Chapter Thirteen #2
She was growling and snarling, becoming her own beast, as she flailed and grunted out, “Let me go!” again and again and again. Even when he set her down in the plush embrace of his armchair, the heat of the sitting room’s fireplace stifling the air in her lungs, she continued to thrash.
When he at last stepped away, she pressed herself deep into the chair to keep as far away from him as possible. Even when he offered her a blanket from the sofa, she curled further away from his touch with a hiss, and if the pain in her leg wasn’t blazing she would’ve tried running again.
A swift sting of pride flared in her heart upon seeing a pained expression cross his features.
He took a seat on the loveseat with the pathetic meekness of a dog tucking its tail between its legs.
She would’ve allowed herself a smug smirk at the scene if her gut didn’t skewer with nausea as an image of the death-pit flashed through her mind.
The two sat in silence as their eyes locked, Jane the rabbit arming itself with new teeth and Terence the wounded beast. Regardless of how real the beast was, and how possible it was that it and Terence were the same—if such even was possible—Jane’s trust, security, and affection toward him faltered. And she was afraid.
He nodded to her leg. “Your wound will need to be cleaned again.”
Jane followed his gaze to the soiled bandage, grime and blood staining in an elongated arch fashioned in the shape of the beast’s maw.
The rest of her nightdress was stained the brownish-gray color of the death-pit, and she couldn’t help but once more imagine maggots finding their way into her dress, her hair, underneath her fingernails, between her teeth, in the back of her throat, between her breasts, into the depths of her festering wound.
It was a notion that worsened her nausea and it must’ve been apparent because a hand braced against her chest, gently pushing her into the chair.
Terence must’ve left her at some point because he was suddenly kneeling before her with his arms full of fresh gauze, rags, and a decanter of water.
When he cupped her ankle in his hand, she started to jerk free of his grip but found the pain too unbearable to do so, and allowed her foot to settle into his palm.
He unraveled the bandages, and Jane blanched at finally seeing the damage the beast wrought.
It was jagged from the flaps of flesh that were mended back together by small, black stitches.
Skin had turned red and purple by monstrous teeth as the wound wrapped around her calf.
Dirt speckled the oozing wound, and Jane thought there was a maggot or two wriggling between the sutures.
Terence’s hand trembled as his fingers hovered over the wound, the air hovering just above her skin. His touch was even gentler as he began to dab at the blood with a soaked cloth. He barked a sound Jane thought to be a sob.
“All of this… all of this is my fault…” he mumbled, wincing as tears glistened in his eyes. “This was never supposed to happen.”
With little control over her mouth, Jane snarled, teeth bared with a harsh laugh, “Oh, really? I thought nighttime attacks of a wild beast were all a part of this house’s charm.”
That earned her a wounded glare from Terence as he continued dressing her leg. The bowl of water at his knee turned pink with clouds of blood.
“I shouldn’t have ever let myself grow so fond of you,” he said, which was enough to make something within Jane sting, even more than the alcohol he swabbed along her wound.
His hold on her ankle suddenly tightened.
“Now that that… that thing has tasted your blood, it will crave more. It is greedy in that way: more and more, a never-ending hunger for blood—violence—that which is not its own. It can never be sated.”
“Well, what is that… thing…”
Terence sighed heavily, rubbing his face before running his hand viciously through his hairline.
“It’s a scourge upon my bloodline. It infects us men before lunging for the throats of those around us we love.
It has infected me, my brothers, and our father.
All we’ve ever known is this infection, and my father and brothers have all fallen victim to it.
And now you’ve become a victim, too,” he said, with a lowered stare, dark, haunted.
“I know not where or why this curse was birthed, all I know is how it isolated my family, and that bringing you here has been a mistake.
“All my life I… I thought…” his voice wavered, and he licked his lips in an attempt to tame his tears.
“I thought I could be different from them. My father, my brothers—other men. I thought I could be a good man—a good person, Jane—and not some… some monster my blood, the title of manhood, demanded me to be—”
“Surely there’s something you can do about it—to get rid of it.
