Chapter Twenty #2
“We suited, Owen Poole and I, in the ways that matter in such arrangements. We were a very fine match. She stole that from me. She took my life on the most substantial day of it.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Agatha inclined her head. “I believe you are, but sorry is no matter. You must restore my ring, and all the others. This is your duty.”
Then she looked beyond Sonya to the manor. “I would have been a conscientious mistress of this manor, and a good and faithful wife.”
Then she looked back at Sonya. “He did not love me, nor I him. But we made a fine match. And this night, when I believed I saw my future? I was happy.”
Waves crashed against the rocks as Agatha turned back to Owen. He took the hand she held out to him.
“I accept your proposal of marriage with a full heart.”
Then they were gone, and so were the stars and the moon.
As she took the pets back in, Sonya wondered why it somehow seemed sadder that there had been no love, only duty.
Upstairs, Sonya took time to write out the experience. She’d seen them all now, not only on the day of their deaths, but beyond that.
Another step toward the answers? Maybe, she thought. At least steps in understanding each woman.
Then put it aside, think of Anna instead. This was now, and she’d put her mind and energies, for tonight, on the now.
She took her phone into bed with her. Yoda flopped into his bed, and they both fell asleep almost instantly.
The phone startled her awake at two-twenty-six a.m.
“Is the baby good, is Anna good?”
“Everybody’s good. Everybody’s great. Especially Fiona Kate Miller.”
“Fiona Kate Miller.” Swiping her hair back, Sonya sat up in bed. “That’s beautiful.”
“She’s beautiful. Seriously. I’m sending you a picture. I’ve got a million of them, but I’ll start with one.”
“Wait. Let me get it, let me see. Oh, oh, she is beautiful. Fiona, the raven-haired beauty. So much hair!”
With the phone, she scrambled out of bed. “I’m going to tell Cleo.”
“Seven pounds, twelve ounces. Okay, one more picture. The new family.”
She brought it up as she pushed open Cleo’s door. Anna, tired and glowing, Seth wonder and tears in his eyes. And both beaming down at the baby cradled in Anna’s arms.
“You need to frame that one. It’s a perfect moment.”
“There were a lot of them. I can come up if you want.”
“Go home, get some sleep. We’re absolutely fine. More than. I’ll see you tomorrow, Uncle Trey.”
“How about that? I’m going to grab one more look at her, and go home and crash. Listen … I love you.”
What was already warm and bright in her went warmer, brighter. “I love you, too. Tell Anna and Seth a million congratulations. Good night.”
She sat on the side of Cleo’s bed, laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “It’s Sonya. Cleo? Want to see a picture of Fiona Kate Miller?”
“Hmm? What? Oh, baby?”
“I’m turning the lamp on low. Get ready. Fiona Kate Miller has entered the world.”
“Fiona? I love it.” Cleo blinked against the light, then looked at the phone Sonya held up. “Oh, isn’t she gorgeous? Couldn’t you just lap her up like ice cream? With hot fudge and whipped cream and two cherries on top. How’s Anna?”
“I’ll show you.” She swiped to the next picture.
“Well, my heart just melted. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? That right there. The birth of a family. I can’t wait to meet her.”
“Trey said he has lots of pictures, so I’ll ask him to send more tomorrow. And maybe find out when we can visit.” Sonya took one more look, gave one more sigh. “Since you’re awake, I saw Owen and Agatha.”
“What? When? Where?”
“When I took the pets out, before I came to bed. Outside. The night he proposed.”
When she’d told the story, Cleo leaned back against the pillows.
“It’s just sad, isn’t it? A fine match, that’s what mattered. They probably would’ve been good together, both of them settling, doing their duty. She didn’t love him, but she didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, she didn’t. She knew he didn’t love her, but she accepted that. I felt sorry for her. Anyway, today’s a happy day, and I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to bed.”
She started back to her room, jolted a little when the door opened another inch. Then laughed when Yoda came out.
“You scared me. Did I wake you up, too? Let’s go back to sleep.”
But he whined, wiggled, gave her that look.
“Really? Now? Well, if you’ve gotta, you gotta.”
She took him down, or rather he took her, running ahead down the steps to the door. He darted out the minute she opened it.
Yawning now, she leaned against the jamb, drifting a bit as she breathed in the night, lulled herself with the sound of the sea. The wind had blown the clouds away so now, a thousand stars glimmered in a glass-clear night. The air held a chill that spoke just as clearly of summer’s end.
Yoda didn’t take long to bound back to her, wagging now.
“Feel better? Now I have to pee.”
