In theory, Charlie should help expedite everything. Exactly what end she would expedite if she continued to decimate my work, however . . . Well, that remained to be seen.

“What have you done?” I demanded.

Charlie did not reply. Instead, she climbed to her feet, clutching one of her crayons as though it could serve as a weapon. Her gaze flicked from me to the open doorway and back again.

She looked up, staring straight into my eyes. Through the holes of my mask, I returned her gaze. Until the illustration at her feet caught and stole my attention.

A hooded black figure marred the sheet music. His gray-colored mask, with its somber expression and muted features, had been rendered with some accuracy. The child had even drawn dark lines to indicate the mask’s grate-like mouth, consisting of skeleton keyholes.

From there down, the cloaked form dissolved into one long smear of darkness. Which I supposed was accurate enough as well.

“Is it not bad enough that you and your family have invaded my home?” I asked. “You would also render useless the only blessed thing that keeps the worst at bay?”

“S-Stephanie says you need to get your own beeswax!” the trembling girl replied with more tenacity than she’d yet been able to muster in my presence.

“Stephanie,” I scoffed, not even bothering to decipher the meaning behind her wax comment. Because the subject of Charlie’s sister was precisely what I needed to speak with her about. “It would seem that, despite your efforts to convince her, Stephanie still does not believe in me. And she will neither see nor hear me until she does. Do you know what that means?”

The crayon between Charlie’s hands finally snapped under the pressure of her grip, making me pause and, for the first time since entering the room, examine my conduct.

Seeing my music in ruins—unsalvageable—had brought me closer to that edge I so feared. More even than before because there were people in the house. And that was something that put me in a tight grip. Only I could not afford to snap.

The Armands certainly could not afford for me to.

“It means,” I said, attempting to soften my tone, “that you and your family will not be leaving as soon as you need to. Which, if it happened today, would still not be soon enough.”

Thus far, Stephanie had proved to be my biggest obstacle.

In contrast to her younger sister, Stephanie seemed to understand too much about the world. Far more than any young lady of my day would have dared to boast.

In the end, though, neither Stephanie nor her father could prove any real match for me. No one—no one aside from the medium, that was—ever had. And was that not precisely why I needed this family to depart?

“Why do we have to leave?” challenged Charlie. “Why don’t you leave?”

“Because I am cursed,” I snapped. “My soul has been shattered, its shards shackled to this estate. Its pieces lie strewn about me in much the same way your crayons now lie strewn about you. Do you understand?”