“I shall, the moment you have had food and drink,” Lady Hartley said, returning to the sofa once again. “Look at you, poor child—you are as pale as a snowdrop, likely to fade right away at any moment. Please excuse me, dear, while I go and fetch you something myself. Please rest. Lay your head upon a cushion and be at ease.”

The sofas were deep and inviting. Nevertheless Charlotte stood up the moment Lady Hartley departed, wringing her hands as she tried to fathom what had just taken place.

Something was amiss, out of place, but what? Or was it her own emotional exhaustion casting shadows from embers?

Charlotte stood in the centre of the great wound of a room, turning her gaze into every corner. In the candlelight it almost seemed that the walls rippled and bled. Pressing her thumbs into her temples, she did her best to make sense of this strange sensation: a kind of half-formed thought, an intuition, a little voice in her ear that whispered, Leave.

Catherine had been staring into that little box on the mantel quite intensely when Charlotte had entered. Perhaps it contained a clue to her strange demeanour. After all, if Branwell could take the pharmacist’s handmade pills that sent him into a trance, then perhaps Catherine had taken something—some kind of tonic that had the opposite effect. It would not do to be caught snooping, but Charlotte had to know. Glancing at the door that stood ajar, she hastened to the little box and picked it up. It was beautifully made of polished rosewood, inlaid with other woods, ivory and mother-of-pearl. As Charlotte tipped the lid of the box towards herself, she was confronted with the eerie grimace of an exquisitely rendered skull and crossbones. The theme of memento mori wasn’t such an unusual discovery, but the little box just seemed so at odds with this beautiful room and with Lady Hartley herself.

A deep pull of curiosity arose within Charlotte. Music began to chime as she opened the lid, a melancholy little tune that took her a moment or two to place. As she remembered where she had recently heard it, it was as though a great rock had been placed on her chest; she was pinioned with dread. For the box was playing the song Tabby had sung for them not an hour since.

That strange song that she had never heard before this night, she had now heard twice.

Fear rising in her throat, Charlotte made herself look into the box. At first glance it appeared empty, but as she tilted it, she heard the metallic slide of hidden contents. Turning the box over in her trembling hands, she fumbled for a secret opening that must have been there.