Notes:
Please read carefully, because this chapter has some extremely questionable, extremely graphic, extremely Freudian content. Let's see, I had just watched Under the Skin, and oh, wow, is that an amazing and disturbing movie. And that inspired this chapter. And honestly, that's all I really need to say in advance.
You can skip it, if you'd not feeling up to it. I won't judge. The last part is safe to read if you're not up to it.
That said, this is one of my favorite chapters. I felt fourteen different feelings while writing this. Honestly, this is absurdly intense.
Jezabel
He's there, asleep in the darkness; that's how my dreams always begin. Soft breath passing between his lips, his hair carelessly tossed across his forehead. The falling light is sickle-shaped in his opened mouth; sleep has dried his lips. I love him with a sweetness that has no bounds; I hate him with a fury that threatens to rend me from limb to limb.
It's not love. It's something far, far worse.
His limbs are pale as jasmine, and under the careless blanket, I know where to touch. It's easy, so easy. He stirs a little, as I caress his throat, envying his steady, sleep-slowed pulse, tracing over his clavicle. I wonder if he knows how many men I've done this with. Some of them even made the tabloids, posthumously. Scotland Yard chalked it up to a mugger, their standard answer for a clean cut to the throat. They must have struggled, the report said—ha! They never struggled; most never saw the scalpel, in their lust-haze.
(Father threw one clipping at my feet, disgusted. "Are you not applying yourself to your work," he asked, "that you have enough time for such sin?" His lip curled in disgust and faint amusement. His tone informed me that last night's rendezvous would earn me another beating. Good. Let him try. I won't cry out, not anymore. I'm a good victim, and every minute he beats me belongs to me and not Cain.)
What Father was wrong about, however, was that it never felt pleasant to be with other men. I always imagined my namesake, dropping her silken robe to the floor for any man; would she know how to make men writhe under her touch? Would she know how to manufacture a facsimile of love? Or did she relish the warmth, the attention that came from accepting a stranger's drunken, leering advance?
One usually had to pay for one of Mother England's whores, after all. What could be better than getting it for free?
Again, a question of use. To be useful, to be used.
("Did you live up to your name, again?" Father asked, as he beat me by the orange halo of gaslight. Gloating, as my muscles seized with every hit of the lash. It was a new one; he broke the other one last week over my back. When I heard it break, I thought for a moment that it was my own bones that had finally snapped.
Which one, I thought, as I closed my eyes to the blows. The shepherd or the whore?)
Sometimes, the dream fades there, and he never wakes. Sometimes, he rises, a smirk on his lips, and makes a breathless, trembling wreck of me with his mouth. In turn, I peel his skin back, lovingly, tenderly, marveling at his exposed, taut muscles that keep his organs inside. Another slow incision, dividing up his body, and his blood coats me, running down my face, soiling my hair, as it slowly drip, drip, drips. He pushes a bloody finger past my lips, tasting of metal.
I peer into the dark, glistening cavity in his body, searching for what makes him so different, so special. Why he should haunt me so, after all this time. His organs are firm, but slippery. The hard back of his rib cage brushes my knuckles, almost-black blood clots slip down my wrist—nothing left, but the smooth ridges of his bones.
Cain smirks.
I look up at him, unable to escape his eyes. Is this it? Is this that makes him so special? The marker of his past, his sinful conception?
The scalpel's blade is still cold, but its handle has been warmed. As I sever the optic nerve, following the curve of his eye socket, the light in his eye dims, and it stills. It is only an ordinary eye now, floating in its own blood and vitreous gel. I cut too deeply, it seems. This isn't it, either.
I run my soiled hands through my hair, unsure of where to look next. His organs surround us in a careful circle, but what makes him so special is not in any of them.
Cain grabs my wrist, jerking my arm down, but I do not let go of the scalpel. It flashes in the gaslight, making an arc through the empty air. As I follow its descent, something catches my eye: intestines unwind, spooling on my thighs. The linen bedsheets cling to my skin, damp as they are, and a dark hollow draws my attention; I look down, disinterestedly surveying the hole I have made in myself. My own organs surround me. In the palm of my hand, my own eye, deflated now, unseeing.
