by Everly Frost
“What’s going on? My sister died. My brother died. And I saw you, this morning, after the funeral. I saw you kiss my aunt.” My teeth gritted and my shoulders bunched, trying to protect the contents of my chest.
“Ah, yeah, so?” He shifted. “I have a lot to thank her for.”
“It wasn’t that kind of kiss, Nathan. It was the other kind: the kind you give me.”
I thought he’d look guilty. I thought he’d be caught out. I wanted him to be. I wanted an excuse—any excuse—to hate him.
Instead, he moved up to me and stood a hairsbreadth away, so close that he almost touched me. The look on his face reminded me of the way Timothy looked at Victoria.
“I’ve never kissed anyone the way I kiss you.”
“Well, I saw it.” My temper snapped. “You kissed her. I saw you do it. And I know what I saw.”
My head hurt. I pressed a finger to my temple. Patches of red rust dotted the side of the shed like pinpricks of blood. In my mind there was a thud. Tousled hair and bleeding lips. Trees with creeping vines, and a scream that grew louder with every passing moment.
I tried to shout over the top of it, but her voice shrieked. “I know what I saw, and I’m not going to let you hurt her. I won’t let it happen to her like it happened to me.”
No. That was wrong. Hurt me. My head churned as I tried to stifle her voice.
“Caroline… what’s wrong?”
The ground came up at me as I collapsed. Nathan supported my arms, pulling me against him, one arm around my back, cradling me against his chest. He guided us down to the dirty ground and the smooth pebbles, both of us engulfed in the mushroom of my skirts.
“Nathan, what am I doing? My thoughts are all mixed up. They’re not—” I wanted to tell him: they’re not mine. I wanted to cry to him to help me, but my throat closed over the words. How could he love me like this?
I studied his face, his tanned skin, eyes like leaves, and the faint shade of bristles across his jaw. “I saw you this morning and you kissed my aunt, and I was so angry. And… and… you kissed her, but it was on the corner of her mouth—or maybe it was her cheek. It’s so out of focus now. I can’t even see it anymore.” Tugging on his strong arms, I peered up at him. “I never understood why—that day Kenneth Buckland attacked me—I never understood why Aunt Alice would believe you. So, I guess, I thought that was why.”
“She believed me because I’ve never lied to her. Never. I owe her a lot, Caroline. Look, I don’t know why I trusted her so much, right from the start. Maybe it was just instinct. But nobody else wanted to take me on, and I needed to get away from that place. Nobody else wanted anything to do with me. But she did, despite…”
“Despite what, Nathan?”
He ran a hand through his hair, withdrawing his support, leaving me to teeter on the edge of my spinning world.
“Caroline, if I tell you, you’ll never look at me the same way again.” He looked up at the sky, at the wheeling crows. “You know, when I found you that day out in the field, it was like I could set it all right. If I could save you, then I could change what I did.”
My voice became very low and quiet. “Did you kiss my aunt?”
He shook his head, his eyes meeting mine. “I don’t know how you could think that. She’s old enough to be my mother. And nobody—nobody—will ever take your place.”
I ducked my chin to my chest and twisted my hands in the black meringue of my skirt. “Then, please, tell me what happened back in the city, before you came here.”
“No.” He moved away from me, pushing on the tangle of material, pushing away from my legs and arms as I tried to pull him closer.
“Why don’t you trust me?”
“Probably the same reason you don’t trust me. The same reason you thought I could kiss that sweet, old lady.”
I started to laugh, but it was dry and caught in my throat, tinged with ice. “I don’t know who I am.”
If only I could tell him everything. If only I could tell him that I’d died on the same night that my mother died and ever since then, I’d been afraid of the woods at the edge of the flat land.
If only I could tell him that my mother’s final scream echoed inside my head and there was a memory buried deep inside my mind that the other me wanted to unearth. That for my whole life, the other me had been waiting and now I didn’t know where I ended and she began.