Since it was closer, she walked down to the powder room.
When she came out, Yoda stood down the hall, staring into the music room where the light shined out from the open doorway.
“We didn’t leave that on. What do you see?” Her pulse began to pound as she walked to her dog. Astrid, she wondered, at the piano, ready to play her sad song?
The clock would soon chime three. Dobbs would stand on the seawall. Carlotta would weep in the nursery. Molly would die in pain, alone in her room.
Braced, she walked to the doorway. The room, the air in it, seemed to throb like a wound. Nothing there, no one there.
But something …
Then the portraits changed.
Instead of a wedding gown, Catherine wore a thin robe over a thin nightdress.
Her skin turned a cold shade of blue. Marianne, her hair matted, her nightgown wet with sweat and blood, stared sightlessly.
Beside her, Agatha’s eyes bulged. Raw scratches scarred her throat.
Blood, her own blood, smeared her fingers.
Lisbeth, gown in tatters, red welts raw on her body, stood with wilted flowers falling from her limp hand.
Clover, God, Clover, naked but for sweat and blood, her face stripped of all joy in death. Johanna, her head turned to an impossible angle, mouth lax, eyes filmed, her gown splattered with blood.
None wore a wedding ring.
The wall where she hoped to hang Astrid creaked open, and bled.
“It’s not real.”
But it was real, she thought as her stomach clutched and roiled. Because all of that had happened. All of that had been real.
From the piano came a dirge, a crash of notes and chords booming through the room, banging inside her head, her heart.
In the wave of cold air, ice-tipped air, she saw her breath stutter out.
The doorbell bonged, the same notes as the piano, so the music of death and grief ran through the manor.
With horrified eyes, she watched the faces of the brides melt into skulls while their bodies decomposed.
I gave them this. The voice whispered, close, so close, Sonya felt the breath of the words on her shivering skin.
Death, painful death, a bitter end. I twisted their joy into sorrow so deep there is no bottom. So I will with you.
Something vile began to spill out of the paintings, pool on the floor, then stream like a river toward her.
Run, or meet that fate.
She might have. She might have snatched up her trembling dog and fled to Cleo. And in that moment of terror and revulsion, might have dragged Cleo out of the house.
But the clock struck three.
The house went still. For one long moment, all went quiet. She felt the warm trickling back, pushing against the cold so that a mist rose in the room.
Behind it, the portraits were as they’d been painted. Brides in their finery, wearing their rings, holding their flowers.
She jumped when the music started. Not the dirge, but Astrid’s nightly song. Breathless, in wonder, she watched the keys depress and release, but saw no one.
Yoda seemed to as he hurried to the piano, sat at the stool, thumping his tail as he looked up.
Knowing he’d be safe now, she walked back to the front door. She opened it again.
No Dobbs on the wall. She’s already jumped, Sonya thought. Already thrown herself on the rocks to escape the hangman’s noose, to seal her curse with her own blood.
“A painful death and a bitter end for you, too. I’m going to find the way to make it stick. I’m going to rip those rings off your murdering fingers.”
Clover dug back with Curtis Mayfield with the Impressions and “Keep On Pushing.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to. She made a mistake.
She made a mistake showing me how she turned the wonderful into the awful.
She did that to you, to you and all the others, and I never forget that.
But tonight? She vandalized—real or not—she vandalized art.
My father’s art. Collin’s, too, but she should never have used my father’s work that way.
“She made a very big mistake,” Sonya said, and closed the door.
She slept poorly, but she slept. At her desk, she worked in fits and starts, but she worked.
When Cleo came out, Yoda got out from under the desk, anticipating his next outdoor romp.
“Coffee first, but then I want to see those pictures again. I’ve got an idea about…” Eyes narrowing, Cleo stepped closer. “Something’s wrong. Not the baby, Anna—”
“No, no, in fact Trey sent a couple more pictures.”
“Then what? Something’s wrong. It’s all over you.”
“Get your coffee.”
“Screw coffee.”
Sonya shook her head, and pushed away from the desk. “Let’s go down. I could use another hit myself. We can have coffee in the garden. I’ll tell you what happened.”
“Shit. More than seeing Owen and Agatha? What did I sleep through?”
“Outside.” Sonya patted her arm. “Coffee and air.”
“All right. You’ve got shadows under your eyes.”
“I didn’t sleep very well.”
As they passed the servants’ door, they heard the distant ringing of the bell. Though it felt like a weak salute, Sonya just shot up a middle finger and kept going.
But she stopped at the music room as she had on her first trip down that morning. As it had then, everything looked perfectly in place.