Chapter 6
VI
The decor was somewhere between Victorian, Fifty Shades and Slaughterhouse.
In the guest room, Ophelia had cloaked the bed in lace, bolted thick chains to the frame, plumped chintzy cushions, and banished sunlight from ever entering.
Still, it was a step up from the bloodied bedroom and the imprint of Sylvie’s corpse.
During the day, while she and Gunnar were away or sleeping, I remained in shackles.
Whitmore, for all intents and purposes, was out of bounds. I couldn’t even use the bathroom.
I lay there for hours staring into the black and thinking that perhaps this was what death felt like. Floating in emptiness. But then the old mattress would creak beneath me, and I would remember that I was not so lucky as to die immediately, like Sylvie.
Sylvie. I cried so much thinking of her.
I could almost feel her body decomposing out there.
Slowly, she was erasing herself from my mind.
One night, I struggled to recall if her birthmark sat upon her right cheek or her chin; the next, the exact shade of her hair slipped away.
The faces of the people I once knew were deliquescing, blurring into a single, featureless mass.
But I needed her. The memory was the final thread tethering me to the life I’d lost. As long as she lived in my mind, she wasn't fully gone.
Later that day, when I struggled to recall her, I twisted in my bindings, hauling the mattress corner up until my hand could reach the bed frame.
Hours passed as I carved her name into the wood.
My nails sloughed from their beds, bleeding, but I kept on until the letters were gouged deep: S-Y-L-V-I-E.
I stared at my work. The word looked foreign—seized symbols, like hieroglyphs that were supposed to mean something, but I could no longer comprehend.
When night came, I was usually woken by the music starting again, or by the creak of the bedroom door and the small flame of the candle Ophelia carried in her hand. For some reason, she disliked electric light, and whenever I was with her, we were surrounded by candles.
Where did she find so many? Did she buy them? Steal them? Sylvie and I had only ever kept emergency lamps, never candles, for fear of burning down the house.
We fell into a kind of ritual where she’d wash me, brush my hair, and dress me in translucent fabrics.
Then she would place the brush in my hand and turn her back, ready to be indulged.
I would brush her hair in long strokes while she watched herself in the mirror, daring to catch me watching, too.
And then, she would stand skyclad before the wardrobe, gesturing for me to help her choose what to wear.
Dress after dress embraced and then collapsed from her lithe figure.
Neither Sylvie nor I had ever owned such pieces.
Ophelia must have brought them with her.
And what a curation she had! There were weightless peignoirs and short gowns.
Some were frothing with ruffles and lace; others were plain silk that clung to her body like a second skin.
I did not speak. I did what she wanted.
I was starving.
The food in the house was fermenting. Fruit collapsed into itself.
Bread stiffened. I didn’t know what they ate besides my blood, but it was clearly not what I did.
Ophelia brought me whatever she could find.
Yeasty tangerines. Bananas gone black. One day, a can of cold beans.
Another day, oats mixed with water. Once she brought me a jar of jam.
It was old, but I dug into it. Strawberry jelly smeared over my hands and cheeks until I resembled a rabid animal.
The sugar shocked my system. My taste had dulled from hunger, and the sweetness hurt. Soon, the tremors started, and my stomach twisted until I thought I would vomit.
I drank as much water as I could. It did not help. Fatigue clung to me. I lost weight, I lost muscle, and I felt oddly arthritic, wincing at the throb of joints and grinding bones, but that, by some miracle, was alleviating with every passing day.
Despite my skeletal likeness, my body healed its wounds. Beneath the bathwater, pallid skin seemed to restore, renewed like sand smoothed by ocean surf.
Though my muscles had atrophied, I kept hauling the mattress up to stare at her name until it was etched into my retina, into the core of my brain.
SYLVIE.
SYLVIE.
SYLVIE.
The night before, when Ophelia had forced me to bathe, I’d drunk until I was bloated, and now the pressure in my bladder was getting more urgent by the minute.
I was so weak. I tried to heave my hips, to lift myself from the bedding, but my body foundered.
