Chapter 18

Killing Me Piece By Piece

 

“So, are you feeling better now, girl, in that you’re walking to the window, or so bad you’re about to be hurling yourself out?”

“I am feeling less ill, miss, for which I must thank you. And I have no intent of moving through this window.”

“Then you’ll be returning to your bed, lass, in that you’ve nothing better to do this day than rest.”

“Perhaps I do not, Miss Elsie. Perhaps not.”

She had brought me water, a servant’s daily task used by this miss as a mechanism for entry, as though her true purpose were not to examine the patient. After satisfied Elsie filled my urn and departed, I considered my response to her, contemplating my needed activities of the day. Seeking Lucinda would be useless, for the witch would not have remained into day’s light. Reasonably, she would return this evening even though I had not been present as promised. After all, I had informed her of my own subjugation by a sinner. Assuming her return, I could proceed to acquire funds for Percival. Was not his paper valid? These documents from promising men collecting around me like flies on the chamber pot—should I value this latest as I did the first? And if its worth be nil, should I then expose that mutual act of bodies to Mr. Worth or to Naylor? But if only married folk in England should be partaking of such rubbing, was I not a tart and subject to punition? If sufficiently illegal, I would be imprisoned by the magistrate regardless of the driver’s felony. Here, perhaps, was the factor to allow Percival such ease in threatening himself with Naylor. Therefore, I should first determine the validity of Percival’s document. If it be valueless, then to the Rathel’s again, steal much wealth, attempt to sell it without being discovered by the mistress or rejected by the broker, then again to Mortwaite to pay Wroth’s established price. Typical business for my sinning London life.

As I stood at the window in my reverie of uncertain contemplation, Delilah came to fulfill her daily chore of emptying the household chamber pots. With mine came a warning.

“I was most unpleasantly ill in there last night for which I do apologize,” I told her.

“Can’t be worse than what is normal in them things,” she muttered. “I’ve learned by now to look little and breathe less when I deal with the pots, with folks sick or well.”

She took the ceramic crock to a bucket in the corridor covered with one cloth and situated upon another to catch the slopping. Dumping the former into the latter, Delilah seemed well able to prevent her sensing the materials in that no retching ensued. After rinsing it with clean water, the servant returned my pot, on to the next.

My reverie ended with the decision that, yes, I had more important things to do that day than rest in bed. Again I must pursue severe activities, and I wondered if every aspect of achieving a new home for my sister would begin as easily as Wroth and end as impossibly as Percival.

Elsie returned after I dressed, mentioning that she was off to the market for foodstuffs; and I would not be attending even if I so desired, not with my weakness and the cold outside, but was anything special to be brought me? No, nothing special desired with the yet-improper stomach.

I looked through the window as Elsie walked across the street with her basket. Yes, I did want to accompany her, to partake of an enjoyable, unimportant journey without danger. No journeys for me that day would be less than profound if recent history be a measure. But Miss Elsie’s excursion became no less provocative than my last. Scant minutes later, I heard her moaning outside, and saw the servant with her basket being dragged home by constables as she called out for her Mistress Amanda.

Downstairs I ran as Theodosia and Rathel opened the door. Out of sight I remained, having an adequate view and excellent hearing. On the stoop stood a pair of average constables and an exceptionally frightened woman appearing so small and useless between them as though a creature destined for slaughter and well aware of her fate. At once the speaking ensued, the visiting authorities first.

“A good day is wished to you, ma’am, and is it that you are the Lady Amanda Rathel?”

She was, and why did they have her servant in their hands?

“Instructed out we were at sunrise to gather all women likely demonic, in that witches may be in our city, in that yesterday was a man most crassly murdered as only one with the devil could do.”

With true affront, the mistress declared, “This woman is a servant of mine and entrusted with the entire household. Moreover, not a moment the previous day did she leave this building, and for her I vouch absolute godliness. If you lack acceptance here, then contact Sir Jacob Naylor himself, for he and I are colleagues.”

