Chapter 69
I returned to the house about an hour after I’d run away. The rain was lighter by then, and afternoon sun was peeking through it, but I was wet and cold to my core.
I wasn’t sure why I returned—maybe because I had nowhere else to go. Maybe because something in me knew it wasn’t over yet?
I was surprised to see my father’s car still in the driveway. He should’ve been gone. After what he’d discovered upstairs, I imagined he’d be halfway to town by now, laying waste to Cess’s reputation, claiming Rosehill as his own. But there was his car.
I hesitated at the porch steps. My heart was pounding again—not the panicked gallop of before, but something slow and heavy, like a war drum.
Ness’s umbrella was gone, I noticed, leaving a small puddle on the tiles where it had been an hour earlier.
Is that it then? I wondered. Were Cess and Ness gone? Or just Ness—gone looking for me?
Inside, it was silent apart from the rain ticking softly against the windows.
I climbed the grand staircase slowly, imagining Cess waiting for me at the top, Ness nearby with a cup of tea, some soft, strange explanation tumbling from their mouths.
Instead, at the top of the stairs I saw my father’s umbrella, still tilted against the wall.
My fingers curled around the silver handle.
It felt oddly warm, though I knew it couldn’t be.
The door to Cess’s room was no longer wide open, just slightly ajar, and I used my free hand to push on the door. It swung wide with a long, slow creak and my breath caught.
Cess lay sprawled on the parquetry floor, naked. The afternoon light cut through the hallway window, casting her in a strange, golden glow. Her head hung at an impossible angle, eyes wide, her mouth gaping open. Her lips—painted that morning—were bright red, as usual. Cherries in the Snow.
My father stood over her, his back to me. His jacket was off and his shirt clung to him, damp with sweat. He turned, slowly, deliberately, as though he’d been expecting me.
“You … killed her,” I whispered.
He looked over his shoulder at Cess, almost admiringly. His handiwork. Or his trophy. “Actually,” he said, “you did it, Mad Mabel.”
His face was disturbingly calm. Serene, even. I gripped the umbrella handle, remembering, suddenly, that the maker had told my mother that it was so well-made it could withstand anything. I wondered if that was true.
As I took a step toward him, he smiled. That same smug twist at the corner of his mouth. But when I raised the umbrella—high, both hands wrapped around it like a weapon—the pointed steel tip aimed at him, his smile froze.
The first blow was awkward—the tip piercing the flesh under his collarbone, sliding inward, skewering him through the upper chest. He stumbled backward, his eyes bulging in disbelief more than pain.
Before he could find his footing, I regripped the umbrella and aimed for the skull. There was a split second before I lunged when I saw something like recognition in my father’s eyes. He didn’t scream or plead. It was just this microsecond of pure, soul-deep comprehension.
The tip of the umbrella cracked his brow, split skin and bone, and sent him sprawling onto the floor.
I brought the umbrella down again. And again. And again.
Blood sprayed across my arms, my dress, my cheeks. My hands slipped against the handle. But I didn’t stop until my limbs were trembling and my breath was ragged.
Then I knelt beside him. Pressed two fingers to his neck. Waited.
Nothing.
Just the echo of my own breath, and the terrible stillness of what I’d done. I stared at his body—at the blood, at the brokenness. Maybe I was Mad Mabel after all. Maybe I always had been. But if I was, it was the way he made me. Every ounce of madness in me had his name on it.