Very Superstitious

by Delany, Shannon

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Hutchins exclaimed. “She can’t keep anything down.”

  “It’s a remedy we use in the islands,” Corine said. “Miss Worth, drink.” Her hand roughly cupped the back of Mary Louise’s head, lifting it off the bed.

  The warm liquid spilled into her mouth. It was bitter—sharp and biting. Mary Louise tried to pull away, but Corine kept a firm grip on her, and when her stomach didn’t immediately reject the substance, Mary Louise took another gulp, and then a third.

  “What are you giving her?” demanded Mrs. Hutchins.

  Corine drew back, satisfied. “That’s enough, for now,” she said. “We’ll see if it takes.”

  By the time the doctor arrived, Mary Louise was resting more comfortably, the pain subsiding and the vomiting over. The physician held his fingers against her pulse and lifted her lids to look at her eyes. “She hasn’t purged in how long?”

  “Two hours now. The Jamaican maid gave her a remedy,” Emma said, but the doctor only harrumphed.

  “The thing has run its course, that’s all,” the doctor said. “Let her sleep and keep her stomach empty. She’ll recover in due time.”

  After the doctor left, Mary Louise groped for Emma’s hand.

  “Yes, miss?” her maid leaned close.

  “Are the other girls sick?”

  “No, miss. Don’t worry. They’re all well. Mr. Bradley took them out as planned.”

  Mary Louise’s eyes flew open. “Took them out as planned?”

  “Yes, miss. Your father asked Mr. Bradley to take charge of them, and he said he would.” Emma patted her hand briskly. “Everyone thought it best to get them out of the house. Especially Miss Marianne, who was so worried. I can’t think of anyone better to distract her from this unpleasantness than Mr. Bradley, can you?”

  ***

  Mary Louise slept on and off, vaguely aware of the passing hours. Mrs. Hutchins and Emma took turns sitting with her, but when she opened her eyes in the very deepest part of the night, the chair by her bed was empty. She turned her head toward the other side of the room—and cried out.

  Her own face loomed out of the darkness.

  A second later she recognized her cousin. “Are you in pain?” Marianne whispered.

  Mary Louise swallowed painfully. “Where’s my maid?”

  “Stepped out for a minute. We were all very worried about you.”

  Not too worried to go with Alec for a ride on the coal chute. Mary Louise licked her cracked lips. “Fetch Emma.”

  “Do you need water?” Marianne moved an unlit candle to the bedside table, and it flared instantly into flame, even though Mary Louise never saw her strike a match. Then Marianne poured water from a china pitcher into a glass.

  With a shudder, Mary Louise suddenly remembered her cousin and her cousin’s maid serving the leftover sweets last night:

  Corine arranging marzipan roses on a plate.

  Marianne picking up the plate and rotating it, offering each girl the nearest rose.

  Corine slicing the butter cake.

  Marianne tipping a wedge of it onto Mary Louise’s dish.

  Staring at the water glass in Marianne’s hand, Mary Louise pressed her lips together and shook her head. Her swollen tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

  “Don’t be silly.” Marianne moved the glass closer. A drop splashed on Mary Louise’s face. “You must be parched with thirst. Drink.” Like Corine earlier, she slipped a hand beneath Mary Louise’s head, lifting her from the bed and pressing the glass against her lips.

  But Mary Louise was stronger now. She raised a hand and knocked the glass from her cousin’s hand. The water splashed Marianne’s nightdress, and the glass fell to the bed and rolled onto the floor with a loud thump.

  Marianne surveyed her with displeasure. “Very well then. Do without.” She retreated into the shadows and departed the room, leaving the candle flickering on the table.

  ***

  Although the dire pain and stomach upheaval had subsided after her first sip of Corine’s remedy, Mary Louise’s weakness lasted several more days. Sometimes, when she stood up too quickly, the entire room rocked, as if she were standing in a rowboat on the lake.

