All Souls

On the second of November, the Crooked Kettle doesn't open.

You wake at sunset to a quiet house. No kettle whistling, no radio, no Liesbeth swearing at the till. A hand-lettered sign hangs on the shop door: CLOSED FOR ALL SOULS. GO HOME AND CALL YOUR MOTHER.

The morning buns you left in the case are untouched.

You find her on the second floor, through the half-open door of her bedroom. She's sitting on the floor in front of the nightstand in a black sweater, knees pulled up, and the photograph with the black ribbon has been moved to the windowsill. In front of it burns a single white candle, and next to the candle sits a small cup of tea and a sprig of rosemary.

The laughing girl with the green scarf looks out at the room.

"Liesbeth?"

"Not tonight, lodger." She doesn't turn around. Her voice is perfectly calm. "Blood's on the stove. I'm fine. Go do something."

"You're sitting on the floor in the dark."

"It's a very nice floor. Oak. Original." She tips her head back against the bed. "Please, Ava. Just tonight. Go away."

You go away.

You stand in the hallway for a minute, listening to absolutely nothing, and you think about a red wax seal shaped like a key. Ask her what happens at the solstice.

And then you get your coat.

Arbogast Holdings occupies the top three floors of the only glass building in Hollow Hill, a sleek tower by the river that the rest of the town looks at the way you'd look at someone wearing sunglasses at a funeral. The lobby is open all night. The security guard is a ghost. He waves you up without asking your name.

Mariska is in her office on the top floor, barefoot on white carpet, a glass of red wine in one hand and a stack of blueprints in the other. The whole far wall is window, and the river runs black and silver beneath it.

She looks up when you come in and smiles like she's been waiting all night.

"The baker," she says. "I hoped you'd come."

"I came to tell you to stop sending me notes."

"No, you didn't." She sets down the wine. "You came because she wouldn't tell you, and you want to know."

Up close, under office light, she's even more striking than she was at the fair. Sharp cheekbones, those dark eyes, the red mouth. A woman who looks like she's never lost an argument. But there's a tiredness under her makeup, faint shadows, and when she walks to the window she moves like her shoulders hurt.

"It's All Souls," she says. "Is she sitting in front of the photo?"

You don't answer. You don't need to.

"Every year." Mariska laughs, short and unhappy. "Nine years. She lights a white candle and makes Sibyl's favorite tea. Smoked orange. My sister had terrible taste in tea."

The floor tips under you. "Your sister?"

"Sibyl Arbogast. Twenty-two. The prettiest idiot in Hollow Hill. She fell in love with Liesbeth Haverlock when Liesbeth was nineteen and wild and already the most beautiful person in any room she walked into." Mariska's mouth twists. "They were disgusting. Holding hands in the tea shop. Writing each other notes. Sibyl moved into that crooked house the summer they met."

"What happened to her?"

Mariska turns away from the window and looks at you directly.

"On the night of the winter solstice, nine years ago, my sister walked down to the basement of 13 Tallow Street to get a jar of preserves," she says, "and she never came up."

The room is very quiet.

"No body. No blood. Her scarf wasn't even on the stairs. The police searched the house. The Circle searched with magic. I searched." Her voice doesn't shake, which is somehow worse. "She was simply gone. Like someone erased her."

"I don't understand."

"Neither did I, for a long time." Mariska picks up the wine again and doesn't drink it. "Liesbeth's grandmother was Griet Haverlock. A truly terrifying woman. When Liesbeth was eighteen, some girl from the coast broke her heart, and Griet couldn't stand to watch it. So she wove a ward. Old magic, deep in the family line. A protection." Mariska says the words like she's read them many times. "None you love shall ever leave you."

You wait.

"Wards are like contracts, baker. The wording matters. And the longest night of the year is greedy and very literal." She sets the glass down. "No one Liesbeth loves will ever leave her. So on the solstice, the Long Night takes them, and keeps them, somewhere, so they never can."

You think you might be sick. "That's not..."

"Sibyl vanished the first solstice after she said I love you. Griet spent the next six years trying to break it, and died trying. And Liesbeth..." Mariska makes a small elegant gesture. "Liesbeth has had a lot of girlfriends since. Beautiful ones. Smart ones. She drops every single one of them before December. Like clockwork. She leaves them before she can love them."

Her eyes flick over you, and something in them is almost pity.

"She let you move into that house," Mariska says. "Into Sibyl's house. She brews you her grandmother's tea. Half of Hollow Hill saw the way she looked at you at the fair." She picks up a pen and taps it against a calendar on her desk. "Count the days, darling. You've got about fifty."

You walk home along the river in the cold.

You think about the solstice clause that wrote itself onto your lease in someone else's handwriting. You think about the black ribbon tied twice. Don't fall for me. You thought she was being arrogant. You thought it was a joke.

It wasn't a warning about her heart. It was a warning about yours.

No. Worse. It was a warning about hers.

When you turn onto Tallow Street, the lamps are lit, and the crooked house leans out over the sidewalk like it's been watching for you. Every window is dark except one.

The front door is open.

Liesbeth is standing in it, in her black sweater, arms folded tight across her chest. The candlelight from the shop is behind her, so you can't see her face. Just the shape of her, and the copper of her hair, and her hand gripping her own elbow hard enough to hurt.

She's been waiting. You don't know how long.

"You went to see Mariska," she says.

It isn't a question. You nod anyway.

For a second neither of you moves. Pickwick slips out between her ankles and sits on the top step, tail around his feet, looking from one of you to the other.

"She told you," Liesbeth says quietly. "About Sibyl. About my grandmother. About what happens at the solstice to anyone I..." She stops. Swallows. Lifts her chin.

"Good," she says. "Then you understand that rule three was never a joke, Ava. It's the only thing keeping you alive."