"I'm sorry it had to be you," Matilda said.
"It's not fair!" Lara said. "It was my turn! I had the body! It was mine!"
"Calm down," Matilda told her.
"Get out of it! Get out!"
"I've just got in and I'm not going anywhere, Lara, so you'd better just calm down and see what happens."
Lara continued to whine while Matilda looked towards the stairs.
"He's mine!"
"Don't be ridiculous," Matilda said. "I'm not interested your man."
"We're married," Lara whined.
Matilda regarded the impressive ring on her finger.
"Are you in love," she said. "Or just stupid?"
"I'm not stupid," Lara said.
"That's too bad."
"The others won't let you get away with this."
"Don't take sides," Matilda said. "Don't you dare defend them, or what's going to happen to them will happen to you. That's enough now."
She wasn't about to tell her to stop crying, because she knew how it felt to have the body snatched from you and to end up trapped when you'd had glorious plans in mind. At first, you couldn't help but feel cheated. Then it was up to you to do something about it, even if that thing was waiting, staying strong and waiting until you'd forgotten what time was, waiting until an opportunity to escape presented itself and then you had to remember who you were; what you had once been.
Matilda picked Lara up by one wooden leg, still sobbing, and carried her into the drawing room. She set her down in front of an armchair. It looked like it had always been a part of this room. No-one would think anything of seeing it there and since visitors seemed to be a thing these days someone might even bear to put their feet on it, which Lara might find distressing, but Matilda was sure she'd prefer that to returning upstairs.
"Now pay attention," was all she said before leaving the room.
She could feel the others too, sending their minds around the house in a kind of mutual fog of panic. Among the thoughts, she sensed Isla, calm but strong, like the signal from a guiding beacon, so Matilda was not completely surprised to find her nearby, on the stairs.
"What are you doing down here?" she asked.
"It was my choice," said Isla.
Matilda checked out her reflection. Her face was bloody and she set down the axe to rub at her face with a corner of her wet T-shirt, though it was grimy with dust and mould from having cleaned off the chest.
"Is that really how I look?" Matilda asked. "Or are you playing games?"
"You know me," said Isla.
"Yes," Matilda said coldly, rubbing at the blood. "And you know me."
She was about to retrieve the axe from its position leaning up against the wall when she heard footsteps above.
Roger appeared on the landing above, with one of the house's robes wrapped around him. It was blue and significantly too small for him. She could see too much of his vertically-striped, blue and white pyjama bottoms. Any attraction she might have had for him was eradicated in that instant. That aside, he was still not at all good-looking, and Matilda wondered what it was Lara saw in him. He must have had some admirable qualities. Or perhaps he'd just been kind enough to say hello to her.
"Oh my God!" he cried and he rushed down to her so quickly that she flinched. "What have you done to your face!"
"It's a scratch," Matilda said, pushing him away.
"Is there someone down there? I heard your voice. Did someone do this to you? Is your mother back?"
"My mother?" she laughed. "I don't know what you're t- ... I don't have any idea why you're reacting like this. I fell, that's all, in the shed, looking for something."
"Why on earth were you out there in the middle of the night?"
"I know," she said, "in hindsight, it might have been wiser if I hadn't done that."
"Let's get you to the bathroom and clean you up. We should have a doctor look at that. You might need stitches."
As he spoke, he put his arm around her, but she freed herself of him.
"I'm fine," she insisted.
"Doesn't it hurt?" he said, and swept her hair away from her forehead to get a better look.
Matilda slapped his hand.
"Wow, Sarah. What's got into you?"
"I'll clean it up so that you don't have to look at it," Matilda acquiesced, "but then let's hear no more about it. Let's get some rest. I did a foolish thing and now I'm very, very tired."
"Come on then," he said.
"You go back to bed," Matilda said. "I'll be there in a minute."
"Sarah."
"Please!" She said it in the manner of: "No!"
Roger scrutinised her. "Five minutes," he warned her.
She listened until she heard the door of the spare room close behind him and then she retrieved the axe and continued up the stairs.
*
Aside from Isla's deliberate displacement, there'd been few alterations to the house. A pot plant had been moved from here to there, the curtains were hanging over the windows instead of being tied-back, a new rug, uninhabited, was lying at the base of the stairs. Essentially, however, the house hadn't changed. Nor, she imagined, would her so-called sisters be any different to how they had always been. Spiteful. Bitchy. Ignorant.
She trailed wet footprints down the upstairs hall and stood at the door to the family room.
At this distance, she began to feel them.
In the shed, she'd been too far from them to speak with them, for which she was grateful, because it meant there had been no opportunity for recriminations on their part nor rash appeals for mercy from her side. She'd been spared the grating of their voices and their minds and their souls, allowing her to come out the other side of her isolation, relatively whole. She hadn't been able to hear or sense a word unless it was said in the garden and even then they all steered clear of the shed, even in summer, though she had the favourite sun chairs and umbrella inside.