  Lenora and Amelia departed the morning after she took ill, called home when their parents heard there was sickness in the Worth house. After the other girls were gone, Marianne often sat at her ailing cousin’s bedside, but Mary Louise feigned sleep whenever she came. She could not forget how strange it was that only she became ill after eating food shared by all the girls—or how quickly Corine’s remedy had worked.

  Alec Bradley sent a note expressing his concern and best wishes for a quick recovery. His words were stiff and formal, and—since she was handed the letter by her father, who’d opened it and read it before passing it on—Mary Louise understood why. Nevertheless, she’d been sitting by her window on the afternoon Alec delivered the note to the house, and she remembered seeing Marianne dash into the garden, smiling as if she were off to meet someone, her shawl trailing from her shoulders. That evening, while the family was at dinner and the maids enjoying their hour of leisure, Mary Louise roused herself from bed and made her way to her cousin’s room.

  It smelled of snuffed candles and burnt incense. Obsidian beads were draped over the mirror, and in front of the glass stood a small statuette with a burnt-out candle at its feet. Mary Louise peered at it closely, not knowing if it was part of some Catholic ritual—or something else entirely. Exhaling a breath of frustration, she cast her eyes over the rest of the room. Corine was not as diligent a servant as Emma. There were garments lying across the bed and toiletries strewn willy-nilly across the dressing table. Then, on the night stand, Mary Louise spotted a thick sheet of white paper. It had a jagged edge, as if it had been torn from a book.

  Mary Louise knew what it was even before she picked it up. Didn’t she have several samples of her own, torn from the very same sketch book? Her heart thudded as she surveyed a drawing of Marianne seated in the garden, her dark hair curling on her shoulders and her shawl askew. Alec did have a gift. Even in charcoal pencil, he had conveyed the flush in Marianne’s cheeks, the flirtatious gleam in her eyes, and the swell of her bosom where her shawl failed to cover her. Mary Louise folded the sketch in half, creasing it directly across her cousin’s face, and left the room with it clutched in her fist.

  After that, she bided her time, keeping to her bed for the next few days and claiming a weakness she didn’t feel. She searched through her secret collection of notes from Alec until she found the perfect one. The trick was tearing it in just the right place, so that it contained only the words she wanted but still looked natural, as if he’d ripped it carelessly. She sacrificed one of her favorite sketches as well—a drawing of irises in bloom with a scrawled message at the bottom: A bouquet for you. A.B.

  She put the torn note and the sketch into an envelope and wrote Miss Marianne Worth in as close a facsimile to Alec’s handwriting as she could manage. Then she slipped downstairs and left the envelope on the foyer table with the rest of the post.

  ***

  On a property as large as the Worth estate, it was difficult to avoid the staff coming and going about their duties. Clever Alec usually suggested the hour before dinner for their clandestine meetings, a time when the family would be dressing and the servants busy preparing the meal or taking their own. It worked just as well for Mary Louise’s purpose. She left the house without notice, walked down to the lake, and slipped into the boathouse. Once she had things arranged the way she wanted them, she sat on a bench in the darkest corner of the building and waited. The sound of the water lapping against the wooden boards and the rowboats bumping against the dock comforted her and steeled her nerves.

  The door to the boathouse flew open of its own accord two paces ahead of Marianne, who entered in a rush, breathless and flushed. “Mr. Bradley?” she called. Frowning, she looked at the slip of paper in her hand.

  “He’s not coming,” M
ary Louise said, standing up and emerging from her corner.

  Marianne’s lips parted in surprise; then she looked at her note again with enlightenment. “What are you doing out of bed?” she exclaimed in exasperation. “And here, of all places?”

  For answer, Mary Louise held up the sketch of Marianne in the garden, unfolding it with a snap of her wrist.

  Marianne nodded grimly. “Corine said you must’ve taken it. What a fuss you’re making, Mary Louise! Mr. Bradley told me he’s drawn all your friends.”

  “But they didn’t hide the sketches from me.”

  “Neither did I hide that one. You stole it before I had a chance to show you. And you were so sick.” Her dark brows turned downward. “Or were you? Corine also said you were more recovered than you let on.”

  Mary Louise shrugged and took another step toward her cousin. “Corine ought to know how the antidote works.”

