Hellcats: Anthology

by Kate Pickford

  But that last night I was relegated to the hallway, where I could not come to the aid of my lady. I had scratched at the door knob, but it was too high, it was latched too well for me to work it.

  Not so, now. Delicately, delicately, I worked my paw into the gap between door and jamb. I pulled at the door and it opened enough to admit my face, whiskers pressed flat.

  If only it had been like this the night Antoinetta had disappeared. That night I had clung to the door knob, but it would not turn. I had leapt at the door then—and at the sound Antoinetta had renewed her begging. There had been more pleading after I dropped to the rug with a thud, and then the door had rattled in such a way that freshened my hopes of being let back inside. But that was not what happened. What happened then was scuffling and crying and slapping and another howl and the hollow echo of another door slamming shut—

  Another door.

  That was the detail I had been missing.

  But what door?

  There was none inside the room. Of that I was certain.

  Or I had been.

  A breath of wind gusted again, blew open the door further, enough to admit my shoulders—and then my whole self, veil and all.

  I slunk into the room, unsure what I might find, just as I had the morning following Antoinetta’s begging. The maid who opened up the door for me then, carrying Antoinetta’s and my customary breakfast tray of eggs and the bits of ham and chicken, had been just as surprised as I was to discover the room entirely empty. There was not a trace of Antoinetta having passed the night there—the bed made, her clothes gone from the wardrobe, her brushes and jewelry no longer strewn about her dresser, no longer left for me to bat to the floor in the way that never failed to make her peal with laughter. She was simply gone—the room untouched by her presence.

  How could my mistress have left, without going past me? I had not left my place upon the cushion that entire night. I had almost convinced myself everything I heard had been a dream, some terrible nightmare.

  But Antoinetta stayed vanished. Until Rochester spoke of the savage beast, the fearful hag. My wife, he had said, there had been no hint of her. No sign. No presence.

  This second time inside her chamber, I prowled about the room, looking for anything I might have missed before. A strand of hair. A bead torn from one of Antoinetta’s exquisite negligees. The origin of the noise I had remembered as a door slamming.

  I discovered nothing.

  There was no trace of her.

  There was only the air that wafted through the room in erratic exhalations—a sensation I had never experienced in that room before. The windows were closed. The draperies pulled. It was not from them the air came.

  The cheerful fire that warmed the grate flickered not at all—the breeze did not blow through the flue.

  I was making another circuit of the room, my nose tipped up to catch whatever scent I could find, when I smelled eggs and ham.

  A trick of the mind, surely. A haunting from the last time I’d been here.

  But no—there were footsteps outside, there was the clanking I recognized at the lid upon the tray the serving maid always brought for Antoinetta. The door pushed open.

  I dashed behind the tapestry that adorned the wall next to the fireplace.

  The same instant I felt that sighing breath of air coming from the wall behind me, the tapestry was flung aside.

  I scrambled to stay inside the folds of heavy cloth, praying the veil would not give me away.

  It was the scullery maid.

  She transferred the tray to one hand, then knocked upon the wall.

  Only it was not a wall, I saw now. How had I never noticed the breaths of air that came from that place before? For there, set into the wall, was a door.

  The door I had heard slam, that last night.

  The scullery maid knocked again, and from behind the door there was a muttering that became more distinct as it got nearer. “I’m acoming, I’m acoming,” a woman’s voice said.

  There was the jingling sound of keys, the sharp slide of metal striking metal, the click of the inner workings of a lock opening. The secret door swung inward.

  My heart like to burst.

  But it was not Antoinetta who stood there, a narrow staircase rising up behind her. Only some older woman as I had never seen, squat and sturdy as a box, and shaped the same.

  “How are you this morning, Mrs. Poole? And how’s your charge today?” the scullery maid asked, her voice unnaturally bright.

  Her charge? If I could but get up those stairs, what—who—might I find at the top of them?

  The answer came in a whisper. “I am tolerable, as she sleeps, yet. You did bring the vial from the doctor?”

  She. The confirmation was as a clapper striking the bell within me.

  “It’s all in there,” the scullery maid said, pushing the tray forward. It hung there, suspended between the two women, a bridge between two worlds. I could stay here in this one, forever skulking about the desolate manor, called it and relegated to the kitchen, or I could cross over and learn what had befallen my Antoinetta.

  It was my best chance. My only chance. As Mrs. Poole took up the lid and inspected each item upon the tray, I slunk-ran behind her.

  “What was that?” the scullery maid gasped, just as I darted behind the door. “Is she secured?”

  “What?” Mrs. Poole said, glancing over her shoulder. “Did you hear something?”

  “Saw a flash of something white,” the scullery maid said. Then she lowered her voice and I could not tell, was she serious—had she seen me?—or was she merely enjoying the passing of gossip. “There’s been talk of a ghost,” she said. “Josie swears she saw one on the stairs, and heard it too. Howling, she said, not even an hour ago.”

  “’Tis surely the mistress’ racket,” Mrs. Poole said. “She does carry on crying so. But this”—she held up the brown vial, then slipped it into her apron pocket—“will help with that.”

