Chapter 5
five
Hester’s headstone is erected the next morning. I watch from my window, the latticed glass warping with rain. Father stands guard, a smudged shadow near the church. The same men who pulled her body up from the river now struggle in the dirt above her grave, straightening the stone as best they can.
It is futile work. In a few years’ time, the stone will be like every other. Wilting to the side like a forgotten flower, covered in white petals that have no business blooming in the darker months.
I turn away from the window to where two objects sit on my bed.
Mother’s journal lies open to a page with more scribblings I do not understand.
Scratched designs of patchwork, drawings of veiny root systems. I pored over them late into the night.
Still my brain cannot make sense of the smudged ink.
I wish she were here to help me understand.
To tell me the places her mind went as the illness stripped her life away, while the madness and blood took over her body.
Maybe then, I could make sense of my own.
Beside the journal is Ransom’s handkerchief. I lift the fabric in my hand and grit my teeth, remembering the gentle touch of the lordling, his fingers grazing my now-healing skin. The cloth is crusted with my dark blood, three letters looped in one corner in onyx thread.
RVB.
I rub my thumb over the stitches, barely a whisper-touch, and come up with a million things the V could stand for.
Vincent, Valentine, Virgil…
I shake my head. Stupid. There are more pressing matters at hand than the middle name of some high and mighty lordling.
Namely, Father’s desire to pack me on the next coach out of Rixton.
I cannot leave my home, the one thing I still have tethering me to Mother.
The last place she pressed a kiss to my forehead and whispered those three little words.
My Morning Glory.
An ache cuts across my chest. I cannot leave this place.
My fingers trail the edges of my quilt while I take an inventory of my chambers.
The bed pressed into the corner near the window, a jar of dried roses on the table beside that.
Wallpaper printed with vines and ivory. In the center of the room, a wooden chair looped with ropes stained dark by blood.
A cold breeze whispers through the cracked window and sends the sheets of paper tacked on the walls rustling. My belly boils, anger and rage swirling there like a maelstrom.
Every one is a reminder. A witness to my wickedness. Father’s handwriting is crystalline on each browning page. Words of Ithrandril, reminders of how he has forsaken me.
How dare my father even think about sending me away? I am no longer a child; I am a person. Whole and my own, am I not? If Mother were here—
I ball my hands into fists at my sides. But she isn’t here, is she? She’s dead.
My nails are dagger points in my flesh, digging until I have pierced through and drawn blood.
It drips like ink along my palms. The tears come hot and heavy, rushing down my cheeks.
Without a moment’s thought, I tear across the floor, ripping each fluttering piece of paper from the plaster, until I am left with my forehead against the far wall, fistfuls of the Blessed Scriptures in my hands.
What good has any of it done me? Just a bunch of empty words meant to heal but only harm. My heart trips on the anger spilling up from my lungs, and I heave, shoulders shaking.
I will not be sent away.
It would be better to die than to board a coach for someplace Mayor Samuels deems best. I bring to memory the hatred in his eyes, the accusation. His daughter’s body half-warm in her grave and already placing blame.
Your illness will be cured.
The last word sits heavy and thick in my belly.
Nausea hovers at the back of my throat, and before I can stop myself, I lean forward and vomit waxen sick on the floor.
Cured. As if this illness, this wrongness about me, is something I can take medicine for.
Merely a bout of chill, a share of ague.
I lean heavy on the wall, the damp plaster giving way beneath my weight.
If only it were so simple. If only I knew the cure, I would do it myself. I do not wish to feel this way. If I could bring warmth to my cheeks or turn my blood to rubies, I would. But I will not be stolen away from the one place I have ever known love.
My heart tugs against sinew, and I breathe shallow while I glance at the ripped paper in my hands.
Cure.
It snaps a thread inside me.
I rush to my bedside table, hands shaking, throw open the small drawer, and dig through the contents to find a matchbook. Without a second thought, I flick a match along the red strip, and the sting of phosphorus rends the air. Beside the door, the hearth stands empty.
I toss the papers and then the flickering match against the coals, staring in stunned horror at my own actions.
The flames lick the paper like autumn at the edge of oak leaves.
Tears slip down my face, the firelight reflecting in the moisture while it leaves tiny tracks down my cheeks.
I watch until the Blessed Scriptures are ashen, and my heart hollows out space in my chest.
When I sink my fingers into my pockets, the cold brush of metal breaks me from my stupor.
