Edith abruptly stood up, then seemed unsure which way to move. She settled on simply gripping the chair, and mumbled, "Mary, Mary…"
Her sister grinned, unable to resist the setup. "Quite contrary, yes. I could go into the whole story, the time I spent on the street trying not to starve, the years putting this whole plan together. I even managed to find my own love. But none of that really matters right now, does it?"
Edith took an unsteady step forward. "So this whole time it's been you, looking at us from behind that mask, plotting against us? And who is that fellow you roped into helping you with this?"
Mary gave a sharp laugh. "He's actually our cousin. And the whole thing was really his idea. He's got some interesting taste in literature, you'd probably have liked him. Shame you made that impossible the day you betrayed me."
Edith took another step forward. "Do you have any idea what it was like to be your sister? Soaking up all the attention, while I was left with nothing? So when I was given a chance to change that, yes, I took it. And if you're capable of something as cruel as this, can you tell me I made the wrong choice? What have you been doing, anyway?"
Mary glanced down for a second before she could reply. "That's why I'm revealing myself to you now. Matthew and I had a whole plan to deal with you, but it's taken a turn we never wanted. And I can't live with what I've become anymore. He doesn't know I'm here."
A more curious look stole over Edith. "What do you mean, a turn? What have you been doing?"
Mary couldn't help smiling a bit despite everything. "We were the ones who told you to get your money out of the bank, remember? I'm sure you can work the rest out from there."
A flurry of expressions crossed Edith's face as one piece after another fell into place. Finally Mary knew she'd reached the terrible final conclusion when they were all replaced by pure anger. "Rose. You killed her!"
Mary barely managed to still look her sister in the eye. "We had no idea she'd be there. But that doesn't change that she died because of us, and this whole plan I was so proud of until today. Mama and Papa were involved, too. So you see, none of our hands are clean anymore." She elected to keep Sybil's involvement a secret for now, in case just one of them had a chance to emerge from these ashes.
This got Edith back in the chair, which she just barely managed before she would have fainted. "You hate me that much, that you'd go through all this? Well, what makes you any better?"
Mary's look turned sardonic. "I've asked myself that question so many times over the years, and especially today. And that's why I wanted to show myself. If there was ever a chance to end this whole thing as well as it could be, it's now. We had a sisterly bond once, and with neither of us any better or worse than the other, surely we can come to some kind of forgiveness?"
Edith burst out laughing. "You really expect me to believe that? I did grieve for what happened, Mary. For years I agonized over what I'd done, and I still haven't forgiven myself. So how are you supposed to do it?"
"Sybil is here too." That certainly got her attention. "She was the one who got the explosives. And as angry as Mama and Papa are with me, I can't imagine she'll be able to be anywhere near them ever again. So it's going to just be the two of us, and if we can't reconcile I don't know what life will hold for me after all this is finished. And besides," her tone darkened considerably, "if you don't agree, the rest of the plan is still poised to go ahead, and believe me, you won't be able to stop it. This is the only way you'll have any kind of future, so you should agree for that reason if nothing else."
Edith gazed steadily at her sister. "I look at you, and I try to see my sister. Maybe with enough time, I'll succeed. All right, what do I have to do?"
Mary tried to hide her tremendous inward sigh; the hard part was over. "Any amnesty extended to you does not apply to Patrick; I hope you can understand that."
Edith nodded. "He'd never accept it anyway. He's been near madness all day."
"Then we need to put an end to all this, here and now. You'll write a confession in your own hand, saying he coerced you into everything, threatened violence, anything you think will be convincing. And he's been holding you prisoner all these years. After I look it over to make sure it's sufficient, we'll deliver it to the police together."
Edith blinked a few times before responding. "I'll need some time to compose it, of course."
Mary smiled, allowing just a bit of her joy at vindication through. "Bring it tomorrow night. I'm sure you know where to find us."
With that, she turned and left the room. For quite some time after, Edith was left standing in the middle of the room, stock still, struggling to process everything that had just happened.
