30 Elle To Kill
Elle
To Kill
The knife thrums with a different energy than any I’ve felt before. It pulses in my hand like a heartbeat. Familiar.
One more death. The dark under-ocean doesn’t seem so big anymore. I’m returning everything to its natural order. That’s all. The souls and I are doing what we must to survive.
I’m the most connected to this spiral, this blood-held dark sanctuary, than ever before. I feel the footsteps in the soil above, the lapping of water against the rocks, even the brushes of snow-swirled air against the few remaining maple leaves.
I like it. I’ve never allowed myself to sink into this power like a warm bath. It’s always been a necessity I winced at. But there’s no reason to play timid anymore.
I peer into the water. Souls swirl in agony beneath its still, shimmering surface. A face appears, warped in the thick water. He wears a sailor’s hat. His mouth moves, but the sound is lost beneath the waves. Instructions, a curse, a plea?
Two others approach from beneath, stirred by my knife or the attention the sailor received. At first they’re only blobs in the brackish tide. Then I recognize them. I know those bird-sharp features in the first. The bulldog jowls in the second.
“Mother,” I murmur, “Father.”
Of course they wound up here, my first kills for the Devil.
Their faces are pale and gaunt, sapped of the essence they had in life.
My mother’s big eyes are glassy. They look so much like Liney’s that I want to turn away.
I ignore my father, though he jostles for my gaze.
I hold no tenderness for the man. He’s as at fault for this as I am.
My mother’s mouth moves, but I can barely make out half the words. Where and sister and help.
An epiphany hits me, either a cruelty or a blessing.
My parents never knew I killed them. How could they?
They died in their sleep. One night they were preparing for my sister’s imminent nuptials, counting their money and influence to come, and the next they woke up in this place to act as infernal fuel.
They died in their sleep. The words I’ve recited to myself every day for over a year.
The words I came so close to truly, bone-deep believing.
But they don’t outweigh the truth. What I saw when I glanced behind me as we escaped the house and hid in an alley across the street so Liney could catch her breath.
The moonlight gleamed in the window. The window I’d sealed with a substance Mr. Pratterman gave me the night before to ensure an airtight seal.
On that window, dragging downward, was a handprint on the glass.
They stare up at their troubled elder daughter, believing I’m here to—what—save them? It turns my stomach and makes my head swim. I lean back from the pool.
My mother’s pleading eyes stay ghosts in my vision.
I’ve blamed her for our descent into torment, but what control did she wield?
Her money was my father’s the moment they married.
Her children bear his name, not hers. Every business decision—including the engagements—weren’t hers to decide.
Yet she was the middleman for every sin committed against us.
Not innocent, yet not the guiltiest party.
They hurt us all, darling. Those words chilled me when I’d come to her hoping for mercy from the monster she’d ushered into our home. I’d shiver now if my body weren’t molten with power.
Am I not a dark reflection of her? She was forced into a contract, as her mother was, and her mother’s mother, and every woman who came before.
That’s our difference. No one forced me to seek out Mr. Pratterman.
I chose my condemnation and to endanger my sister.
Was I so desperate because he was my only option or because even then I craved the power that stories promised?
Revenge. To forge instead of bend or break, no matter how monstrous my creations might become.
Which is worse: to be trapped by others or by your own hand?
My mother is still staring at me, but I won’t look down again. Would decades under Thomas have ground me down like her? Molded me into the next mother to sacrifice her daughter for the interests of men?
I saved Liney from my mother’s fate. But can I take from her everything she’s wanted to save her from a different kind of monster?
They hurt us all. To my mother, to Liney, I’ve joined the ranks of them. The figures of their oppression. All the justification in the world can’t argue against that. I’ll hurt my sister to ensure her security, the same reason my mother hurt me.
This is an evolution, not a breaking of the cycle.
I’ll forever carry my mother’s hope turning to despair beneath me. But she’s of the Devil’s domain now. Beyond me. Surely.
Noise to my left interrupts me. A squelching of meat mixed with the gritty sound of stone on stone. A line appears to my side, glowing white, then expanding into a hole in the wall. Mr. Pratterman emerges. He doesn’t take the stairs. Interesting.
His stride is fast and assured, but he keeps one arm behind him. It’s not until he’s well into the room that I see her, dragged by her hair.
