Notes:

I feel like I need to justify my word usage in the last chapter. So, I follow the "just word" concept. If I can't find the right word, then I'll make one. Now, I know loneliness would have worked just the same, but for me, it didn't capture the feeling like "aloneness" did.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

—William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun

Neil

Cain has been unusually sulky lately. It was difficult enough managing one strong-willed Hargreaves, but two is a bit of a challenge. If it is not Cain who is trying the limits of social decorum, then it's his half-brother. Just yesterday, I had to tell him off for walking in the rain, and he replied, in a completely level tone, that he was as likely to catch a cold from the rain as I was from reading the post. If I had had any doubts about his parentage before that moment, they were dispelled: he might not have inherited Alexis's looks, but he inherited his will.

It's strange how life carries on. Alexis is dead, thankfully dead at last, and yet, I see him in his children. Or rather, I see refractions of him—his self-assurance, almost to the point of haughtiness, in Cain; his air of quiet scheming in Jezabel. Despite his unforgivable crimes, Alexis, like all people, was not wholly evil. And when I try to reach Cain, when he is suspicious and given to flight, that is perhaps the hardest to remember.

My thoughts are interrupted by Jezabel, who absentmindedly strolls past, deep in thought. Carrying one—no, two letters for the post. He worries me, for he's broken, irreparably broken, where Cain is merely bent. I had thought my file would have been enough to prepare myself, but I could not have been more mistaken. I know Cain hides half of what he does from me, and the thought unnerves me, for what I have seen so far is baffling. He's terribly clever, of course, but also given to unpredictable moods. He's a favorite in the village hospital, if only for the simple fact that he has never had a patient die on him, but he'll spend the day in hysterics if he comes across a dead animal. Part of me wonders if it has something to do with Alexis, like how Cain won't let the new valet undress him.

(Still, one puts the broken china in the back of the cupboard, where it won't draw attention to its state. That way, it won't be ashamed of its brokenness, and there won't be questions. It benefits everyone.)

With that, I open the newspaper, stiff from its ironing, and begin to examine the recent news. I parse over a rather frustrated letter to the editor from a Dr. Hathaway, who disagrees with the Sunday report on some medical procedure. I cannot understand the half of it, and so I flip to the crime section.

Earl Solves Murder String.

I do not need to see an artist's rendition of Cain to know what he has been up to. I knew I shouldn't have let them attend that party.

Cain

I have barely opened my latest book on poisons, when Uncle Neil summons me to the study. With all the careful movements that indicate his displeasure with me, he sets the newspaper down so that I can easily glimpse the headline. Oh. I didn't think the report would be circulating so soon, but given the high-profile nature of the case, that seems an unlikely hope now. Scanning the section, I frown at the way the artist has depicted me: sleeves rolled to my forearms, blood across my shirt, and the birds on my wrist, in front of a cowering crowd, as a woman, weeping, repents of her crimes. I suppress a sigh. That, I suppose, is what the papers call artistic license.

Giving it a second glance, I notice Jezabel's absence in it. Well, he is a person of interest in a not insignificant number of murders in London, rightly so in the majority, no doubt, and so I can understand why he won't interact with the Yard.

"You're in the papers," Uncle Neil begins, softly. "I had the impression that you, of all people, would have had the common sense not to make a spectacle of yourself."

I shrug, although I am beginning to feel defensive at his tone. "I would have been her next victim."

Neil steeples his fingers, a sure sign of his frustration. "Have you not considered the impact that your lifestyle has on the reputation of this family?"

"I wasn't aware my actions could affect such a reputation," I counter, angry that he wants to pin the family's legacy on me.

He shakes his head. "You've never been careful, Cain. Mary will come of age soon enough. If you do not care for your own prospects, then think of hers. Who will present her at court, with rumors of her family's unsavory nature?"

"Oscar." I am furious at his underhanded tactic, to use my love for my only sister against me.

"He has been disinherited and is without a title."

"One of my cousins, then. They must be good for something."

Uncle Neil pauses, and in that, I know that he has kept something from me. My heart quickens from terror.

"What are you keeping from me," I demand. Anger masking my fear. I stare at the window, misty from the recent rainfall—anything but look at him.

"You've never been a favorite with the family," he begins, cautiously.

"Yes, I'm quite aware of that."

"But the estate is entailed to you—and you alone."