Struck by my own foolishness, I only stare at Cain, who relinquishes my wrist with a long, careful, appraising stare. He climbs off the bed, and as he begins to shrug on a shirt, he runs a hand over his unblemished, unbroken skin. He smiles back, triumphant. Unscathed and unfathomable.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
I'm awake in the dark, waiting for the furtive peeks, the wandering, carefully careless hands that never come. Lying on my back like a good victim, a good lamb, perfectly still. The country air is cool against my skin, but I don't move to cover myself. I'm always cold now. What's one more night? What's one more lamp in the dark, setting itself on top of the textbooks I had been faithfully studying?
That's not true. I hate being reminded that I cannot have warmth anymore.
The bedroom is sparsely furnished; it's a guest bedroom, after all. A painting of a nymph decorates the opposite wall, her chestnut hair artfully covering her breasts as she surfaces to tempt a man. In the darkness, she has a malevolence that daylight turns to a girlish hesitance. How fitting that I should get this room.
I run a hand across the raised embroidery of lavender at the edge of my blanket. it fails to soothe me. I'm afraid of the morning.
Although the curtain is drawn against the night, the difference in the cold of the outside and the warmth of the room causes it to ripple slightly. Past the window, the trees form a line at the edge, marking off the paradise man was exiled from.
But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye shall die.
For a moment, I catch Mother at the edge of the room, smelling of clean linen and rosewater. Anxiety lining her young-old face, as she made her nightly check to ensure that I was still alive. I never understood why, until it was too late. ("Say goodnight, honey," she'd say, staring at a place near me, but never at me, "to your poor mother.") When I was very, very small, she clasp me tightly, and list the names of the stars that hung over the countryside. "Imagine, they're the same stars for us, as they were for the Apostles."
Now that Cassandra has rummaged in my head, picking out whatever made for a sturdy rope, I can remember the morning she tried to leave Father, all jumbled sensations: the softness of a cotton dress, a sweet to keep me hushed, the shining, red blotches of her face. She seemed so big, then, but she must have been of average height, slender build. I look at her face in the darkened mirror, placid, yet threatening, like the surface of a unfathomably deep lake—her lips, her nose, her slender hands. The dark makes hollows on her sickly body, the grey, malnourished skin and sunken eyes.
The only pleasure I take from it is that I am not so pretty anymore. I don't have that rich color of fresh corpses, their secrets glistening.
Lest ye shall die.
But I will die. That much has always been clear. I have one less day now—was it worth it? Did I use it wisely, for it won't return. Even more so, if I tried to live again, the illness that is my inheritance would finish me off soon enough. My hand finds the bandage around my throat—like a collar. I claw it from my neck with a wildness and terror. Never again.
The thin line greets me, when I glance up again, heaving.
Ye shall die.
And die alone. But I've always known that too.
Mother's family wants nothing to do with her bastard son, that much I've gathered from their silence that is less an absence, and more of a statement. I suppose they're ashamed of her wanton behavior, the loose daughter who spread her legs for the first man who made her feel like she mattered. What a charming inheritance. It doesn't really matter what I do, I'll always be little Lucretia's bastard child first. The woman who didn't know that gifts always come with a price.
And who wants the bastard child?
Cain's plan is so sickeningly transparent: have me build a new life in the few months I have left, out of sight, out of the family; indulge me, so that he doesn't have a guilty conscience when I die, gasping, and his life is free again; and then congratulate himself for being a better person than Father ever was.
He won't escape so easily. I won't let him. This will never, ever end, not until one of us is under the soil, his blood crying out. Cain and Abel. Who loved each not in life, but death. Who God drove apart, and then bound together, though his protection of Cain, who could never forget just what he had wrought. If Father's curse was to have me know love—and that it is but an illusion—then this is mine: I will damn Cain to hell, if only that we will be together there—and I will not face it alone.
I suppose it runs in the family.
He's there in the study, meager by the Hargreaves standards, but still well stocked. He's pretending to read by gas lamp, but he hasn't turned the page. The bound leather hard against his still-soft, boyish hands, but shadows collect in the lines around his eyes and the deep circles that come from seeing far too much. His lovely eyes, deep green and gold, shimmer, as he bits his lower lip to maintain his facade.
I don't have to ask why.