Bridget’s eyes are dark, as though a storm has passed over their sky blue. She’s given up fighting, slumped into dead weight. How far was she dragged? If Mr. Pratterman intervened with her, did Liney see him?
“You’re welcome,” Mr. Pratterman says and throws Bridget between us. She hits the ground hard, the noise reverberating up the stairs in heavy echoes. “Consider this a favor.”
My gaze fixes on Bridget, then Mr. Pratterman, then back. This is too easy.
“Why did you—” I stand at my full height and face him as what I never considered us before—equals.
“Patience isn’t one of my few virtues,” he interrupts. “She was about to leave the island. That goose chase is outside the bounds of my tolerance.”
I would’ve lost. I’d have had enough time and the tools to kill her but failed. He’d have had me. Yet here we are. There’s always a trick. Another motive, a hidden agenda.
Why does Mr. Pratterman not want to waste time? He’s a being of endless time. Why is he so worried about Bridget surviving?
My heart thumps hard in my chest, a wild thing. For once I think instead of fighting first.
“Eleanor.” His voice is deeper. It hums, resonating through the stones around us. It reminds me of his voice against my neck, humming into my skin. “Not even a thank-you?”
His voice once worked on me. Everything about him used to work. The contract-binding embraces, his chest against my back in that melting room, and his bright, hungry eyes. Dangerous tenderness between the demands for violence. Keeping me hooked.
Bridget stares up at me, lip trembling and eyes frantic to capture my gaze, to plead. Tendrils from the meaty mortar between stones wrap around her ankles. A lamb tied for sacrifice.
No. A girl.
“Thank you,” I say, torn at the edges.
“This is a moment of celebration, Eleanor,” he continues, stepping forward until his shoes touch the edge of Bridget’s dress.
I sewed that dress for Liney, a light linen for summer.
The stitching of the hem hikes up on the left side from when Douglas made a joke and distracted me.
I thought he was being cutting, but now…
My knife pulses, cool within my grasp. These moments, from seeing my parents to meeting eyes with Bridget, are too fast, too much.
“She’s the highest value she’ll ever be to us.” A grin spreads to show his red-tinged teeth.
More pieces click into place. When we met in the city, why did Mr. Pratterman need to research the rot inside me? He never spoke of it again. And now he speaks of value? As though Bridget were a prized mare fit for the auction.
“How so?” I raise my gaze to match his. Shouldn’t the deepest of sinners be the most powerful fuel for suffering?
Mr. Pratterman’s mouth is stretched nearly the full width of his face. Those moonlight eyes hold a hunger deeper than any I’ve seen before. There’s no trace of gentleman left. He’s embraced his monstrosity, believing I will too.
“Suffering is relative. Ripples of grief can fade or grow into a maelstrom. Think of it like any other resource. I could sell raw gold and make small returns compared to the effort. Or I can refine it. Craft it. The time Bridget’s spent here, unknowingly torturing you and giving Caroline a glimpse of what could be, only to have it ripped from her by her own sister?
Three for the price of one. That’s explosive.
Unless you believe there’s something stronger? ”
He doesn’t have to say it. Liney’s threat. I imagine her lying between us instead of Bridget and wince. I shake my head. Anything but that.
“This place is capable of much,” he drawls, spreading his hands. “But it’s limited in scope. With the concentration I can consume from her, I can create new sources. Gain territory.”
This is the only territory he has? Given his biblical precedence, why would a tiny island off the coast of Nova Scotia be his center of control? Sweat slicks my knife hand.
Bridget’s begun to recover between us. Her head moves, examining the hellscape she’s been dragged into. I hope she doesn’t notice the sinew that’s tightening around her legs.
“How would you like to be the true keeper of this place, Eleanor? Not only the lighthouse but the entire spiral’s power.”
The keeper. My heart skips a beat, and so does the knife’s rhythm in my palm. The power of the spiral, mine alone. Hasn’t that been what I’ve wanted? To be out from under Mr. Pratterman’s thumb but still here?
A memory worms its way back to me. Another place of heat, that ever-melting room where we first met. After I’d poured my heart out, Mr. Pratterman planned my escape with me. But what did he say about plans when I asked him for help against Thomas?
There are other machinations at play for Mr. Seymour.
I knew nothing then. A girl na?ve to the darkness of the world. I can put it together now. I need to think straight. There’s a thread between Mr. Pratterman, Thomas, and Mr. Croxton.