Verum (The Nocte Trilogy 2)

“I see you’ve already unpacked. These rooms haven’t been changed since your mother left.”

I hold my cup in my lap, warming my fingers because the chill from the English evening has left them cold.

“Why did my mother leave?” I ask, because she’s never said. She’s never said anything about her childhood home.

Sabine pauses, and when she looks at me, she’s looking into my soul again, rooting around with wrinkled fingers.

“She left because she had to,” Sabine says simply. “Whitley couldn’t hold her.”

It’s an answer that’s not an answer.

I should’ve expected no less.

Sabine sits next to me, patting my leg.

“I’ll fatten you up a bit here,” she tells me. “You’re too skinny, like your mama. You’ll rest and you’ll… see things for what they are.”

“And how is that?” I ask tiredly, and suddenly I’m so very exhausted.

Sabine looks at my face and clucks.

“Child, you need to rest. You’re fading away in front of my eyes. Come now. Lie down.”

She settles me onto the bed, pulling a blanket up to my chin.

“Dinner is at seven,” she reminds me before she leaves. “Sleep until then.”

I try.

I really do.

I close my eyes.

I relax my arms and my legs and my muscles.

But sleep won’t come.

Eventually, I give up, and I open the drapes and look outside.

The evening is quiet, the sky is dark. It gets dark so early here.

The trees rustle in the breeze, and the wind is wet. It’s cold. It’s chilling. I can feel it even through the windows and I rub at my arms.

That’s when I get goose-bumps.

They lift the hair on my neck,

And the stars seem to mock me.

Turning my back on them, I cross the room and pull a book from a shelf.

Jane Eyre.

Fitting, given Whitley and the moors and the rain.

I open the cover and find a penned inscription.

To Laura. May you always have the spirit of Charlotte Bronte and the courage to follow your dreams. Your father.