“Lady Amanda, your name is known to us as well, and well regarded. We ask not of you, but of this woman, that she is of your house as she asserts. Learning now that this be true, we return her, and suggest you retain the servant inside until more comes of the problem mentioned.”

“And what is this crime of which you speak?” Rathel inquired.

“A man was killed in a demonic manner not to be described to a lady,” was the official response.

Rathel then pulled her servant away as though a toy misused by a greedy friend, patting Elsie’s back and telling the poor miss to return to her room and rest. Theodosia accompanied Elsie from the foyer. Unkindly I concealed myself from Elsie’s sight, for though I would not refuse her my sympathy, this demonic situation must first be heard by the demon.

Again Rathel confronted the constables, speaking with less passion, now more professionally.

“Through Magistrate Naylor, you might know that my life is one of confronting witches. Therefore, you shall convey to me details appropriate for my expertise.”

After sharing a look, the constables acquiesced.

“A man Percival Bitford was killed most sexually, in that his male member was torn off his body and too much of his blood lost for him to live further.”

“Perhaps this man had enemies,” Amanda returned. “Humans are also channels for Satan’s evil.”

“Sir Jacob is thinking witches.”

Rathel looked to the constables, but had no denial. When she spoke again, her words were final.

“The magistrate knows my home. I know about witches and servants. I wish you a good day,” she concluded, and closed the door, turning to walk away.

She sought Miss Elsie to soothe her, telling the servant not to broach this story to Alba, for the girl’s weak condition would not bear the distress. Elsie, of course, would tell no one, ever, of nearly being arrested for wickedness, tell no other servant and never Miss Alba, dear Miss Alba.

Rathel did not come to me. Was she so expert as to know I would have no comprehension of my own witch’s act? Of course, she would not mention the event to me, lest I be influenced to avoid performing the same activity with Eric, exactly as Rathel had intended and asserted in verity from the first. But men were all sinners, no more, and killing them would send their souls to God. Besides, if the specified person were ended, would I not thereafter be conveyed to a home where no sinners existed to kill? What care had I for these folk with more of Satan’s evil than any witch?

I had never seen Elsie so frightened. Had she been present with her evil lass, her utterly, absolutely evil charge, perhaps she would have noted our new similarity; for my own fear was unparalleled, even greater than when Mother was taken to her burning, or when I awaited death in Jonsway. Those horrors had come from without, but this latest was so inherent to me that it seemed I was responsible for all those previous deaths, not merely Percival’s. So foul was my core that surely it permeated my past, an evil implemented in the forgotten real, and obscurely revealed in dreams.

Elsie would have discerned no great difference with her sight, though surely that hot blood burning my head made the white witch somewhat pink, rare meat she was, unique in her corruption. Standing by the window, I thought of Elsie’s words, of my being so ill I might leap. And I had the thought, but knew that Satan or Rathel would catch me. Then I thought of Percival and was relieved that no more dealings could I have with him or his company. I thought of my pain and of his, and knew I had felt both during the event, the dying, and now felt them again: not in my crotch, but in my heart and my head and my spirit, and this was Satan’s glory. I felt pain and impossibility, for I could not have killed that man. I could not have killed any person, not with my body—the idea was absurd. But the intensity of that pain now seemed fit for death, and how dead the driver seemed in retrospect. How deadly the Rathel was to know this all along and use my trait as a weapon, use me as a weapon: a person more vile than even Satan could imagine. A person so wicked as to have killed a man by plucking away his most prideful part and letting him bleed for it. And I felt it. I felt myself locked onto that male and felt our pain and felt his piece pulled loose and that piece was my brain. I felt Percival’s blood oozing away and it was my blood, for I felt my heart being pulled from my body. I felt the pain of my killing, and as well as God Himself I knew I deserved it, deserved the agony again and felt it so fully that thereafter nothing in my life existed but that horror returned. But I did not suffer enough, for I continued living; whereas that poor, average sinner had not. I felt abject moral misery so completely that I was nothing but that concept, an idea of evil so pure that only a devil could bear it. But I was only a girl, one hating herself enough to die, but Satan only let me faint.

