The Furies

by Katie Lowe

  ‘Jesus, Vi,’ Robin said, peering nervously around the doorframe. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’ She threw me a lighter. I held it, staring down at the neon-pink case. ‘You ready?’

  I stared at her. ‘You want me to …’

  ‘It’s only fair,’ she said, seemingly without malice: simply the childlike confidence in the value of fairness between friends. I heard the click of the gas, the back door opening beyond.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, stepping towards me. ‘You can do this.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, weakly.

  ‘We’ll do it together.’ She pulled a strip of crumpled newspaper from the fireplace and held it towards me.

  ‘Robin, I—’

  ‘Come on, Vi,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way, now.’

  I thought of the papers in the garage: the story of them, of us, the history we shared – shared now, all of us, having spilled blood together. She squeezed my shoulder, fingers still damp and soap-sweet. ‘Come on, babycakes,’ she said, one last time. ‘Teamwork,’ she added, with a sideways grin.

  I clicked the lighter, a scratch of flint, a spark; it went out. She laughed, and I laughed too, in spite of it all – in spite of the body behind us, watching us with glassy eyes.

  I shook the lighter, clicked again; it lit, the paper bursting gold with sparks. She threw it into the fireplace, and we stepped into the cooling air, closing the door on our secrets as we disappeared into the light.

  Chapter 14

  Annabel stepped away from the easel she had propped in the centre of the room. Arms folded, she looked at each of us in turn, while we stared at the facsimile of the painting, brush-strokes flattened on the glossy print. The rolled-up sleeves, the arched spurts of blood, drops splitting mid-air; the vivid chiaroscuro, murder by night … It was all so familiar, an image burned into each of our minds.

  ‘Judith Slaying Holofernes,’ Annabel said, finally. ‘By Artemisia Gentileschi. A woman painter, depicting a woman murdering a man. A scene that the four of you will no doubt recognize.’

  My stomach dropped; I willed myself not to look across at the other girls, though the question hung heavy between us, unspoken: Does she know? The air barbed with the thought, the image coming to life before us, the memory monstrous; for a moment, I smelled the tannin smudge of blood, felt my hands sticky with it. Wondered if this was what guilt really felt like.

  She lowered herself slowly into her chair, a sharp breath through the nose, closing her eyes. ‘Or, at least, you should. If you haven’t started your final project by now, you’re too late.’

  Robin sighed, almost inaudibly; my heart rattled against my ribcage, seeming to beat louder still.

  ‘Some speculate,’ Annabel went on, ‘that Artemisia – this Italian master, a woman far ahead of her time – has a link to our school’s founder. Indeed, Ms Boucher spent six months in Florence before her death, and was known to the gallerists and patrons of the arts in the city – so it is highly unlikely that their paths did not cross. To what extent, however, we can only speculate. It may be simply another of the tales that have been passed down through our little society.’ She coughed, looked at Grace, and smiled; I watched as Grace smiled back, impassive, showing no sign of the horror I imagined she, too, felt. ‘Some say she inspired Shakespeare as he wrote “the Scottish play”: not, as her murderers might have claimed, in his portrait of the devil women who taunt Macbeth and Banquo on the heath, but Lady Macbeth herself, the driving force behind all action.

  ‘But I digress,’ she said, turning back to the painting. ‘This painting, according to some critics, is the direct embodiment of Artemisia’s desire for revenge. The victim of rape, betrayed by a dear friend, Artemisia – again, according to many of those who seek to impose a narrative upon her – painted the slaying of Holofernes as a response to those feelings of fury that ran through her in the aftermath.’

  She slid the painting aside, revealing another, similar scene. ‘This, by Caravaggio, depicts the same murder: the death of Holofernes at the hands of Judith. And yet,’ she said, pointing a bony finger at the woman, ‘see the softness of her arms? The expression of confusion on her face, the self-doubt?’ She shook her head. ‘Caravaggio fails to recognize the bravery—’ she paused, searching for the right word. ‘—the force of will required for a woman – the “weaker” sex, outmatched, physically, at least – to commit such an act. Whereas in Artemisia’s painting, we see it clearly, and whole. The sheer size of Holofernes’ fist as he claws at her maidservant, the determined, wilful expression on Judith’s face, the delicacy of the cameo she wears flecked with blood, her fingers tearing at hair … Artemisia understands the strength – both physical and emotional – required for a woman to take her revenge on man.’

