Chapter 7: Starting the Party

The murmur of the party swelled as we slipped down the grand staircase. Voices tangled with the low thrum of music and the occasional peal of laughter, spilling from the drawing room, dining room, library, and the adjoining salons. Guests drifted between rooms, their costumes a kaleidoscope of elegance and excess—some restrained, others flamboyant enough to stop a heartbeat.

The mansion itself seemed to glow under the Halloween lights. I had watched it dress for this night every year of my life, yet tonight it felt charged with a new electricity. Perhaps it was the fact that I had just turned eighteen. Perhaps it was the first time I was allowed to mingle with the adults instead of being shuffled upstairs with the younger crowd. Or perhaps it was the weight of the grimoire still concealed beneath my bedding, a secret humming against my ribs. I shoved the thought aside, focusing on the pulse of the evening.

At the foot of the stairs, my parents stood beside the massive fireplace in the drawing room, greeting arrivals with practiced ease. Daddy looked utterly at home in his guise. Richard Langford—six‑foot‑one, lean, the wiry strength of a man who still sliced through the estate pool each morning—had begun to silver at the temples, his hazel eyes sharp from years of boardroom battles. Tonight, however, he was not the businessman but Gomez Addams. A black pinstriped suit clung to his frame, a crisp white shirt and dark tie peeking beneath, polished shoes gleaming, and a narrow mustache curling above his lip. He caught our approach and smiled, his voice warm.

“There they are.”

Mommy stood at his side, a vision of Morticia Addams. Vivienne Langford—thirty‑nine, tall and willowy, the graceful line of a former ballerina—wore a black wig over her waist length chestnut hair. She had on an old-fashioned black dress that emphasized how tall and slender she was. Storm‑gray eyes, deepened by dramatic makeup, scanned the room with an almost unsettling stillness. Even amid the sea of costumed revelers, she possessed a contained poise, as if a part of her were forever observing. She turned to me, and for a fleeting instant her expression shifted—pride, mixed with something indefinable—before melting into a smile.

“My darling.”

She opened her arms, and I stepped into her embrace, mindful of the delicate feathers of my wings. “You look beautiful,” she whispered.