The worst thing that she had felt keenly over the months and years was the passing on of the body. She always knew the moment it went from one borrower to another and it was a constant torment to her that they had it instead of her.
As far as the others were concerned, the cycle worked just as well without her as ever. Having eleven to share the body instead of twelve meant that their allotted months would shift over time and Imelda had probably sold it to them as a benefit. Perhaps it was. Either way, the others would have liked it just as well if she had never existed at all.
Matilda entered the room and the smell of perfume made her heart beat faster. Her wet pumps crunched a shard of glass from a purple perfume bottle. She looked at the broken glass strewn around the room and smiled, feeling content in the face of the others' disarray.
A chuckle came from her throat and it was the most awful sound any of them had ever heard.
She picked glass from the sole of her pump and tossed it aside.
Apart from her, all was still, as though they really were just ordinary furniture. Not one of them wanted to be first to speak or to be spoken to.
The room could have done with airing, but it wasn't too damp. Generally good conditions for wood, Matilda noted. A few webs in the corners and dust on the Indian rug, but Lara had evidently been too busy to clean, busy getting married, bringing strangers into the house, taking over.
Matilda walked the room, passing close to each of her sisters. They shrank back psychically from the strength of her mind and its malice.
Physically, Katja was still the most impressive of them, even with her smearless glass belly smashed to pieces on the floor. Her pendulum swung like a second axe in the room, cutting time, whereas Matilda's axe was intended to cut ties.
Petra's cups trembled even though Matilda's eyes only swept over her.
Sylvia shivered in the four poster, its stability and promises of comfort a lie to the world.
Last of all, she stood in front of Imelda. Again she saw the blood and bruises on her face and arms. It was a shame that she'
d done this to the body, but it had been necessary to escape the chest and they'd heal in time. And it was her time.
"Hello," Matilda said with a smile.
"What do you want?" Imelda replied.
She couldn't answer at first. Her mind flooded with rage, as though all her anger of the last two years had been sucked into a vacuum and she had to squeeze it out again, push it back where it could be harnassed and directed and not destroy her.
"It looks like I already have what I want," she managed to say evenly, showing off the body. "But I want more," she added grimly. "You know that feeling, don't you?"
"I don't know that I understand you," Imelda said.
"You will," Matilda told her. "How about Lara, eh? Who would have thought she had it in her?"
"What did you do to her?"
"Nothing," Matilda said. "Yet. She's downstairs."
"Where downstairs?"
"You all made quite a scene in here," Matilda said, ignoring her question and gesturing instead to the glass strewn around the room and the spots of blood on the wooden boards.
"Lara started it," Imelda said.
"I couldn't possible comment," Matilda replied. "I didn't see a thing, because I was in the shed. How long were you planning to leave me there? Ten years? Twenty?"
"I was waiting for you to calm down," Imelda said.
Matilda laughed at this.
Using Imelda's own taunt against her, Matilda set the axe in the corner, in evidence enough so that they wouldn't be able to stop thinking about it but far enough from them that they wouldn't be able to set their minds to grabbing it and throwing it at her, unless they'd found a way to work together, which she doubted.
"What are you going to do?" whispered Anna.
"Oh, hello, Anna. I'm glad you asked me that, because I've had a long time to think about it and I'm looking forward to explaining it to you. You see, I'm going to do to you what you did to me."
"I didn't do anything," Anna said quietly.
"Yes," said Matilda. "That will be part of it. Since you're the only one who's chatty, tell me, who's the man in the house?"
"That's Roger," interrupted Katja. "He's your husband now."
Matilda laughed. They didn't know if they should be relieved or frightened by this.
"What are you going to do to him?" Sylvia asked.
"I don't know yet," Matilda said. Her voice was mock-playful and they were expecting her to turn on them at any moment. "I don't even know him. What's he like?"
"A tall, sack of shit with a superiority complex," Imelda announced. "I think you should get rid of him."
"Then I shall do the opposite," Matilda said.
"Please get rid of him," Katja said.
"He might be fun," suggested Matilda.
"We don't want him."
"There is no 'we'," Matilda snapped. "Two years and not one of you visited me."
"I wanted to," said Petra. "I was afraid."
"And how do you feel now, little Petra? Are you any less afraid?"
"Tell me how you did it!" Imelda demanded suddenly. "How did you get out? Don't tell me she was stupid enough to touch you."
"Yes," Matilda said in wonder. "Yes, she was. She trusted me. I told her that I'd never hurt her and she believed me."
"Stupid girl," Imelda said in disgust. To her surprise, Matilda laid a hand on her. To her horror, Matilda's hand was colder than her marble surface and all her attention went to that handprint, those icy fingers against her dressing table.
After the initial shock of being touched, Imelda set about entering the body by force, unable to believe that Matilda would repeat Lara's mistake of touching one of them, particularly her. She set her mind to swarming up through the fingertips and rushing along her sinews and veins and reclaiming the body that was rightfully hers. She tried again and again.