  She looked at Robin, for a moment, then at me. I felt exposed by the look, turning back to the painting, as though she could read the night in my eyes. ‘See also the difference between the maidservants in these two paintings. For Caravaggio, the maid is the old crone, watching on as her much younger mistress commits the act. Whereas for Artemisia, the women work together, their forces combined to defeat the man. One almost imagines them plotting, together, the half-smile passing between them as they crept into Holofernes’ tent, their glances exchanged as he slipped into a drunken, stinking stupor.’

  She slid the painting back, covering the Caravaggio again. ‘Artemisia, in other words, makes the slaying of Holofernes about not merely the man – the victim of murderous women, that most terrifying of archetypes – but, in equal measure, the brutal power of female friendship, of those secrets women share between themselves, in those moments men are too blind to see.’

  I felt Robin’s arm brush against mine in the chair as she shifted; the hot bristle of the hairs risen, gooseflesh prickling beneath, just as it had after the murder, when we’d run through the suburbs, our footsteps slapping on the pavement. It wasn’t long before smoke began to rise in black plumes above the houses; a crack ruptured the quiet night, chased by sirens shooting by. The air was bonfire sweet for a while, until the sour burnt-plastic smell drowned it out.

  As the house crumbled, the tension between us began to dissipate. They’d killed him, yes, but I’d lit the match that burned the house – and with it, the Dean’s theory about the girls. About all of us. All of it was gone, destroyed, done, and outside the tomb of the house it seemed absurd that I’d ever believed it. Or at least, that I’d thought it mattered.

  We sat by the promenade, laughing, spitting, making ourselves seen. Robin and I walked into a gift shop, rattling rainbow rows of rock and spilling jars of sand on the floor, daring the owner to throw us out, our alibi secured: he wouldn’t soon forget we were there. I wondered if the old man could sense what we had done, as he watched us warily, afraid to ask us to leave. He said nothing as Robin took a souvenir lighter from the rack and slipped it in her pocket; said nothing, too, as I dropped a pound coin on the desk, hoping she wouldn’t see.

  We knew – of course we knew – that things might go wrong from here. We might not get away with it. The body (the body, now, not the Dean, no longer, in our minds, a person) might be recovered before the flames ate it up, found with that macabre tear across the neck. (Jugular, carotid, subclavian, I thought, the words a soothing rhythm.) They might find fingerprints, oily smudges of boot marks on carpet, stray hairs, and spit; a neighbour might’ve seen us as we slipped through the gate and ran, in the minutes before the flames began to lick at the windows.

  We knew, too, that the haze of guilt would descend, soon enough. And yet, in the moment, whether the result of some vibrant adrenaline surge, or the knowledge that it couldn’t last, there was a romance to it. It’s why the words, now, seem melodramatic, too overwrought. I’ve toyed with numerous ways to say it, all trite and cliché. But the plain fact is this: in the face of murder, all life seems thrilling, all chaos and potential. It’s a high, a buzz, a decadent light – and for a little while, it didn’t matter what anyone said, or thought.
Only the electric sense of life, and the power we had to take it. The power we had to kill.

  At the base of the mermaid, Alex threw an arm around my shoulder, squeezed thin fingers around my bare arm. ‘I’m sorry for being a bitch in there,’ she whispered, her breath hot in my ear. ‘I think I was freaking out a bit. You know?’

  I nodded. I knew. She looked at me, waiting for a response. ‘Yeah, me too,’ I said. ‘It was pretty intense.’

  Robin leaned forward. ‘That’s an understatement.’

  I laughed. ‘I just can’t believe we … I can’t believe we did it.’

  ‘I know,’ Robin said, picking at a piece of dried gum and throwing it to the gulls. ‘Just goes to show,’ she added, in a pitch-perfect imitation of the Dean, at once chilling and absurd, ‘you never know what you’re capable of until you try.’

