Chapter 14
XIV
In their lair, lay the earth from their motherlands. They couldn’t go without it. It fed them, restored them, soothed them. Just as the ground kept fossils intact for centuries, the earth kept them preserved. Immortal.
The bones never told me whether it had to be soil from where I lived or where I was born.
I was born elsewhere, yet this house had become my home. Perhaps that was why I couldn’t leave. I had to carry the soil, like emotional baggage, wherever I went.
étienne, Helvig, Isolde, Francesco, and the others watched me, their smiles fixed in sadness and silent anticipation.
I didn’t tell them what I was about to do, but I felt they knew.
And they judged me for betraying someone who had allowed me to live, who cared for me, though in such a perverse way.
I was a traitor, about to bite the hand that fed me.
Sylvie.
So much had changed since we last spoke, and I needed her now more than ever. I needed to tell her that I no longer knew who I was, that I didn’t know who I wanted or needed to become. I needed to tell her how desperately I wanted her back.
If only she had still been alive.
But it didn’t matter. Two days before her death, she told me she wanted to separate. To live apart for a while. She said she'd found a studio to rent. She no longer cared about the house or the money; she just wanted to get away from me.
When people said they wanted to separate, it meant they wanted to leave. It was only a softer word, an illusion that things might still mend themselves. But what it actually meant was that they were done with you. Even if they would not admit it, even to themselves.
And when Gunnar and Ophelia appeared, I believed the universe had answered my prayers, because I didn’t know what else to do. I summoned them, my demons of resolution, to pull me out of the ruins of self-destruction. And they did.
They killed Sylvie, yes.
But Sylvie, you were done with me before you were done with life. And somehow, losing you to death felt easier than losing you to someone else.
Rochelle’s body was, quite literally, a dead weight over my shoulders.
Ophelia and Gunnar’s relationship felt like walking through a minefield. Yes, they both were prone to pulling me to their sides, but when it came down to it, they would choose each other, and I would be cast aside.
I needed to seek help outside of our ménage à trois.
And when I ran, I would need protection. I had to pin Rochelle’s death on Ophelia. She could have done it. She was violent, merciless, always ravenous. Gunnar knew this.
Ergo, I had needed to dispose of Rochelle’s body the same way they had made me bury everyone else.
I had so little time. Hours had passed; Gunnar and Ophelia would be back soon.
I ran downstairs, a flickering candle in hand.
A wave of carrion crashed into me as I yanked open the closet door.
The air reeked of burst intestines and liquefying organs.
Gases from Rochelle’s decomposing physique bulged against the DIY body bag.
Worst of all, her face, distorted now, was pressed against the plastic, still staring at me with a suppurating, judgmental glare.
I looked away, unable to withstand the sight. Overcoming a surge of vile revulsion, I wrapped her in my arms and dragged the crinkling, squishing form out. Faster and faster I went across the hall, while the slick rustle made my skin crawl.
An erratic, high-speed thrumming took over my chest. My mouth was so dry that when I tried to swallow, my throat seized, refusing to acknowledge the command.
I reached the door, my hand trembling as I pushed it open. And . . .
There, at the threshold, stood Ophelia.
Her face was pale in the lamplight. Beside her stood a middle-aged man dressed in a coat too thin for the rain.
I knew the type. They worked dead-end retail jobs and swooned over models, male and female, online—begging to be humiliated while their lonely lives passed them by and their hairlines made a slow retreat.
He was both pathetic and sad. His dull eyes widened when he saw me, sweaty and disheveled.
“What the hell is this?” Ophelia asked.
I gasped, my chest rising and falling in desperate bursts.
No reasonable answer, no clever lie would come.
The man behind Ophelia instinctively moved back, but he was not fast enough to escape the visceral anger Ophelia had intended for me.
Her hand shot out. It looked as if she had pulled the knife from thin air, and before he could blink, she drove the blade through his throat.
His panic became a frantic struggle as his fingers clawed, and he collapsed forward with a sodden crump.
Her attention was back on me. It was my turn now.
“What are you doing, Agatha?”
I let go of the edges of the makeshift bag. The body pooled around me.
Behind Ophelia, another shadow approached. Gunnar did not even glance at the corpses. With his heavy gaze, he assessed the situation and turned to Ophelia.
She didn’t say anything, just lifted an eyebrow gently in an expression that said, I have no idea.
I thought she would tell him that she had found me like that, with a cadaver, but she just stood there in silence.
Only her eyes were glinting, as if she had hoped to catch me in a precarious position—and finally, I offered her that grace.
Gunnar had the same influence on her as she had on me. Love and fear. The beginning and the end.
“I told you: not like the last time,” he said, punctuating every word.
It looked like he was going to hit her, but his hand shot toward me instead. The slap came so fast I didn’t see it, I only felt the sting bloom across my cheek, white-hot and deep. I fell, knocked down over two dead bodies.
Gunnar passed me without a backward glance, disappearing into the house. Ophelia slowly shook her head. Her arms were crossed over her chest, the knife still primed in her right hand.
“Now you’ve done it, Agatha.”
Ophelia gestured for me to follow, and I obeyed, leaving the dead in their different stages of decay. She waved me toward the open door that led to the basement. From the heaviness in the air, I knew Gunnar was waiting for me there.
“I’m going to take a bath,” she announced, and she started upstairs, shedding my clothes from her back with lazy contempt.
I moved beyond the basement where Gunnar waited beside the soil-filled coffins. I stopped in front of them, and he stood right behind me.
“Touch the soil,” he growled.
I did. It was ice-cold beneath my fingers. So cold that I nearly felt the sting of frostbite, and I instinctively pulled away.
“It is cold, isn’t it?”
He approached and put his hand into the box on the left. He let the dirt sift through his fingers as if it were silk.
“It feels warm to me because it is my place of rest.”
He turned back to me, grazing my hand as he pointed to the second box.
“This is Ophelia’s.” He opened it to reveal fecund earth that looked welcoming and rich.
Gunnar traced the edge of the wood, though he did not touch the dirt inside.
“Feel it.”
I swallowed, caught between fear and a crepuscular urge. Ophelia’s bed of soil was even colder than Gunnar’s.
“Your own bed will feel good. It will feel like home wherever you go.”
My own bed. The cellar held these two boxes, and there was no space for a third. He didn’t say it aloud, but I understood the implication.
There was no room for anyone else here. For me to have a place, someone had to go.
He caught my chin, and only then did I see the blade in his hand. He pressed it lightly against my cheek.
“Blood is shared, and dead bodies belong in the ground. Understand?”
I shivered at the closeness of him. The blade moved, slow enough that I could feel the exact moment the skin parted. Blood welled at once, warm, almost ticklish as it traced the curve of my cheek. I held still, offering the small obedience he required.
I knew what this was. Punishment, yes, but it felt almost ceremonial. Consensual.
And in his eyes, trepidation. Admiration. Love?
This was how he had looked at étienne, too.
The blood, the pain, it was not for him. It was not for me.
It was for Ophelia.
Once he was done, he shut Ophelia’s box with a gentle finality and pushed me to sit on top of it. The cold edge pressed through the fabric of my nightgown. The candelabra fell, the flames vanished, enveloping us in an artificial night.
He lowered himself between my legs. The scent of him, earthy and metallic, filled my senses. I gasped, and he took the sound in, letting it guide him. His mouth found me.
It was almost too much—his closeness and his greed. He went deeper, harder, moving with a knowledge of my body that made me tremble. My hands clawed at the edge of Ophelia’s box, my nails digging into the case to the soft, squelching sounds of him devouring me.
I gave in.