House of Salt and Sorrows (Sisters of Salt #1)

I lingered in the mausoleum as everyone left for the wake, wanting to say goodbye to Eulalie on my own, free from prying eyes. His services rendered, the High Mariner gathered up his chalice and candlesticks, his salt water and my father’s two coins. Before setting off down the little path to the shoreline and back to his hermitage on the northernmost point of Selkirk Island, he paused in front of me. I’d been watching the servant boys seal the tomb’s entrance, piling bricks slathered with gritty mortar over the crypt and obscuring the rush of swirling eddies below us.

The High Mariner raised his hand in what appeared to be a blessing. But somehow the curve of his fingers was off, more like a gesture of protection.

For himself.

Against me.

Without the press of people in the crypt, the air felt colder, settling over me like a second cloak. Sickly-sweet incense still danced through the room but couldn’t quite block out the tang of salt. No matter where you were on the island, you could always taste the sea.

The workers grunted as they hoisted the last brick into place, silencing the water altogether.

Then I was alone.

The crypt was really nothing more than a cave but for one unique feature: a wide river ran underneath, carrying fresh water—and the bodies of departed Thaumases—out to sea. Each generation had added their own bits to it, fashioning stonework around the burial site or gilding the ceiling with an elaborate mural of the night sky. Every Thaumas child learned to read their way across the constellations before ever picking up a book of letters. My great-great-grandfather started adding the shrines.

During Elizabeth’s funeral—an even bleaker affair than Eulalie’s, with the High Mariner’s thinly veiled chastisement of suicide—I counted the plaques and statues dotting the cavern to pass the time. How long before the shrines completely overran this hallowed space, leaving no place for the living? When I died, I wanted no monument to remember me by. Did Great-Aunt Clarette rest better in her eternal slumber knowing her bust would be gazed on by generations of Thaumases?

Thank you, no. Just push me into the sea and return me to the Salt.

“There were so many young men here today,” I said, kneeling before the wet masonry.

It was honestly a wonder they bothered bricking it up at all. How long until these stones would be broken open for another of my sisters to be shoved inside?

“Sebastian and Stephan, the Fitzgerald brothers. Henry. The foreman from Vasa. And Edgar too.”

It felt unnatural having such a decidedly lopsided conversation with Eulalie. She normally dominated everything she was a part of. Her stories, outlandish and full of hyperbolic wit, held everyone in her audience captivated.

“I think, of all the mourners here today, their tears were the biggest. Were you sneaking out to meet one of them that night?”

I paused, picturing Eulalie out on the cliff walk, in a billowing nightgown of lace and ribbons, her lily-white skin drenched blue in the full moon. She would have made sure to look especially lovely for a secret assignation with a beau.

When the fishermen found her body smashed on the rocks below, they mistook her for a beached dolphin. If there truly was an afterlife, I hoped Eulalie never learned that. Her vanity would never recover.

“Did you trip and fall?” My words echoed in the tomb. “Were you pushed?”

The question burst from me before I could stop to ponder it. I knew without a shadow of a doubt how my other sisters had died: Ava was sick, Octavia was notoriously accident-prone, even Elizabeth…Drawing a short breath, I dug my fingers into my skirt’s thick, scratchy black wool. She’d been so despondent after Octavia. We’d all felt the losses, but not as keenly as Elizabeth.

But no one was there when Eulalie died. No one saw it happen. Just the brutal aftermath.

A drop of water hit my nose and another fell on my cheek as rivulets ran into the crypt. It must have started to rain. Even the sky wept for Eulalie today.

“I’ll miss you.” I sucked in my lower lip. The tears came now, pinpricking at my eyes until they fell freely. I traced an elaborately scrawled E across the stones, wanting to say so much more, to spit out my grief, and helplessness, and rage. But that wouldn’t bring her back.

“I…I love you, Eulalie.” My voice was no more than a whisper as I fled the dark cavern.

Outside, the storm raged, churning the waves into frothy whitecaps. The cave was on the far side of the Point, a peninsula on Salten, jutting out into the sea. It was at least a mile back to the house, and no one had thought to leave me a carriage. I pushed aside my black veil and began walking.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” our maid, Hanna, asked before I headed down to join the wake.