I drum my fingers against the wood of the windowsill, feeling defensive of my position in the family. "Are they bitter? Other people have hobbies."

"There's talk that Alexis entailed it to you, because... it's all a ridiculous notion, of course."

"Because I'm just like him?" From Uncle Neil's reluctance, I gather that my guess is correct. "That's ludicrous. Mary is a child. Do they think I intend to make her my wife when she comes of age," I mock, unable to keep the bitterness out of my tone.

"It's not Mary that they think you're carrying on with."

All the blood drains from me. "What do you mean?" I feel removed from my body, as the horror overcomes me. Surely not?

Uncle Neil gives me a long, hard look. "I'm merely telling you that the family—"

"The family expects it?" I can hardly contain my terror. "That I've been sleeping around with my brother?"

Uncle Neil pauses again. "I told you that this would be the inevitable result of your decisions. You only have yourself to blame for this."

I suppose word must have gotten out, with one of the maids or the underbutler. It's the price of having servants in a notorious house.

But Uncle Neil wasn't there, with us. It was so pleasant to sleep beside another being, even if Jezabel did wake me frequently with his bizarre requests. The first time he did that, I had half a mind to tell him off for it, but his vulnerability disarmed me. I suppose that's how Cassian fell in love with him. One cannot help but be drawn in.

One night, not too long after we buried Cassian in the garden, he woke me up, incoherent and thrashing about. And I realized the power that only I have—if Father could do this to him, then I could undo it. Or at least amend it. And so I did what I do with Mary, when she cannot sleep from her nightmares, and what Riff did with me for several years; I took him into my arms and rocked him slightly, smoothing his hair and praying that this would not be taken as an advance and that he wouldn't snap and slit my throat with whatever was available. Ever since he killed Father with a pair of scissors, I am always slightly wary.

I knew I had gotten through when he relaxed into my embrace, leaning his head against my shoulder. The entire ordeal was exhausting, for I was acutely aware that I was the only one he had left, and part of me loathed his vulnerability, loathed that he couldn't keep himself together when that was my only option. But the softness of his form, when he finally fell asleep from my efforts and a little brandy, and the warmth of his hand on mine seemed a just reward.

When the dog came into our lives, I thought that it was the solution to our problem. Hadn't he told me numerous times how infinitely superior animals were to the human race? So, I took Uncle Neil's advice, and withdrew from his bed; though it pained me to sleep alone, I hoped that the dog would more that adequately serve as my replacement. But now, I am not so certain if I did right by him.

"I told them that such a thing was unlikely," Uncle Neil continues, delicately.

"As it is!" Nausea tightens my throat, as I think of the way I almost gave in, the very first night we slept beside each other. "You have to believe me; I would never do such a thing!" I don't know whom I'm trying to convince. When Jezabel leaned close to me, his lips parted, my heart leapt in terror, for I knew then that I could not escape the family curse. But then he drew away abruptly, and I hated myself for seeing something that was not there. For thinking about transgressing against God in that dangerous moment. That possibility that drove Father to sin and Mother to madness exists in me.

Uncle Neil merely exhales, exasperated by my unseemly display. "You must be careful, Cain. You'll come of age in a few years, and what you do now will not be forgotten by then."

"You must believe me!"

He says nothing in reply, and I nearly cry. Does no one have faith in me, that I will not become Father? That I will not inherit his ways?

I draw myself back up, veiling my sadness in a cold demeanor. "Very well then."

But I did almost have an affair with my brother, and that I cannot erase. I was dangerously close to being seduced by him, and although that is leagues away from what Father did to Mother, it still ends the same way. I would have guaranteed that one of us—or both—would have been shut into an asylum to keep that secret. As Mother was. Knowing all that he has left in his wake, I cannot be Father. Mine is a narrow path that I cannot afford to stray from.

Uncle Neil exhales again. "Cain, as your legal guardian, I am the one held responsible for you. I have received no fewer than five letters, inquiring as to why I let you follow in your father's footsteps. Another five concern your brother. They're convinced that he plans to fight the entail, now that he holds sway over you."

This would be an utterly ludicrous proposition if I didn't know the rest of my family, and how easily they turn something innocuous into a terror to be rallied against.

"He doesn't," I retort. "He holds no influence over me, and we are not carrying on in that way." But I cannot contain the trembling in my voice, and sensing that my nerves are too badly frayed to continue, I move to leave him. As I reach the door, Uncle Neil calls out to me.

