A Lesson in Vengeance

by Victoria Lee

  Enough.

  I can’t live like this.

  It’s time to face Alex.

  It’s time to pay for my crimes.

  Sympathetic magic, must mirror a curse to undo it.

  —A note, in Felicity Morrow’s handwriting, appended to her thesis materials

  Margery was a silhouette against the trees, but the way the mob’s firelight caught on the whites of her eyes made her look crazed. Demonic.

  “I did it,” she whispered. “And I would do it again.”

  —From a manuscript by Ellis Haley

  The graveyard is in Kingston; it’s too far away to walk.

  I steal Kajal’s bike and ride it into town and rent a car at the same place as last time with the false ID my mother gave me as a misguided sixteenth birthday present; the last thing I want right now is to sit in the back of a stranger’s cab for an hour, fielding questions about what I’m studying at school, why I’m out so late, why I look like I’ve seen a ghost.

  Blanketed under snow, the cemetery looks nothing at all like it did when Ellis and I last visited. The tombstones rise out of the gloom like onlooking specters, black and silent. It’s four in the morning by the time I arrive, the night as dark as it will ever get and the cold reaching down into my bones as I step out of the car and let myself in through the iron gate.

  The snow has fallen ankle-deep; it’s a slow trudge past the mausoleum and toward the silent oak tree that stands watch over Alex’s grave. The hellebore has been buried under that weight, and as I approach, the grave looks unmarked. Undisturbed.

  It’s only once I kneel down by Alex’s headstone that I realize the snow there has been shifted. It’s not the pure faultless blanket that covers the other graves; the snow here has been freshly shoveled back into place, someone’s meager attempt to hide what they’ve done.

  I twist around, expecting to find a shadowy figure standing behind me, but the cemetery is empty of all but the dead.

  Alex never died in that lake. We didn’t find a body because there was no body to find.

  While I ran down from the cliff to find her body, Alex pulled herself out of that black water and staggered into the woods, vanishing without a trace.

  Of course she did. She could have. Her career was over, her reputation ruined. Everyone thought she was violent now, too emotional, too unprofessional. She’d told me there was no escape, that she could run and run as far as she wanted, but she’d never stop being Alex Haywood.

  She dug up her own grave and read the letter I wrote. That’s why the snow is disturbed. That’s why the inscription appeared in the book. Because Alex did write it.

  Then what’s in her grave that she wants me to find so badly?

  All at once, I no longer feel the cold. It’s a strange heat that blooms under my skin, smoldering in my chest like fury. I push to my feet and make my way along the winding path that leads to the caretaker’s shed. The padlock hangs unlocked around the door, not even frosted over. I kick the door open and stumble into the dull warmth of the interior.

  The dust knocked down off the rafters makes me cough. I pull my phone out of my back pocket and flick on the flashlight app, the beam illuminating the dark corners of the space. There. A shovel rests against the far wall, tip down. I drag it out of the shed. I should have brought gloves; my fingers are already white-tipped and numb where they curl around the handle.

  When the blade cuts into the snow, it makes a crunching sound, like ice snapping. I dig up that first shovelful and pitch it to the side, my heart already pounding as I thrust down for another load.

  I feel oddly dizzy—light-headed—with a sense of double vision, as if I can see a second pair of hands alongside my own, a second shovel, black soil breaking beneath the blade. My palms ache with phantom blisters; I taste old salt on my tongue.

  It’s at least ten minutes before the tip of my blade hits dirt. I’ve cleared a rectangular space the approximate length and width of a coffin. My chest aches, sweat sticky under my coat. But this isn’t over. Not yet.

  I dig the shovel down once more, cutting through frost and soil and heaving, again, again, again. The sun starts to rise over the distant horizon, a dull gray glimmer that only casts the shadows into sharper relief. I stare at the name on Alex’s headstone, the letters blurry through the sweat that beads on my lashes.

  I’ll find you, I tell her. I’ll fix this.

