My vision blurred and spattered red. With a lunge, I grabbed at her throat, tightening my hold as I pushed her backward on the landing. My thumbs hooked into the soft space. Her arms flailed. She scratched my cheek and dug her nails into my gripped hands. Her skin blued and paled. I kept pushing forward, not letting go. Her hip caught the corner of a curio cabinet, weaving us to the banister and the stairs. Her foot slipped off the top step. I let go. I let her fall.
Her neck snapped somewhere along the way. I heard it. One snap. Like the pin in the lockbox.
She landed in a heap, her leg bent at an angle, her hand flopping to the wood.
Delphine cowered at the bottom, whimpering like a trapped rat.
“If you scream,” I said, “I’ll kill you too.”
Arsenic has no smell.
No taste.
Like water.
A tick of a watch. Eugenie’s, sitting on the dresser. It was out of rhythm. I picked it up, pulled the crown to silence it, then opened the glass case to stop the minute hand.
Jacob had gone for the constable. I promised Cook I would not run.
The windows stammered, the ice scratching. I lit the fire.
Eugenie did not mind when I situated her aright on the bed. I fluffed the pillows, wiped her mouth as best I could. Brushed her hair and picked through the tangles. My fingers left pink stains on her cheeks and chin. On the sheets and cases. I pulled the comforter around us, my arm circling her waist and my head resting on her chest. “There, there.” The thin lilac light snaked and slipped across the bed’s striped canopy. “There, there.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Truth is a rather pliable object, isn’t it? Something molded and recreated and told as an entertaining story.
I was observed pushing Rebecca down the stairs. That is true if you’re the girl looking up from the bottom step. That is not true if your view is from the landing above.
I choked Rebecca. I don’t think I’d have stopped. That is the truth.
But she was responsible for her own fall.
As I am responsible for mine.
“Lucy Blunt, variously known as Martha Adams and Alice Pratt.” The paper crackled and hissed as the justice pushed it across his high desk. “You have been found guilty of the murders of Eugenie Charlotte Burton and Rebecca Louise White.”
No gasps. No women fainting and men charging forward as they did in the penny papers. Silence instead, shaped like an egg.
“But it was not me . . .” My voice failed me, and the justice took up his words.
“You will be taken hence to the state prison, and on Thursday the seventeenth day of May in the year of our Lord one thousand and eight hundred and fifty-five, within the walls of the prison yard will be hanged by the neck until dead. May God have mercy upon thy soul.”
“It was not me . . .”
A single thomp of the gavel. An inward rush of air. Then the room a maze of sudden shouts and a crush of bodies jostling and shoving me from the box. I turned to the balcony, my eyes scanning the swaying crowd.
The woman I searched for was easy to spot, her red hair so shocking against the grays and tweeds of the audience and the white of her ermine stole. She remained sitting. Once our eyes met, she kept hers steady upon me.
“Aurora—Mrs. Kepple—” Next to her sat Mr. Burton, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking with grief.
“I loved her,” I said. “I loved her.”
He could not hear me through the throng.
So little time. It is gossamer now, frayed at its ends. I sit on the chair and count the drips of water from the ledge to the corner. I have been given an orange.
Cook sits with me. “I think Psalm 51 tonight, Lucy.”
“As you wish.”
“It’s a comfort to share this with you.” She turns her head and peers at me. “A nod of the head to God is good for the soul.”
“Will he nod back?”
She licks her pinky, pressing the tip to the corner of the book and shuffling the pages. Her lips purse and then pull into a smile. “Here we are.”
Her voice weaves itself round me like a shawl, a shroud, a twist of air that thins to a single fading note, leaving me to the drips of water and my orange.
It is morning. Matron twists a sponge above the bucket she’s brought. Warm water that steams with lavender.
“Lift your arms,” she murmurs, and her breath is sweet against my skin as she drags the sponge across my shoulders and down my back.
Another dip and twist of the sponge. Long strokes along my thighs, behind my knees. Droplets cool and slide down my ankles.
“It will be warm today,” I say.
“It will.”
It is morning and Matron bathes me and plaits my hair. In the corner of the cell, the dress Gert made is laid across a chair.
Mrs. Kepple did not convince.
“You are not a poisoner, Miss Blunt.” Mr. Finch stands two steps out of my reach, his hands slung behind his back. He spreads his elbows and settles them to his waist. “Impetuous and headstrong, yes, but not a poisoner.” He turns a foot and brings the other to match it, two paces to the left and two to the right. “Mrs. Kepple tried. I tried. But not a single vote went our way. Ignorant minds, mmph.” His step hitches and he comes to a halt. His eyebrows furrow and he sucks air between his teeth. “Or I am mistaken in my findings. But I think not.”
“I hate you.”
“I have something to show you. Would you like to see?”
“What could you—”
“This, Miss Blunt.” With a flick of his wrist he flips open a small leather case and holds it in front of the bars. Red velvet lining, a curve of glass. Me.
White petals strewn across a dress and a brooch so fine it is near translucent.
“Me.”
“Yes.” With a bounce of his knees he snaps the case shut. “Not a poisoner at all.”
I have been granted the sun. No cuffs or chains. Ten minutes. It is fair warm. I loosen the buttons at my collar and fold back the lace. The leaves on the elm are spring green and curled still. In a week, perhaps two, this bench will be full shaded. For now, I turn my face to the dappling and watch the light hop and shimmer above.
A shadow then.
“You’re in my sun, Mr. LeRocque.”
He’s swinging his hat and knocking it to his hip. He’s had a barber trim his mustache. There’s a nick on his chin and a crust of styptic powder threatening to fall.
He rubs his boot against his calf and points to the space beside me, a questioning lift to his eyebrow.
“You’ve never not sat when you wanted to.”
“That’s true.”