"Cain, I only want what's best for you. And that is to break away from your father's image."

"Of course, you do," I retort, angry tears blurring my vision. "Everyone does."

Jezabel

The sky is blank with rain. Near the misty window, a frog creeps out, stretching one long leg, his throat pulsing with life. I have half a mind to take another walk in the rain, if only because those walks remind me of the times with Father, when I would set out at night, roaming the cobblestone catacombs, waiting for God or death. And to some unlucky souls, I was both. It was not uncommon for me to simply forget myself, in the opened body of a whore, or a thief, or a man who was a bit too familiar with me. I would watch that stranger caress the loops of intestines from a slashed gut and marvel at how blood complimented the grey of the London night.

(That city, that Babylon, feeds on blood, after all.)

And now, there is only the expanse of farmlands around the Hargreaves's ancestral home, so far from the London residence. Under different circumstances, I might have called it home, but now I'm merely a stranger. But can I know peace here? This is where Father cast himself into the sea, where he went against God, where—where he lived with Cain for twelve years. The time he spent away from me.

A Bible on the shelf catches my attention. Idly, I flip through it, a habit that I have never been able to break. I know all of Genesis by heart, and so I skip it. Same with Leviticus. My hand shakes on Kings—the story of my namesake. I want to tear the pages away, to remove the words and in doing so, erase my sin, but I am afraid of angering the Lord. I close the book again, before opening it to Proverbs. Something pleasant and to occupy my time.

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

And for a moment, Cassandra reclines next to me, blood on his face. Not his own, never his own. His eyes survey my form, and he grins, pleased with his latest acquisition. I, on the other hand, am merely weary of all this physical interaction between us. I keep hoping that, at some point, he'll tire of this and let me return to Delilah, to return to all the gossip and rumors. It's not a secret that Father approved of Cassandra's behavior towards me, for he was the one who ordered me to give the man my support.

He brushes against me, drawing me closer to his bare form. I try to ignore it, with a coldness that I hope will dissuade him from continuing our encounter, but I am always wrong. Faintly amused, he seizes the Bible from my lap, smirking as he reads Proverbs 12:10 aloud. "Hmm. Can't see what you find in this dreck. You know what it says about people like us."

"People like you," I counter.

He smiles, a Cheshire-cat smile full of teeth and unpleasant promises, and for a moment, I am truly afraid of this man. "I know everything about you," he replies, rubbing his hand along the back of my thigh. Marveling at the stickiness of the dried seed he has left behind.

I give him my best level look. "One swallow doesn't make a summer."

Cassandra merely presses against the tell-tale beginnings of a bruise on my clavicle. When I suppress my pain, he takes my hand, turning it over in his own. "Such beauty," he remarks, a heaviness to his words that announces his stirring lust. Cassandra runs my fingertips across the blood on his cheek. My blood. Slowly, slowly, before placing them inside his mouth.

The words, neatly printed in thin rows, stare back at me, their meaning indecipherable now, but Cassandra is also gazing back at me as, as—

He pins me against the bed, beneath his weight. "You'll find, I fear, that you can never leave me." As he speaks, he moves against me, and I do not know what to make of it. Intellectually, I know this is an act of possession, nothing more than a physical interaction, but his warmth! His warmth is overwhelming, suffocating—

I slam the Bible shut, but the act cannot block out the rest of the memory. No, I struggle against it, but—

—I am afraid of his wrath, but I also have not been treated like this since Father. There's a safety in being treating this way: it's familiar and painful, and I can easily predict the outcome. If I am lucky, I will die at his hands; if I am not, he will meet his end at mine. I hardly care either way. He shudders, bruising my wrists in his ecstasy; there is only the stirring of heat, terrible, coiling heat, before I become aware of myself again. Loosening his hold, he sighs against my throat, still trembling.

"You can't distinguish between fear and love, can you?"

I nearly vomit at the memory of his seed within me. Then, the act was nearly habitual, something done with disinterest, but now, it is a horror. I want to grab something—anything—and hack away at the pieces of me he touched. (But then, there would be nothing left. Perhaps that what I want. To be nothing at last.) More than anything, I am ashamed. I want to put the entire affair in the past, but it won't go quietly. Perhaps, this is his revenge—that he might live in my memories even after I claimed his life.

A sordid immortality.