I paused, feeling the weight of the older woman’s motherly eyes on my back. I’d had to immediately change clothes once I returned. The storm had soaked me through, and curse or not, I wasn’t planning on dying of a cold.

Hanna held out a long black ribbon with a look of expectation. Sighing, I let her encircle my wrist with the thin strip, as she had many times before. When death visited a household, you wore a black ribbon to keep from following after your loved one. Our luck seemed so bad, the servants even took to tying the maudlin bits around the necks of our cats, horses, and chickens.

She finished off the ribbon with a bow that would have been pretty in any other color. My entire wardrobe was nothing more than mourning garb now, each dress a darker shade than the last. I hadn’t worn anything lighter than charcoal in the six years since Mama passed away.

Hanna had chosen a satin bauble, not the itchy bombazine from Elizabeth’s funeral. It left welts on our wrists that stung for days.

I adjusted my sleeve’s cuff. “I’d rather stay up here with you, truth be told. I never know what I ought to say at these things.”

Hanna patted my cheek. “The sooner you get there, the sooner it’ll all be over with.” She smiled up at me with warm brown eyes. “I’ll be sure to have a pot of cinnamon tea waiting for you before bed?”

“Thank you, Hanna,” I said, squeezing her shoulder before going out the door.

As I entered the Blue Room, Morella made a beeline for me. “Sit with me? I don’t really know anyone here,” she admitted, pulling me toward a sofa near the tall, thickly paned windows. Though speckled with a confetti of raindrops, they offered a spectacular view of the cliffs. It seemed wrong to hold the wake in this room, showcasing the very spot where Eulalie fell.

I wanted to be with my sisters, but Morella’s eyes were so large and pleading. At moments like this, it was difficult to forget she was much closer to my age than to Papa’s.

No one was surprised when he took a new bride. Mama had been gone for so long, and we all knew he hoped to have a son eventually. He met Morella while in Suseally, on the mainland. Papa returned from the voyage with her on his arm, utterly smitten.

Honor, Mercy, and Verity—the Graces, as we called them collectively, all so young when Mama passed—were delighted to have this new maternal figure in their lives. She’d been a governess and took to the little girls immediately. The triplets—Rosalie, Ligeia, and Lenore—and I were happy for Papa, but Camille stiffened whenever someone assumed Morella was one of the Thaumas Dozen.

I stared across the room at the large painting dominating one wall. It depicted a ship being dragged into the blue abyss by a kraken, giant eyes enlarged in fury. The Blue Room held many treasures from the sea: a family of spiny urchins on one shelf, a barnacle-encrusted anchor on a plinth in the corner, and specimens from the Graces’ shell collection on any surface tall enough for them to reach.

“Are the services always like that?” Morella asked, spreading her skirts across the navy velvet cushions. “So serious and dour?”

I couldn’t help my bemused look. “Well, it was a funeral.”

She tucked a wisp of pale blond hair behind her ear, smiling nervously. “Of course, I only meant…why the water? I don’t understand why you don’t just bury her, like they do on the mainland?”

I caught sight of Papa. He’d want me to be nice, to explain our ways. I tried to allow a trickle of pity into my heart for her.

“The High Mariner says Pontus created our islands and the people on them. He scooped salt from the ocean tides for strength. Into that was mixed the cunning of a bull shark and the beauty of the moon jellyfish. He added the seahorse’s fidelity and the curiosity of a porpoise. When his creation was molded just so—two arms, two legs, a head, and a heart—Pontus breathed some of his own life into it, making the first People of the Salt. So when we die, we can’t be buried in the ground. We slip back into the water and are home.”

The explanation seemed to please her. “See, something like that at the funeral would have been lovely. There was just such an emphasis on…the death.”

I offered her a smile. “Well…this was your first one. You get used to them.”

Morella reached out, placing her hand on mine, her small face earnest. “I hate that you’ve gone through so many of these. You’re far too young to have felt so much pain and grief.”

The rain came down harder, shrouding Highmoor in muddled grays. Great boulders at the bottom of the cliffs were tossed about by the raging sea like marbles in a little boy’s pocket, their crashes blasting up the steep rocks and rivaling the thunder.

“What happens now?”

I blinked, drawing my attention back to her. “What do you mean?”

She bit into her lip, stumbling over the unfamiliar words. “Now that she’s…back in the Salt…what are we supposed to do?”