He flicked pebbles around with his fingers so that they bounced and clanged. He jiggled his leg, and again he reminded me of my brother.
“Caroline?” He sighed heavily. The look on his face told me he wanted to say something he’d been thinking about for a long time. “Caroline, I don’t think it’s safe here anymore.”
“What do you mean?” I stared at him, confused. But at least the scream in my head had stopped. It was quiet, listening.
He said, “It’s not safe for you. I know how that sounds, but you must know, something isn’t right here. Something wasn’t right with Rebecca’s death, and now Samuel—stealing one of your father’s guns and going out there…”
I stared at him, feeling it again—that terrible dread. In my head, the trees crept toward me with their tangled branches and choking vines. Coming for me. To drag me into the leafy dark and swing me up high.
He scooted back to me and took hold of my hands.
“Come away with me.” There was a look in his eyes. I’d seen it before, always veiled, but there it was, bared to me.
I remembered his voice all that time ago. I wasn’t going to let you die out there. I fought for you, Caroline, and I’ll fight for you even if you won’t let me.
“Come away with me. I can support us. Somehow. I’ll find a way, I know I will. You can leave this behind, and we can be together.”
The last of the pins came away and my hair slithered down my back, falling like my world. “Not until you tell me what happened in the city.”
“No.” He jerked away and snatched up a pebble. It skidded across the top of the dam, whacking the surface until it sank.
I shook my head at him. “I’m not coming with you until I know. And if you can’t tell me, then—”
I choked on the sour words I was about to say.
His arms crossed his chest.
I clenched my jaw and turned to the dam, dragging myself into a standing position. “If you can’t tell me, if you can’t trust me, then you should go. Everyone else is leaving. Why don’t you?”
“You want me to go?”
“I want you to tell me what happened.” I buried my terrified hands in black wool. “Would you really rather go, than tell me the truth?”
His jaw ticked. He pulled himself upright so that he towered over me. There was the strangest expression in his eyes. Was it love? Or was it fear?
Above us, the crows circled. There were four of them now—enormous, black creatures riding the currents with wings outstretched. They were silent and didn’t caw.
He said, “I’d rather go.”
Something inside me ripped.
My throat constricted, sucking in air that wasn’t for me to breathe any longer. I pulled up my skirts and ran, scrambling and rushing, tripping in the treacherous grass, heading always away.
Away from the man who betrayed me, away from the trees and the vines.
From the corner of my eye, the crows scattered.
At the same time, I separated like a piece of calico torn in two, leaving a jagged edge.
The last of me—Caroline—the warm one—floated and twisted away. Gone like a wisp of steam.
The other me was finally free.
Chapter 22
The Other Me
DUST KICKED UP as wheels churned, and the man—the one called Nathan—didn’t even look back. There was a pit in my chest that I couldn’t understand. It didn’t belong to me, it belonged to Caroline, but she wasn’t here anymore.
I moved through the days that followed, sitting for long hours as Collette fixed my hair or my dress, fussing unt
il I was immaculate, just so I could stay and stare through the windows at the burning sun with nobody to see me. But I didn’t mind, because the harsh sunlight drove away the shadows and the shadow girl was nowhere to be seen.
At night, I wrestled with my bedding, trying not to remember the touch of warm skin, a smile, a kiss that drove away salty tears.
Those things didn’t belong to me and never had.
A howl broke through my nightmares and I shivered and pulled the blanket to my neck, attempting to become part of the bedding as the shadows gathered in the corners of the room and my old rocking chair swayed. I used to love that chair, rocking my babies to sleep in it, their innocent fists curled around my fingers.
The wail sounded again, growing louder, coming closer. I tried to squeeze myself into the space between pillow and blankets, wondering if I was still trapped in my dreams, wondering why I wasn’t in my own room—where was my blue bedcover?—and why this body didn’t do what I wanted it to do anymore.
Where was Caroline, with her fragile heart, to fight me and send me back into the dark?