“What’s the newest headline?”
He hangs his head, twirling his hat. “Justice.”
“For whom?”
“I thought—”
I take his hand and look again at the new furled leaves. “You’ve been good to me.”
“Are you ready?” It is Matron, and it is her hand I hold.
She wears a woolen dress of indiscriminate color. Her dark hair is oiled to her skull and held in a tight roll at the base of her neck. Her brows are too heavy and her chin cut sharp. Her gray-blue eyes do not waver.
“What is your name, Matron?”
“Coraline.”
“It’s a nice name.” A breeze quivers the leaves. “I’m ready.”
The watchman holds my elbow. He drags me across the packed earth yard. The chaplain trots behind me with his hails to God and contentions of forgiveness. My heart thumps so loud it echoes across the granite blocks.
The gallows stands rough-hewn and weeping sap. Twelve steps and I twist to get away.
“I can’t breathe. I can’t—”
I scan the yard for Matron. She’ll be there. She promised. In the shadows, the constable and warden and two men from the jury and Gert. There’s Gert. She’s nodding her head at me.
There’s a buzz of noise and heavy stamping from the men’
s prison. I stare up at the iron-barred windows and catch the flutters of hands waving as I pass.
Where’s Matron?
I’m sick. All down the new dress, and the watchman shakes my arm hard.
“No. Oh, please, no.” I catch my toe on the first step, and it’s the hangman in his black hood who lifts me from under the arm and drags me the rest of the way. It’s so hot.
There’s the noose. There’s my heel clipping the trapdoor.
It’s so far down. The men peer up, their hats now in their hands, and Gert squints, shading her eyes and her lips are moving. God don’t hold you to your sins.
The hangman drops the noose. The rope is heavy and coarse. I swallow, acid and saliva and stone.
A sharp flutter of black catches my eye. The chaplain flinches and ducks as the crow wings by and settles on a window ledge.
The stamping of the men turns to a single drumming beat.
“Lucy Blunt, have you any word to say to these people?” The hangman’s voice has a lilt, the same as the guard who’s sweet on Matron.
There. Matron’s right in front of me, on the gallows, back to all who watch. Fingers threaded, eyes steady. Unwavering.
“This is it?” My voice cracks. “I’m not ready.”
The sky is so blue.
Look at the sky, Lucy.
It’s so blue.
Look.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mark Gottlieb: So many thanks for your invaluable advice, support, encouragement, wisdom, and all-around awesomeness. I am ever grateful to have you as an agent and look forward to many years and many books with you.
Alicia Clancy: Thank you for believing in this story. This book is stronger because of your editorial vision. I am so pleased to travel on this adventure with a fellow dark-sider. You are amazing to work with and a true superstar.
Laura Chasen: Your keen eye and precise advice were instrumental to Lucy’s tale. I can’t thank you enough, and hope we have the opportunity to work together again.
Nicole Pomeroy, Laura Whittemore, and Patty Ann Economos: Thank you for such attention to copyedit and proofreading detail. You have made the manuscript shine.
Gabe Dumpit, Ellie Knoll, and the Lake Union author relations team: Thank you for all the work you do to make an author’s life easier.
The New Hampshire History Crew: Rebecca Stockbridge, New Hampshire State Library; Brian Buford, New Hampshire State Archives; Carrie Whittemore, Monadnock Center for History and Culture; Jay Shanks, local historian; Christopher Benedetto, historian; Joe Springsteen, researcher. Each of your mad skills, knowledge, and generosity of time and attention opened up antebellum New Hampshire to me. The rabbit hole was much smoother because of you. Thank you.
Thanks also to Historic Harrisville; New Hampshire Historical Society; Millyard Museum; Horatio Colony Museum; Historical Society of Cheshire County; Kevin Hartigan, Perkins School for the Blind; Old Sturbridge Village; Hancock Shaker Village; Kate Genet; Aleks Voinov; Ann Etter; Christopher Wakling; Maria McCann; Ron Hansen; Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards; Regional Arts & Culture Council; Arvon Foundation; Women’s Fiction Writers Association; and PDX Writers.
I could not have finished this novel without my talented, creative circle: Alida Thacher, Jennifer Springsteen, Thea Constantine, Gail Lehrman, and Gary Taylor. You are my blessed rocks. Thank you for sticking with the book, reading each chapter as I sent it, and commenting and questioning along the way. I am inspired by each of you—your talents make me strive to be a better writer. You are each held close in my heart, and my gratitude is immense.
Dana Blakemore: You listened without complaint to every strange idea, rolled along with every plot twist, let me obsess about all things 1850s, and still remain my number-one fan. I love you more.
To the readers: You make it all worth it. My gratitude is endless.
BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS
There are hints Lucy might not be a reliable narrator. What are some examples in her account of events that are unclear or perhaps twisted?
How does Lucy’s past complicate her stay with the Burtons?
Do you find Eugenie a sympathetic character? Why or why not?
What is the state of Eugenie’s marriage? How do the Burtons feel about each other?
How does class fit in to Lucy’s predicament? Eugenie’s? Rebecca’s?
Lucy believes truth is pliable. Which serves her—the truth or the tale? Which hurts her?
What motive does Rebecca have for killing Eugenie? What motive does Lucy have?
Who killed Mary Dawson? Why does she haunt Lucy?
If Lucy ever had a “way out” from her current circumstances, where and what was it?
Is her judgment just?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 Upswept Creative
Kim Taylor Blakemore is the author of the novels The Companion, Bowery Girl, and Cissy Funk. She has been honored with a Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award, a Willa Award for Best YA Fiction, and a Regional Arts & Culture Council grant. She teaches Craft of Fiction and Historical Fiction with PDX Writers in Portland, Oregon. Please visit her at www.kimtaylorblakemore.com.
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