Chapter 3 THE WHITE DRESS

"Do not answer," Adrian breathed.

His hands were locked around Clara's wrists. His forehead was almost touching hers. In the dark study, with the fire low, she could see the sweat on his temple.

Outside the door, the knocking came again. Three soft knocks.

"Clara? My love? Your white dress is ready."

The voice was sweet. Young. It sounded like Clara's own voice when she was sixteen, before her father's death.

Adrian shook his head once, sharply. Don't.

Clara swallowed. "Who is that?"

"The house," he whispered. "Or what lives in it. It learns voices."

The handle of the study door turned. It turned slowly, then stopped. Locked.

The voice outside made a small, disappointed sound.

"She doesn't want white," it said, now in a different voice - an older woman, kind. "She wants black, like her mother."

Adrian stood abruptly and pulled Clara away from the chair, toward the far corner of the study where there were no windows and no doors.

"How long does it do this?" Clara whispered.

"Until midnight. Sometimes after."

"And what happens at midnight?"

He did not answer.

The lullaby started again on the other side of the door. This time with words.

_Hush now, Clara, close your eyes, The tower is cold, the night is deep. Put on your white dress, little bride, It's time to sleep, it's time to sleep._

Clara felt her knees weaken. "My mother sang that."

"I know," Adrian said.

"You said you didn't know my family."

"I said I didn't want someone with reason to protect them. I know everything about your family, Clara. I had to."

The singing stopped. Footsteps moved away from the door - bare feet, soft on stone - and faded down the corridor toward the east wing.

Adrian did not move for a full minute. Then he let go of her and unlocked the desk drawer. He took out a small silver key and a folded piece of paper yellowed with age.

He placed both in her hand.

"What is this?"

"The key opens the trunk in your bedroom. The paper is what my great-grandmother wrote the night she died."

Clara unfolded it. The handwriting was frantic, ink blotched.

_It wants a bride in white. It cannot take one in black. Remember this. Remember this. Do not let them dress you. - C.E.V. 1861_

Clara Eleanor Vale. The first one. 1841-1861.

"She wrote that the night she fell from the tower," Adrian said.

"You told me all the Claras died before twenty-one. She was twenty."

"She was twenty when she jumped. She wrote this at midnight. She was found at dawn."

Clara looked at the silver key. "And the trunk?"

"Contains what you need to survive the first week. After that, you will need to be cleverer than they were."

"They? The other Claras?"

"The other brides."

He took the ledger from where it still covered the mirror and opened it to the blank line.

1863- Clara Eleanor Vale -

He picked up a pen, dipped it, and hesitated.

"What are you writing?" Clara asked.

"What I have written for three other women with your name."

He wrote, his hand steady:

_1863- Still living._

He blotted it.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because if I write it, it might be true."

A clock somewhere in the house struck twelve. One deep toll. The fire went out as if someone had blown on it. The study fell into complete darkness except for the thin line of moonlight under the door.

Adrian pulled Clara down to the floor with him, his back against the bookshelves, his arm around her shoulders. Not romantic. Protective. Like a soldier.

"Midnight," he whispered.

From far away, from the east wing, came a scream.

Not the sweet voice from before. A real scream, full of pain and terror. A young woman screaming as she fell.

Clara clutched Adrian's shirt.

"Who is that?" she cried.

"Clara Eleanor Vale," he said into the dark. "1880-1899. She screams every night at midnight."

The scream cut off abruptly, as if it had hit the ground.

Silence rushed back into the house, heavier than before.

Clara was shaking so hard her teeth clicked.

Adrian held her until the clock struck twelve times and the fire relit itself.

When the light came back, Clara saw that the mirror above the fireplace was no longer covered.

And in it, standing behind her and Adrian, was a woman in a white wedding dress, smiling.