• • •

That day, I remained ill, but from no distressed stomach. Each moment awake or partially aware I prayed God for understanding, believing deeply that within His wisdom some reason existed for the incredible evil in me, a divine plan that let me love both Him and humans, yet kill the latter. But I received peace only upon accepting Lord God instead of seeking from Him the aid of explanation. Only then did I approach divinity, understanding that a design only God could devise He alone could comprehend; and this was satisfaction enough. Then, exhausted by religion, I managed to sleep through the uncomfortable afternoon. When I awoke, I found myself no less evil, but no less a part of God’s enduring plans.

Evening had arrived. I arose to stand by that desperate window, aware that outside lay my future that soon I would need to follow again. Beginning my preparation, I applied effort to tidy my apparel as though the killer were a lady; for in this world of God above and Satan everywhere, a lady she best be. I even brushed my hair, then quit my chamber to show God I yet accepted myself as part of His world, not Satan’s. Unfortunately, Satan seemed to be part of me, for my bottom was evil, the musculature there so sore as to affect my walking, for I limped as though elderly. Was this, then, the cause of old sinners’ walking poorly: a life of sex coupling? Sex killing?

Though the evening was not late, Rathel and her servants had retired, all but Elsie, who met me downstairs in her dressing robe as though waiting. Unimpassioned but pleasant was our meeting, wherein we mutually determined that each of our conditions had improved; and, yes, perhaps we were hungry. Entering the kitchen, Elsie was thoughtful enough to eat only an apple instead of rendering me ill with meat. For Elsie’s benefit, pomegranate instead of onion was my meal.

As Elsie and I departed the kitchen, the servant proceeded to her room. As though an insect in the evening, I was drawn to the light of her doorway. Following the miss, I stood outside as she entered. Never had I been within nor viewed this chamber. Elsie moved to her bed and sat. I had never seen her settled upon a surface all her own, and she was mildly prideful in having a place, any place, though this room was the size of my armoire, with a tiny bed and tiny chair, and two shelves and all of Elsie’s things: her crafts and comb and Bible, a clean and neat apron the next day she would be rubbing with her fingertips. One oil lamp whose light filled the small space, and I saw myself there. Upon a round table lay a crocheted doily with a pamphlet of Jesus, a dried flower from our garden, and a ball of black hair tied with a ribbon. Elsie’s hair was brown.

I looked toward my friend. Instantly I would have exchanged chambers with her, for clearly we were misplaced. Elsie would have loved the grand expanse of my bedchamber, and I would have been more comfortable in a modest space. I looked only at Elsie, and cursed her properly.

“Sleep perfectly, miss, and rest as you deserve.”

She was embarrassed. I departed, the servant and I wishing each other a good evening. Only Elsie’s, however, would soon end. Midnight for the witch was a literal center.

By the window that connected me to the sinners’ world, I awaited a sister’s smell, but none came. Perhaps the witch was present a wind away, her odor masked by a breeze. Believing that Eric would not be so foolish as to come on a day whose bright hours had seen officers collecting sinister women outside my door, I had concern only for my sister whom I prayed to appear one additional night, bringing me new opportunity. I then departed through that plane incapable of separating me from the wickedness without, for did not the devil have a daughter within?

Down the wall with no slippage. Across the street through a minor snow and to the site where my sister again would be found, please. The same aged sinner of my previous journey was so gracious as to have returned, a consistency I prayed for in Lucinda. Again he scurried away, frightened that I might be danger. How wise was this man. The person of my true concern, however, was not present. For hours, I walked the street, building to building, hoping to gain Lucinda’s odor, but no person was sensed, sinner or sister. Near dawn, after I had stopped myself from falling as though waking from a flying dream, I returned to the Rathel’s. Despite my exhaustion, I ascended the wall unharmed, all the while wondering how to find Lucinda again, crawling into my chamber to find a sinner asleep on my floor.