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Patrick had not come back until late that night, and brusquely waved off all of Edith's questions about where he'd been, refusing to explain any further than "Thinking." They went to bed together as usual, but there was a coldness between them on a level she hadn't felt since those early days of their marriage, when she'd still been dealing with the guilt of what she'd done to Mary, which of course had now all been unearthed again.
The old wounds had scabbed over to such an extent that not even discovering her sister had been alive could fully tear it open, and learning about her own misdeeds in the course of her revenge did nothing to help rebuild the family love between them. But at the same time, she knew almost immediately that she would do as Mary asked. She had loved Patrick at first, but that had quickly given way to a lukewarm tolerance for the sake of the comfort he provided. And if this was the only way out of her current situation, she'd gladly throw him to the wolves.
She had of course agonized over just how her account to go, and had thrown out several nearly filled pages in frustration. But finally, she believed she had achieved a balance of how things could have gone which fit all the evidence, along with a contrite enough tone despite her claim to have been an unwilling participant all along. She picked up the sheets, and prepared to take them over for Mary's approval.
Patrick stood in the doorway.
"And what exactly do you have there?" he said, fumes of alcohol escaping between his slurred words. She shouldn't have been surprised; this certainly seemed like the natural next step in the breakdown he'd been having. But why did this have to be happening now?
"I won't talk to you in this condition. I can explain tomorrow." At least she hoped to be done with this by then, with Patrick safely the police's problem. She tried to move past him, but he roughly grabbed her arm. Now this was a true shock; as unhappy as their marriage had been at times, he had never manhandled her like this before.
"Give it to me!" He pawed at the papers, and Edith tried her best to keep the away, but that iron grip never wavered and she eventually stumbled and fell to the floor, dropping them. Patrick quickly scooped a few up and she was dismayed that even in his inebriation, his eyes showed that he understood what he was reading.
After a few lines, he looked up at her as she stood up again, the surprise seeming to have banished the alcohol's effects. "What were you going to do with this?" he asked. There surprisingly didn't seem to be any anger in his voice, just pure confusion.
A thousand half-formed ideas flicked through Edith's head about how she could reply, each dismissed almost as soon as it was formed, until she was left with the truth. "Mary is alive. She's that countess with the veil. And now she's making me do this."
Patrick actually staggered back a step as if the words were a physical blow. "Say that again?"
She sighed. "It won't be any easier to believe the more times I say it, but it's true. Now give that back!"
He snatched the papers out of her reach again. "You really were going to do it, weren't you? Pin the whole thing on me when we both know you'd always wanted to do it. You probably would have gotten there yourself eventually if I hadn't given you the chance!"
Now Edith's own anger was overturning her fear. "Plenty of sisters don't get along without doing what we did! You turned me into this, and now you're going to pay for it!"
It was impossible to say who made the first move, but soon it didn't matter as they were both attacking with every trick they could get. Scratching, gouging, biting, kicking, it was all a blur as they thrashed their way across the whole library, knocking several items off the tables that yesterday they would have cringed to lose. There was no conscious thought in Edith's mind, just a desperation to stay alive just a second longer, and giving back as good as she got.
At last, it was Patrick's drunken state that did him in. It made him less vulnerable to pain, but also severely affected his balance, so eventually Edith was able to get enough distance between them that he began to topple over as he lurched toward her. As the panic entered his eyes, she rushed up to him, grabbed his head, and still without any real thought to what she was doing, slammed the side of it into a corner of the bookcase.
The man went limp at the first blow, but Edith was in no condition to notice, and did it again before she let him drop. There was a sickening depression in his skull, made worse by how he continued to pathetically writhe on the floor, eyes bulging as his hands reached out and repeatedly clasped around thin air.
Edith's attention was pulled from the horrific sight by the sound of a cough from the doorway. Impossible as it seemed, Mary was standing there. And as she walked into the room, behind her followed the Count, or whoever he really was, her mother and father, Sybil, and even Thomas.
Mary stepped forward, a victorious grin on her face. "My my, Edith. What have you done?"
