Rosamund.
The voice had stopped.
I noticed it sometime after midnight, lying in the dark with my eyes wide open, bracing for the whisper that never came. For two days, it has been relentlessly saying my name, over and over, slipping through the cracks of my consciousness and now, silence.
Maybe standing up to it had worked. Maybe whatever it was had heard me when I'd screamed into the empty room and told it I wasn't afraid. Maybe that was all it took — refusing to cower.
In the end, surviving was the only thing I could think of, and I made a choice.
I listened to Fanny's loud snore in the other room while I waited for the clock to strike three. As if on cue, the grandfather clock downstairs tolled. I counted each strike under my breath. One. Two. Three.
It was time.
Slowly, I slipped out from under the sheets and changed from my nightgown into the plainest dress I owned and laced my boots with trembling fingers.