As I stepped past him to the door, Eric was startled from his sleep as though on the street half-conscious looking for his kin. He sat upright to watch me lock the door to exclude Elsie if she were to awaken before the sun to look in on me. What a joy the Rathel would receive from finding Eric here. But what a disaster for Elsie’s heart.

“You’ve been gone on your business again, is my guess,” Eric quietly stated, standing as I turned from the door.

“Out on your pleasure, I see,” I replied, and sat on a chair, bending to remove my shoes, having a true need to sleep and beginning my preparation despite the present guest. Before the first dead cow skin was loosened, however, I came aware of the tart move I was making, even God’s greatest lady no more than a common wench to tempt a man by revealing her lower extremities. At once I ceased, but surely Eric had seen an ankle. As I sedately dropped my hem to the floor, did I not smell from my visitor an odor usually present when men were about to die by me?

Eric turned from the semi-lady, stepping away, distracted or attempting to appear so.

“Have you succeeded in aiding your friend exit our city?” he asked.

“My friend and I have not met again,” I replied. “In that she is disheveled and unhandsome, I fear the constables have taken her for a witch, arresting her as they did our Miss Elsie.”

Surprised, Eric quickly turned to me despite the potential of stockings revealed.

“Surely, the latter is not yet detained.”

“Surely not, in that Rathel was a fury to take her servant from the men, officials or not.”

“But if your friend is detained, can you not as Lady Amanda’s daughter vouch for her bona fides?”

“Without the complexities of deep exegesis, let me inform you, sir, that entities in this world exist more convincing to constables than I.”

After staring toward me a moment, Eric stepped to the window, looking out as I had earlier and seeing the same, viewing nothing but his thoughts.

“Might I provide some aid to help with your friend’s departure?”

“This offer you’ve presented before, sir, but no use is yet to be found in your involvement.”

“And if such use were ascertained, might I be considered?”

“You might if such idea attacks me, for you are not without resources.”

Looking through that window, the young man seemed fully distracted. And though I smelled no further male odor about him, the previous whiff yet perturbed me toward prejudice.

“I leave, then, miss. In fact, I have come for the purpose of describing my departure, for not only your sill but London sees me leave.”

“Interpret your riddle, sir, in that quitting London has become a horror for me.”

“The purpose, ostensibly, is to convey me to education, when in fact the object is to remove me from you.”

“Who so takes thee, master?”

“My father and the wife, who’ve made payment for exclusive education in Italy. This was expected and gratefully appreciated before, but no longer. Not when it comes a year early. But I am told that so fine is my educational progress that greater learning I’ll readily accept. The true goal, however, is not to increase my intellection, but to decrease my exposure to you. The parents, though unaware of these meetings, yet read my heart as though Jesus my soul.”

I believed his speaking, though it seemed unreal, a dream. Eric was being forced to leave London while I remained a prisoner? Shaking my head as though to clear the clogging injustice, I asked of his travel as might Mr. Wroth.

“You depart for the Continent? How far removed, and for what duration?”

“A brief journey over water, then days on land, the stay to last for years. Truly, my parents hope for me to find and wed a peer newly met in Europe, but I am heretofore betrothed. You might know of this.”

“I do,” was all I needed to say, for Eric had not ended his speaking.

“What your feelings thereof might be, I know not, shan’t ask, and in a way I find irrelevant. For in fact, I am dispassionately convinced that after years when I return to London, I will come to you.”

He then moved through the window and down, not having looked toward me again.

“I’ll be wedding no other,” I sighed, and nearly laughed. Then that faint smile to have come over me was lost, my ironical feeling exchanged for melancholy. And I was confused because I knew not whether this dejection came from my failure to remain emotionally apart from sinners, or merely because I would be without Eric.

• • •

Around me bubbled fumes effervescent in the air, animal fat and blood turned to acidic vapor that etched my sensibilities. I continued with my chore, sitting on a simple stool on the coarse kitchen floor, the falling, green corn husks unnatural to this fumy atmosphere. With my back to the stove across the room, I wondered if Delilah used excessive heat in her cooking as punishment for my being in her kitchen, the girl who puked at excellent pork when these servants were pleased to get bones for soup. Though interested only in planning Lucinda’s exit of London, the husking an exercise to relax me, I found myself again in a conflict with English society. Instead of contemplating my true family of witches, unavoidably I was attempting to measure these sinners.