  Annabel leaned back in her chair, as she so often did at the end of class, as though the effort had proven too much; or, it seemed, today, the clench of fear still tight around our hearts, that she simply wanted to be alone – to no longer have to look at us, the disappointment a shadow behind her eyes. But she doesn’t know, I told myself. No one does. And it was true: for now, at least, campus was just as it always was, the Dean’s absence as yet apparently unlinked to the house fire in the suburbs. I’d read the story on the cover of the local paper as I bought cigarettes, the newsagent glaring at me as I put it back without paying: nothing to suggest a body had been recovered. It couldn’t have, yet, given the fact it burned through the night, a glow visible from my window as I tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep. I willed the hours on, the seconds seeming stuck miles apart; as though time had stopped, the night now fixed in place.

  ‘I’ll expect your essays by the end of next week,’ she said, closing her eyes and tilting her head back a little, revealing the hollow at the base of her neck. ‘Two thousand words, minimum, ladies. I expect great things.’

  Nobody said a word until we reached the middle of the Quad, the grass sugar-coated with daisies, sky robin’s-egg blue; the brightness saturated, thick. We sat beside the wych elm, where the faded cards and waterlogged teddy bears, the dead flowers left for Emily, afforded us a kind of privacy; students passed at a distance, watching the girls (and me, ever the third wheel) take a moment to pay their respects to their lost friend.

  Alex leaned forward, looking over at me. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, a brief stab of displeasure at being singled out. ‘You?’

  She said nothing. Robin tugged at a handful of grass, pulling up roots, and began to thread them together. ‘I don’t think anyone knows yet,’ she said, seemingly to no one.

  ‘When did you say you saw him?’

  ‘Who?’

  Alex sighed. ‘Who do you think?’

  Robin looked at her blankly. ‘When we …’

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Alex said. ‘Sometimes you are just …’ She trailed off, gathered herself. ‘You said he turned up at Violet’s house. When was that?’

  ‘A couple of days before.’

  ‘Which day before?’

  Robin looked across at me, and shrugged. ‘Tuesday,’ I said. ‘I’m sure it was Tuesday.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What time was he there?’

  I stared at her. ‘I don’t know. Eleven? Eleven-thirty, maybe?’

  ‘You don’t know exactly?’

  ‘Fuck, Alex, I wasn’t taking notes. Does it matter?’

  ‘It might.’

  I looked at Robin. ‘It was probably closer to eleven-thirty,’ she said, though I couldn’t tell whether she believed that, or whether she simply wanted Alex to move on.

  We sat in silence a while, in the wych elm’s black shadow, and watched students pass between classes, the birds flitting from one building to another.

  ‘There we go,’ Alex said, finally, gesturing to the main building, where Mrs Goldsmith, the music teacher, jowls cleft and twitching like a guinea pig’s, stood in hushed conversation with a woman whose name I didn’t know. She took a long drag from a cigarette, flouting the rule that smoking was prohibited except in specifically designated areas, and brushed a tear from her cheek with a sleeve.

  I looked away, ashamed (though for her or me I wasn’t sure – within minutes, this would be all over campus, a sign of distinct weakness), and caught Nicky’s eye across the Quad. She didn’t approach, until Alex – to my surprise – called her name, and rose to her feet. When she reached us, Alex enveloped her in a hug, from which Nicky seemingly couldn’t extricate herself.

  Robin and I looked over at Grace, whose expression suggested she had as little idea what Alex was doing as we did. Her shoulders shook, Nicky peering wide-eyed over them, offering the occasional weak pat on Alex’s back, an attempt at comfort through her confusion.

  Finally, Alex pulled away, still squeezing Nicky’s arms tight as she let her go. ‘I just …’ she began, voice trembling. ‘I don’t think I ever thanked you for … for this.’ She gestured at the faded photo of Emily pinned to the tree, the dead flowers shaped in her name. ‘I heard you arranged it, and … Well, it just means a lot. Emily would’ve loved it.’ I felt Robin tense a little at this suggestion; rested my hand softly on hers. I wasn’t sure what, exactly, Alex was doing – but Robin arguing this point, I imagined, wasn’t part of the plan. I knew, too, that Nicky hadn’t arranged the shrine. As far as I knew, that was the work of the choral society, appealing, I assumed, to their sense of drama – the visual accompaniment to the Requiem Mass they’d been rehearsing all semester, in memoriam. This did not, however, stop Nicky from taking the credit as offered.

