The Gilded Cage by Lucinda Gray Page A

said.
    The lake is set like a geode into the snow, its icy black center lapping against the hard-set crystals at its shallow edges. The horses, for some reason, don’t want to cross. I nudge the mare harder, and she gives in, taking tentative steps up onto the bridge. The house is just two hundred yards up the lawn now. Nearly there.
    We’re halfway across when a flapping of wings startles the horses.
    A patch of the lake near its center teems with crows. Shabby in their black overcoats, they pick at its surface, like vultures scavenging for carrion. I gaze down at them, and then freeze. My eyes grow hot in my skull, and my fingers clench tighter on the reins.
    Because now I can see that the crows are concealing something with their raggedy bodies. Something dark and unrecognizable, half-frozen into the ice. I dismount and, at the same time, see three figures speeding toward me from the house. It’s John and Mr. Carrick and Henry. Not George. My brother isn’t with them.
    Horror steals over my heart as I move my gaze back to the lake.
    It cannot be.
    On the bank is an overturned boat, just a small thing for an oarsman and a single passenger. It’s tied to a jetty by a thick rope caked in snow. I leave the horses whickering on the bridge.
    John has broken into a run, away from the others, his feet kicking up snow as he descends. He’s shouting something—my name, I think.
    It cannot be.
    I hook my fingers beneath the boat and heave it over. The rope is stiff as I unhook it from the mooring post. With a push, the boat slides from the bank and settles on the water, sending a ripple cracking through the ice.
    Then John is at my side, his arm around my shoulder.
    â€œLady Katherine,” he says, “please.”
    I point speechlessly at the water, to the thing half-submerged in the grip of the ice. The crows screech at one another, hopping and swooping in their attempts to get closer to it.
    â€œIt’s just a deer, my lady,” says John. “They sometimes fall in when they try to drink.…” His voice breaks off, ragged.
    And now I know for sure.
    â€œWhat’s happening down there?” calls Henry. He’s moving more quickly now, pulling his bad leg through the snow.
    I tug myself from John’s side and steady myself against the boat. Icy water pools around my boots as I climb inside. John follows wordlessly. He turns out the oars tucked into the boat’s sides and, with strong strokes, propels us through jellied black ice.
    Henry calls to us from the shore, a single word that I don’t hear. I motion for John to row on, until we’re close enough to scare off the crows. He drops the oars with a clank into the rowlocks and pulls at my arm, trying to turn me around. “Don’t look.”
    His voice is taut, made to be obeyed, but it’s too late. The body, in dark, waterlogged velvet, is facedown and still, but the hair crawls with faint, underwater currents. One hand taps noiselessly against the ice.
    On its wrist is a stripe of cerulean blue.

 
    CHAPTER 6
    I FEEL WONDERFULLY WARM, and my head no longer aches. I float blissfully in the dark, my limbs loose and lazy. But as much as I try to ignore it, there’s something terrible pacing at the edges of my mind, looking for a way in. I turn my head from it, again and again, but I’m waking up now, and finally it claws its way into my consciousness.…
    â€œLet her sleep now.”
    It’s Grace’s voice. Remembering that my brother is dead is a duller pain than I would’ve thought. It turns my body to wood; I can’t believe that I will ever raise my head again. My eyes are sandpaper, too dry to open, until the tears start to fall. I’m doing nothing—not really crying, even—but they’re coming as regularly as rain, and I let them well through my eyelids and onto my cheeks.
    When a stifled sob breaks out of me, Grace and Elsie are on me in a flash, each