Chapter XIII
XIII
Margate, England
One week later
Growing up, Charlotte was always afraid of the dark.
Most children are. But unlike most, it never kept her from staring into shadows.
Instead, she felt perversely compelled, her gaze always drifting to the places where the darkness gathered, thick as curtains.
She couldn’t seem to help herself. She’d look until her eyes grew tired and her mind played tricks on her, conjured monsters out of nothing.
But now, when Charlotte looks into the dark, she finds it full of details.
The night diffuse with moonlight, and the butter-gold of lanterns, the curls of light reaching far beyond their edges, the shadows thin as panes of glass, and her eyes sharp enough to pick out the tiles on the rooftops, the ripples in the wood.
She sees the cathedral looming in the distance, hears the whisper of the breeze against its bells, makes out the scent of ale clinging to an empty cask, the rustle of Sabine’s skirts several yards ahead.
It is late, and most of the shops are shuttered, but despite the hour, sections of the town still stir with life. It whispers from inside darkened houses. It calls from open windows, and spills from a tavern down the road—the scrape of chairs, the clink of glass, the rise and fall of voices.
A sign marks the structure as an inn, and Charlotte wonders if that is where they’ll stay. Sabine seems to be considering it, too, until the door swings open, and a man stumbles out into the street. He turns up the road, humming tunelessly, and Sabine says nothing, but slips into his wake.
Charlotte follows.
Ahead, the man trips on a loose cobblestone, catches himself, swears, and carries on another block before coming to a stop before a weathered door. He slumps against it, fumbles with a key, and just as he gets the door open, Sabine calls out.
“Sir?” Her voice satin soft, and sweet as cream. “You’ve just dropped this.”
The shilling catches on the lamplight.
He squints at it through the fog of liquor. “Thanks,” he slurs, “’s very decent of you.”
Sabine answers with a perfect smile. “Well,” she says.
“I do try to be decent.” As she speaks, she steps into the light, the lantern glancing on her copper hair, and Charlotte swears she can feel the muddle of the man’s thoughts foaming in the air.
Curiosity, confusion, and something a shade more sinister.
“You shouldn’t be out at this hour. Two young women such as yourselves.” He licks his lips as he says it. Ah, thinks Charlotte. That’s what it is. Hunger.
“We meant to ride through the night,” explains Sabine. “But our driver fell ill.”
She steps closer still, offering the coin, but when his hand closes over it, her gloved fingers come to rest on his. “But you’re right, it’s far too late for two young women to be out without a chaperone. You should invite us in.”
Any suspicion gutters like a candle, blown out by her words, the odd vibration in her voice. Charlotte can’t see Sabine’s expression from this angle, but she sees the man’s resistance melt away as his mouth breaks into a foolish grin.
“Come on, then,” he says as he lights a lamp and leads them into a narrow sitting room. “Make yourselves at home,” he adds, heading toward the hearth.
“Such hospitality,” muses Sabine as he pokes a mound of embers, stirring them to life again. He goes to hoist the kettle, but loses his balance. Charlotte reaches out to steady him.
Beyond his shoulder Sabine flicks her fingers, giving her a pointed look, the meaning clear.
Drink.
As if it is that easy. And perhaps it is. After all, Charlotte’s hand is still on his arm, and his eyes are glassy and his breath is hot. This close, she can see the stubble on his cheeks, smell the blood beneath his skin, that hollow hunger pooling like a pit.
And yet, hungry as she is, she hesitates.
Sabine’s expression turns severe. “I won’t keep cutting up your food.”
She says it quietly—but not quietly enough. The man twists round. “What was that?” he starts to ask, before Charlotte pulls him back against her, and bites down.
It isn’t hard.
The skin tears beneath her teeth, and blood rushes up, breaks over her tongue.
That first mouthful is like a spill of golden light, washing through her cold, still limbs, warming her from the inside out.
The man stiffens against her, trying and failing to break free—Charlotte’s still surprised at her own strength.
She feels the life slide down her throat, take root inside her chest. Coil around her heart, which, at last, begins to beat again.
Then Sabine is at her side, fingers dancing down her back, her lips lowered to her ear.
“My feral rose,” she whispers, her voice tangled with the pulse, a melody of dizzy pleasure.
Charlotte closes her eyes again, and lets herself sink.
The room drops with her, falls away, as light blooms to every side. She is lying in the grass at Clement Hall, bathing in the summer sun, and this is perfect, this is peace. This moment, rose gold behind her eyes, beneath her skin.
Until the man says, “ Please. ”
That one word, and the illusion crumbles. A desperate plea, gasped into a darkened room, and she is back, the air around her painted thick with fear, and her horror rushes up to meet it. Charlotte recoils, limbs and teeth retreating as she lets go.
The man stumbles, collapses, struggles to his feet again, and she doesn’t tell him to run, but how relieved she is to hear the front door slam, to have his body gone, even as his heart still pounds inside her chest.
Charlotte’s head is spinning, her legs unsteady and her cheeks hot, as if she’s downed a glass or two of sherry. Sabine looks from Charlotte to the door and back again, dismayed.