I wonder, would I live in Cain's memory, if he had watched me die, as I watched Cassandra? Would I haunt him with my just words and deeds, if I had forced him to stain his hands with my blood? Not for the first time I wonder what would have happened if Cassian had not shoved me so rudely to the ground. Would I have found peace? Can I ever know peace?

Cain returns from his chat with Neil, a distinct drop in his shoulders, and I give him an inquisitive glance. He shakes his head, and annoyed, I cannot return to my fantasies, for wondering what has affected him so. (Not that it bothers me, but rather out of intellectual curiosity.)

I try to resume my study of the biblical passage that has chosen me today, but now it accuses me. Is that what Cain thinks of me, as well? That I am wicked and cruel and unchanging? No, his evasion is something else, something that reminds me that he is still the wanted son. He wants to be rid of me, I can see it so clearly now. He does not cherish the scandal that comes from my presence, which is still so difficult to explain away. There are only a few reasons why the eldest son does not inherit—and none of them pleasant.

Cain scans over his book, gripping the cover more tightly than he needs to. His finger joints are white with stress, and I wonder if he is about to become angry. The idea frightens and thrills me, for I'm afraid of the lull. This peace is dangerous, because the only moments of tranquility at Delilah were those before Father's latest plans made themselves known. If I could not escape his plans, then I could control when they came. It's almost comforting to be beaten, and to know that this, this was what I chose. My choice.

I need this conflict, if only to establish that distance between us, because I both long for and fear this closeness between us.

"What did Neil say to you?" I ask.

"Leave it, Jezabel." His words are clipped.

This will be easier than anticipated, because the destructive part of me always prevails.

"Did he tell you to stay out of the papers?" I ask nonchalantly, as I pretend to examine the title paper of the Bible. It was printed overseas, in Massachusetts. How strange that it came to be here, in Cornwall. How fitting that the wanderers should find each other.

"Were you eavesdropping?" Cain demands, finally setting the book aside with more effort than he needs to. Good.

I shake my head. "It's obvious. He wants a quiet life, and you want adventure. Who does he want you to marry this week?"

Cain pauses, struggles with something. "He want me to give up everything for Mary. My poisons, my mysteries. Everything. Or she's unlikely to be well-received when she comes of age."

His hesitation suggests that this is only partially what they discussed. The rest was probably about me. Neil never stops fretting about me; I suspect he can't figure out what to do with the murderer of his not-so-beloved cousin. Still, I press on. "Don't. Who cares if high society likes her or not?"

"She's your sister!" A look of incredulousness passes over his beautiful features. But what goes unspoken between us is how untrue his claim is. She has no more of Father's blood than a goat does. He changes tactics, a pleading undertone to his voice. "Don't you care for her in the slightest?"

"Hardly." It's cold, but true. I care no more for her than any other filthy human. I continue, sensing my advantage. "And if you really cared for her, you'd let her study science. She has a gift for it."

"Not this again!" He throws his hands up. "She'd be an outcast. Can't you think past yourself?"

"You certainly can't."

A wounded look moves across his face, and in that moment, I am deeply ashamed of myself. His hands tremble, and he shakes his head slightly from anger. "Goddammnit, Jezabel. You're really something." He looks at me, as if he has never truly seen me before. A stare fraught with something that I cannot determine. I watch him leave, angry and satisfied that he has decided to leave me. There. Now, he certainly won't forget the distance between us.

But his anger does not suffice. I need him to hurt me, to put an end to this maddening peace. My skin is painfully oversensitive again, and I do not know how to make it cease. How ironic: I can solve everything save this. I contemplate hitting myself to see if that would bring me any relief, but quickly decide against it. If Neil or any of the servants were to walk into such a sight, I'd find myself in the nearest asylum by nightfall. And then I would have considerably more problems than I do now.

I settle back into the chair, painfully aware of being a lost cause.

Notes:

So this is a long one, because I had to establish conflict here. Also, Victorian newspapers are hilarious. Go read some. Seriously. It's that beautiful blend of melodrama and sensationalism. I'm also trying to work in some humor here, because it's not all suffering. Just mostly suffering.

So, entailment, in case you all aren't familiar with it or Downton Abbey, is the practice of having a title and estate go to the eldest (legitimate) son or the nearest legitimate male relative. I've always figured that the Hargreaves were ludicrously wealthy, and thus concerned with matters like that.

As always, thank you for continuing to read this! My eternal thanks to you! I say it every time, but I mean it every time.