It was a nice shawl, considering. I tucked it around Kate’s scrawny shoulders, where it clung to the sweat on her skin. Even after her bath, she was heavy with that same, garlicky scent I’d detected on her breath.
Candles burnt in the sconces. Mrs Rooker sat in Kate’s easy chair, giving directions to Nell. Only I hovered close to the bed, where Kate’s misty eyes attempted to focus on me. There was no lustre in them, now.
Male voices murmured behind the closed bedroom door. The doctor had felt her pulse, looked in her mouth and frowned. I imagined him consulting with Billy and Mr Rooker, at a loss to explain my power.
Maybe the doctor would examine me, subject me to tests. I didn’t care. I thought I’d never care about anything again, so long as the shawl worked.
‘I do forgive you,’ I whispered, close to Kate’s ear on the pillow. ‘Sometimes, we all do things that we don’t mean.’
Kate gave no sign that she’d heard.
‘Why have you stopped bathing her forehead? Can’t you see the sweat running into the poor girl’s eyes?’
Mrs Rooker’s voice sent me scuttling from the bedside to fetch another cloth. Nell had torn up some old sheets and they lay in strips, waiting to absorb Kate’s essence. I folded one in my hand, wondering how many materials had touched my skin that day. The bedsheets, my maid’s uniform, a facecloth, the curtains … Fabric swam everywhere about me. And wasn’t the human body just fabric, too? If I could cut it, why couldn’t I stitch it up again?
Bang. We all jumped as one of Kate’s arms slammed into the bedpost. She gave a low, tortured moan and then her body went rigid.
Mrs Rooker stood up and crossed herself.
‘Help us!’ Nell shouted.
As the doctor hurried in, Kate’s back arched. An invisible power pulled her stomach up from the bed. It was a hideous sight, unholy, yet I couldn’t rip my gaze away. Her hands gnarled by her side, twitching. Skeins of vomit ran from her mouth.
‘She’s having a convulsion,’ the doctor said. ‘Make way, there!’
‘The shawl,’ I whimpered, ‘make sure the shawl stays around her shoulders.’ But no one paid any heed to me. All eyes were on Kate, thrashing beneath the sheets, writhing in pain.
As if she hadn’t suffered enough.
My legs folded, useless beneath me. It hardly seemed to matter now whether I stood or laid down, never to move again.
As a girl, I’d dreamt of embroidering fine gloves, making beautiful things. What had happened? How was it that all I’d managed to create was this: this crucifixion of agony enacted upon the bed?
‘Hold her head, she’ll bite her tongue!’
She’d sent Billy to find us, that day. Her mother was going to hang, and still she thought about me. Wanted to give me work. She’d saved my corset from the road, because she knew what it meant to me. I couldn’t like her, but she wasn’t a bad person. She didn’t deserve to die like this.
‘Ruth! Ruth, come and help!’
I had no strength to rise. The stenches wove about me like snares: garlic, body odour, sour vomit.
‘Billy! Someone fetch our Billy.’
All at once, Kate fell slack. I could hear something rattling in her chest, like a pebble in a jar. Mrs Rooker screamed.
They made an eerie strange tableau around the bed: the physician, with his fingers at Kate’s neck; Mrs Rooker, her hands raised to her cheeks. Nell stood back slightly, stunned, a soiled cloth clutched at her chest.
There was a moment with no movement, no sound.
‘She’s gone.’ The doctor bowed his head.
Who was it keening, like an animal in the jaws of a trap? Someone hysterical, far away. They were beating the floor, crying out, ‘I killed her, oh God, I killed her!’ in a voice that couldn’t be consoled.
Boots pounded into the room. Too late. Billy and his father ran over to the bed, recoiling from the mess splayed there.
‘I am truly sorry, Mr Rooker. I did everything within my power,’ the doctor said.
I, too, had done everything I could. My influence was the stronger, it seemed.
I thought Billy would bend to kiss Kate’s forehead, touch her hand. But he was speaking – or at least, his lips were moving. I heard nothing. I was underwater, caught, at last, in my own vicious riptide.
One by one, the faces around the bed turned in my direction. They seemed to ripple and break. Noses, brows, gaping mouths. In each one I saw Kate, staring back.
There was a bubble, my ears popped.
‘I’m going to fetch the police,’ old Mr Rooker said.