Chapter 24
24
W hen she drove her pickup truck off the ferry onto the island, she felt gripped by something more than obsession, more than insanity.
There was a part of her, a rational, objective part of her, that felt like it was watching from the outside, hovering above, as an insane version of herself was propelled toward Rainshadow like she was drawn by a magnet. Her anger was profound. Sylvia had worked so hard to get rid of her only to replace her with someone else? Maybe, Flora thought, it was some sick game, and Sylvia got pleasure from torturing girls who came to work for her. She imagined Sylvia laughing as she drove away the first time, thinking she’d won.
She hadn’t won, though. Flora couldn’t let her. She would have the last laugh. She would have Rainshadow, too, and Ethan, and the dream, her dearest dream, would become a reality so perfect it would be like a fairy tale.
She kept thinking of all the ways that it really was a fairy tale. Sylvia, the witch, the evil stepmother, the wicked queen, the old crone, all of the women who have ever stood in the way of the beautiful princess and the handsome prince, denying them the love they were destined to share.
Flora smiled, thinking of it.
She drove through town, across the island along winding roads, and finally up the driveway toward the towering, dark form that Rainshadow mansion made in the sunset. She felt determined and breathless, and like if there was a point of no return, she had already crossed it, and now it was as though she was falling.
When she arrived at Rainshadow, the wind was whipping up the cliffside, and the horses were unsettled, nickering and whining in their stalls. Flora could hear them as soon as she got out of her truck. The wind was high, howling, and her hair tangled around her face, sticking to her lips as the misty rain dampened her skin. She realized she had cold sweats. She was afraid. She wasn’t sure if she was afraid of what she would find, or afraid of what she would do.
The walk to the front door of the house was slow, but when she arrived it was like she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. She knocked, stupidly, knowing that no one was likely to answer. She didn’t wait long and pushed the door open. The silence of the house was haunting, droning, after the sound of the wind and rising rain.
“Hello?” She walked through the house.
There were signs of a fight in the dining room—a chair knocked over, a wine glass broken, wine pooled across the table and floor. It looked old, like it had been there a day, maybe two. Flora wondered briefly what happened, and considered that maybe she was too late—for what, she didn’t know.
She felt a rising terror inside her as she crept up the creaking wooden stairs, each whining groan from the steps like a warning, a final entreaty.
Turn back, it’s not too late.
She walked to Sylvia’s room. Something was different. There was a candle burning, and the smell of sickness was gone. There was a noise in the bathroom.
Flora stood, waiting.
When Sylvia emerged, she was wearing nothing but a short, black negligee. She was, Flora realized anew, a stunningly beautiful woman. Her long, white legs were ghostly, her face was a white mask in the dark, candlelit room, but she looked relatively healthy. When she met Flora’s eyes, she was not surprised or angry. No. She was sad.
“What are you doing here, Flora?”
Flora looked at Sylvia, cold and hateful.
“I knew I was supposed to come back,” she said. “He called me.”
Sylvia laughed, sat down on the bed, and began to brush her long, black hair.
“I’ve spent all day preparing myself. I said I would do it as soon as the sun came up, but I couldn’t.”
“Preparing yourself for what?” Flora said icily.
“I have to destroy him. Don’t you see? It’s the only thing that could free us both.”
“Free us?” Flora scoffed.
Sylvia laughed an ugly laugh. “Of course you had to show up,” she said. “Of course. He knows. Now what, Flora? Will you help me? Or are you here to kill me?”
It wasn’t until that moment that Flora realized that that was exactly what she’d come to do. She watched Sylvia get dressed, yanking off the negligee and pulling on riding pants and a sweater. She seemed completely unbothered by Flora’s presence, completely unashamed of her pale, shapely body.
“That girl—” Flora said.
“She’s gone,” Sylvia said, laughing. “I was a bitch to her, even threw a glass of wine at her. Barely made it three days before she left, like you should have. Don’t you see? Don’t you fucking see, you stupid girl?”
Flora stared at her, unblinking.
“If we kill him,” Flora said, “can I have Rainshadow?”
Sylvia put her face in her hands and laughed again, but the laugh seemed, almost, to turn into a sob.
“No!” she cried. “I can’t explain it all to you now, we don’t have time, but no, you would never get Rainshadow. Neither would I. And they might hunt for us, his friends… though I’ve never known them to be very loyal to one another. But it doesn’t matter, don’t you get that? This story isn’t about you, Flora, it’s about me! And if I don’t…” She gasped, with something—anxiety? “If I don’t… You won’t… If my story becomes your story, you—” Sylvia stopped, like she realized how pointless it was to keep talking.
Flora stared at Sylvia, who threw up her hands and shook her head, still laughing.
“This is it. He’ll be awake soon,” she said. “I have to go.”
Sylvia walked over and, to Flora’s astonishment, finally opened the safe, spinning the little dials with practiced confidence. Inside was what looked like a photo album and a long, sharp, wooden stake. Sylvia picked it up and, holding it at her side like a loaded pistol, strolled with forced confidence out of her bedroom.
Flora stood for a moment, watching her, then she seemed to snap out of a daze.
“No,” she said under her breath. She couldn’t let Sylvia kill Ethan. She ran after her down the dark hallway, her boots snapping like gunfire on the wooden floor.
Sylvia knew where Ethan slumbered.
It had never occurred to Flora to look, and a part of her realized she hadn’t wanted to, had wanted to pretend that Ethan was a man, a beautiful, living, breathing man.
He wasn’t, though. As Flora followed Sylvia down the hallway into the basement, a basement protected by a dark, heavy, metal door, she felt a terrible chill. She had chased Sylvia, but now she followed her at a distance, unsure of how she would do what she knew she needed to. Sylvia descended the stairs at a quick, youthful clip, like she wouldn’t, couldn’t slow down, or she might not keep going.
The basement was damp, smelled like mildew, and Flora thought that she could hear the crashing of the sea against the walls of the stone cliffside not very far away. The only light came from yellow motion sensor lamps that had turned on when they descended the stairs. She watched, feeling terror and helplessness swell in her like an ocean wave, as Sylvia marched, determined, over to the dark mass in the center of the already dark room.
Flora had been expecting a coffin, but this was more like a large wooden box that brought to mind an old-fashioned steamer trunk. There were even some stamps and labels on it, some very old, like Ethan had been using it for travel for a very long time. It gave Flora a horrible, creeping, wormy feeling starting in her belly and moving through her whole body.
“Uhhngh…” Sylvia groaned like an animal as she tried to lift the lid.
Flora only watched. Sylvia looked back at her as though considering asking for help, remembered that Flora came not to help her but to kill her, and went back to lifting. Flora watched as vacantly, as passively, as if it were a movie playing on a screen in front of her.
Finally, with a squealing creak, the lid of the trunk opened.