Then came the shouting.

“Ah! You’re burning the beef, ignorant woman!”

I turned to see Theodosia and Delilah congregate before the unattended stove. One woman with a thick cloth removed the large skillet from the heat, setting it aside as the other peered closely at its contents with eyes stinging worse than mine.

“It is most black on the bottom and that which is not is surely overcooked,” Theodosia reported. “And you know how much the mistress detests unrare meat.”

“Perhaps we can dice it into some concoction and thus save the stuff,” Delilah submitted, her cohort responding with derision.

“Best worry, woman, about saving your own hide and not this blackened beast’s which already you’ve ruint.”

Delilah’s reply was a glimpse more of guilt than glaring. Then up from the wet ashes she looked and to the kitchen door, for there stood the final servant, one recently polishing metal and therefore without my accompaniment.

“Aye, and you’ll not be worrying about the upcoming meal, in that the mistress is not attending. Off she is with constables to be aiding the magistrate.”

“Gone the night she is?” Delilah asked. “Out of London? We’ve not seen that in a time.”

“And you’re not seeing it again this day,” Elsie replied. “Likely she’s returning before evening, was her goal, time enough to be preparing a proper meal for our weary mistress.”

“Ah, the relief God grants well-meaning folk,” Delilah sighed, and moved to dump the burnt mess outside where dogs eating house to house might find it.

Elsie departed, and I followed her involving news. Noticing my rapid standing, the remaining sinners wondered of my rush.

“And you are complete, Miss Alba, with your chore?” Delilah asked as I gathered the stripped corn.

“Done, miss, and on to another.”

“You need not be doing these things, Miss Alba,” Theodosia added as I scooped the bright green remains into the mulching box. “The mistress might not relish her young lady peeling vegetables.”

My disturbing the organic mass brought forth fresh odors of old food, old plant remains, a smell enough for me to notice above the reduced fat steaming the room.

“I trust I am not improper in aiding the preparation of food that I also eat,” I stated with a smile, wiping my hands on an apron as I stood paces from these servants, a proper space for women other than Elsie.

We were not a lot to be speaking, these servants and the odd child intruding in their realm. Currently, however, the women were not so cold, as though they were accustomed to me as certain other sinners had become.

“You’re a helpful lass, though, and thank you, miss,” Delilah added.

Another smile and no further speaking as I left. Solely concerning me was that Rathel might again be the determiner of a witch’s life. As though I might learn something from Rathel’s last position, I ran to the entrance foyer, but sensed nothing. I therefore waited, an enterprise not always satisfying even to people as long-lived as mine.

• • •

Not within sight of Elsie was I when she heard a coach halt before the household to divest itself of our mistress. After Rathel entered and spoke briefly with Elsie about weariness, the sinners separated, the witch stepping out from behind a curtain to grasp the lady’s hand and smell it.

Startled Rathel attempted to snatch her fingers away, but long enough and near enough I held her to gain the smell I sought.

“Clove is not strong enough a scent to conceal a fragrance so personally known, lady sinner,” I declared.

“Alba, if you have lost your mind, I shall confine you to a home for the mad,” Rathel retorted while retrieving her hand.

“Not with an ignorant sinner of your huge village do you speak, Rathel. Wise enough I am to have surmised your task with the magistrate to be identifying witches. And on you proof is found, for the odor is lodged deep in the crevice beneath your nails, neither to be soon washed away nor hidden with additional scents. Not hidden from me.”

“Partake of brevity in your wisdom, Alba, and describe the ultimate goal of your speaking.”

“You have been with witch Lucinda—I know this.”

“How is it you know a witch never near your home island?” Rathel replied after an unsubtle pause.