  “Antidote?” repeated Marianne. “You mean the tea she gave you to quiet your nausea?”

  “I mean the antidote she gave me to counter whatever you poisoned me with.”

  Marianne’s face flushed, and the tone of her voice changed. “What are you saying?”

  “You set your sights on Alec the night you looked into that mirror.” Mary Louise crumpled the sketch in her hand and cast it into the water. “Either you or Corine gave me something to make me ill—probably some poison you brought from that wretched island. For all I know, you’ve given something to Alec, too. Something to make him love you.”

  “You’re talking madness,” Marianne said impatiently. “You’re jealous because Mr. Bradley is not the committed suitor you think he is, and sickness has made you fanciful.”

  “I know what I’ve seen,” Mary Louise hissed. “How things happen in the wrong order when you’re around. Candles light; doors open. You jest about witchcraft, but I know what you are. Probably you and Corine both.”

  Marianne dropped her hand. Her eyes grew cold. “Prove it.”

  “I can’t.” Mary Louise picked up the oar she’d left purposely within reach and swung it with all her strength at her cousin’s head.

  The edge of the oar struck the upper part of Marianne’s face, throwing her bodily off the wooden planks and into the lake beneath the boathouse. The rowboats rocked wildly, thrust apart by her plunge into the water, and for a second it looked as if she were going to bob and float on the surface, just like a witch was supposed to do. But the boats rebounded against the sides of the docks and came together again, pushing her under, and she began to sink.

  Mary Louise stood on the edge of the dock, watching the water grow darker and darker around the bottoms of the boats, which bounced against each other and eventually returned to their former positions. Once the water had subsided to its normal, quiet lapping, she rinsed the oar in the water and replaced it with its mate hanging on the wall.

  Then she walked to the door of the boathouse and began to scream.

  ***

  Under the circumstances and in the face of Mary Louise’s hysteria, no one questioned why the cousins had decided to go for a boat ride this time of day, even with one of them barely out of her sick bed. That Marianne, unused to rowboats, should slip and strike her head was understandable. That she should fall between the boats and be trapped underneath—tragic.

  Of course, it was one thing to comfort the bereaved Miss Worth and another thing entirely to deal with a servant who overstepped her bounds. No one had any patience for the Jamaican maid, who threw herself across the body of her mistress, calling her by her Christian name and sobbing as if she’d lost her closest kin. She could be heard all the way through the house, wailing and shrieking.

  The noise seemed to set Mr. Worth’s teeth on edge. “Someone quiet that girl!” he growled at Mrs. Hutchins while pouring a glass of restorative sherry for his daughter.

  But instead of growing quieter, Corine’s screams intensified. Mary Louise cringed into the fainting couch of her mother’s private parlor, where she’d been carried by the servants. She felt the approaching knot of hatred and fury as if it were a lightning bolt hurled by Zeus. Corine burst through the door, her face streaked with tears and her eyes aflame. “You!” Corine cried, pointing her finger. “I saw what you did to her face! You will be marked, Mary Louise Worth—as you have marked her!”

  Mr. Worth stepped forward and slapped Corine so hard she staggered backwards into the hands of the valet and the footman who had chased her into the room. “Get her out of my house!” Mr. Worth roared at his servants.

  Corine howled in fury and grief as the men picked her up. She reached toward Mary Louise with hands curved like claws. “In her image, you will be marked!”

  Mary Louise turned to her mother, seeking comfort, but Mrs. Worth collapsed against the fainting couch as if she needed it herself. “Albert,” she gasped at her husband. “Your brother said … ”

  “I don’t care what he said!” Mr. Worth roared. “His daughter—his rightful daughter—is dead, and I want that girl out of my house!”

  Mary Louise crumpled into a ball, hiding her face in her hands. While her father shouted and her mother cowered, Mrs. Hutchins gathered Mary Louise into her arms. “There now,” the housekeeper said. “They’ve taken her away, Miss Worth. Don’t you worry.”