The dead have such strange demands: remember, forget. But no one can ever accurately remember a person. A perception, certainly, but not a person. Cain knew Riff as the iron valet who loved him like a child, like a lamb. I knew Riff as an artificial being, whose soul, or lack thereof, was only a matter of idle conversation between me and Dr. Zenopia when we were bored. He was a matter of scientific inquiry, yes, something to reduce to the cold objectivity of a report. (Riffael required X milliliters, this time. His resolve appears to be growing. Foreseeable problems: mental conditioning, potential organ failure. Surgery too risky? )
Zenopia thought he had a soul, and I thought he was merely playing the devil's advocate, arguing with me for argument's sake. I suppose, it's easier that way—crueler, but easier. If Riff had a soul, even though he was only a creation of Father's, then that meant there was a God after all, who watched for the fall of a sparrow, bestowing souls where there had been none.
I'm still not convinced, though. A God who notices his children is not always a benevolent one.
But even now, Riff's loss is still tangible, for when he died, the world died, for Cain. And then it awoke again, cold and pale and indifferent. What's one man, one moment, when the universe will only slow to a frozen death? If there is nothing after this life, then what does it matter? If nothing will survive, then why bother trying?
Cain closes the book quietly, sliding it onto the table for the butler to take care of in the morning. As he does so, he spots me, finally, and surveys me, his face weary and motionless. He opens his mouth to say something, but changes his mind.
I am only a ghost in his world, the ghost of the past, with a stolen body and a ruined mind. I want him to suffer for what his life cost me, I want to ruin him like I was ruined. I want to steal every flicker of warmth from his body. I'll give him his fantasy, and he'll give me my punishment.
I take his hand, marveling at the tension of the muscles, the twitching of the tendons in his wrist, but he only watches me, with his eyes made large and empty by the dearth of light, unsure if I am about to hurt him or not. He waits. My fingers unfold his hand, circling his palm, as if the answer will come to me—but it never does. Live, or don't live—it means nothing to the mass of cold emptiness that envelopes the earth. But it means something to him. Is that where it is, that ever-elusive meaning?
I wonder if there's an indulgence in my self-destruction, my pain before his. I have the pain of not having a body of my own; he has the pain of not knowing if what he has will last. My heart abandons its rhythm, fluttering; it's nauseating, disorienting sensation, like missing a stair. I don't know how to convey that my body is failing, I can't seem to tell him. I guide his fingers to my throat, and for a moment, bewilderment and horror and disgust show on his face: he thinks I mean to put his hand around my throat. I lightly press his fingers against the jugular, just firmly enough that he can feel my pulse. There, again, my heart stumbles.
I was expecting understanding, yes, but not anguish. But it is anguish that pulls at his face, slumping his shoulders in resignation.
"Is that it?" he asks, searching my face. Is that how you'll die? From a heart that never worked properly?
(Ha—that's one for the morality plays! But life is no such thing, and I am so terribly cold.)
I raise his fingers and press them ever so gently to my lips.
His lips, in turn, part in an unspoken wish, his pulse racing. His eyes fall on me, wide and wanting; his hands grip the chair, as if he cannot believe that the secret desire in his veins will be satisfied. Give this to me. Give this immortality to me. The motions come easily enough—one hand to tilt his face upwards, another on the inside of his thigh to tempt him—but part of me is screaming to stop, that I will kill something inside both of us with my foolishness.
His lips are soft, and they steal my breath, my life. His hands firmly against my arms, in a mute show of refusal, but I am too cold to let him be. I move to his neck, remembering that many of my victims also enjoyed that. How sick, how utterly fitting that this is all I know of "love." Is he my next victim, then?
He's whispering something, having finally found his voice, but I don't listen. It doesn't matter. It never has. He gasps, as I trace a path down his throat, as my fingers unbutton his light gown. The final mother-of-pearl button falls free; as I slide my hand up his thigh, up the yards of thinly-woven cotton, it bunches around my wrist.
Paralyzed by his desires and fear, he only sits there, his chest heaving in lust and his lips murmuring their refusal to indulge this, to let me take my due. You took that from me, I want to say, you took Father's love from me, and now I'll take your peace of mind, your smug self-assurance. If you want the Hargreaves name, then you should have the curse as well.
