Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

followed her gave and also went fluttery.
    Only I wasn’t looking at Lord Fitzwilliam but Rowena Wentworth.
    She came toward me, stepping out of the ash saplings, trailing a soaked hem that left water in the grass like dew. No one else saw her. Elizabeth continued her excited, hushed chatter, a mallet cracked against a ball, a red-winged blackbird cried as it dove toward the pond. Rowena stared at me, hard.
    I blinked but the blasted girl remained.
    I shook my head once at her and tried to ignore her. She should have the decency to stay dead. Not to mention she’d nearly drowned me in my own bedroom. I counted to ten under my breath before looking back.
    She was still there, water dripping from her tangled hair, wearing a crown of lilies and grass, bruises on her arms, her fine dress ragged.
    Elizabeth paused, sniffed. “Do you smell lilies?”
    I looked at her sharply. “Do you?”
    She took another breath and shrugged. “Not anymore. Must have been the wind off the pond.” She went back to her enamored fluttering over Lord Fitzwilliam’s shoulders.
    Rowena’s pale face turned toward me pleadingly.
    â€œPlease, not here,” I muttered under my breath. “Go away. Just go away.”
    She opened her mouth but only water came out, falling over blue lips. I shuddered, feeling water soak into my boots. I clenched my hands into fists, digging my nails into my palms, willing the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach to go away. I felt odd all over, as if I were standing on a ship in the middle of a storm. My vision wavered. I blinked frantically, but there was no stopping it. I felt as if I were falling. I wondered if I was swooning, but Elizabeth didn’t cry out and I didn’t feel the impact of the ground.
    In fact, I couldn’t see the grassy field at all.
    Instead, I was standing on broken flagstones overgrown with white lilies that glowed blue in the strange twilight. There was grass all around and apple trees raining pale pink petals everywhere. There was a huge stone staircase, the kind that belonged to a crumbling castle, only this one just stopped, leading to nowhere in particular.
    Rowena stood on the third step near a branch of candles. A light at the top of the stairs grew bright as the moon, bright as a thousand candles. I could feel the warmth even as far away as I was. Rowena was shivering in her wet dress, her lips faintly blue. I couldn’t imagine why she didn’t want to get closer.
    â€œPlease, sweetheart,” a woman begged from the top step. She was in silhouette against the light, but I caught glimpses of long blond hair and diamonds. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
    I knew without any logical sense that this was Rowena’s mother, who’d died years before. I felt it.
    Rowena wouldn’t go to her. She covered her eyes as if the light was too bright, as if it hurt her to look at it. She was crying and shaking her head violently.
    â€œTabitha.” I saw Rowena mouth her sister’s name but couldn’t hear her over the sudden rain that beat down around us, flattening the grass and tearing petals from the apple branches. The light dimmed. Rowena was still weeping, and I was too, though I couldn’t have said why.
    â€œTabitha.”
    The rain blurred my vision and between one blink and the next, I was back in the field. The crack of the croquet balls seemed too loud. There were tears on my cheeks. Rowena was gone.
    But Tabitha stood in front of me, her smiled barbed. She trailed several young gentlemen in white cravats and windswept hair.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with her?” she asked Elizabeth disdainfully. I had no idea how long I’d been standing there, unresponsive. I shifted, embarrassed.
    â€œAre you ill?” Elizabeth asked me.
    I shook my head. “I felt faint is all. Too much sun.”
    â€œAllow me.” One of Tabitha’s beaus offered me his arm gallantly. Tabitha’s