Sever. Lauren DeStefano

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СКАЧАТЬ Lydia. I wish I could prove it.” She’s talking to me in that hushed, cooing tone usually reserved for her son. Trying to lull me to sleep, or compliance.

      And then I realize why.

      “You don’t believe me,” I say.

      “Oh, Rhine, Housemaster Vaughn did such terrible things to you. You were so delirious, and so sick. Maybe there’s a chance some of it—”

      “It was real,” I say, sitting up. “It was all real.”

      She sits upright herself, facing me in the darkness. She’s frowning. “There was nothing down there, Rhine.”

      “He hid them, then,” I say. “The bodies. The domestics. If Gabriel were here, he’d tell you the same thing.”

      Cecily straightens her posture, hopeful. She wants to believe me. “Did he tell you there were bodies down there?”

      “Not exactly,” I say.

      “What did he tell you?”

      My stomach sinks. I collapse back onto the pillow, defeated. “Not much,” I admit. He was so high on opiates at first, and then it was one problem after the next, really. “He didn’t have a chance.”

      Cecily lies beside me, rubs my arm reassuringly. We both go silent. I struggle to cope with the fact that I am the only one who saw what Vaughn kept in the basement. But even worse than that, I want to believe what Linden and Cecily do, that none of it really happened. Maybe it didn’t. Maybe Deirdre really did get sold to another house when I left, and Adair and Lydia too. Maybe they’re comfortable and safe, and I’d conjured Deirdre up to cope with the loneliness as I lay strapped to that bed. She visited me often.

      I start to make a list in my head of all the things I know. Vaughn killed Jenna; he admitted as much. Rose’s body was in the basement that day the elevators gave out. I saw her. I recognized her nail polish, her blond hair. There was a tracker in my leg. Deirdre told me about it. Didn’t she? I think of all the attendants who came to work on me while I was in the basement. In my memory they all have the same blank expressions; they’re all voiceless, uncaring. Deirdre was warm. She spoke gently, made me feel safe, which was a bizarre thing in that place.

      The list collapses in on itself, words and memories jumbling into a bloody mess. It’s so frustrating the way the pictures keep on changing.

      In the end it’s Cecily I reach for. At least I can be certain she exists. Her skin is sweaty and warm as I scrunch up the sleeves of the nightgown she borrowed from me. I worry about how overheated she gets, like there’s a fire inside her. I think she drifted off to sleep and I woke her, because she mumbles something nonsensical before opening her eyes. “You don’t have to believe me,” I tell her. “You just have to believe that Vaughn is capable of those things.”

      “I do,” she says. “Linden doesn’t. I think he chooses not to. He’s sensitive, you know?”

      She strokes my cheek with the side of her hand—a repetitive, wispy motion. Like little ghost kisses.

      “I thought Housemaster Vaughn wanted to do good things and save us all,” she says. “I was wrong. And admitting that meant admitting he won’t find an antidote and none of us has much time. You said you have to find your brother—so you should go do that. And Linden and I have Bowen, and this baby. I want to spend as much time with them as I can. I want to be with them until the end.”

      These are all things she wouldn’t have dared to say last year. But now she’s unflinching. Her voice doesn’t even catch when she adds, “If all those things you saw are real, there’s nothing we can do about them. We have our own lives to take care of, and there’s only time to do so much with them.”

      What she says is terrible and true. She grabs my hand. We squeeze each other’s fingers, and I wait for her to realize the magnitude of what she’s said. I wait for her to squish up against me and sob. But from the reason in her tone, I sense that those words have been in her for a long time. That while I was away, she had plenty of time to get used to them.

      And when the sob does come, several minutes later, it’s mine.

      My sister wife has already fallen asleep.

      I dream of Linden in the doorway. He looks at me a long while, the green in his eyes changing every second. “The stars do look like a kite,” he admits. “But everything else you’ve said is a lie.”

      In the morning I awaken to Cecily jumping from the bed, her feet crashing onto the floorboards like baritone notes, to get to the window. “Quiet,” I tell her, cringing at the sudden light when she yanks the window shade, forcing it to recoil with a slurping noise.

      “No, no, no. You have to hide,” she tells me. Panic in her eyes. The sound of an engine purring under the window.

      I stagger to my feet, every muscle sore, and walk to the window. And outside is the limo, a figure standing beside it waving us down. Linden said he’d be here to collect Cecily in the morning, but as my grogginess subsides, I realize that Linden isn’t here.

      Vaughn is.

      3

      “STAY HERE,” I say, hurrying to put on a pair of jeans under my nightgown.

      “Wait!” Cecily calls after me as I’m running down the stairs.

      “Stay!” I tell her.

      Outside, the early morning air is cold, and I hug my arms for warmth. Dewy grass clings to my bare feet as I move toward him. He smiles. “Ah, so she awakens,” he says. His voice disrupts the gray sky. A burst of blackbirds rushes past.

      I maintain my distance, keep my tone neutral when I ask, “Where’s Linden?”

      “Your husband had an early meeting with a potential contractor,” he says. “He sent me for you and Cecily.”

      “Sure he did,” I say, bracing one foot behind me to take a step back.

      “You’re still angry with me,” he says. “I understand. But, Rhine, darling, you’re such a fascinating creature. You should be flattered; before you came along, I was sure I’d seen everything. I couldn’t help but get carried away.”

      Carried away. I laugh humorlessly, a cloud bursting from my open mouth.

      “Let’s just be honest with each other. If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead,” he says.

      “Thanks to you, I almost was,” I say. “What will you do if I refuse to go along this time? Burn down this house?”

      “While I do think a fire would be an improvement, no. The choice is entirely your own,” he says, sounding sincere. “I thought you and I could put this sordid mess behind us. How does resuming first wife status sound?”

      I open my mouth, aghast, but no words come. How did he even find me here? The tracker has been removed from my leg. Did Linden really send him here after me? I know he’s angry, but I don’t believe he’d do anything so venomous.

      The screen door slams behind me, СКАЧАТЬ