Chapter Thirty-Four
I had never lifted Simeon in life, but in death, the bulk of him must have doubled—blood congealed to lead, skin shedding life and gaining solidity as it stiffened.
Elin and I managed him between us, down the dark hall. I had his feet and she his hands, and we lurched along. “Take care with the blood,” I told her. “Mind the carpet.”
“I’ll wrap his head in a cloth.” Her voice wavered. “Not like he can see.”
I waited while she fetched a rag—a fitting shroud. My fear was gone. My throat still hurt. “And you are untouchable,” I whispered, to the body.
When Elin returned, she had composed herself. “I found a suitable piece.” She bent to wrap the cloth around his head, taking care. Gentle hands. “Green suits him.”
When we finally managed to get Simeon downstairs, she said to me: “All things find their proper resolution. See? Already the rain has stopped.” She was right, though I attributed the shift more to our fickle climate than any kind of cosmic approval.
Simeon’s limbs, after all, were still dragging on the floor.
I put on a cloak and bid Elin to do the same.
She waited with the body while I retrieved the one-wheeled wooden cart we used for the apple harvest. The plan had developed between us without words: I knew what to do, and Elin would follow.
I might have marveled at her elasticity—the girl who would not dirty herself, the same young lady who insisted on an everlasting ballad of moral rectitude—except I, too, was moving forward with a kind of numbness.
I felt no need to defend myself, even to the most vociferous inner critique.
When I stepped outside, I was stopped by the sight of the carriage.
The horses stood, stamping, snorting clouds of breath into the air.
I went over and laid a hand on the corded neck of the animal that was closer, willing it to be calm.
It blinked, watching me with an oversized eye.
Nervous. I stepped forward, without thinking, and laid my cheek on its neck.
Hugging the creature was the closest I could come, in that moment, to grieving Lucy, whose feathered body still lay on the cold floor upstairs. I wanted to feel the animal’s warmth, even if it were afraid of me. I wanted to soak in a bit of its life, and to offer, or feel, something akin to love.
The moment was soon over. The horse nickered, unhappy to be a stand-in.
Or just unhappy, for it had not been cared for or ridden well.
Working slowly, making what reassuring noises I was capable of—for my voice was raspy and my throat ached—I undid the fastenings on its harness, and removed the bridle.
When he was free, he walked a few steps forward. I did the same for his mate.
I could have kept them, used them. Sold them.
But they were Simeon’s horses and I needed to put a wide distance between them—however brown their eyes, however appealing the notion of their recuperation—and myself.
Aiming to scare them away, I threw pebbles.
Waved my arms. Frightened them until they moved at a steady trot down the drive.
All was dark in the cellar house. The hulking shape of the barrels indistinguishable from the dark air itself.
I found the tools by touch. With the long-handled axe in one hand and the shovel in the other, I felt immediately better.
My stomach surer. I placed them into the wheelbarrow, and went back to the house, willing my feet and hands to ignore the cold.
Elin and I loaded Simeon into the cart with difficulty. He did not fit well. His arms and legs flapped over the sides. The handles of the tools stuck up around him, like spikes he had been impaled upon. His covered head lolled back like a drunk man.
At the first row of trees, we paused. “Leave him here. We must take care of the carriage first,” I told Elin. I walked over to the empty, horseless coach. Raised the axe. Sank the blade into its side.
“Stepmother,” Elin called, from her spot behind me. I brushed my hair back from my face and turned. She was pointing to the front door, which now stood open, Alice in the frame. Her gray hair was loose, and she looked grimmer than usual.
She looked at the carriage, the axe. I doubted she could see the cart in the darkness, but she was peering past me, into the trees.
“How can I help?” she asked.
“There is blood upstairs,” I told her. “Scrub it.”
“And us?” Rosie and Mathilde, holding candles, appeared just behind her.
“Put cloaks on and light a fire. A large one.”
“Use the covered wood, ladies,” Wenthelen instructed, coming alongside them. “It’s dry.”
We all looked at one another. At the empty royal coach.
The hacked-apart sides. Everything still wet from the rain.
And then, wordlessly, they all moved away from me.
Alice, to the kitchens to select a bucket and coarse brush.
Wenthelen and Mathilde to gather more wood.
