Epilogue
The next night, when I return to Ophelia, only a skeleton wearing a bloodied gown remains. Fragments of decay cling to old bones, and pale threads of softened tissue slide between them.
The reason Ophelia never found more salt was simple: I had used it all. Before she came home, I mixed a whole box of salt into her soil and made sure it wasn’t viable.
Now, the earth that once restored her was a corrosive nest of her own demise.
I gather her bones carefully into an empty box. They seem to reach toward me, calling silently.
Agatha. Agatha.
Ashamed, I don’t answer. Ophelia saved me. She welded me into who I was now. Though what she possessed wasn't love. It was a hungry, biting limerence. A fever, rather than a feeling.
But I couldn’t bear leaving her there, in the cold cellar of the house. She deserved rest.
After burying her beneath the skeletal husks of the hydrangea, the same ones she had admired that first night, I return to the room of bones.
They regard me in silence. No last words wait there, no confessions, no pleas.
I carry each bone outside as gently as I can and bury them one by one. I plant them like seeds.
Each placement takes time. Hours pass, but I don’t hurry. The labor steadies me even as it hurts. It feels like parting from companions who have been there for me in the worst of times.
When I finish, the house of bones stands empty. It watches in silence, stripped of its burden. And after so long, it’s quiet. No voices, no whispers.
That night, I bring some soil inside with me. I scatter it across my bed and lie down in it. I expect revulsion, but a deep sleep takes me immediately. When I wake, I feel restored. Resurrected. The wounds on my thighs have begun to close, and flecks of soil cling to the healing skin like ointment.
There is still more to do. I take the shovel and go out again.
I cross the grounds, find the unmarked plot, and kneel by it.
Sylvie’s grave with the old gazebo leaning precariously over it.
Starvation twists through me as I dig. I plan to venture into town soon, find someone, and bring them back before setting off for good. One last death to gift Whitmore.
At last, the smell of decay reaches me, sweet and foul enough to make me retch.
I cover my mouth. Her hair appears first. It chokes my fingers.
Patches of waxen tissue still bind it to her skull.
I thought I might need to break it free, but it has already separated.
Relief washes over me, knowing I don’t have to cause any further harm to what remains of her.
My love.
And after all these months, she is with me again.
I carry her skull back into the house and give it a thorough wash. When it’s clean, I dry it and take it upstairs.
I place her on the shelf and sit beside it, watching, waiting for her to respond.
And eventually, she does.
THE END