The Fifth Bride
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The dress fit perfectly. It always did.
Annabel Hargrove marries into Aldermere Hall expecting a quiet life — a loving husband, beautiful gardens, and time enough to fill her sketchbook with botanical illustrations. But the roses bloom out of season. The fountain runs at night with something that is not water. And the ancestral glass, pressed into her hands at the wedding breakfast, shows her things the family would rather she not see.
Silver threads in the walls. Faces she almost recognises. A maze that breathes.
Four brides came before her. Four women who loved their Sedgewick husbands and never grew old. No one in the household will tell Annabel what happened to them. Her husband flinches when she asks about the garden after dark. The housekeeper answers every question with rehearsed silence. And the glass keeps showing her more.
Annabel is a woman who draws what she sees. She has always believed that looking closely enough would make the world make sense. She is about to discover what happens when the thing you're studying is looking back.
The prequel novella to the Rootbound Bride series.
- Published
- 4 March 2026
- Genre
- Gothic horror novella