Father would be laughing at us now. Aren't you a lovely whore? Seducing your own brother. Your own blood. I try to drown out his words in Cain's body, as my movements grow more desperate. None of you shall approach any blood relative to uncover nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother; you are not to uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife; it is your father's nakedness.
Leviticus continues, a steady deluge of judgement, as I uncover my brother's nakedness, unveiling that organ that has begun to flush and swell: The nakedness of your sister, either your father's daughter or your mother's daughter, whether born at home or born outside, their nakedness you shall not uncover. The nakedness of your son's daughter or your daughter's daughter, their nakedness you shall not uncover; for their nakedness is yours. The nakedness of your father's wife's daughter, born to your father, she is your sister, you shall not uncover her nakedness. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father's sister; she is your father's blood relative.
Merely touching it, however, is not enough. I raise it to my lips, and take it into my mouth. His hips buck at the sudden warmth, but a chill runs down my back at the horrid familiarity of it all, and I am split between states—between my brother's legs in one, and on my back in the other, with Cassandra's thick shaft pushing into my throat and his hand grasping my hair.
(See, you can take it, Cassandra chuckles, indulgently. Relax, love.)
Tobacco smoke and patchouli, sharp and sweet, hangs in the air, as I lie there, my jaw aching as it's forced open by the wet, thrusting intrusion. Grunts replace his patronizing sighs at my stubborn streak. There's an angel on the ceiling, gold and immobile, its avian wings unfurling. There's an angel on the ceiling, with its golden harp and its carelessly tied sandals and its unseeing, gentle smile. There's an angel on the ceiling, and it's staring at the east, where God sits, but it knows, and I know, that God always goes somewhere else when the clouds come in.
Cain's hips jerk, and he cries out, softly, too soft to attract attention.
As he shudders, the inevitable outcome of his efforts filling my throat, my only thought is to spit it out, to get it out; I don't want it inside me. But it goes down, thick and viscous and hot. It slides down, and Cassandra smiles, made indulgent again by the post-coital haze of endorphins.
The proof of his sin (and my sin as well) wells in my mouth, and I swallow it down, because that will hurt the most. Because this is about how much pain I deserve. He trembles, painfully over-sensitive now, and I want to spit it up, because I don't want it inside me. And that's the only thought in my mind—that I have to get it out, because it's poison, because I don't want anything inside me.
I bolt, resisting the urge to peel open my flesh to get to the poison settling in my body.
Cain moves, at last, awoken from his shock. He's shaking his head, horror distorting his lovely face. His gown drapes off one ivory shoulder, and the lower part is still bunched up around his thighs. It's over; I've ruined this feeble bond. He won't ever lie next to me again. He'll leave in the morning, disdain tightening his lips and shortening his farewell. And it will be a farewell.
(He is your brother, you shall not uncover his nakedness.)
There is something so ugly inside me that it can never be loved.
I named you well.
(But you made me this way.)
It doesn't come out.
Yellow bile sours my mouth and collects in the drain of the porcelain sink, but it doesn't come out. It never will.
(Here are the pieces that used to be Snark. Was this part of his belly that you loved to rub? Was this his neck that bore his silver bell? And this his leg that ran so fast? Look, all his parts are uniform in death.)
Cain will be gone in the morning, that much I'm certain of. This is unforgivable. I've made him into Father now, soiled him in a way that he won't forget. Testing a love like that will only lead to trouble. I found the lines that bordered our relationship and I tested them, and this is the price of it all.
I can't bear to look at my reflection, so I glance down instead, focusing on washing the almost florescent bile down the drain, away from me, away from God. I misjudge the temperature of the water—instead of being cold, it's warm, and I cannot remove my fingers from the water, as it falls down my numb fingers, hoping that it will impart some warmth, any warmth. Valuable hot water, freshly heated when the maid woke up, falls through my fingers, but I'm still cold and soiled.
It dampens a sleeve of my dressing gown, darkening the silk as it spreads.
How fitting.
I turn the handle again. The water ends.
Someone is in the doorway. Cain. I don't have to look, and I longer have the strength to, anyway. For a moment, I can imagine myself through his eyes. Spots on the front of my dressing gown have stiffen in a pattern only God knows, from either the bile or seed; it doesn't really matter. My face is wet and my eyelids are swollen, so much so that closing them is almost painful, and my body is so heavy. Part of the bile has dried in my hair—how disgusting. The acrid smell alone gives me away: it's not difficult to ascertain what I've been doing in his absence.