“I know her from your home, former missus. Inadvertently she found me here while seeking you and your typically sick business.”

“The home of a woman not known to her, else my examining her would not have been required. Does your wisdom not tell you this?”

“But you are known by her friends: those instruments used to kill your own spouse, and thereby gain—fail to gain—Edward Denton.”

“You confront me with these stories as though to achieve some advantage,” Rathel retorted. “I suggest, however, that you not display your wisdom to Edward. Even now he considers you demonically tainted, and to the pyre of Magistrate Naylor you would go.”

“Yes, mistress, with you as companion. How believable shall I be in alleging that you have me here to kill as in the past you so wickedly used witches? Might you tell Naylor that my identity be unknown to you? That display of insanity would gain you no home for the mad, but a prison for foolish criminals. How readily shall you convince rational officials in light of my evil that Franklin died without your aid and effort? But I’ve no desire to inform taxman nor king of my identity merely to have you burned beside me. My silence I would retain if only you continue to humor your daughter.”

“And what would this comedy cost me, Alba?”

“Dismissal, mistress. Have the witch Lucinda dismissed from incarceration and from London.”

“Is this a studied goal on your part, or one frivolous?” Rathel queried.

“A most studious goal I have been attempting to implement. Before Lucinda was encaptured, I had initiated her departure.”

“Therefore, you killed the Bitford man for her passage.”

“Satan ended this sinner through my unwilling, unknowing body. Perhaps the devil used you in a similar manner to kill your husband. At least I sought gain for a person other than myself. To purchase Lucinda’s conveyance, I intended more thievery of your excess goods.”

“Your generosity is moving, Alba, but will not likely convince a magistrate who shall only see the witch in you, not the sister. As for your business, I understand now the aunt of yours I was yesterday.”

After a pause mandated by Rathel’s nonsense, I replied, “You ascribe madness to me then speak insanely?”

“Upon learning of this Bitford’s death, I also learned of his employ, and believed you on the verge of a foolish attempt to withdraw from London. At the agency of his hire, I inquired of a young lady with your face and fine speaking. Being told that you sought conveyance for a senile aunt, I took great offense, insisting that I in fact was that person and you a hateful niece attempting to rid me from your home. Thus, I canceled your papers with a generous gratuity to Mr. Wroth. More importantly, I concluded a business that if left unconsummated at the time of an employee’s death might lead a thoughtful superior to have you sought. None shall seek me, since I used no true name, and my face was unseen. I suggest that when next you endeavor to kill a man with your sex, wear a veil to hide your distinctive face. But feel no need to thank me for saving your life again.”

“I die the witch with a cunt virginal or murderous, so I need not thank you for your self-salvation. You would have me executed at once were it not for my continued success with Eric.”

“Your ultimate success, however, is required for your return to the wilds.”

“How wise you are to not promise my continued living, only a conveyance to the wilderness.”

“Both of these I will have for you if you wed the Denton lad.”

“Easy is your business when the boy’s true betrothal is written on his heart. I so consume his thinking that at night he climbs the wall for me—do you doubt it?”

“I do not, Alba, but take not this boy between your legs without a wedding, lest you ruin our chances for surviving his end.”

“How could that be, mistress? I understand how you might secrete me out of London after Eric’s death, but you remain, do you not? If available to justice, how shall you survive a murder that clearly you intended?”

“Because clearly you intended it, Alba. Besides myself, only witches are aware of the white one. I shall have even the king believe that you were the one seeking vengeance, vengeance against me for allowing your sisters on Man’s Isle to die. You thus concealed yourself in the guise of a human girl until able to destroy me by killing your marriage, thereby ruining any mother’s most beloved hour.”

“Convinced I am, mistress, and in my guise as king’s counsel, I adjudge you well-connived by the witch and innocent of murder. But you shall require no such adjudication from the genuine law unless a new death transpires. So let us ensure Lucinda’s survival. For me to continue with Eric as I am, you must have Lucinda released and removed from London, even if she first requires a flogging from authorities. A witch can survive the whip, but not a fire.”

