Chapter 7 #6
Jesstin had to lean against the manor. Save. Is that what Gennady had told this kitchen maid, that he was saving them?
Gertrude disappeared. A few minutes later, a young woman emerged from the cellar. Her timid eyes peeked from behind a man’s cloak, the excess of which she’d bunched into her fists at her sides.
“He’ll kill me,” she whispered dazedly and started to turn back. “They’ll kill me, Gertie. They’ll kill my sisters.”
“Hey, now,” Gennady said, gently grabbing her arm and lowering himself to her height. “They haven’t killed the ones we’ve rescued so far. Do you know why? They haven’t found them. They never will. I’ll come back for the rest. I promise.”
Bellessa’s mouth turned down as she sobbed. Gertrude gathered her in a firm hug from behind.
Jesstin was gobsmacked. Gennady had taken them from the boiling kettle and tossed them straight into the flames.
“You can have a life, dear, a real one,” Gertrude said, soothing her. “You’ve only walked this earth for thirteen years. Why, you’ve hardly broken a sweat, have you?”
“But my baby, how will I visit?”
Gertrude and Gennady shared a look over the girl’s head. “I shall put daisies on her grave every fortnight, just as you always did,” Gertrude said. “Now go. Go!”
Jesstin was so caught up in all the added details, he almost got left behind. He ran to catch up, so he could listen in on the muted conversation between Gennady and Bellessa.
“I should die. I want to die,” the girl said. “What family could want me like this?”
Jesstin was sick for her, for all of them.
How had Gennady even got involved? Was he aiding Sestinn and Castien or using their crimes to create his own opportunities?
Taking care of the damaged ones, offering a sliver of false hope before sending them to the netherworld?
It was so much more diabolical than he’d ever guessed.
“You’ve only known cruelty. Not all the world is like that,” Gennady answered after a moment. “There are many compassionate people who open their doors to people like you all the time. Their hearts are bigger than their homes. You’ll see.”
Only true evil could comfort a child who had endured what Bellessa had and then do what Gennady had done. How many had he “saved” before her?
Jesstin recalled Gennady’s words in the apartment as Bellessa had died in his arms. Even in the end, he wanted them to believe their greatest threat was their purest savior.
Intense disorientation returned as time changed again. He forgot his sickness when he saw where he was.
He was back in the apartment, with Bellessa. But Gennady wasn’t there, and she was alive. She wore a long white sack dress that looked like the one she’d died in.
“Oh, Guardian of the Unpromised Future, hear my plea. Gennady won’t understand.
He’s been so kind these past two days. I’ve eaten full meals.
I’m wearing a new dress, and he didn’t make me keep the other one.
I know I don’t deserve this, and he doesn’t deserve what I need to do.
There’s no life for me here, but if there’s even a chance I might find one on the other side, I have to go.
And if there’s nothing, then the pain, too, will be nothing.
I beseech you to guide my soul with as much kindness and mercy as you see fit. ”
Jesstin watched in horror as she withdrew a half-rusted knife from her bedside drawer and dragged it across her throat. He was powerless but screamed for her to stop anyway, falling to his knees beside her.
As Bellessa’s eyes clouded, she dipped a shaky finger in her blood and traced it across the floor. Sorry, it read, but the pool disappeared the letters before she’d even finished the tail on the y.
The door creaked open. Gennady rushed in. “Please, no, not this. I promised you. Why couldn’t you believe me? We were so close, Bel.” He scooped her against his chest, rocked her, and held her, moaning between stilted words. “No, Bellessa. Oh, why, why, why...”
Another pair of boots struck the wooden floor.
Jesstin turned to see himself, jaw slack, rage already taking shape.
Everything he’d felt in that moment was reflected in his eyes, and as the observer, he felt it all over again as he ambled into the room, processing what could not possibly be real but was.
Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t the truth, and Gennady had died mid-sentence trying to explain it to him.
“How... How...” It was all Memory Jesstin could manage as he surveyed the scene, failing to understand how he’d missed Gennady’s brutalities.