The bell.
A part of me wants to throw it out the window, crack it against the earth of Mother’s garden beds to be buried with the snows, forgotten until some other poor unfortunate digs it up between their fingers and lays it bare. Leave it to the mud, where it can be swallowed once more.
Maybe, if I cannot hear it, the creatures of mist and teeth will not come for me.
Another piece, the one that sparked at the sight of a corporeal monster—a face—the part still picturing Ransom Black’s eyes, still feels his fingers on my bare and bloody skin when he didn’t shrink away, wants to hold the bell and keep it with me always.
A tribute to the one inkling of freedom I have had in years. The one glimmer of acceptance.
Something scritches at my door.
Not Father.
My eyes dart to the window, down the hill toward the graveyard, where he still stands, cloak dripping wet. I cross and snap the window shut.
It comes again, the sound. A slow, stuttering thing, as though whatever awaits on the other side isn’t fully there. As if their finger isn’t made from bone or blood, but dust. My heart spasms, breath coming hot. I unravel the bell from its wrappings.
The sound comes once more, dry and thin as a barren twig.
I do not want to look. What if it is simply another monster come to lure me to the reaching branches of the hungry forest? Come to show me faces that no longer belong to the living?
My skin aches with nerves, a knot firmly set in the center of my chest. I try to refine my breaths. My lungs squeeze, heart fisting against my ribs.
My stomach turns, and my skin flares. Pain grows roots at the base of my skull. I toss my head back toward the ceiling, gurgling a scream at the back of my throat.
A soft scratch.
Why? Why now?
There is a telltale feather touch on my chest, the moment before my heart squeezes and stops, and I am sent head over heels, just trying to breathe. I stagger, head thick, the air around me stodgy, and I try to straighten just as my spine cracks like a twig.
No. Not now. Not today.
My finger itches for my throat. I want nothing more than to feel the anxious tremor of the vein beneath my skin, but I hold it firm at my side and bend my knuckles until the creases turn white as hoarfrost. My vision blossoms black. I blink.
No.
This fear is a wretched, wicked thing, and I don’t want it anymore. Before I can stop myself, before I can think another thought, allow some other slip of my heart to guide my mind, I turn toward the door and hold out the bell.
It is strangely heavy for how small it is, like lead shot careening through my fingers.
A wind blows up from the fields beyond the vicarage, rattling the glass panes of my window, sending rain against it like bullets.
I focus on the bell, fisting my empty hand at my hip and wiping sweat along the wool of my skirt.
Bells are for protection, are they not? To be used as a warning against death and danger approaching? To keen against the ever-growing dark?
I give it no second thought. My wrist snaps, and the note that rings out is as clear and true as snow on fallen leaves.
My breath catches at the sound, hooking in the wet, pink folds of my throat.
But it isn’t fear this time. My stomach bubbles, skin spreading with heat, and I realize, for the first time in so very long, it is wonder.
A cold wind stirs at the back of my neck, bringing with it the scent of salt and old bones.
The sharp tang of lemons. I stare at the closed door, the warped wood.
The heat of the paper still smoldering in the fireplace is a comfort on my skin.
The chill breezes again, closer this time, frosting my eyelashes.
My skin stiffens, heart thumping wildly.
No, no, no.
But I cannot stop it. Nothing can. I am powerless in the face of my own body. This cage of bones and flesh. My fingers fumble the bell, knees scraping the wooden floor, one palm run through with slivers. I release a small shudder of breath when the blood there pricks black.
And that’s when I see it floating through the door of my bedroom. White as smoke.
The monster.
It wavers, light on water, coming in and out of focus while the bell rolls in my hand. The metal, so cold now, gnaws at the top layer of my skin. I cry out, teeth sinking into the soft flesh of my cheek, drawing more blood.
The monster begins to solidify. Colors warping from white to gray and from gray to black. My stomach swims, nothing left inside but my own sour bile. I clench my fists and scramble back, away from the monster, my breath leaving me in short, hollow puffs.
But it isn’t a monster anymore.
A scream sharpens in my throat when it materializes a face, dark hair spooling over the cut jaw, amber eyes.
I peel back my lips. The only sound filling the room is the spit of dying fire in the hearth.
I push back toward the bed, away, away, away, but the monster—no, the face—turns to me, and I see it for what it is.
It’s not a monster at all, not anymore.
It’s a ghost.