“But here exists difficulty,” Rathel returned. “Without your concern, I have no interest in this witch. My objectivity was revealed to the magistrate in my identifying Lucinda then leaving her for the law. How am I now to tell Naylor that I care for the witch when earlier I did not? Should I mention Mr. Bitford’s death?”

“Along with Franklin’s, of course. Ply me not with your foolishness, sinner. If you arranged for Eric to die by me and your husband through other witches, no doubt you’ve the ability to have one woman released, the reason by your own invention. But I suggest you not tarry, for I will tolerate no pretext that too late you were or too inconsistent toward Lucinda. So let the deaths fall where you will them, not where they must, for you are the center around whom your people perish. And remember as you journey, mistress, that I’ve developed my own resources for influencing London. Know ye, wench, that a sinner need no prick to die by the will of witches.”

There our speaking ended, the Rathel looking toward me firmly as though to read my will. And she walked away before I, walked away to have Elsie fetch her cloak and gloves, for out again she need leave on significant business.

With the lady gone, Elsie found me near the foyer to ask of the Rathel’s departure.

“Forgive me, child, but I’m hearing this harsh whispering between you and the mistress, and praise Jesus I’m hearing not enough to know what was said. But as I’m worrying of your arguing and the mistress being out again, can you be telling me how much I should fret?”

“The discussion, miss, was more negotiation than distress. As for Rathel’s business, the mistress is to the magistrate’s again with no difficulties expected, and none, I pray, forthcoming.”

Expressing her relief, a fond demeanor with these servants, Elsie withdrew to the kitchen, one of their favorite sites. I soon smelled cooking, my first thought being that Elsie had opened the door to release a whiff of Delilah’s burning meat. But the odor was not beef, and was not from our kitchen. On Satan’s pyre, a witch was frying.

I ran to the foyer, opening the door to be certain of my smelling, at first convinced I was as mad as the Rathel had mentioned, so distraught that my worst dreams now came awake. But I found no mistake and no nightmare, only a full breath of London’s air containing the black fibers of a burnt sister.

As though eating the dark flesh instead of smelling it, I retched and bent as though broken, my stomach’s contents so exploding from me that I was thrown to the floor by the force of my contractions, not those of my stomach, but my heart, for my spirit was vomiting. I felt another loved one dying by torture, felt my morality destroyed from having allowed another sister to die by not being witch enough to save her.

Bloodless and filled with blood, I rose to move into the drawing room for an item of household protection, removing a metal heirloom to apply to that person most ruinous to the home, sitting within smell of the door, waiting for the Rathel to kill her.

Why she was so long in returning I did not know, but soon I came aware that Rathel had no initiative with Lucinda. Though she had identified the witch, this activity was old with her and familiar to me. She had no opportunity to save Lucinda as per my demand, for the sister was set to Hell’s fire before Rathel could arrive. I had been correct when retching, understanding that I was to blame: for being too active, too passive, too improper as a savior, a sister. I asked myself if Lucinda were less worthy of death than Percival; and, yes, the answer in God’s name was yes. Regardless, I had killed them both. Having murdered enough for that era of my life, I replaced the lance and retired to my chamber, closing the window passage to night London because the incoming odor could be nightmarish. And though a stench that seemed my own burned body lay in the air, the fumes were inconsequential compared to the sister’s remains soiling my blood.

I imagined Eric climbing the wall. At the window, I would kick his face, the boy falling to his death, an accident to English law, the Rathel satisfied and I on my way to Man’s Isle. Eric’s death would be accepted in this land as normalcy, for was he not innocent and unworthy? Was he not harmless and thus to be infinitely harmed? I imagined Eric coming and dying, for was he not next in queue for my killing? First Percival from unknown, unavoidable evil, then Lucinda from incompetence and lack of courage. Therefore, why not Eric from clear intent? Was this progression not reasonable?

I imagined Eric but had no dreams of him, lying on my bed without sleep, my only thoughts of dinner gone bad, of a negligent cook having caused the harmless burning of a meal, nothing lost, nothing worse than this mistake. I attempted to justify the soot in my brain until a drunken wench came stumbling into my chamber.

