Status Updates From Spitting Gold

Oh chapter 13 was gold.

More intriguing than I thought it would be. It’s sticks to the views of the time which I appreciate

Charlotte’s motives re: Florence are noble, but she does enjoy being a martyr on the pyre of self-pity. She’s got no right to assume how Sylvie really feels about her husband or why she (Sylvie) severed contact, & she (Charlotte) could’ve left their crappy abusive father years ago to strike out on her own. Going on & on about how Sylvie abandoned them just makes me give her an irritated side-eye.

—“If I could help you, I would. But can no longer call upon the dead.”
—I expected pleading to follow. Offers of money, exhortations. Or perhaps resignation. Tears. What I didn’t expect was the smile that crossed her face. Not a pleasant smile; it was ghostly in itself. It made the skin on my arms prickle like anything.
—“Because you never could,” said Florence.

‘To turn back or to press on? I took a long, slow breath, filling my lungs: bags of dried lavender at the windows; beeswax on the floor; vinegar & carbolic; & the traces of latent mildew & dust. Scents of the household—distinctive & dependable. Nothing could have been further from the otherworldly. I could not let myself be frightened by the inventions of my own mind.’