“What did she show you?” he asked.
Lilia began to explore the parts of the manor her father had forbidden. The East Wing. The old chapel. The cellar where the wine casks sat in the dark.
Lilia found them by accident: a collapsed iron gate, half-sunk into the earth, and beyond it, a clearing. In the clearing stood seven stone cottages, their roofs caved in, their doors hanging askew. They had once been a refuge—for lepers, perhaps, or outcasts from the silver mines that had played out a century ago. Snow White A Tale Of Terror
“What are you?” Claudia whispered.
“I said KNEEL.”
“You were always too curious,” the stepmother said, descending the stone steps with a candle in one hand and the bone brush in the other. Her shadow stretched behind her like a cloak of teeth. “I told your father to beat it out of you. But he was soft. They are all soft.”
Lilia backed away, her heel catching on a skull. She stumbled. “What did she show you
“It’s done,” Lilia said.