Rathel had been imbibing liquor, a taste of hers I thought she had recently tempered. Sinners drank as a social enterprise and to hide their cares with the dull foolhardiness that alcohol provides. But what was this sinner’s state that she had to share it with me?

After staring in the dark until able to see me on the bed, the Rathel revealed herself.

“You smelled the witch gone before I arrived, and somehow—I know—you sent me to become a fool before Sir Jacob.”

“Satan made you the fool, wench. I sent you to save my sister. I prayed to a god you have never loved to save my sister through you.”

As though not having heard me, Rathel continued speaking, directing her composition—an opera—toward her audience.

“I told Naylor I should speak with this witch to learn more of demonic activity in London. I then heard of her dying, but Naylor mentioned more on that subject of recent evil. The Bitford man dead at your body. Then an older tale about a pale girl under water for much too long a duration, and how an average gentleman was drawn to touch her. This man had a story for his minister first, then was sent to the magistrate. Sir Jacob asserted that so much demonic now lay in London that people fear for their children. Sharing a drink with him and the wife to get the taste of the Thames out of me, I learned more. I learned that one family sharing a school with the Naylors had sent their boy to Europe this very day. And since the youth’s name was Eric and you’ve been speaking with him at night as per your boasting, did you not encourage him to leave? Was it not your best initiative, moreso than pawning my possessions to abandon me for the wilderness? Perhaps in your journeys of conniving you’ve noticed that other pale girl about, she in Penstone Place nearly ravished before being driven off by a coachman. Her appearance not unlike my goddamnable new daughter. Sir Jacob would have mentioned this earlier had I not been so insistent on being with my new family that I had no time to work with him. As though it were my idea not to know all the plotting you’ve done against me. But this was understandable to the generous Naylor. Understandable that I preferred my lovely lass to those possessed with demons, as though anyone could be taken by a demon worse than you.”

“Your mouth is perverse from liquor, unnatural creature,” I retorted, but again the Rathel seemed not to hear.

“But many pale girls live in this city. When all are discovered to be the same and all mine, she’ll be enjailed before finishing with Denton—exactly as you planned, is it not, witch?”

“Yes, you idiot blackguard,” I laughed. “All of your odd speaking is true. As though God Himself, I’ve been manipulating this city to irritate you. So foolish are ye, drunken wench, that you’d believe I would burn myself to thwart your plans.”

“You’ve made a mistake in deceiving me, witch, in stabbing me from behind with your deception.”

“Bleeding right, you ferocious whore, I’ve made a mistake in stabbing your back!” I shrieked, and leapt from the bed to run past Rathel and downstairs, having achieved a most objective intent, as though a formula to correct my living, and it would be the Rathel’s death. Into the drawing room to gain the lance and slaughter heinous Rathel, Satan take her soul if he could find room for her infinite evil in his Hell. But energized with drunken anger, Rathel was with me like Lucinda’s final smell. As I stepped onto the chair and reached for the lance, Rathel attacked me from behind, having taken another object in her life I purportedly had wielded against her.

“Here is the clock you would sell, when you meant to sell my hide, bloody witch!” she screamed, and struck my shoulder, the bones becoming so numb with pain that I could no longer reach.

“You’ve driven Eric off, but I will have you wait for him!” she cried, and struck my spine, the clock’s corner biting into me so solidly that I shivered with an agony both unique and unbelievable.

“Your demon kind has ruined me before, but I’ll have you make amends or have you quartered!” she screeched. “You’ll be outside killing me piece by piece no more, but ill and inside until your betrothed returns!”

Stunning pain collapsed me. Then against my face fell the ceiling, which was only the timepiece; but this blow removed my ability to sense pain and to see, though I was startled by the force, wondering how any head could accept such a blow and yet live. I could not move, only hear, more babbling from the Rathel, then screaming from Elsie now upon her mistress as a final strike took my hearing and my mind.