Without, the morning was sodden and cool. The rain had already dwindled to a faint mist that swirled anywhere and everywhere. Desdemona’s dress grew heavy and cold as fresh laundry. She called Celeste’s name. Moving ‘round to the rear of the house, Desdemona scanned the property in search of her sister. The sight of the empty pool caused her heart to plummet. Visions of Celeste charging blindly into the yard, her attention fixated solely on Mother’s card in her hand, caused Desdemona to shudder. How easily she could have stumbled over the edge and landed headfirst in the concrete pit.

Her steps were sluggish with apprehension. She moved across the wet flagstones and, breath held, peeked over the rim of the pool.

The base of the pit was empty, but for shallow puddles of rainwater the colour of brandy, and mounds of last autumn’s foliage.

A leftward glance proved the tennis court to be vacant. Had Celeste gone down to the lake? Desdemona called her sister’s name again as she ran to the shore. It was all so dramatic, she thought; the roiling surf, her frantic cries, her flight from the great mansion on the hill…

Celeste was not among the stones and tide, which left only one place where she could be, the last place, the most obvious of places; her favourite.

Desdemona began the march to the family vault. It stood on the far side of the great gardens, in a shaded glen at the very edge of their property. Not once had she ever seen the vault free of shadows, and because of this, the atmosphere that surrounded the vault was perennially cool. The groundskeepers were lax in clearing away the leaves and branches and debris, which made the area littered, even somewhat dank. Desdemona felt that if the world entire had a cellar, its entrance would be that of her family’s vault.

Celeste was there, hunched over a small patch of dirt at the foot of the vault’s steps. She was labouring intently over…something, all within the shadow and under the faceless gaze of a caryatid, who studied the child through a veil of rippled stone. Desdemona never had discovered who this sombre carved woman had been designed to commemorate.

“What are you doing?” asked Desdemona.

“This is how I’m supposed to do it,” Celeste replied. “Bury it here, right beside the steps, under the Queen.” She was using a sterling silver soup ladle as her shovel, dragging up scoopfuls of mud, forging a pocket.

“Is this the Queen?” Desdemona pointed to the caryatid.

“Of course.”

“Has Father told you the story of the White Queen or is that also something you learned from your feeling?”

Celeste shrugged. “I never heard that story,” she said.

Desdemona spent the next few moments watching her sister labour. The sound of the surf was at her back, a susurrus of distant voices.