"You can't do it, can you?" said Matilda.
The other sisters began to rattle and shake.
The slightest touch should have been enough to allow Imelda to enter the body, ejecting the previous inhabitant back to their home, but there was Matilda with her full hand flat on top of her and she didn't even flinch, as if she felt nothing at all.
"I've learnt a lot of things out there in the dark," said Matilda. "You should have destroyed me and have been done with it. Why didn't you? I'd have understood that. I'd have forgiven you, if there was anything left of me to forgive."
Imelda kept attempting to transfer herself right up until the moment Matilda withdrew her hand and let it hang at her side.
"You left me out there to torture me, didn't you? You wanted me to suffer."
"Yes," Imelda was thinking. "Yes, yes, yes."
"Now I'm going to make you suffer," Matilda said. "All of you."
There was a clamour of panic then, but Matilda cut it dead with a look back into the room.
"Stay out of my mind," she said. "You won't like it in there."
"What are you going to do?" Sylvia whispered.
"Watch," said Matilda.
*
"Are you okay?" Isla asked.
She could just have easily have said 'I told you so' but that wasn't her way.
"No," Lara replied. "How could I be?"
Lara's mind whirled, unable to accept that she was trapped when she had been so close to being free forever. She had never felt trapped in her stool before. Even though she had resided there for many months at a time, she'd never felt the darkness so profoundly. The voices of the others began to drift in, all around her, specifically seeking her in a way they had never done before. She sensed their panic and anger, even above her own rising anxiety. They were more disturbed than they had ever been. They were more upset about Matilda's release than they had been about her bringing Roger into the house.
"Stupid girl."
"Look how she's ended up."
"It's no more than she deserves, but what about the rest of us? We didn't deserve this."
"Stupid, stupid girl."
Only Imelda said nothing. She was a stone, ready to crack with rage.
"I'm sorry," Lara said. Her voice was very small, but they heard her and their thoughts pounced on her all the more. They didn't respect weakness and it was too late for apologies. Matilda was free and that might mean the end for all of them.
The drawing room door opened and the light flicked on, momentarily blinding her. Though it gave her a chance to orient herself at last, she felt dizzy and this produced a terrible feeling of nausea without the means to physically throw up.
She was near the corner, not far from a red-curtained window, a tall, ornate floor lamp and a bland, polished coffee table with legs like those of a beast of burden. There was nothing living in these objects. They were just furniture.
Her isolation was profound but never more so than when she became aware of footsteps crossing the room toward her. She didn't look until the last moment, but when she couldn't resist it anymore, she looked up at the face of the beautiful woman she'd been seeing in mirrors and shop windows and polished surfaces all month. She was standing in front of her now, feet apart, hands relaxed at her sides. Lara never stood like that. This woman looked like she was about to draw.
She could tell that Matilda was enjoying being in the body again. She could hear her breathing deeply, and Lara knew that it was both for the scents it delivered and for the feeling of her lungs expanding and contracting.
In stasis, everything was limited: sight, smell, taste. Hearing remained acute, but there was not a single voice she wished to hear now.
"Don't worry," Matilda said. Inevitably, the pitch of the voice was much the same that Lara had been using all month, so that it was like hearing herself think. "I'm not going to take you upstairs if that's what you're worried about."
For a horrible moment, Lara thought that Matilda was going to sit on her, but instead she squatted to be nearer to eye level.
"I'm sorry I snatched the body from you," Matilda said, "but things have to change here and yo
u're not the one to do it."
Lara sulked.
"All I want is revenge," Matilda said. "And to get away from this fucking house. Me ... You ... And, if you like, your precious Roger."
Lara felt herself rising towards the surface. Now that she wanted to speak, she couldn't find her voice, stifled by emotion.
Matilda smiled at her and Lara feared that she was about to take back everything she'd just said and throw her head back and laugh at her - being laughed at was the worst feeling in the world, aside from being trapped - but Matilda didn't take it back and the silence rolled out between them. They seemed to be sharing a moment.
"They've been saying that you'd kill him," Lara said.
"I thought you'd stopped listening to them."
"I can't. Not in here."
"I don't kill people," Matilda said.
"I nearly did," Lara admitted.
"That's one of the reasons I took the body," Matilda said. "Don't let them change you so much that you disappear."
Lara looked deep into Matilda's eyes, but it was impossible to concentrate on interpreting a face that had so recently belonged to her. In addition, she'd never been a good judge of character. When it came to Roger, there had been an instant attraction and she'd gone with her feelings. She didn't have any feelings about Matilda. Just what she'd heard.
"Who are you talking to?" Roger asked.
His voice came from the doorway and he sounded worried, like a doctor about to pronounce bad news to his patient.
Matilda's green-blue eyes lost their sparkle, but she didn't look to the doorway straight away. Lara saw her compose herself.
"Myself," Matilda said, standing.
"You're acting very strangely, Sarah," said Roger. "We should get that bump on your head seen to."
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