  ***

  The Worths held off the funeral as long as possible, waiting for word from Marianne’s father. But telegrams went unanswered, and no one knew if he’d received their messages. Finally, Mr. Worth declared that common decency required they put his niece to rest. “And the Devil take my blasted brother!”

  For her part, Mary Louise was relieved to see the coffin go into the ground. She played her part as required, shedding tears but keeping a brave front. What’s done is done, she told herself. That was from Shakespeare, wasn’t it? Mary Louise had only done what was necessary. Her cousin had poisoned her once and might have tried again if she were determined to have Alec. Who knew what other kinds of witchery Marianne and Corine might have brewed up together if they’d continued to live here, abandoned by their father and dependent on the charity of unwary relatives?

  According to servant gossip, Corine had been put on a train to Philadelphia with the clothes on her back and nothing else. Almost certainly she would have been dumped into the street when the train reached the city, and everyone considered themselves well rid of her.

  Returning from the cemetery after the burial, Mary Louise felt light at heart for the first time since the night she’d played the mirror game on the staircase. The house was finally free of the Jamaican pair, and Mary Louise was hard pressed to suppress her smile of relief.

  When the funeral party entered the front door, Mrs. Hutchins was uncovering the hall mirrors, pulling down the black mourning drapes that had covered all mirrors in the Worth house since the death. The first shroud came down with a rustle of silk, and Mary Louise looked up into the mirror and saw Marianne’s reflection where her own should have been. Her dead cousin stood in the center of her own funeral entourage, with dark hair dripping lake water and gaping bloody wounds where her eyes used to be.

  Mary Louise’s scream shattered the quiet conversation of her parents and their friends. Pushing past them, she ran across the tiled floor and pulled the heavy gilded frame off the wall. Mrs. Hutchins dodged as the glass hit the floor with a crash. Mary Louise felt flying shards slash her ankles and lower legs, but she ignored them, turning on her heel to face the second mirror hanging on the opposite wall.

  Her cousin was there, too. Marianne raised her hands and pressed them blindly against the glass, as if trying to claw her way through.

  Fingernails dug into the flesh around Mary Louise’s eyes.

  Then her wrists were seized in a vise-like grip, and someone forced both arms behind her back. “Mrs. Hutchins, take everyone to the drawing room,” Mr. Worth commanded. His voice echoed in the foyer over the outcries of his guests and the whimpering of his wife. He marched his daughter by force to the staircase
and all but shoved her up the steps to her room.

  “Did you see her?” Mary Louise gasped once her father had slammed the door closed behind them.

  “See whom?” Mr. Worth snarled. “I saw my daughter in the throes of hysteria!”

  “Marianne! She tried to scratch my eyes out!”

  “You did that yourself. Look!” Her father grabbed her hands and showed her the blood on her own fingernails.

  Mary Louise pulled her hands free and tenderly touched the delicate skin around her eyes with her fingertips. They came away dotted with blood. She’d clawed at her own eyes. “Corine cursed me,” she choked, staring at her own hands in disbelief. “She said I would be marked. You heard her.”

  Mr. Worth glared down at his daughter with a face like stone. “Yes, I heard what she said, Mary Louise. I saw your cousin’s face, too. That injury did not come from falling between two rowboats.” Mary Louise sucked in her breath and looked up at her father in horror. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face. “Master your affairs,” he said softly. “Control yourself or I won’t hesitate to put you away where you cannot disgrace the family name. Do I make myself clear?”

  She nodded, her lips trembling.

  He pushed past her, brushing at his suit and straightening his sleeves as if contact with his daughter had soiled him. Once he was gone, Mary Louise took up her hand mirror and, without looking into it, smacked it briskly against the corner of her dressing table, cracking the glass like a spider web.

  ***

  In her image, you will be marked.

  Very well, then. Mary Louise would avoid all images. It was simple enough to cast her eyes away from mirrors and darkened windows and even polished silver trays. At the slightest glimpse of her own reflection, she looked away. It could be done—for as long as it took. Mary Louise had an idea witchcraft would weaken over time, just as her memory of Marianne’s bleeding face had dimmed.