The Lost Bride Trilogy, #1
Inheritance
by Nora Roberts
Contents
Chapter Thirty
Overview
After a calming movie night, Cleo follows a sleepwalking Sonya through the haunted manor, witnessing grief-laden rooms and a menacing pulse from the Gold Room. In the ballroom, a mirror becomes a portal only Pooles can cross. Sonya and Owen step through, leaving Trey and Cleo to wait in tense silence.
Earlier, Trey processes the brutal assault on his client, resolves to secure custody for her, and bonds with Owen, who sketches mermaid carvings for Cleo’s boat—threads of care and craft contrasting the house’s gathering supernatural pull.
Summary
After a tearful, feel-good double feature, Sonya and Cleo settle in for the night at Poole Manor, hoping the house’s malevolent presence will stay quiet. Meanwhile, Trey, exhausted from aiding his client Marlo after a violent assault by her estranged husband Wes Mooney, returns to Owen’s. He and Owen review Marlo’s injuries, the likely charges, and Trey’s plan to secure full custody and permission for Marlo to relocate. Owen shows Trey a mermaid-themed design for Cleo’s Sunfish, a hopeful counterpoint to the day’s brutality.
Near midnight, Cleo awakens to weeping and a whispered warning, then sees Sonya sleepwalking. Following instructions Sonya had given, Cleo trails her and calls Trey, who rouses Owen. Sonya pauses at haunted thresholds: the old nursery, where Carlotta eternally mourns her infant, and a servants’ room heavy with fever and the death of Molly O’Brian. The Gold Room door pulses like a heart, radiating corruption and fear, but Sonya turns away.
Drawn instead to the ballroom, Sonya confronts a massive mirror framed by snarling figures. Cleo lights the room as Trey and Owen arrive with their dogs. Sonya and Owen, both Pooles, see figures dancing within the glass and hear distant music; their hands pass through the warm surface, while Trey and Cleo feel only solid mirror.
Awake and lucid, Sonya insists the portal is part of her inheritance and chooses to enter now, with witnesses. After Cleo presses a charm pouch on her and kisses Owen for luck, Owen steps through first holding Sonya’s hand, and the mirror swallows them. Trey and Cleo can only wait before the now-silent house as the Gold Room’s ominous heartbeat ceases.
Who Appears
- Sonya MacTavishHeir of Poole Manor; sleepwalks, senses hauntings, and chooses to enter the ballroom mirror-portal.
- CleoFollows and protects Sonya, witnesses hauntings, summons help, and supports the mirror crossing.
- TreyReels from client’s assault case, vows custody fight, rushes to the manor and waits by the portal.
- OwenComforts Trey, sketches mermaid carvings for Cleo’s boat, and enters the mirror with Sonya.
- MarloTrey’s abused client; hospitalized with severe injuries, seeks full custody and relocation.
- Wes MooneyAbusive husband; arrested after assaulting Marlo and injuring their son.
- CarlottaSpirit mother eternally grieving her infant in the nursery; her sorrow is witnessed.
- Molly O’BrianDeceased young servant; died of illness, her room echoes with fevered suffering.
- HalOfficer who relays Marlo’s statement, sparing her further recounting.
- Bob BaileyNeighbor the children alert; previously confronted Wes and was threatened.
- ZaneMarlo’s eight-year-old; flees with his brother and is bruised.
- YodaCleo’s dog; alerts, barks at the ballroom mirror during the crossing.