  I had seen a vial like that years ago, after the fire that killed Antoinetta’s brother. Mr. Mason, Antoinetta’s step-father, had made her mama drink the whole of such a vial and she had slept and slept and slept and after that whenever she awoke, whenever she cried, he made her drink from the vial until she would wake begging for whatever was in it. In the span of weeks she was a shell of the woman she had been.

  I would not let them turn Antoinetta into a shell.

  “Oh!” the scullery maid went on. “And the lady’s cat—it clawed the master last night!” She let out a giggle. “Did you hear?”

  I could do nothing if I was discovered.

  I looked frantically for some place to hide, wished desperately that I had managed to get free from the veil, wished I were black instead of the color of flame. But that gave me a thought--the little closet in which Mrs. Poole stood was built alongside the stone fireplace—if there were but some nook in which I could hide…

  “She cries for that thing constantly,” Mrs. Poole said. “At first I thought it was some man she called for—‘my dandy, my dandy’ she would say. But then she called it her familiar and when I did ask whatever she meant—well. She said her cat. But the master thinks the animal only drives her madder”

  That thing. The animal. If I’d had any doubt whether such a woman care properly for my Antoinetta, it was removed then.

  I needed some hole into which I could crawl and bide my time…

  But my time was running out.

  The scullery maid was bidding her goodbyes. And when Mrs. Poole closed the door, I would be discovered behind it.

  Then I saw it, a gap between the stone. Reader, even had I not been half-starved these past days, for my Antoinetta I could have made myself fit.

  So soon as Mrs. Poole grabbed the door to swing it closed was so soon as I was secreted away, squeezed inside my cranny. And as she locked the door and made her way up the stairs, balancing the tray upon one hand, steadying herself against the wall with the other, as she climbed up and up, I
set to work making my plan.

  I did not wait long.

  I rubbed against the stones between which I’d hid, hoping some soot lingered there that might better camouflage my bright fur, the white veil. At last, I crept up the stairs, dusky dark, smoke on an orange horizon.

  There had been no sound other than that of Mrs. Poole walking about, of cupboards opening and closing. There was no sound now.

  I hunkered down upon the last stair, laid my ears flat, and peeked over.

  My heart leapt! First with joy, then with horror.

  My Antoinetta was there—sat upon a chair, her dark hair loose in waves about her face, clad in a white chemise. She was positioned near the narrowest of windows—too narrow for escape, open only to admit fresh air in that stifling place, the breeze I had felt—but she did not look out. She seemed as if in a daze, her arms held awkwardly behind her back.

  Too late, I thought. Mrs. Poole must have already dosed her.

  Too late, too late, too late.

  That was when I saw she was bound hand and foot to the chair.

  Upon the headboard of the bed that dominated the room, there were similar cords, unknotted and ready.

  And Mrs. Poole, you ask dear Reader? She was upon that bed, mouth open, snoring.

  I went to Antoinetta then. Her glazed eyes trailed across me, came back, stopped. They focused, her pupils widening as a hunting cat’s, and then glazed again. “Just a dream,” she said, whispering so faintly a human would have thought her only mouthing words.

  But I heard. I gave the special mew I saved for her.

  “Dandy?” Again she barely-whispered. “My familiar? Are you real?” I batted at her hem, caught my claw in it. She let out a low laugh.

  “So you were the ghost the maid was speaking of?”

  I meowed in answer, looking at my claw hooked upon her hem. At her white chemise.

  “We are both ghosts, aren’t we?” she said.

  All the while Mrs. Poole snored.

  I pulled again at her hem. But she was tied and could not free me this time. It was I who must free us both. I tore my claw loose, then batted at the cords tying her hands.

  “Oh Dandy,” Antoinetta said, tears tracking down her cheeks, as she began twisting her hands, straining at the cords. “I’ve tried and tried…I cannot!”

  I gave my special meow again—a promise. I would do it.

  At the sound of my meow, Mrs. Poole stirred. Antoinetta and I both froze, our eyes trained upon the woman. But she did not wake.

  I went to work, clawing and biting at the cords, pulling at them until I’d frayed and loosened them just enough. Antoinetta slipped one hand free, then the other, her wide smile, the one I loved best, blooming across her face.

  “What would I do without you, Dandy?” she whispered.

  I rubbed myself against her legs, bumping my head against her as I purred loudly. Then I gave her one more meow--an encouragement. She could untie the cords at her feet, now.

  Mrs. Poole shifted upon the bed.

  The vial, I thought, a plan forming in my mind. I must get it, before the woman awoke. I left Antoinetta and noiselessly leapt upon the bed. Mrs. Poole slept with her apron still tied about her waist, and just as I had carefully stretched my paw through the cracked door to open it, I snaked my paw into the pocket. The vial was there!

  I pawed it out. Too big to carry in my mouth, I batted it across the coverlet, dropped it to the floor with a clatter.

  Mrs. Poole sputtered, but did not wake.

  It was not quiet work to roll it across the wide-planked floor, all the way to Antoinetta, but Mrs. Poole was a heavy sleeper, or else used to noise from Antoinetta. When at last I got the vial to her, Antoinetta carefully placed her bare foot upon it and smiled broadly at me. “I see, Dandy,” she said, and went back to working at the cords tying her feet. “Thank you.”

