The Heiress Exorcist

I was halfway up the east staircase when the lights went out. A dozen donors went quiet beneath me. Somewhere in the dark, a glass broke. I smelled hot dust and the sharp, bitter trace of burnt wiring, then heard a woman whisper, "She's here." The lights snapped back on. I stood with one hand on the banister and a travel bag at my feet. At the bottom of the stairs, a woman in a white silk dress had both hands pressed to her chest. Her dark hair fell in a perfect, glossy wave over one shoulder. Every camera in the foyer pointed at her. I knew the face from magazine covers. I also knew the small silver bell she wore at her throat. It was the kind used in meditation halls to call a room to stillness. "That was beautiful," someone murmured. "That was a short circuit," I said. The woman in white lowered her hands. Her smile didn't move. "You must be Mara." I stepped down two stairs. "And you must be Celeste." The Ashcombes' famous daughter, reclaimed from a closed adoption arrangement after my birth mother had died. The only child the family had raised. The celebrated teacher whose guided meditation series had millions of listeners. The face of the Ashcombe Foundation's new Haven Initiative. The same woman who had taken my place. My father stood near the front door, already reaching toward me as if I might disappear again. Julian Ashcombe had silver at his temples and my mother's green eyes. I knew that because I had spent years comparing my eyes to hers in a photograph I kept folded in my wallet. "Mara," he said. His voice caught. "You came." "I said I would." The sentence sounded more generous than I felt. A woman in a dark suit approached from the side. "Mr. Ashcombe, the guests are waiting in the gallery." "Of course." His attention stayed on me. "We'll talk tonight." I looked past him at the guests, at the champagne, at the family crest carved above the archway. "I thought this was a private welcome." "We were holding a foundation reception," Celeste said. "I didn't know you'd arrive before it ended." I glanced at the small clock on the wall. The invitation had said seven. It was seven fourteen. "Then your foundation can welcome me in front of its donors." Celeste's expression softened for the cameras. "I'm glad you're here. This house has always had room for both of us." I had heard enough about the house to know that it had not had room for me when I was born. The woman in the dark suit introduced herself as Lydia Voss, the foundation's operations director. She offered to take my bag. I kept hold of it. "I'm Mara Bell," I said. "I use my mother's surname." My father looked down at the bag. "You can use Ashcombe now, if you want." "I don't." He flinched. I was sorry for the reflex, but not the answer. A donor asked whether I had come from the coast. I said I had come from a hospice in Bellwether, where I had spent the week sitting with a man who believed his late wife was calling him from the attic. I had not told him his wife was there. I'd helped him find the cracked pipe making the voice in the ceiling. "I work with families who are frightened," I explained. "Sometimes that means spiritual counseling. Sometimes it means an electrician." The donor laughed uncertainly. Celeste's smile remained polished. "What a gift," she said. "You can help people find peace, and I can help them learn to live in it." The foyer lights flickered once. No one laughed that time. Celeste's fingers closed around the silver bell at her throat. I watched her thumb press its rim. The same hand was holding a wireless microphone. My father's face tightened. "We'll have the staff check the wiring." "I'll check it," I said. Lydia gave a small, professional smile. "The contractors are already looking at it." "Then they won't mind me looking too." I stepped toward the cellar door. Behind me, a guest whispered about the strange woman who had arrived with a canvas bag and a reputation for talking people out of ghosts. I had been called worse by people who were afraid. At the door, I turned back. Celeste stood beside my father beneath the Ashcombe crest, close enough for the photographers to make them look like a family. I wanted to hate her. Instead, I wondered how much she knew.