“He said please,” she murmurs, fighting to suppress a dizzy giggle. It is not funny, of course, and yet for some reason, she almost laughs.
Sabine does not.
Her jaw clicks shut, expression cold. She doesn’t raise her voice—she never has—but she storms out, and Charlotte sinks onto a stool beside the hearth, waiting for the room to level.
The fire crackles, but otherwise the house is suddenly so quiet, so empty, that something turns inside her.
A sudden, horrible sadness, stronger than she’s felt in years.
The stolen heartbeat slows behind her breast, and her eyes begin to sting, and she’s relieved when Sabine reappears.
Until she drops something small and bloody in her lap.
It takes Charlotte a moment to realize what it is.
A human heart.
“The one who said please,” says Sabine before tossing two more down on top, “and the two men he’d already told.”
Charlotte stares down in horror at the three hearts, nested like bloody little bodies in the bowl of her skirts.
Sabine dusts off her palms. “You see?” she says, sinking onto the sofa. “This is why you should always finish what you start.”
Charlotte’s stomach turns as she gets to her feet and casts the hearts one by one into the fire. She stays there, kneeling by the stove, watching the hearts burn as Sabine spreads herself over the cushions, and closes her eyes, and seems perfectly at home.
Unbothered. Untouched. As if the horror doesn’t so much as—
“Stop,” says Sabine, her eyes still closed. “It does no good to dwell.”
Charlotte frowns. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“Why should it? What is more natural than death?”
“But this wasn’t natural. It was you.” She looks down at her ruined dress. “ Us. ” Her fingers trace the bloodstains on her skirts. “How do you live with it?”
She can hear the shrug in Sabine’s voice. “It’s easy.”
“It shouldn’t be,” she hisses. “They were people.”
“They were food.” Sabine sighs, exasperated. “Honestly, Charlotte, did you mourn the eggs you used to have for breakfast? The chicken in your pie?”
Charlotte rounds on her. “It’s not the same.”
Sabine is sitting upright now, cleaning the crescents of her nails. “Isn’t it?”
“How can you be so cavalier?” she snaps, expecting the other woman to lash back, to scold or raise her voice. Instead, she meets Charlotte’s gaze and smiles, almost gently.
“People die,” she says. “Every hour of every day. The vast majority will do so through accident, or sickness, age, or folly. And yes, a handful at our hands.” She rises to her feet, approaching Charlotte.
And even though Sabine is only slightly taller, she always seems to loom, larger than her height and wider than her frame.
“Death comes, and sometimes it is kind, and often it is cruel, and very rarely it is welcome. But it comes, all the same.” Sabine’s hand comes to rest against her heart.
“The difference is, we make something of that death. Their loss is our gain.”
Charlotte looks up into those burning eyes and feels her anger flicker. Her guilt and grief retreat as Sabine lifts her other hand to cup her cheek.
“Charlotte.” Even now, the sound of her name on Sabine’s tongue, the way those fingers slide through her hair, curl against her neck, makes her thoughts fray and the room around them fade. A different kind of heat blooms beneath her skin, and she welcomes it.
“I appreciate your mind. Your thoughts. Your curiosity.” Sabine’s mouth grazes hers, teeth skating on her bottom lip. “But I think it’s time,” she purrs, “we find another use for it.”
She leads Charlotte up the stairs, and Charlotte lets herself be led.
While down below, the hearts burn to nothing in the hearth.
She sleeps, and dreams of Clement Hall.
She is in the garden, and her mother is calling for her.
Her father and brother, too. Their voices tangle in the hedges and bounce off the stone path.
She tries to call out only to find she has no voice.
She tries to go to them, but finds she has grown roots.
No matter how she fights, she cannot seem to speak, or move. She is entombed inside herself.
They search and search, but never find her.
Charlotte wakes to find herself entangled, a pale limb draped over her waist, tendrils of red hair trailing like weeds across her throat.
She marvels at how different Sabine looks, disarmed by sleep, how soft the bluish shadow of her eyelids, the fringe of copper lashes, the delicate bow of her lips, right before they twitch into a smile.
Sabine pulls Charlotte closer, and she forgets about the dream. Until later, when they are getting dressed again, and she sees a little table by the wall, an ink pot and parchment perched on top.
“I want to send a letter home.”
Sabine stands at the open wardrobe, turning through the dresses there. Gowns that must have once belonged to a daughter, or a sister, or a wife. Her hand slows, lips pursed in disapproval, but she doesn’t try to stop her.
Charlotte takes a seat and dips the quill, tries to find the words that will assure her family.
In the end, she writes that she is sorry for escaping as she did.
She writes that she wanted a different kind of life.
She glances at Sabine, who’s twirling slowly, a white dress held against her front, as if dancing with a ghost, and writes that she is happy, ends by promising that she will come to see them soon.
She slips the letter in a post as they leave town, feels a sudden wave of sadness when it’s gone, and then, a lightness. A wash of hope.
It is a lie, Sabine told her, that you only get one story .
And she’s right.
This is how the first one ends, Charlotte tells herself as the letter disappears, taking young Miss Hastings with it.
This is how the next one starts.