"Why" dies on his lips. He knows why. He might even have done this himself, with someone else.
He is a ghost, in his stained cotton nightgown, and like all ghosts, hurt and anger shine in his eyes from my betrayal. Is this why he's come? To exact his revenge? To uncover the why of it all, as if I am only a riddle to be solved?
If I am transparent, then so is he. He was in the hall, contemplating the weight of a revolver so long that it left an imprint in his right palm, faintly red in the candlelight. He's here, because he knows that his death would only bring about more. His blood, my blood, our destructive, cursed blood cannot be contained.
It's Mary who dissuaded him from finding out if there really is a hell after all. He held the revolver to his temple, and thought about how unspeakable it would be for her, to wake up to the fresh morning. All beaming smiles, playfully wandering the empty halls, boredom eventually driving her to open the door to find her beloved older brother limp, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. Blood and brains sprayed on the walls, like a madman's love note. I've seen the aftermath of those scenes, even caused some of them. (When faced with the notion of Father's retaliation, some of his former associates chose to take the easy way out.) Sometimes the exit wound is not clean, sometimes it opens the entire side of one's face. Mary would be left alone in the world. Again. Orphaned in a different way. And it would not end there: there is no note in the world that would keep her from blaming herself for the rest of her days, for not seeing the signs, for not being enough. And that fear and anguish would be imparted onto her children.
It would never end.
He stands in the doorway, pity and horror and anger on his face, and without a word, leaves.
Cain
It's over.
I'm soiled now.
(But once soiled, a soul can never know innocence again. Isn't that what Father said?)
I pace the room, disgusted by myself and frightened of what lurks inside me. Where will this end? With Mary? Will I hurt her? Changing into my traveling clothes, I make my choice: I cannot remain here. The overcoat is heavy on my shoulders.
I think of Mary, still innocently sleeping, still unaware that everything has changed, and my nightmare, and my desire, God help me, my desire, has come true. For all my refusals, it thrilled me to feel his lips on mine, his body against mine. I wanted it. And what does that make me? Father, who only took what he wanted? Mother, with her haunted eyes and ramblings? Did I steal the life from my brother now? And why? Why would he do such a thing?
Deciding to take Mary back to the train station regardless of the hour, I turn to leave, but something catches my eye. On the windowsill, affixed to the heavy curtain by a careless wind is a single lavender flower, a faded bell. I remember grabbing handfuls of them, when Riff had taken ill, only to throw them into his sickbed. And he smiled gently, sensing all the worry that I could never voice.
Surely, surely not?
I almost scoff at myself for thinking such nonsense, but the desperate child in me leaps at this.
"Are you there?" I ask, hesitant.
Crushed lavender powders my coat, untouched by a human hand. The longer I stare at the flowers, the more clearly I can see him there, gentle and reassuring. I stretch my hand, and can imagine his hand enveloping mine.
"Don't leave me here," I whisper. "Not again."
Phantom arms encircle me, and phantom hands stroke my hair. "Shh. Shhh. I'm here, Lord Cain."
I burrow into the scent of bergamont and clean linen. "Don't leave me." I start to choke. "I-I can't do this." My sight blurs, as the phantom arms tighten, protectively. "You were wrong about me."
"You're not your father."
"I am," I choke. "I am, don't you see?" Or does your love blind you to my faults? "There's something wrong with me, something that can't be fixed."
"Lord Cain!"
"One day, I'll hurt Mary too! I hurt everyone in the end!"
"You won't. You haven't."
"How do you know," I demand, hot tears falling into my mouth.
"I know you." A quiet, yet fierce determination enters Riff's voice, and he takes me by my shoulders. "You will never be Lord Alexis."
"Promise me!"
For a moment, his grey eyes meet mine, and I do not debate if this is a ghost or a projection of my lonely mind. It's real. He rocks me gently, and I lean into his embrace, the warmth of his comfort. His voice washes over me, his hands hold me together. We are together again, if only briefly.
We don't need words anymore. I know what he means to say: I'll be here for as long as you need me.