  ‘It’s the least I – we – could do,’ she said, smiling beatifically. ‘I mean, she and I weren’t really friends, but I wanted you guys to have something to … you know. Remember her by.’

  ‘It really means a lot,’ Alex said. ‘Especially when …’ She paused, turned to look at the three of us, still sitting on the grass below. ‘Especially when we don’t know who we can trust. You’ve been such a good friend, and we’ve been so mean. I’m sorry.’

  Nicky glanced at Robin, and at me. I smiled, hoping to counteract the scowl I could feel burning from Robin, without having to look. Fortunately, Nicky’s interest was elsewhere. ‘Who can’t you trust?’ she said, looking back at Alex, who lowered her eyes.

  ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  ‘Alex,’ Nicky said, in the whispered tone I knew – I recognized it from when the girls disappeared before, leaving me alone (a memory that came to me now with an almost visceral flinch, You’re not one of them tearing a streak through my mind) – ‘it’s okay. You can talk to me about anything. Nighthawks for life, right?’ She tapped the school crest on her sports bag, and Alex smiled, eyes still ringed with tears.

  ‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘—and please, whatever you do, don’t tell anyone you heard this from me … My mom would kill me if she knew.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Nicky said, a little too quickly, Alex’s words still lingering half-said. ‘You know I’d never do that.’ And for what it was worth, this part was true: wherever she could, Nicky would erase her sources, not through any instinctive pseudo-journalistic integrity, but simply because she preferred to be the source, shaking her head and smiling sweetly when asked.

  ‘Well …’ Alex turned to the three of us – still dumbstruck – and lowered her voice. ‘You know Mr Holmsworth – the Dean?’ The very mention of his name flashed the image of the body once again through my mind; I felt myself grow pale, and looked away.

  Nicky leaned in a little more, the down of her cheek white in the midday sun. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘A few nights ago, he was … Well, drunk. Really drunk. And my mom heard from someone – I don’t know who, someone in the bar, I guess – that he was saying things. Weird things.’

  Nicky’s eyes were saucer-wide – as, I suppose, were ours. What is she doing? I thought, nervously. I wondered how much of this she was mak
ing up as she went along, a sensation akin to watching someone walk a tightrope without a net. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Things …’ Alex sighed, shook her head. ‘Things about Emily. About what happened to her. Things that made whoever heard it think he might have had something to do with it.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Nicky said.

  ‘I know. Mom said they should go to the police, but … I don’t know. I don’t think they have. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged. ‘He’s the Dean of Students. Here. There’s no way anyone’s going to throw an accusation like that at him without being sure. I mean … Imagine what the parents would do – they’d lose it.’

  Nicky nodded, solemnly. I’d seen her mum once before – a bird-like, sharp-bobbed woman who’d parked her Land Rover outside the school entrance earlier in the year, refusing to leave until the Headmaster met with her to discuss an article in the school newsletter which made passing reference to an Elm Hollow alumna who’d had some minor success with a now-touring rock band. ‘You think this is aspirational?’ she’d screeched, voice ringing down the corridor, through the walls of the Headmaster’s office. ‘This is not in line with the supposed values of this school, and certainly not what I am paying you to encourage in these girls. Not at all.’

  ‘The thing is,’ Alex went on, ‘he was saying he wanted to … well, kill himself. That he didn’t deserve to live. And honestly, if he did have something to do with what happened to Emily, I hope he does. I hope it hurts.’

  Grace – seeming finally to recover herself from the confusion the three of us had shared throughout – rolled up and reached for Alex’s hand, pulling her into a hug, Alex sobbing with such melodrama I felt a grim smile begin to tug at my lips. I put a hand over my mouth and looked away, hoping to appear overcome with emotion at the horror of Alex’s tale.