  I don’t know what I’m fixing.

  I start to lose track of time. The world condenses down to this: the snow soaking into my socks, the dirt under my nails. My breath clouding at my lips, and the calluses that swell on my palms—swell, then burst, then bleed.

  I never thought how long it would take to dig up a grave. I never considered how the shovel handle would get slippery under my grip, that I’d end up stomping on the shovel blade to force it deeper into the ground, that I’d be on my knees in the dirt as the hole got deeper and deeper, until I’m standing in the pit and digging beneath my own feet.

  The spade thumps against something solid, and I stop. The sky overhead is slate gray as I tip my face toward it, gasping for air and shutting my eyes. I’ve forgotten how to be afraid. Even the mist that rolls in off the mountains and wells up around the tombstones doesn’t frighten me anymore. I am closer to shade than girl. I am no more substantial than bone dust.

  I scrape the dirt off the lid of the coffin, exposing wood gone dark with too much soil ground into its veins.

  All I have to do is open the casket.

  Yet I find myself kneeling down in the chasm of Alex’s grave, both hands pressed against the lid of her coffin and my eyes squeezed shut, taking in a shuddering breath and trying to chase away the sense, even now, that I am being watched.

  I wish her body were in here. I wish I could press my cheek against the cold wood and feel some shadow of her on the other side. I could practice the same necromancy as Alex and I did that night we spoke to Margery Lemont—inscribe letters on the coffin lid, let Alex’s spirit move a planchette from word to word.

  But a ghost didn’t dig up this grave. That work was done by living hands.

  The seal on the casket is broken; it’s easy to hook my fingers under the lid and yank it up, the hinges creaking as the coffin opens.

  And even in this dim light, dawn still pewter over the hills and the cover of snow draping everything in silence, I recognize her.

  Alex.

  Alex was on her fifth cigarette—the fifth cigarette to go with her fifth drink—her dress disheveled and her cheeks sunset red as she spun little Hannah Stratford around in a circle. The lit cigarette left a stream of smoke in its wake; I flinched every time it careened past the drapes.

  “Let me take that,” I said, edging closer. “You’re going to burn the house down.”

  But Alex just laughed and twirled Hannah again, who was tipsy and giggling and clearly delighted just to have caught Alex’s attention at all. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Felicity. Dance with us.”

  “I don’t dance. You know that.” My glass was slippery against my palm; I downed what was left.

  Hannah reached for me with her free hand. “Come on, Felicity. It’s fun!”

  People were starting to stare. Whispers exchanged behind hands, glances darting between Alex and me.

  I shifted closer and lowered my voice to little more than a hiss. “You’re making a fool out of yourself, Alex. Let’s go home.”

  Alex stopped dancing. The centrifugal force sent Hannah spiraling, staggering until she was caught by the helpful arms of a senior girl I distantly recognized from Greek class.

  Alex’s hair had frayed out of her chignon, tangling wild like a red halo about her face. She looked, in that moment, every bit the role she’d been cast in the papers: mad, aggressive. Violent.

  She drew closer, and closer again, until my heart
pounded not from the alcohol but because I was briefly certain she was going to kiss me and force me out of the closet right then and there—

  But Alex’s mouth just twisted meanly, and she said: “Yes, well, you’d know all about making a fool of yourself. Wouldn’t you, Felicity?”

  It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. The party went silent; the feeling of all eyes on me made my skin itch.

  “We’re going home. Now.” I started toward the door, but I didn’t get far.

  Alex’s voice cut through the thick air between us like hot steel. “Everyone knows you’re crazy,” she shouted. She was drunk, the words coming out slurred and uneven. She was drunk; she didn’t mean it. But she said it anyway. “All this bullshit about witches and magic and dead girls. We all know the truth.”

  I spun on my heel and stalked back to where Alex stood, weaving on her feet. I could smell the liquor on her breath from a foot away. “And what’s that, Alex?” I said. “What’s the truth?”