  When at last she’d managed to get her feet free, she took up the vial, then stood, straightening painfully. I wanted to meow again, to tell her to hurry, but I did not dare. Instead I followed as she walked stiffly across to the little table. She eyed the half-full teacup there, then poured the entire contents of the vial into it. Upon the table, left upon the scullery maid’s tray, was a small knife. Antoinetta took it up, slipped it into whatever she wore beneath her chemise, then replaced the vial into Mrs. Poole’s pocket.

  “Now you go hide,” she whispered so soon as she’d resettled back into her chair, already winding the cords about her ankles so they still appeared tied.

  I did as I was told for once and went under the bed.

  We waited until dark. No sooner than Mrs. Poole had drunk her tea than she drooped so far out of her chair that she slithered to the floor. That was when Antoinetta had slipped from her loosed bonds and used them to strap Mrs. Poole to the table. From there it was short work to unhook Mrs. Poole’s key ring from her chatelaine and tiptoe downstairs.

  Once we were back in the little closet entryway, Antoinetta wasted no time in unlocking the door, and slowly pulling it open. The tapestry had been pulled back across the opening and we stood there, hidden, listening. The room was quiet. I peered out. The gray-clad new miss was in the bed, sleeping. Unaware.

  It was the work of a moment for Antionetta to sweep the tapestry aside, lock the door behind us, and step to the fireplace. With the poker, she worked a flaming stick from the fire. Then having dashed the flames in the ashes, she took up that charred wood and scrawled across the wall: A word to the wise: RUN.

  Then we slipped into the hall. I ran, not down the main staircase but to the servants’ stairs.

  Antoinetta followed me, giggling. Her chemise billowed and filled, rounding her gaunt frame. The veil fluttered behind me.

  The hour was so late, there was no one upon the stairs, not even the lovers whose guilt had made them see me as a ghost. My heart leapt. We had done it. We had escaped. We were nearly free.

  In the kitchen I went straight for the door leading out, but not so Antoinetta. She exchanged her small knife for one larger, then took up a candle and set it alight in the stove’s embers, carrying it toward the swinging door that led to the dining room. As she pushed upon it, I let out my most commanding meow.

  Antoinetta did not stop. “We must find him,” she whispered.

  I trailed her into the dining room, and thence to Rochester’s library. It had been Antoinetta’s favorite room. Before, we had spent many a pleasant afternoon there, curled in the armchair, sun streaming through the French doors, almost warming us enough to feel like we were home. Since her vanishing, Rochester had spent nearly every night into the wee hours there, though how Antoinetta could know that I did not understand, nor why she wanted to find Rochester.

  We should be doing as she’d written, I wanted to say. We should be running.

  Sure enough, Rochester was there in the armchair. Fast asleep. But instead of waking him, Antoinetta pushed open the French doors and stood, inhaling the fresh night air. Run, I wanted to say. Run run run.

  “I should never have put you in that cage,” she whispered and I quit my pacing to stand beside her, remembering the hideous wicker contraption in which I’d traveled across the sea. “I should never have brought you here.” Though she was right, I would not have had it otherwise. I rubbed my head against her leg—a suggestion.

  “Good idea,” she giggled, but I had no idea what she meant until she turned back to the still sleeping form of Rochester. She lowered her mouth to his ear, my mama’s sly hunting grin upon her lips as she slipped the knife from beneath her chemise.

  “You should never have locked me up so,” she hissed. Then quick as quick can, she knelt and sliced the knife across the back of his heel.

  He awoke roaring, tried to leap up, fell, hitting the floor at the foot of his chair hard. But I was ready. I pounced, claws out, scratched straight across his right eye.

  He only bellowed louder, flailing about. One forearm connected with me, dislodging me, flinging me toward my mistress.<
br />
  I landed on my feet, nowhere near his.

  “You will not come after me again,” Antoinetta commanded, pointing the knife at him, her voice colder than the night air. Rochester yet writhed. “Do you hear?”

  “What is the meaning of this?” the master shouted, one hand clapped over his eye, blood seeping between his fingers.

  “You will never see me again. I am no wife to you. I am dead to you, as you are to me,” Antoinetta said. “And if you should come after me, you will never see anything again, at all. My familiar will see to it.”

  A purr rumbled through me.

  “Demons!” Rochester cried, his one good eye finding me. “Hellspawn!”

  Antoinetta reached out her hand then, the one holding the candle, as Rochester struggled to get to his feet. But he could not walk, and she had no fear of him.

  She tipped the candle to the draperies that flanked the French door. They flared with heat, brightened with flame. We stood a moment, basking in the glare, her face shedding its pain as the flame devoured the heavy velvet. Rochester receded, his voice barely registering as we turned, stepped out into the cold, damp air.

  It was then that we finally ran, two ghosts—two demons—disappearing into the moonless night.

  Erin McCabe writes historical novels, and there’s nothing she enjoys more than working to unravel the story of a strong woman with a juicy secret.

  Find out more at erinlindsaymccabe.com.

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