I stood over my body, unable to mourn the loss through my rage.
The butler stared at my mother’s body for a long time. Her veins were a dark purple against her grey skin, her eyes locked in a final display of horrified surprise. Her beautiful dress that she’d loved so much was no longer green but now a dry sheet of blood. The stone around her was caked in it. Would someone even clean it, or would my mother’s essence remain etched to the stone, a permanent reminder of the horror that befell her there?
Margaret held a cloth to her nose, offended by the smell that came off our bodies. The Roma Witch hadn’t checked on me in several days. In the torchlight, I dared not look at what I had become.
In the end, there had been no angel to greet me. No long tunnel to go down. No pearly white gates. I was trapped in this cell, still alone, with only my dead body and my mother’s for company. I had hoped my mother would be here. Perhaps God was kinder to her and had taken her soul to heaven.
Why am I still here?
“We need to remove them.” Margaret’s voice was an emotionless command. “We’ll go through the tunnel.”
The butler, a beefy sort of man who liked his food and alcohol, sweated profusely. “The tunnel, Miss Thronesby?” Sweat perspired from his bald head, running down the back of his neck. The air around him smelt of body odour.
Margaret grinned. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Follow me, gentlemen.”
The butler bent down and scraped my mother off the floor. Her legs and arms were limp and floppy, making her a cumbersome heap in his hold. Her head lolled back on his shoulder, exposing the long slit across her throat. It was crusted over with dried blood and something that resembled yellow mucus.
It pained me to see my mother reduced to that. It had always been her wish to be buried in the family plot in New York City, not in a shallow grave where no one could mourn for her.
The footman slipped into the cell. He carried my body out, my dress and veil catching on the stone. I watched them take my body away. The footman hauled me over his shoulder like a sack of wheat, my long dress and veil adding an extra burden to my weight. He cursed at the unfairness of it all. Some of the white pearls caught the light from the torch, sending brief glitters across the dress, a reminder of the beauty it had once been. I had been dead several hours, my body cold and inflexible to the touch. The young footman struggled with my dead weight, my long hair hanging over his arm.
Will they bury my mother and me together?
That seemed far too kind a mercy for the likes of Margaret Thronesby.
The Roma Witch clicked her fingers at the men. “Don’t dawdle.”
She directed them to a device I had never seen before. It was tall and slim with intricate wrought-iron scrollwork. It reminded me of a birdcage but had the confinement of a coffin.
The footman stared with an open mouth, his youthful face sallow in the torchlight. “What is that?”
Margaret pressed her lips together with impatience. “It’s called an elevator. A rarity for now, but soon every great house and building will have one. Now get inside. We will have to travel one at a time.”
The footman blinked. “But what about the bodies, miss?”
Margaret’s gaze slid over the pair. Her green eyes narrowed. “The elevator is spacious enough to carry two. I had it purposely designed that way. Now get inside.”
She grabbed the footman by the shoulder and shoved him in the cage, my body stiff beside his. He barely had time to comprehend what was happening when the door was latched shut and some sort of chain on a pulley system groaned above. With a jolt, we descended into darkness. It must have been a narrow shaft of sorts, because every so often, the caged ironwork scraped against the walls. I felt the tension in the footman’s body, sensed the blood pounding through his veins, the driving rhythm of his heart. He was afraid.
The chains above rasped, each jolt causing his breathing to intensify. I didn’t feel sorry for him. He was an accomplice to hiding a murder. I wanted terror to bore into his soul. I wanted horror to squeeze him until he begged for it to end. I wanted to drive my cold dead hands inside him and tear his limbs apart. He clutched at his necktie, trying to loosen the knot. He was lucky I did not tighten it.
Can I even do that?
Fiery illumination pierced the darkness above. Margaret was peering down, the flames from her torch blazing across the compacted walls. It allowed me to see the beads of sweat that ran down the footman’s face in rivulets.
The farther we descended, the colder the air became.
The elevator jerked suddenly. He unhooked the latch and scrambled out, nearly dropping my body in the process.
“Miss Thronesby,” he cried out. “I can’t see anything down here.”
His voice travelled up the shaft, an echo that became thin and muted.
The elevator rattled. He watched with wide eyes as it ascended, leaving him in this alien world with only my corpse for comfort.
“Miss!” His voice trembled up to the dark. “Miss, please!”
The waiting seemed endless.
When the elevator arrived again, Margaret stepped out and glared at him with an annihilating look, teeth bared. The flames from her torch shone against her milky skin. Her beauty was no longer soft and angelic. Down here, in the underworld where she belonged, she was hardened by cruelty. She approached the footman with a panther-like grace. “Keep your voice down.”
