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The sheer enormity of the havoc that George had wreaked on her life was slowly seeping into her bones. She was glad to be sitting, or she’d surely stagger by now. Her knees felt like jello.

But she needed to speak, to say something, anything, to stop feeling like this. To stop George from victimizing her further. She needed to take back some part of herself.

“You broke my marriage.”

“That marriage wasn’t right for you. I was right for you. I am the only one who loves you the way you deserve to be loved. All-consumingly.”

And now Magdalene moved. With great care, her legs barely holding her, she stood up, rooted to the spot, hands flat on the surface of her desk, her tense and tired neck yet unable to lift her face. She felt weighed down by chains, rendering her powerless. The Vacheron was gone, her own emotions were the ones holding her back now. It was time to break free of them.

“Go on.”

The sensation of being enveloped in a spider’s web crept along her skin and with it the compulsion to wash herself clean of the silken thread. The feeling—gross and relentless—would surely keep her awake at night.

So no, the last thing she wanted was for George to continue, but this had to be finished once and for all, and if she didn’t hear all of it then and there, it would never be. This well of madness, indeed, was all-consuming, and George needed to voice it, even though Magdalene was already sick to her stomach from hearing what appeared to be the tip of an unending iceberg.

“We were happy then. You and I. Yes, you were so hurt, so broken after the divorce, but you got over it, I was there to hold you as you cried. You made me so happy. You stayed with me those months. I watched you sleep. So beautiful, Maggie. Mine.”

Sam recoiled and Magdalene’s gaze was drawn away for a brief respite. She took in the pale features and the sheer horror in them at hearing the words of this insanity spoken out loud. Yet sadly, it was a better sight than the person speaking.

“We had years. Years! Happy, peaceful years together. And then you went to that damned conference in New York and when you returned, I knew…”

George swallowed convulsively, and her gaze, suddenly directed at Sam, was full of pure poison. As she turned back to face Magdalene, she spewed venom in every direction.

“I knew your every expression, every line on your face, your every smile, every frown. And you came back glowing. You came back… freshly fucked! I could smell it on you for days, no matter how many showers you took. You kept thinking about her. It was all over your face. The dreamy expression of reliving the sex. The spacing-out in conversations. You returned changed. I hated it. I couldn’t stand it.”

George swiped her fingers over her face, but when she let her hands drop, her expression as apathetic as before, as if the pain had dulled her senses, and no matter how many times she tried to clear her mind, nothing helped anymore. Magdalene held her breath.

“But then you got the position at Three Dragons and I thought we would have a new start. I forgave you again. You kept hurting me and I kept forgiving you. I had dreams of finally confessing to you that I’m the one who loves you best, truest, who has been by your side, who made you who you are. But the very first day, I came into your office, and this whore was throwing it in your face that you’d slept together and I knew… I knew she was the one from New York, because you just weren’t yourself around her. You were disgusting. Pining, longing. Wanting her, and she cared only about this goddamned school. She was using you, and you couldn’t even see it. So I had to hurt her, had to punish her. For you!”

Pity, sadness, disgust…whatever else she may have been feeling, all were gone in the blink of an eye, and Magdalene saw nothing but red. The earlier image of blood dripping from her fingertips overtook her, and it must have shown on her face, because George recoiled, real fear in her eyes.

But Magdalene didn’t care. In fact, she wanted George to be afraid, because it turned out that hunting her and ruining her life and her marriage was a pittance compared to the other thing she had confessed to.

“You hurt Sam because she and I were together in New York?” Magdalene let her rage fly.

“She didn’t deserve you! She had to pay! So I wanted to hurt her a little. But it was the kid who sprained her ankle, and she didn’t even get electrocuted because she was wearing those damned boots. There were some other things, the broken floorboard, the loose balcony railing–but she missed those. Nothing could touch her.”

There was a roar in Magdalene’s ears. The Dragon inside her coiled for a strike. She could barely push the words out, the desire to hurt was so strong.

“Joanne stepped on that floorboard, and only because Sam was near, she was caught in time to prevent serious injury.”

Sam had been so scared that evening, when a floorboard had given way under Joanne in the faculty dormitory, and she’d miraculously managed to save her from a dangerous fall. Magdalene’s blood boiled, remembering how terrified the older woman had been; so much so that even she herself had been worried for her, in spite of their history.

She ended up taking Joanne to Boston the day after, to have her seen by the best ortho surgeon, despite the protestations that everything was fine. Magdalene told herself it was just in case. And not because she cared about her old teacher or because she somehow felt responsible, because she should have fixed the damn floors long before anyone got injured. The guilt had eaten at her for weeks.

And it had been George all along…

A tortured growl shook Magdalene out of her memories.

“What do I care? You were under her spell, you worked day and night to make sure she was happy, that the school was the way she wanted it, and she was never grateful. You were getting a bit too suspicious though, so I had to convince you that it was Orla who was after you, with rats and threatening letters and emails and the soy milk. It worked before, at other schools, you’d be so isolated, you’d always turn to me and we’d be together. And here again, it was easy since Orla is such an idiot. She kept believing my every word, that you would destroy the school. It was so very easy to make her hate you. After all, she already envied you so much for taking her position.”

The vitriol kept pouring out. More and more and more, until Magdalene felt she was drowning in evil, in a morass of malice. Such simple things. Small, deliberate, everyday words and deeds that had poisoned the minds of so many people, that had caused so much pain, that could have caused so much more. That could have killed people.

That almost did kill people, almost killed Sam…

“And the attic?” Magdalene, relentless in her pursuit of the full truth, straightened her spine, schooling her face. The fury was gone. Only purpose remained. To end this, once and for all.

“You took her to the mainland, and I could tell you’d fucked her, and I knew you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself. It’s like she was your disease. One has to cut out the disease to make the body whole and healthy again. She had to go.” George’s chuckle was ugly.