"Then you'll be here forever," I whisper.
A kiss to my forehead, as he fades, as I reach for the now empty air. Hiccups seize my chest now, as I brush away my tears. I know why my brother did what he did. I've done the same, trying to find my worth in the bodies of others, anyone else. Those weren't the tears of a scorned lover, they were the tears of an angry, disappointed, terrified child. He's afraid of being alone and the only way he can fathom of asking for reassurance is through physical intimacy—reassurance and punishment all at once.. Because his world has been slowly deteriorating, and he's acutely aware that he's dying, and he wanted a bond that could never be severed, not by the family, not by death, not even by God. No matter the punishment.
I pause, a terrible ache of understanding stretching through my chest.
And I glance back.
Jezabel
Time stills.
Aware that it has come to its end. An end.
I remain there, staring at the empty blue of the wallpaper, and when I turn my head, my heart jolts. He's there, again, his expression unreadable, dressed in his traveling coat.
Why?
"You didn't—" He wets his lips. "You didn't hurt Mary, did you?" The hard determination in his eyes tells me that he would never forgive me for that, for taking her innocence.
I shake my head, mute and drained.
He nods slowly at this, as if addressing some worry inside his head. Some of the resolution leaves him, and I wait for the weary resignation of I'm leaving in the morning. I can't help you. No one can. I know all that, but I don't want to be solved. I don't want to be fixed. And if this is over, then I want it to be my doing.
He's not the one living in a failing body and a failing mind. I curl on myself as another coughing fit seizes me, burning my throat. Blood speckles the silk. I suppose it's ruined now. I doubt I'll see the end of this month.
He frowns. "You shouldn't have done that. It was—" His voice breaks under the strain. "It was a wicked thing to do."
I turn away from him. I know he'll be gone again in the morning, and I don't want his feigned sympathy. "Just go," I manage, my voice rough and nearly hoarse. "You want to go, anyway."
He only watches me with a mixture of anger and pity, then something gives way and he crouches beside me, his coat trailing on the floor. Oh, he's still angry, but he's trying to hide it now. "Come now," he says, weary and frustrated. "You really are a handful, aren't you?"
Against my resolve, the tears start to make their way down my face, and something moves across his face, as if he understands why.
"You shouldn't have," he repeats firmly, as if unsure that I do not know it's deeply immoral to seduce one's own brother.
This might have begun as an exercise in danger, but it ended in the terror of loneliness. I know he thinks of me as a cruel, obsessive being driven by a misplaced rage, just as I have thought of him as coddled and indulged and above all, swaddled in love and adoration. Because that is what Father told me all these years. I suppose I still harbor some resentment towards him after all this time.
"...I know," I admit.
He takes note of my state, still wounded, still angry, still afraid. Pity prevails, however, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
"Promise me," he begins, steadying his voice, "Promise me that you won't ever do that again."
I watch him, numb and suddenly afraid of his offer. "Don't you want to go," I almost ask, and a small terror begins in my body. I'm afraid of this love I have sought for so long, afraid of what it means that he wants to work through this.
No comes as easily to my lips as Yes. My throat tightens, and my voice escapes me. To choose, that's all that's left, and it is a choice, not a test.
"I swear it."
Cain searches my face for something, and finding his sign, releases a breath he had been holding in. He nods slowly again, to himself. Guilt shows on his face, over my advances.
"It wasn't you," I say abruptly.
For a moment, confusion registers on his face, before something akin to a wounded gratitude replaces it. The silence that falls over us is a queer one, heavy and muted. After changing into a fresh nightgown, he returns to tend to me. He hands me a change of clothes.
"Take a bath and go back to bed," he says, not unkindly, the hurt still in the lines of his body. My transgression will take some time for him to bear, and I quietly regret my carelessness.
He turns the tap, struggling with the stubborn faucet, before it yields, spilling forth iron-flecked water. I suppose the pipes are still shedding their innards. He adjusts the water temperature, holding a finger under the running water, until it reaches a suitable state. Then, shaking off the water, he leaves me alone, with a reminder to go back to bed, having done all that he's capable of, right now.