When the butler arrived, my mother’s body like a wilted flower in his arms, Margaret stepped forward. Her torch revealed a long tunnel that stretched farther than the light could penetrate. Rats scurried in and out of the shadows. The scratching of their tiny claws sounded much louder in the dark.
“Follow me.” Margaret’s voice was a ruthless command. She marched ahead, not caring that the footman whimpered and the butler sniffled.
The deeper we ventured into the tunnel, the more its structure changed. The walls were no longer smooth but jagged, and the texture beneath my feet turned into something that had a weak, resistant force. I drew closer to Margaret. The red glow from her torch revealed sand and tiny seashells, which she crushed with her heavy boots. The briny scent of ocean air saturated my nose, and my ears filled with the sudden crash of foamy waves.
A sea cave.
Margaret led the company up a set of stairs chiselled into the stone. The passage was narrow and winding. It seemed endless as it drifted up, step after step. It was definitely not constructed for stealthy escapes.
It was built to hide secrets.
We came to an opening in the rock, the starless sky above us. The moon cast a deceptively tranquil illuminance across the ragged sea cliffs. Even the waves looked silver, their crests sparkling as they broke on the shore, tugging shells and seaweed back in the undertow. It was a beautiful night. Not the night for dumping corpses.
Cool air swept across my skin. The harsh tangle of weeds wrapped around my dress. Can I even call it skin? Or a dress?
I was here, and yet… I wasn’t.
Am I a ghost?
Mother had communicated with countless spirits during her seances. Was it possible that they had all ended up like this? Wandering aimlessly. Something that existed but was never seen in the physical world.
I really hoped there was more to it than that. I wanted there to be a reason.
Margaret marshalled the group along a path surrounded by rocky outcroppings. We arrived at a deep gorge with a steep cliff wall, the water below black and fierce. Waves beat the rocks, the roar so powerful it overpowered Margaret’s voice.
She shouted to be heard. “Throw them in. The mother first.”
The butler approached the edge of the cliff face with reluctance. The heel of his shoe scraped against loose pebbles. The small stones plummeted over the edge. They took a long time to land in the water below.
The butler visibly shivered. “Miss Thronesby, is this a good idea? The sea could very well bring them back to shore. Wouldn’t a grave be more suitable?”
The footman directed an uncertain glance between his mistress and his boss.
Margaret approached the edge with confident strides. She looked down at the rocky void, her torch casting a ghostly glow around her. In comparison, the steep rock wall and black water below appeared to end in pervasive darkness.
The corners of her lips twitched. She seemed to watch the water with silent fascination. “You do not need to fear the current. Witches have used this gorge for centuries to rid themselves of bodies. The tide will take them out.” She nodded at the butler. “Now do as you are told.”
He dropped my mother by the edge of the cliff and effortlessly kicked her body into the gorge. There was no splash. We were far too high to hear it if there was. I couldn’t look. The fear in my mind already played the scene for me. My mother, tossed and tumbled like a piece of seaweed, sinking into the deep for the little fishes to eat.
“Now the girl,” Margaret demanded.
The butler stepped forward, aggravation in his eyes. His voice was gruff and uneven. “Just one moment. What about our payment?”
Margaret laughed, a sweet yet conniving sound. “I cannot believe you are asking for money now. The job is only half done.”
“My part is complete in this. Now, I want the money you owe me.”
Margaret didn’t say anything. She smiled at the footman, who’d gone so white in the face he looked ready to be sick. “Put her down there.” She pointed to the edge of the cliff. “I will pay you both for your hard work. And, of course, for your nondisclosure.”
The footman approached the edge of the cliff. He looked at my face, which was grey and bloated, my lips colourless, my eyelids closed and pale. I thought maybe he was about to offer me a silent apology, to seek forgiveness, but instead he dropped me on the ground. He swivelled around, his eyes alight for the first time all evening when he saw the sum of money Margaret took out from her dress pocket.
She was still smiling. “Your reward.”
There was nothing overly mean in her voice, but I felt the evil radiate off her in waves. The way she drifted forward reminded me of a stalking lion. Before either man could accept the money, she shoved both of them, using her full strength to drive them over the edge. Their screams were barely audible in the wind.
Margaret’s face remained impassive as she stepped through the reeds and focused on my body. “Goodbye, sweet Anna.”
She kicked me over the edge. Gravity caught my body, the wind dragging me down, my long hair splayed around my face. My wedding gown almost looked silver in the moonlight, my veil a ribbon of white, like a shooting star beelining from the heavens for earth.
My body sliced through the cold water. For a moment, I seemed suspended in time, frozen in that single moment, but then the waves washed over me, shutting out the moonlight, shutting out the rocks and the surface.
My body sank, lower and lower.
Into the deep.
Into the dark.
Into the unknown.