The yowl keened as sweetly as a high note on the piano. Unable to lie still, I followed the sound, creeping out of bed and over to the window. I edged the curtain aside and peered out. The lawn was bright under the moon. The pathway gleamed white and smooth as it curved around the house and the grass sparkled with midnight dew.
From the bushes trotted a dog, and it was magnificent. Muscles rippled along its body as it moved, graceful and forceful at the same time. It had bright teeth and thick legs, and held its ears close to its head. I stopped breathing as it looked up to the window.
Behind the dog, came the trees. Scurrying and creeping, dragging their roots with them. The tall bush beneath the window rose up, and the tip of a vine slid beneath the windowpane and stretched toward my throat…
“Miss Caroline! Miss Caroline!”
I woke with a scream, clutching the bedclothes, real this time, as Mrs. Drew’s face came into focus, her housekeeper’s cap askew.
“Miss Caroline, please wake up.”
I scooted backward, against the bed head, trying to find my voice, trying to remember my name. “What…?”
“It’s your father, Miss Caroline. He’s taken ill. He’s asking for you. He won’t see anyone else, miss. I’ve sent Robert West for the doctor, but I fear it might be too late. If only your aunt was still here, or Master Timothy—”
At first, I didn’t want to go, but something inside me remembered that I was supposed to, that Caroline would want me to, so I scrambled out of bed, threw on my nightgown, and hurried down the hall with Mrs. Drew trailing behind.
“Even that Fisher boy.” The old lady lurched along the hall rug. “Even he’d be able to talk some sense into your father, but he’s gone. They’re all gone. Sent away last week. And all Mr. Rayburn does is shout and threaten.”
When I got there, the shadow girl paced back and forth outside his door.
She spun, started to say something, but stopped, her eyes glittering above a dark nightgown that came all the way up her neck. For some reason, she stayed back. No hand shot out to slap, no fist to bend.
I narrowed my eyes at her, waiting, but for some reason, the shadow girl would not harm Caroline’s body like she’d harmed mine.
She stepped back into the darkness where she belonged.
I turned away from her and knocked, waiting as the sound wound through the room behind.
“It had better be Caroline.”
The lie burned my tongue, but I said, “It’s me. I’m Caroline.”
“Then come in, and leave those other mongrels outside.”
I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the shadow girl, wondering at how her strength had diminished, as though the gray corners of her shape were pinned and powerless.
Then I turned the handle and slid into the room.
I jumped. Caroline’s father leaned against the wall, right next to me.
“Shut the door, girl, and lock it quickly. I’ve only enough strength to open it once.”
I did as he asked, inhaling the scent of his skin long ago forgotten. He stumbled over to the bed and fell onto it, clutching at his chest.
The curtains were drawn and the room was cold. A lamp burned on his bedside table next to a cup of cold tea.
“This house has become my coffin.” His voice was weak now, the gruffness gone. Under the light of the lamp, his hollow face was thin, his breathing uneven, and the tone of his skin unnatural.
“Is it your heart?”
“Don’t go soft on me, Caroline. I don’t have any clean hankies, and I sure as anything don’t have time for hysterics.”
I pulled myself upright. “What’s wrong with you?”
He laughed, an empty sound that ripped from his throat. “Same thing that’s wrong with you, girly. The past won’t leave me. I can never atone for it. I’ve done wrong and now I’ll pay.”
He tugged at the edge of his blanket, and I helped him pull it up, fighting the memories of other blankets, long ago. He shivered under the feathers and released a breath. “Of all my children, you’re the one I was sure I’d have to save, and yet, here you are, still alive. You were always in the eye of the storm. No matter what I did, that’s where you went, you silly, headstrong girl—”
“Why are you sick?”
He exhaled, studying the ceiling as his hands clawed the edge of the blanket. “Oh, it’s been coming on for a while now, little Caro. Ever since Rebecca was killed. I didn’t notice at first. No, didn’t notice anything. You don’t see the signs, you know. Kind of like boiling frogs. Once you figure out the water’s hot, it’s too late.”
