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voice trembled with worry.

      “You think?” That had been Cole. His voice was so smooth. And the accent was unmistakable.

      “You like her.” Thomas’s voice was grave.

      My lungs solidified.

      “Not a snowball’s chance in that. I can handle myself. I’ve done it for years, though I appreciate your concern.” Cole’s plate and silverware clattered. His footsteps moved nearer.

      “I’m just trying to keep you in line. She obviously gets under your skin.”

      “I’m only doing my job. I kept her from falling down an embankment. That’s it. And, as you can see, she isn’t impressed with me in the slightest.”

      I leaned against the cold stone wall, pressing my hands flat.

      “And a cat. She was almost eaten by a cat? She could have been killed.”

      “The only thing you should worry about is me throwing her in that pond if she is nearly as irritating tomorrow as she was today.”

      “There are a number of other guys who could take her on that tour.”

      “Aren’t you curious as to why Ava Rollins gave her everything she owned? I am, and I plan to find out why.” Cole’s voice was final.

      At least we were on the same page about something.

      I hurried upstairs.

      * * * *

      A calming shower washed away the dirt from the fall. On the feather bed, a lump poked my right cheek. As old as the mattress was, it was probably rotten. It would be a long night.

      With the lights off, the room was even bigger and more horror-movie-esque. Opening the drapes allowed the moonlight in. I stood in its glow for a few minutes and then turned back to the bed that would have consummated a fairytale couple’s wedding vows. Its posts were as big around as my body and looked like Roman columns with added carvings of souls wrapped from the floor to the canopy top. Surprisingly, the soft feathers enveloped me into a perfect body-shaped indention.

      The dark lonely room fell away to pleasant but unsettling dreams.

      A well-traveled path in the woods behind this house opened to a stream with worn grass along the edges. Tinkling water wrapped itself around rocks as it flowed down to a pond or lake. I almost stepped on a young man lying stretched over the softer grass of the bank. A hat covered his face. A makeshift fishing pole poked from between his toes. Muscles worked in his arms as he moved the hat from his brow.

      My chest was crushed from the inside but gloriously full of admiration at the same time. And I hated it.

      “Oh, it’s you. Shouldn’t you be playing with a doll somewhere?” he said, his voice between high and velvety.

      Grass green eyes. Legs so long they poked out of tattered brown pants. Dark skin and well-defined muscles that could have only come from the working-class. Fifteen or sixteen years old.

      “Annabeth? You in there?”

      Who was Annabeth? And why couldn’t I place his face or his name?

      My Victorian dress draped the ground and showed enough cleavage to encourage impure thoughts from any man. Tendrils of light-colored curls fell from an updo I’d never wear, the breeze blowing them across my face.

      “Shouldn’t you be plowing a field somewhere?”

      He sat up from the balled up piece of cloth he’d used as a pillow. A look I’d seen thousands of times before, but where I didn’t know, slid across his tanned cheeks, putting his red lips in a gorgeous smirk. He rifled around in a sack beside him, brought out some worms, and jerked his line in. When he tossed the hook to my feet and slid a bowl of pulsating dirt against the hem of my dress, my stomach churned, but I sat down.

      “You ever put a worm on a hook?” he asked, just one corner of his lips turning up. My heart hiccupped. God, he was gorgeous.

      Sitting knees to the side, I blushed when the dress’s bodice pushed even more cleavage into his visibility. The devilish grin diminished.

      “I bet you’re too scared,” he said, his voice low, gravelly, and tantalizing.

      I fell more into the dream, as certain details about her life sewed themselves in place of mine. They, I’m not sure who all that entailed, but they always thought I was just a little girl. Not caring that doing so increased the eyeful he’d already gotten, I leaned forward and took the pole. His eyes simmered into a gaze he’d given me a time or two, but my older sister always interrupted the moments.

      Determination welled inside me. I hated worms, dirt, and anything that yielded poking the guts out of a living creature.

      “I’m not scared to try anything once.” I shot him a meaningful glance.

      He leaned back on his elbows, his eyebrows furrowing, a devilish smile on his sun-warmed cheeks.

      The fat worm wriggled in the soil and would surely ruin my dress. This was not sexy. It wiggled between my fingers, begging for one last chance at life.

      I took a deep breath and stabbed the worm. Pink tinged guts came out on the end of the hook. My stomach lurched, but I held my composure.

      “You might just have some potential.” The guy’s brow rose with a smirk. He threw a piece of grass at me. When I ducked my head and batted my lashes shyly, his grin fell away. He put the fishing pole against a tree.

      He tilted his head, his pupils dilating as he looked into me instead of at me. In that moment, the earth shattered and reassembled itself. A million butterflies lifted my stomach into my chest when he scooted over, laying down more grass as he took the place beside me. For a few seconds, the air was thick. Heat prickled my face as his lips neared mine.

      Then I knew. I loved him.

      “Potential for what?” A high-pitched blast came from behind us.

      We jumped apart. A girl, a few years my senior, jabbed her fists into her hips and from her dark brown eyes, shot me daggers of hatred. “Mama’s looking for you.”

      The dream fizzled away, and I floated for a few seconds. Then my legs pumped against the ground, my lungs searing.

      A rotting corpse was three feet behind me and gaining speed. I turned, slid, and darted between walls of endless roses, their thorns catching the skirts of my dress.

      She got a handful of fabric and jerked.

      I flailed, slipping from her grip. Fabric tore. I tripped on a cement bench in the next turn and limped on the stinging knee. Rose-briars sliced my face. When I could breathe no longer, I collapsed in the corner of two rose walls, thorns prickling my back.

      Bony fingers reached through the wall and bit into my shoulders. The corpse pulled me kicking and screaming through the thorny partition.

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