” Jane only found herself speaking as a way to stop the keens of his anguish.
Because it made something within her ache for him, and after falling victim to the teeth of his dark secret, she didn’t care to do any sort of additional aching.
He shook his head. “Our father had once tried, in our youth. But our curse has kept us bound to this infernal marsh, and our resources limited. But, dammit, as brief as it was, we tried. Cheap spiritualists and self-proclaimed witches that sold useless tinctures and whispers of hope. After a time I felt more like an animal to be prodded at, even when I wore my human disguise, even when the sun was high—no longer could I tell when I was meant to be a boy or some hellish… thing to be examined and feared. Eventually, we were instructed to keep our heads down and to bear the pain as strong boys should, until I had grown too afraid to look up.”
The hand that cradled her ankle shivered as Terence’s resolve at last appeared to shatter. He slumped before her, shoulders shuddering as he started to cry. He bowed forward until his forehead pressed against her knees and he clutched fistfuls of her skirts.
“God—I beg for your forgiveness, Jane… This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he mewled into fabric stained with rot and blood.
“I—I tried to keep you as safe as I could, but I just… I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t keep you away.
This heart—this imprudent, wretched muscle—has damned you…
and I will never forgive myself. My greed, my sin… ”
The scene struck Jane as she let the heat from his tears warm her knee, the marrow of her bones, for what beast would weep at the feet of a lady wounded by his own teeth to plead her forgiveness?
A hushed whispering from behind her caught her attention and when she glanced over her shoulder, she caught both Mrs. Foster and Mr. Hudson huddled in the doorway.
They watched them with a sort of relieved indifference that Jane was unsure how to feel about.
Had they been witnesses to similar incidents?
How many other girls have they seen damned to a similar fate?
Jane, suddenly, hated them both. They knew about this beast, of blood that flowed beneath their feet.
They knew and neglected to tell her the truth.
She hoped that seeing her maimed was enough to tarnish their souls with guilt—that was if their souls weren’t already immune to guilt.
Her eyes pinched in a glare before she looked back down at Terence.
Unsure of whether he’d startle like a dog, quick to bite, she hesitantly reached out a hand and ran her fingers through his hair.
He went still beneath her touch, not once moving to bite.
His hair was soft, so unlike the mange of the beast. She couldn’t help but stroke him as though petting a dog between his ears.
Bad boy, she thought with a forced scowl of indifference.
Perhaps she could’ve been more compassionate in her understanding of the apparent horrors he’d suffered since his youth, but she found herself lacking such compassion and in its place held a bitterness for the fact he’d nearly eaten her as a result of his negligence.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” She finally rasped out. “If I were trapped here, who could I tell? If you killed me, then your secret would die with me, and if I return to America, the secret shall be mine to keep out of gratitude and kindness.”
He just looked at her warily, and she could feel the misery oozing off of him, completely and utterly palpable, with a taste like bad ocean air. Tears dampened his face, eyes red, and the sound he made to stifle his crying wasn’t too unlike a mongrel’s whimpering.
“I rather like thinking of you as a friend, but you test my trust, Terence,” she said.
He visibly flinched at that, a wounded crease between his brows, but he otherwise remained still as she swiped away a tear with her thumb.
“If I’m going to have to spend another night here—and Christ knows how many more after—then I want to know how to survive. ”
Her hand then shifted down from where it stroked his hair to grip his chin.
Her newborn hatred stammered upon seeing his pink, tear-stained eyes.
A broken man caging a broken beast just beneath the surface of his skin.
But a beast was still a beast, and she refortified her resolve by digging her thumb into his jaw and tightening her face into something severe as she brought it close to his, so that they may share the same air.
His cologne overpowered her with the scent of bergamot and lemon oil, but beneath it, she could smell the whispers of a mutt’s fur and the cellar’s gore-soaked damp.
“And you’re going to help me. You understand this… this thing inside you better than me, than anyone in this house,” her hold on him loosened—Only because I pity the poor beast, she had to remind herself, “You’re the one that brought me into this mess, and I expect you to help me out of it.”