  Alex took in a sharp breath. Don’t say it, I urged her mentally. Don’t say it.

  She was going to say it.

  I could see it in her eyes, because I knew her—I knew her—and Alex was the kind of person who was never cruel on purpose but who was inevitably cruel regardless. She just couldn’t help herself.

  “You’re obsessed with magic because you can’t stand to live with yourself otherwise. Because if you don’t have witches to blame all your shit on, if you can’t pretend that you’ve been chosen by Margery Lemont or whatever, then that means nothing you do is magic’s fault. It’s just you.”

  I laughed. It came out cold and callous, like the laugh of a villain in a children’s movie. “You want to talk about taking responsibility for your own actions, Alex? Really? Or do you just want me to reassure you one more time that you’re perfect and Tes started it, and if you broke her nose, then it’s her own damn fault?”

  I went too far.

  I knew that before I even finished saying it, but I said it anyway, and it hit Alex like a bullet hitting its target. She reared back, the color drained from her face. All at once she didn’t look angry anymore, or cruel-aggressive-violent-mad.

  She just looked scared.

  “Alex…,” I started, but it was too late.

  She flung her glass onto the floor, where it shattered into a thousand pieces against the marble. I yelped and flinched back, and that was all the head start she needed. Alex shoved her way past the gathered crowd toward the front door, and I was behind her—too far behind her—so even when I had broken out of Boleyn and onto the quad, she was already a distant pale speck running toward the lake.

  “Alex!”

  I sprinted after her. It couldn’t end like this; I couldn’t just leave her alone after…after saying something so terrible. She was unstable. I knew that. She’d been off ever since what happened over the summer with that other climber, and if I left her to her own devices, she might—

  I didn’t know what she might do.

  Alex was a world-class athlete; she was too fast. By the time I made it up to the cliffs, I was heaving for air, one hand pressed to the stitch in my side.

  She stood on the ridge, silhouetted against the white moonlight and still. I approached slowly, half-certain that any sudden movements would fracture her.

  “Alex,” I said again, once I had the breath to speak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, you did,” she said. She had her back to me, both hands clenched in fists at her sides. “You meant every word of it, just like I did.”

  I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “Please. Let’s just talk about it. Okay? Let’s go back to Godwin House. We can…I’ll make tea, and we can talk.”

  Alex turned at last to face me, her hair tangling in the wind in front of her face. She looked wild and feral, like a creature out of legend.

  “You were right,” she said. “I haven’t taken responsibility for what I did. But I was right, too, you know. This whole witch business has gotten to you. Like, sometimes I don’t think you even hear yourself properly. Fucking…séances, Felicity? Dead girls and curses and demonic possession?”

  I recoiled. It wasn’t demonic—I’d never said anything about demonic possession. But I had confessed to Alex one night, both of us curled up in her bed together, that I thought Margery Lemont’s spirit was trapped in our world after that Halloween night. That because we didn’t do the closing ritual properly, Margery had no way to leave our world. I had said that I knew Margery’s intentions were evil. That she might use us to do evil things.

  At the time, Alex had been so careful with me. But tonight her eyes were slate and cold, her mouth thin as wire.

  “You need help. And you need to get a fucking grip.”

  “Go to hell,” I managed to get out, but my voice was shaking. It was weakness, and to Alex, weakness was like blood in the water.

  She moved closer, but I refused to be weak. I refused to let her pin me against the trees like a coward. I could feel Margery there, watching. Her eyes burned into the nape of my neck.

  I stepped toward Alex and shook my head. “No. I’m not letting you do this. You’re…You’re being mean, Alex. Stop it.”

