Yep. Should have a stretch of clear days coming. Only got about six inches with this last one.”
They stood, drinking coffee, him in his bulky navy coveralls, her in a coat tossed over her pajamas.
“Heard you ventured into the village.”
She had to laugh. “Is that news?”
“Most everything is in Poole’s Bay. That was my brother’s wife sold you a scarf. Friend of my mother’s daughter’s who makes them.”
“It’s wonderful work.”
“You oughta be wearing it. It’s a cold one.” He polished off his coffee, handed her the mug. “Appreciate it. How about I stack some more wood by the back door for you? You’re going through it.”
“Oh, that would be great. Thanks.”
“Happy to. I’ve gotta get back to it.” He winked at her. “I’m a working boy.”
“Here’s to the workers of Maine.”
She’d unlocked the door, and put the keys in her pocket as backup. As the snowblower started up again, the door opened smoothly.
“Okay then.”
A working girl did best with routine, she decided. Hers began with a quick breakfast, a check of emails and texts. Yesterday’s inquiry moved to a consult. Fingers crossed, she scheduled one for late morning.
A shower, sweats, her water bottle.
She refused to think about the neatly made bed as she dressed.
Not today; today she’d focus.
She took the Poole family book into the library to set on the coffee table before she started the fire.
The rack by the hearth was full. As John Dee said, she’d gone through it, so it shouldn’t be. The logs in the hearth, neatly laid, waited only for a match.
Maybe she’d look up what supplements or herbs—something—helped with memory.
But she wouldn’t think about it. Not today.
Not even when her iPad pumped out the Beatles’ “Good Morning Good Morning.”
She sat down, began refining Anna’s website design.
She broke for the consult, and did a shoulder wiggle, chair bounce as they moved from consult to contract.
Just after noon, Anna sent the final photo and—bonus—a sixty-eight-second video.
Anna at the wheel—and looking good—holding some sort of thin blade to the turning clay, and explaining she’d have a new piece, inspired by the last snowfall, on her website in a few days.
Smart, Sonya decided.
She added it to the inactive website, tested it.
When she broke again, she geared up and took a walk, this time venturing down to the seawall under those clear blue skies.
With the PB&J she’d made—always hit the spot—she sat on the stones and watched a couple of boats glide along. Fishing boats, she thought, doing their cold, hard work.
She nearly dropped the sandwich as, far out, the sea parted and a whale rose up, its massive body spearing toward the sky. Water spewed up, streamed down as it sounded, as he gleamed with it in the strong sun.
When he dived again, the sea rippled and rippled. And stilled.
“I saw a whale. I’m just sitting here eating a PB&J, and I saw a whale.”
Then she cursed herself for not grabbing her phone and getting a picture.
“Next time.”
She slipped a hand into her pocket, closed it around her phone in case it happened again. She waited until she had to admit it was just too cold to sit on a rock wall hoping to see another whale.
She didn’t see the shadow at the window again, and the door didn’t give her any trouble.
“Progress. Settling in.” She studied the portrait as she took off her boots.
“I read about you last night. About you and your Collin, and the crazy bitch who stabbed you. Hester Dobbs. Killed him, too, when you think about it, since he hanged himself, apparently because he couldn’t live without you.”
As she went to hang up her coat, Taylor Swift’s “Lover” played in the library.
“I’m getting used to that.”
She spent the rest of the day on Anna’s project, shifted briefly to start on a mood board for the next client.