“Jess, thank the bloody Guardians! We need to get help. Maybe it’s not too late... I was going to tell you—”
“Stand up!”
“Jesstin, listen to me.”
“Stand. Up. Or I will gut you like a fish.”
“I wanted to tell you so badly.” Gennady’s mouth pursed as he wept. “I just didn’t... I didn’t...” He whimpered at the dead girl in his arms. “If I’d have gotten here even—”
Jesstin grabbed him by the collar, lifted him, and slammed him into the wall. Gennady’s bleary, mopey eyes just enraged Memory Jesstin even more. He slammed him again. “Don’t say you wanted to tell me. Don’t you dare. We both know I’d never have let you do this.”
“Jess...”
“You murdered that girl! You’re just... You’re just like them. Just like Sestinn—” He stopped to catch his breath.
“You’re right. It’s my fault she’s dead.”
“Who else’s would it be?” Memory Jesstin hoisted him and hurled him to the side. He stretched his strained hands over his head, grinding his jaw and thinking, completely oblivious to what he’d find, seconds later, when he turned to continue his confrontation.
“A few deep breaths and everything would have been so clear.” Bellessa stood next to Jesstin as he waited for everything to change forever.
She was there, but she was also dead on the floor, just as Jesstin was both simmering with disbelief and processing the stunning realization he wasn’t an avenger but a murderer.
“This can’t be right,” Jesstin murmured. His throat strained to swallow. A bitter ring pierced both ears. “This isn’t how it happened.”
“You can’t remember what you weren’t there for. As for the rest...”
“Why didn’t he...” Jesstin thrust an arm toward the corpses.
“Why didn’t he tell you, or why didn’t you listen?”
“I don’t know!” The trill in his ear grew deafening. Gennady had killed that girl... those girls... It had to be true. Because if it wasn’t... if it wasn’t...
“Does anyone know why you bought the Azure?” Bellessa asked. “That establishment specifically?”
Jesstin held her question with his breath as Memory Jesstin turned to discover what his anger had wrought.
Gennady’s neck had broken when it had connected with the edge of the bedside table.
His lifeless eyes stared into the great beyond.
Whatever he’d tried to say was forever confined in the slight gap in his frozen lips.
There’d be no further argument, no explanation, and no closure for anyone.
Anger struck Memory Jesstin first. What the fuck is wrong with you, get up! Annoyance followed. You have ten seconds, Gennady... And then when ten, twenty more passed, the pleas arrived. Gen. Gen, come on. Get up. Gennady. Gennady, get up.
Jesstin turned his head toward Bellessa. “Why is it you, here, with me? Why not him?”
“Because I don’t think he can be.” She nodded at Gennady’s crumpled body. “He never arrived in the Infinitum. They say it happens when your unfinished business is strong enough to anchor you. I think he would have wanted you to have the truth.”
“He’s haunted me for two years, Bellessa. Two years when he’s said nothing about any of this. Even when I ask, he’s refused.”
“The dead cannot tell the living the secrets of the living world. Maybe he hoped you’d remember him as he was before that night, or find the truth on your own. This is, after all, mostly a memory.”
“No. No.” Jesstin’s head sliced back and forth. “No, why should I believe anything shown to me here? The Conductor is a businesswoman. The especular is a trick. They benefit from my pain and confusion.”
Bellessa’s expression clouded when she leaned close. “Jesstin, if you have made a barter with the Conductor, they already have what they wanted. Pass or fail, they’ve already won.”
Jesstin crouched, squinting and reaching into his thoughts for something resembling coherence. The whistle between his ears whined on. Sweat streamed from his hair, down his face. He’d forgotten what his last meal had been, but he’d be reminded soon.
The words he needed were there. He’d found them in the turbulent spaces, reforming into a memory that finally made sense.
Speaking them aloud was the acceptance of a truth replacing the greatest untruth of his life, but if he didn’t say them, he wouldn’t just be living a lie; he’d know it.
“Why did you take your life that night if Gennady had found a place for you to go?”