  “Mean,” she echoed, and let out a breathy laugh. “Fuck you, Felicity. I’m so sick of this. I’m so…I’m so sick of you acting like the martyr all the time. Like you’re so goddamn patient, and understanding, and if I’m not, well, that’s just Alex being Alex, isn’t it? Just evil, mean Alex, who talks back and curses and defends herself. But I guess standing up for yourself isn’t very Dalloway, is it? I guess I’m just showing how uncouth I am, since I didn’t go to goddamn finishing school and learn how to act like a perfect little princess all the time—”

  “You—”

  “But they’ll figure you out soon enough, Miss Morrow. You can’t hide it anymore, can you? You’re fucking broken. You’re batshit, just like your mother.”

  And I pushed her.

  I didn’t mean for her to fall. She wasn’t even that close to the edge. But she was drunk, and when she lost her balance, she stumbled. For a split second I thought she was going to recover and lunge for me—

  Instead she pitched, and dropped, and vanished, screaming the whole way down.

  Alex died. Alex was dead. I killed her myself.

  The shock of seeing that body in the grave sends me reeling back toward the crumbling wall of the pit I dug. Only there’s nowhere to go, the space too cramped to allow for anything but this:

  Me, half tumbling into the open casket, staring down at Alex’s beautiful red hair tangled against the satin pillow, her pale cheeks and limp hands, the scarlet bloom of blood staining her white shirt.

  No. No, no—

  That isn’t Alex’s mouth, nor Alex’s nose. Her cheeks have too many freckles, her body isn’t decayed.

  Not Alex’s body.

  Clara’s.

  I scramble back along the narrow space I’ve dug, flattening myself against the grave wall and staring down at the dead body of my friend.

  And maybe I’m a terrible person, as dark-hearted as I’ve always feared, because my first reaction isn’t to grieve. It’s the cold and clinical assessment:

  She hasn’t been dead long.

  I twist around and press my brow against the dirt, eyes clenched shut. I can’t fake innocence. I knew it. I knew it.

  The body in Alex’s grave has a bullet in her stomach. Her throat is slit. Wormwood leaves wreathe her hair, and hellebore flowers bloom where her eyes should be.

  She’s the perfect picture of Flora Grayfriar’s corpse.

  This whole time…some part of me suspected, deep down. Some part of me knew how this would end, and I kept going anyway. Even with my eyes shut, the truth stares back at me.

  For Ellis, this was never a game.


  I feel as if I’m falling—a hundred miles through an endless pit, into water, cold and black and closing overhead, filling my lungs and flooding my veins.

  Ellis killed her.

  She really killed her.

  My heartbeat is the only sound I hear as I force myself to face the coffin—the girl in the coffin—the corpse. I’m sick; it’s the kind of nausea that devours. I shove the lid back onto the coffin with my heel, my mind suddenly tumbling through a litany of realizations—the kinds of realizations that become reflexive after studying murder for months on end.

  My fingerprints are on the coffin. I shift forward, crawling across the lid with my hands balled in fists and my weight pressed against my knuckles to scrub the cuff of my sleeve against the places I touched. I hope those are the only places I touched. Can I be sure? Do I know? I should wipe down this whole coffin, should—

  Only it’s already dawn, the sun beginning to rise beyond the trees. Cold light filters down even into this hellhole. Someone could find me here. A mourner, or the cemetery caretaker back to shovel the snow and throw away wilted flowers.

  I pull my phone out of my coat pocket, swiping away my notifications. It’s seven. I’m already out of time.

  I claw my way to the surface, elbows digging into dirt. Panic is a living thing, I discover: It twists and quivers in my chest. It strangles every breath. I don’t bother with the shovel; I shove dirt into the open grave with both hands, tears freezing on my cheeks. I can’t even feel my hands anymore, my fingers like rubber.

  I don’t know how long it takes to fill the grave. How long it takes to heave the snow back in place, or carry the shovel to the caretaker’s shed, or scrub away my fingerprints. I can’t fix the broken padlock. They’ll know someone was here. How many minutes until they pair the broken lock with the disturbed snow atop Alex’s grave? How much longer to exhume a body? How long, then, until they come hunting for a killer?