Jane forces a smile. “I used to be a governess,” she says. “I guess you could say I’m retired now.”

“So what have you been doing?” Bee asks, a twinge of pain in her voice.

“Traveling, mostly.”

A long, ugly moment.

“With him?”

“Yes.”

“And how is he?”

“The same.” Jane studies a small splotch on the carpet. “He’s always the same.”

My skin prickles, my mouth goes dry, and here it comes. More silence. It feels like there will always be silence now. Unending bouts of miserable silence. This house was scarcely bearable before. Now I’m starting to consider just staking myself and joining Dracula in the urns. It could hardly be worse than this.

“Would anyone like tea?” I ask.

Bee’s eyes flick up at me, a quizzical look twitching across her brow, but Jane lets out a small, grateful sigh.

“Yes, that would be wonderful,” she says, and without another word, I bolt from the parlor and into the kitchen. Then I stand there next to the empty icebox and realize what I’ve done.

Tea. I’m supposed to get them tea. I don’t know why I even offered. We have no running water, no tea bags either. In a moment, I’ll have to walk back into the parlor, red-faced and empty-handed.

In the wall, an urn of ashes snickers at me, and I shoot it a glare. Now that I’m out of the room, though, Bee and Jane are talking at last, their voices seeping through the crumbling plaster.

“And that book with your name on it?” Bee’s asking.

“Not my words,” Jane says. “Or at least not all of them. He got hold of it first.”

There’s a familiar lilt in her voice. Unlike Bee and me, Jane’s never lost her accent. It sounds like home, like somewhere I’ve nearly forgotten.

I don’t know what to do here. How to entertain. How to pretend I actually like people. I was a socialite once, but that was a long time ago. I don’t remember any of the rules anymore.

Faint footsteps in the hall.

“Lucy?” Bee appears in the doorway. “What’s wrong?”

I give her a tight smile. “We’re out of tea.”

Bee chuckles. “I know,” she says, and throws up her hands. “I’m sorry about this. I never expected her to show up here.”

I stand back, waiting for her to say something else, but she goes quiet, the two of us staring at each other across the empty kitchen.

“So,” I say, fidgeting next to the counter, “that’s Jane Eyre.”

“That’s her.” Bee exhales a thin sigh, a sudden urgency in her eyes. “She needs to stay with us awhile. Just until she gets back on her feet.”

The notion sticks in my throat like glue. Someone living with us. Someone asking questions I don’t want to answer.