'Don't look, Lillian. Never look into the eyes of a Sin-Eater, you will be as cursed as he is and will forever languish in darkness.'
Lillian Elmes remembers the warning her mother gave her about the town's Sin-Eater only too well.
How could she n...
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'Heavens, William Elmes, if your mouth drops open any further, you might be able to fit one of Aggie's desserts in whole.'
William, who is standing just inside the doorway of Daniel's cottage, closes his mouth, but his eyes remain wide and full of shock.
'This is really where Mr. Carver lives?' he says, gazing about the room in wonder.
'And just what were you expecting?' I reply, with a quizzical brow. 'Something to rival the townhouses of Berkeley Square?'
William rolls his eyes, irritated. 'Well, of course not, but it's so, so... small. And are you quite sure it's not going to fall down around our ears, because from the outside it looks...'
'It is perfectly fine.' I purse my lips and find my gaze drifting to the now barren hearth, my face warming nevertheless at the thought of Daniel and I sitting here, heat generated by more than flame alone. 'In fact, I find it rather charming.' I sigh. 'Anyway, we are not here for you to give your unwanted opinion on the décor, but to find clues.'
I spy the stack of books by the window and hurry over, my eyes grazing the bindings for the one I had seen on my first visit here. The one that had inexplicably given rise to goosebumps.
Halfway down the pile, I see the distinctive dullened orange clothboard binding, gilt lettering on the spine and I carefully retrieve it, piling the discarded books into another stack.
The pentagram, I notice, has been hand-inked onto the spine, over where it faintly reads Godwin's Lives of the Necromancers. I touch my fingertips to the strange symbol, feeling a shiver pass through my bones as I do. It is the exact same symbol Daniel has inscribed within the pages of his Bible.
'This is it,' I whisper, 'this is the one.' Opening the cover, I read aloud the foreword script.
'Lives of the Necromancers or, an account of the most eminent persons in successive ages, who have claimed for themselves, or to whom has been imputed by others, the exercise of magical power. By William Godwin. London, 1834.'
'Goodness,' William remarks, wrinkling his nose. 'Suddenly Jane Eyre seems far more appealing.'
I glance at him, amused. 'And what would you know about Jane Eyre? Have you been stealing my books?'