“That was it. We’ve said our goodbyes. After this wake, it’s all over.”

Her fingers tinkered with restless frustration. “But it’s not. Not truly. Your father said we have to wear black for the next few weeks?”

“Months, actually. We wear black for six, then darker grays for another six after that.”

“A year?” she gasped. “Am I really meant to wear these dour clothes for a whole year?” People near the sofa turned their heads toward us, having overheard her outburst. She had the decency to blush with chagrin. “What I mean is…Ortun just bought my bridal trousseau. Nothing in it is black.” She’d borrowed one of Camille’s dresses for today, but it didn’t fit her well. She smoothed down the edge of the bodice. “It’s not only about the clothes. What about you and Camille? Both of you should be out in society, meeting young men, falling in love.”

I tilted my head, wondering if she was serious. “My sister just died. I don’t exactly feel like dancing.”

A crack of thunder made us jump. Morella squeezed my hand, bringing my eyes back to hers. “Forgive me, Annaleigh, I’m not saying anything right today. I meant…after so much tragedy, this family should be happy again. You’ve mourned enough for a lifetime already. Why continue to shroud yourself in pain? Mercy, Honor, and dear little Verity should be playing with dolls in the garden, not accepting condolences and making idle small talk. And Rosalie and Ligeia—Lenore too—look at them.”

The triplets perched on a love seat truly only big enough for two. Their arms linked around each other, holding themselves like a fat spider as they sobbed into their veils. No one dared approach such concentrated grief.

“It breaks my heart to see everyone like this.”

I slipped my hand free of hers. “But this is what you do when someone dies. You can’t change traditions just because you don’t like them.”

“But what if there was a cause for joy? Something that ought to be celebrated, not hidden away? Shouldn’t good news triumph?”

A servant approached, offering glasses of wine. I took one, but Morella dismissed him with a skilled shake of her head. She’d quickly settled into her role as mistress of Highmoor.

“I suppose so.” I hesitated. Another roll of thunder boomed through the air. “But there doesn’t seem to be much to celebrate today.”

“I think there is.” Leaning in, Morella dropped her voice to a conspiring whisper. “A new life.” She discreetly placed a protective hand over her stomach.

I swallowed my mouthful of wine, nearly choking in surprise. “You’re pregnant?” She beamed. “Does Papa know?”

“Not yet. I was about to tell him, but we were interrupted by those fishermen, with Eulalie.”

“He’ll be so pleased. Do you know how far along you are?”

“Three months, I think.” She ran her fingers over her hair. “Do you really think Ortun will be happy? I’d do just about anything to see him smile again.”

I glanced back at Papa, surrounded by friends but too lost in memories of Eulalie to respond to their conversation. I nodded. “I’m sure of it.”

She took a deep breath. “Then such happy news shouldn’t keep, should it?”

Morella crossed to the grand piano in the center of the room before I could answer. Picking up a bell from the lid, she rang it, effectively quieting the room.

My mouth went dry as I realized what she was about to do.

“Ortun?” she asked, jarring him from his thoughts. Her voice was high and thin, like the chiming of the bell in her hand.

It was my mother’s bell. Camille and I had found it years ago while playing dress-up in the attic. We had loved its silvery tone and brought it to Mama when she grew too weak to be heard throughout the house. Now every time I heard it ring, memories of her last pregnancy came back to me with the force of a cold wave crashing into my chest.

When he was at her side, Morella continued. “Ortun and I want to thank you all for coming. The last few days have been an unending night of darkness, but your presence here now is like the first warm tendrils of a beautiful sunrise creeping across the sky.”

Her words, though obviously chosen with care, flowed easily from her. My eyes narrowed. She’d practiced this beforehand.

“Your memories of dear, beautiful Eulalie paint our hearts with gladness, lifting them from the gloom. And we are happy—joyful, even—for in this bold new morning, a fresh chapter dawns on the House of Thaumas.”

Camille, who had been in conversation with an uncle across the room, shot me an uneasy look. Even the triplets broke their tight link; Lenore stood next to the love seat, her fingers digging into the cushy arm.

Morella held Papa’s hand and rested her other on her flat stomach, erupting into a wide grin as she relished the attention. “And just as night is chased away by morning’s glow, so too will the shadows of grief be pushed aside by the arrival of our son.”