Steam gently clings to the mirror, and I check the lock several times before I turn my attention to the task of disrobing. It slides off my shoulders easily, pooling onto the floor around my ankles. The water covers my body, slowly, steadily. In the water, I survey my body for the first time in a while: the bruises that inexplicably appear, like weeds; the sea-gray hair that Mother would not recognize, trailing along the surface of the bath; the pale skin, marred in places, smooth in others. A sort of pity comes over me for my body, not unlike what I might feel for a beaten dog. It kept me alive, even when I desperately did not want to be.
I suppose I can't keep running, can I? Everything wants its pound of flesh, and this is no different. This is the only home I'll have, the one made of breath and skin and bone, so terribly breakable, but mine alone. It doesn't feel like mine, but maybe there will be a time when it does. One day, perhaps. What a frightening thought, that one day, that I might find a certain peace with it.
"You haven't drowned, have you?" comes from the other side of the door, irritated and worried.
Despite it all, I cannot keep from smiling, just a small smile. After everything, even though he is still hurt and will be for quite some time, he still cares.
"Not yet."
He's there in the morning, a little more reserved than usual, but there.
Together, we take our breakfast. I nearly bolt at the idea of eating, let alone eating in front of another, but this is what I have chosen, and more importantly, it is my duty, I suppose. It's not easy—I don't want anything inside me, but I still drink the tea, trembling at the sensation.
"Have you thought about what to do with the house?" Cain asks, watching me closely, wondering if it is the house that drove me to my folly. He's still reserved, and, no doubt, will be for some time. When I shrug, he continues. "You could make it an animal sanctuary," he offers, pouring himself another cup of tea.
An animal sanctuary.
I had never considered that before. A refuge for animals, for God's creatures. There's enough land, certainly, and I'll have the expertise to care for them.
"It's only a suggestion," Cain adds, at my stunned silence.
Mary peeks into the room, checking for servants that would rather children eat apart from adults, and finding none, joins us at the table, clambering on a chair. I don't remember her dress—it must be new. It's a deep blue satin, clearly a Sunday dress, gathered up in the back to form a bustle. It's well-crafted, but dated. No one has worn a bustle for nearly two decades now. Surely Cain wouldn't dress her like that?
"You won't believe what they gave me," she says, beaming, as she begins to fill her plate.
Cain frowns at her dress. "Where did you get that dress?"
Mary begins to thickly butter a slice of bread. "They gave it to me," she says brightly, and I realize whose dress it must be. My blood stills.
"It wasn't yours to take," Cain says quickly, worry now tinging his voice. He glances towards me, gauging my reaction. "Go change."
Mary puts her knife down. "It is mine. The girls gave it to me," she says, slightly perturbed now. "The girls in the attic said it was quite alright. They said everything was alright now." She bites her lip a little, before turning her gaze towards me. "You didn't tell me you had sisters."
"Mary," Cain warns, but Mary has never listened to her beloved Big Brother, and will not start now.
"They've been waiting," she says, childishly earnest now. "They're so lonely in the attic, but they're happy you've come back." I nearly bolt from the table, my heart loud. To think that they had been here, all this time. Waiting, watching. What must they think of their wayward little brother? I'm afraid to ask what they think. "They said they tried to talk to you, but you can't hear them."
The voice.
Were they calling me back?
"They told me your birthday, too," Mary adds, before reciting the date like a dutiful student. She grins, triumphant.
Cain frowns, calculating. "Easter," he says, faintly surprised. "You were born on Easter?"
"That's why I had a lamb," I reply, quietly. An Easter lamb for her Easter son.
A look of sudden remembrance crosses Mary's face, her mouth making a perfect "o." She presses something into my hand. It's the bell Snark wore. The cornflower-blue ribbon has nearly rotted away, and the bell is rusted, but it is his bell all the same.
"It's yours," she says, a little hesitant.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" returns to my mind, unbidden. I look around the room, at the pale light straggling in; at Cain, whom I tried to drive away and who saw through my plans; at Mary, whom I will never love as a sister, but might find a tolerance for; at the promise of the endless fields outside—and I finally have my answer.
Notes:
This is the second to last chapter, and I am both sad and happy to have finally finished this fic. If you haven't stopped by to say hi, my lovely shy readers, now's your chance! :D I love and cherish feedback.
Thank you for reading!