My stamina betrayed me, and I felt the warmth of urine trickling out, soaking through Ophelia’s gown and into the mattress.
A strange shame washed over me, and I wept from it. My own body was failing, leaking like a cracked jar. Would Ophelia be angry? Had she not expected this, keeping me chained for twenty hours at a time?
I must have drifted still in the puddle of my own piss, for I awoke to her soft voice calling me. “Oh no, honey, did you soil yourself? I’m so sorry. Let’s get you cleaned up.” She unfastened the locks on my wrists and ankles.
Heavy, I limped toward the bathroom. Behind me, Ophelia let out a sharp breath. I turned to see the mattress half-dragged from the frame. She was staring at the marks I'd left—at Sylvie’s name—before turning her hard eyes toward me.
“What is this? Did you do this?”
She threw the mattress to the floor and strode to me, forcing my raw, torn fingertips toward my face. "Is this how you're repaying me? Am I not enough for you? Do I not treat you well? Well, let's see what else I can do for you!"
She dragged me by the wrist into the bathroom, and there, she wrenched the tap open. The water was so hot that the steam clouded the mirror in seconds. She ripped the silk gown from my back, leaving me shivering and bare before shoving me toward the filling tub.
I hesitated. The heat came off the surface in a thick wave. It was too hot.
“Get in!” she ordered.
I stepped inside. My skin pulled tight, stinging against the heat. Only then did she touch the dial, letting the cold water break the scald. She pushed me down into the basin, the water creeping up my back. Then she pressed her hand into the center of my chest, pinning me to the bottom.
The water rose. I tried to pull my head up when it hit my ears, but she held firm.
I looked at her, my heart thumping. She wasn't drowning me, was she?
But she didn't let go. The water covered my mouth, then my nose. I managed one deep, panicked breath before I was under.
The roar of the faucet smoothed out into a deep hum as water pressed into my ear canals. It was almost peaceful, a white noise that wrapped around my head and cut me off from Ophelia and the horror of being hers.
But within that hum, there were voices.
It sounded like a distant crowd, murmurs layered on top of one another. I couldn't catch a single word, but the cadence was there, the rise and fall of many people speaking at once. To me?
I opened my eyes. Through the shifting surge of water, I saw Ophelia’s face, rippled now. But there was no one else in the bathroom with us.
The air in my lungs began to burn, demanding release. I held it until my chest ached . . . and then let it go in a frantic burst of bubbles.
She hauled me out at once.
The air hit me like a fist.
“See what you made me do?” Her voice was level again, not even a trace of anger. She reached for the shampoo bottle behind her and squeezed the contents into her palm.
Ophelia lathered me, massaging my scalp and the nape of my neck.
Her hands were much firmer than before, more meticulous.
More insistent. I stiffened when she traced the line of my collarbone, coming to kneel at the edge of the tub.
She slid her hand into the water. Ripples fanned out, breaking the reflection of the candlelight against the tiles.
Her fingers moved with tenderness. She traced the map of healing scars along my ribs, her touch light as a moth’s wing, before her hand drifted lower.
My muscles tensed.
What was she doing now?
“Shhh,” she whispered into my ear, her other hand tracing the column of my neck.
I wanted to flinch, to recoil, but she gripped my hair and pulled my head back.
“I’m sorry, Agatha. I’ll make it up to you.”
Her hand slipped between my legs, moving through the wiry curls until she finally found me. I remembered that first night, the sensation of the blade she had pressed against my core. Now, my lower belly grew heavy with anticipation. A physical betrayal.
I wondered how my body could react this way. To the woman who killed Sylvie.
She moved her fingers with a fluency stripped of any hurry.
She forced my legs open the moment I tried to close them.
I tried to pretend nothing was happening, but slowly, the animal gave in.
My hips started rolling against my will, moving to the rhythm of her doing, rubbing harder.
She pinned me down with one palm, offering only a teasing friction where my flesh was screaming for more.
I squeaked, a broken sound swallowed by the slapping of the water. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to find the version of myself that was still mourning Sylvie. But the dark behind my lids was no longer empty. It was filled with the heat of Ophelia’s prying fingers.