My forehead crinkled. “I don’t understand—”
He grabbed my hand, crushing my fingers. “I need you to do something for me. I need you to go to the cabin in the woods.”
I shrank from him, trying to pull my hand away—I’d tried to make Caroline go there before, to remember what happened, but she hadn’t let me. She didn’t want to go into the woods. She didn’t want to remember.
And, now, neither did I, not when this body I was in could die—but he didn’t let go.
“I know you’re scared.” He wheezed a moment and a mirthless grin split his face. “I know why you ended up dangling from the vines. I woke up that night, woke up to everything that was going on. It was too late for your mother, but I tried to stop everything that happened since. Shadows and wild dogs and evil things hiding in trees. But it’s not the shadow things that are going to kill you.”
He pulled me forward, so close that I smelled the strange sweetness on his breath.
“There’s a key in your mother’s attic—up there. Don’t start lying to me, girly, I know you’ve been up there. I don’t know where the key is, but I know you’ll find it. It opens a box in the old oak desk in the cabin. Everything you need is in that box—everything. And once you’ve got it, you run away from here. Run like you’ve got the devil on your tail, because she will be.”
The shadow. She would come after me. She hadn’t yet, but her constraint wouldn’t last forever.
He flopped back onto the bed, his hand resting on the bedside table. “There’s money in here. Take it. Give half of it to the staff. Tell them to leave. Yell at them if you have to, just like I yelled at poor Victoria. It’s better they think badly of you, than to put them in danger.”
I raked my forehead with my free hand. “Why is my head bursting?”
He sighed and stared beyond me. “I guess she’s trying to protect you as best she can. Your poor mother. I never knew what was happening. I swear, Caroline. Except that she’s just making it worse by trying to help you now. But I don’t blame her. Who am I to talk? If only I’d believed her. She tried to tell me. It was all my fault and now I’ll pay for my failings.”
He snatched me forward, the stubby growth on his cheeks rasping against my skin. His lips pressed against my cheek in a final kiss.
For the first tim
e, I wondered if I could forgive him. Forgive him for not seeing, for not believing me, for his mistakes. He pointed to the blue room. “Be quick!”
I grabbed the torch, knocking the tea onto the floor, and smelled something sweet and cloying in it. It was the same strange poison I’d tasted so long ago.
I followed his hand, toward my old room, and peered inside. It had the same musty odor, the same cracks in the wall careering across elderly paint. The solid dressing table remained where Caroline had left it: off center and surrounded by trail marks in the dusty floor.
White moonlight burned through the dust on the bare windows. The beetles had gone from the windowsill, blown into the recesses of my mind.
I wanted to leave. Everything that had happened in this room pressed on me, but behind me was my husband, frail for the first time, his bony finger resting on the blanket, still pointing a silent command.
Pushing wide the door, I strode to the dressing table and kicked off my slippers. I pulled myself to the top and the breeze of moth wings escaped from drawers and became splotches on the ceiling.
Extending my arms, I pulled against the manhole, putting up a hand this time to stop the brace of steps from colliding with my neck, but squeezed my eyes shut too late to avoid another rain of debris.
I climbed upward into the moonlit attic, the torch creating a golden circle around me.
How was I supposed to remember where the key was? Hadn’t I tried to forget?
I went straight to the bookshelf, ignoring the wedding dress that clutched its hanger in the corner. I pulled the books out, rifled through them, and replaced them. Then, I wandered around and looked in all the vases and pots, until my gaze landed on one of the paintings: the valley with a crooked cabin. The only painting without my initials.
Bumpy surface, golden trees, a halo of light around the cabin, just like the shadow girl’s painting the day Caroline rode out with Nathan.
I snatched the painting from the wall and sat with it in the light, but when I turned it over, the cloth covering the back was ripped across the bottom. If there ever was a key hidden in there, it was long gone.