Elin and Rosie to fetch more cloaks. And I turned back to the job ahead of me, axe in hand.
They had asked no questions. Whether blind loyalty or trust, I was grateful for it. If I had needed them, the words to explain couldn’t have done the situation justice.
The carriage was meticulously constructed from beautifully carved wood, with leather stretched over its top and sides.
The windows were glass. The wheels marked by decorative carved spokes.
I raised the axe again and again against the side of the coach.
Hacking apart what remained of the heraldic symbols.
Ripping velvet curtains from their frames. Smashing wooden wheels.
Each time I raised the long-handled tool, I felt grateful for the buckets of water I’d carried. The bundles of wood. The bushels of apples. The body of a hawk I’d lifted, again and again, arm extended, muscles taut.
Once the pieces of the coach were small enough, the women brought them, one by one, carrying the larger parts between them, to the fire they had built.
Hot flames welcomed wheels and wood. Leather blackened.
Carvings smoldered. Iron brackets glowed red.
When the last of the dismantled carriage had been placed into the embers, we all stood around.
Sparks flew up into the air. My girls’ faces were lit by the blaze.
Their twin braids gleamed in the yellow light.
Elin reached into the folds of her dressing gown and pulled out her little booklet. Alice caught my eye. Both of us concerned, momentarily, that we were about to be quoted at.
But Elin surprised us all and tossed the thing into the fire.
“I will not be saved by a book,” she announced.
We said nothing, and instead stood for a moment, watching the cinders devour all those nice words of virtue.
Elin and I left everyone at the fire and pushed the cart across the property. Over the potholed, soaked grass. Past the rows of gnarled trees. I looked back, once. At all of them, circling the oversized flames. Working together in their ignoble pursuit.
We scraped ourselves going through the hole in the laurel.
Shoved the cart. Emerged with leaves in our hair.
But from there, there were no obstructions along the familiar path.
Across the road, down the embankment. Past the many skinny-trunked trees.
Along the winding dirt walkway. The dense growth even denser at night.
At the stream, we abandoned the cart and reverted to carrying Simeon by ankles and wrists.
There was no avoiding the water. We went in, shin deep.
The body got drenched. Elin dropped his feet.
His torso floated between us. When we finally made it over, we lowered the prince into the soft mud, panting.
“There you are,” I told him. “Royal land.”
His head cloth had come off in the stream and I looked at his disfigured face. “I suppose we’re both monsters now.” The thought did not bother me. I was done pretending. I was happy to gobble people up. To eat them whole.
To Elin, I said: “We need to bury him.”
I went back across the stream to get the shovel from the cart.
We took turns, though I did the greater part of the labor.
My body was ready for it, still running on some kind of inhuman fuel.
Though it was a shallow grave, and the ground was softened by rain, the digging took hours.
By the time we shoved him in, the sky had begun to lighten above us.
A deep indigo that washed to gray. Just enough daylight to watch Simeon disappear beneath shovels and fistfuls of dirt.
Remorse still had not come. I thought of his hands on my neck.
Of Lucy’s feathered body, twitching on the ground.
Of blood spurting from Elin’s nose. Of a bite mark from unknown teeth.
Of Hemma. I dropped another fistful of dirt on his ugly face and when we had finished, we flattened the ground with the soles of our boots. Covered the fresh dirt with old leaves.
We looked at one another a moment. We were sweating and our hems were blackened with mud. Dirt encrusted our nails. Elin’s nose had begun to bleed again. “I have a blister,” she told me, extending her hand to show me. And there it sat, in the meat of her palm. Round, white, perfect.
“It will heal.”
She withdrew her hand. Inspected the bleb. “I do not mind.”
We made our way back across the stream, wetting our hems anew.
“Should we have said some words for him?” Elin wondered.
“When they figure out he is gone, plenty will be said.”
“I suppose there will be no wedding now.” She ducked her head, embarrassed, watching her feet on the path. “Obviously,” she corrected herself. “Is my wrongdoing—was it wrong? Have I…” She did not finish her question.
I walked ahead of her. “I think you will find being a woman is nothing like being a girl. And that grace and justice are sometimes pursued by means less graceful and less just.”
Elin frowned. “Life cannot contain such a contradiction.”