Page 26 of Blood on Her Tongue

Chapter 26

Lucy’s mind raced almost as swiftly as her pulse. Who else could possibly be here? Another patient, come to look what all the racket was about? Oh, but she couldn’t kill again. The thought made her want to weep. Yet she would, if that was what it took to keep Not-Sarah safe…

They came down the stairs. They did it haltingly and very slowly. There was no steady patter of footsteps, the one-two, one-two of a foot stepping down, followed by the other. It was a heavy thudding, like a sack of spuds too heavy to lift being hauled down bit by bit.

Hardly human at all.

She listened to the sounds with bated breath, the blood buzzing in her ears. By the time they reached the hallway, she was sweating profusely. She had taken the pen from Michael’s cooling hand and held it tightly. The nib had broken off, but she had seen the damage a pen might do in great detail twice now, so whatever it was that now crept toward her, she could still defend herself…

Not-Sarah staggered into view.

Thank God. Finally some good fucking luck , Lucy thought. From the moment she had arrived, she had been terrified it had been too late, that her sister had been committed already. She saw now she needn’t have worried so; how could Arthur possibly have suspected Not-Sarah of having murdered Michael if she hadn’t been here? Funny how Lucy hadn’t realized that sooner.

Then again, she had been quite preoccupied with other things, like hot-blooded murder.

Her sister clutched the doorframe. She held herself oddly, as if she were a puppet where some of the strings had snapped, her limbs all angles, her neck and back crooked.

For a moment, they simply looked at each other. Then Not-Sarah rushed to Lucy, her gait weird and dragging. She touched her all over with her long cool fingers. “Are you all right? What did they do to you? Have they hurt you? If they have, I swear I’ll tear their guts from their bellies. I’ll crush their bones to powder. I’ll…”

“Peace,” Lucy said, gripping those searching hands to stop them. “Almost none of this blood is mine. I’ve just got some bruises, nothing more.”

Not-Sarah’s eyelid fluttered with relief. The tendons in her throat and hands loosened, slinking back into the flesh, turning invisible. She straightened as well as she was able, one hand pressed to her forehead as she surveyed the scene. “You’ve made quite a mess, Lucy dear.” She kicked Michael’s leg, then bent down and dipped her finger in the blood that had run down the seams of the floorboards. She brought it to her mouth and sucked on it hard, her cheeks all hollow, her eye half closed with the bliss of it.

Lucy looked away and down at her hands, which lay useless and dirty in her lap like a pair of soiled gloves. It was almost impossible to imagine that these hands, which had braided hair and held the sticky hands of a child and threaded hundreds of needles, had just mutilated a man, then killed him, and killed again, all within the same hour. “Michael was going to have you committed. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t be persuaded, so I killed him. I couldn’t see another way out. Then Arthur found me. He would’ve had you take the fall for Michael’s murder, so I killed him, too.”

“Why would Arthur have done that?”

“He thought he could manipulate me into marrying him that way.”

“I’d say you’ve proven adequately that it was a very stupid thought for him to have.” She sat next to Lucy with a groan. “I’m feeling awful.”

“You’re not looking very well. You…your angles are all wrong.”

Not-Sarah looked at her crooked legs, then said, “I can’t help it. You know I could hear you from upstairs? Not the words, but I heard you and Michael argue, heard him scream. I wanted to help you, but I couldn’t move. Oh, Lucy darling, it was awful! I felt as if I were in the bog again, staked to the ground, yet I couldn’t even writhe; I could only listen. I willed myself to move, but it took forever, and then my limbs wouldn’t behave. I had to roll over and fall out of bed, then drag myself downstairs.”

“They drugged you. I’m surprised you’re up already. Michael said you wouldn’t stir for hours yet.” Maybe pills and powders didn’t work the same for Not-Sarah’s kind as they did for humans.

“Stupid bastard. That makes sense, though. I don’t really remember getting here. I think they must have used Arthur’s pony trap. My bones feel jolted.”

“They gave me something, too. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have let them take you. I would’ve come sooner.”

“I know.” Not-Sarah patted her hand. “It smells like a slaughterhouse in here.” She tilted back her head and took deep gulps of the scent, drinking and drinking of it.

Lucy looked at the bodies. Both lay sprawled, their hands near their throats. If Michael had still had his eyes, they would have begun to cloud over by now. She was glad she had taken them; the idea he could look at her disgusted her. “What are we to do with them?” she asked.

Not-Sarah thought for a while, then smiled and said, “Michael I shall consume.”

“Even the bones?”

“Even the bones,” Not-Sarah confirmed.

“It would take days. We don’t have days, only hours.”

“It won’t take as long as all that. I’m a fast eater. Don’t you know I’m fucking starving?” She gave Lucy a playful push with her shoulder.

Lucy managed a weak smile. It died on her face when she remembered the gravity of their situation. “What about Arthur? You can’t eat both of them before the housekeeper comes back or someone else finds us, and then we’ll be ruined. Oh God…” She pressed her palms against her eyes until the pressure on her eyeballs became a steady pain. The clotting gore on her hands got stuck in her lashes. When Not-Sarah pulled her hands away, the blood in her lashes framed the world like red curtains.

“None of that,” her sister said. “Now, do you know if Arthur contacted any asylums yet?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He was supposed to do so, but he had to attend a breech birth instead. He did write to one of his doctor friends to ask his opinion about you. He did it in veiled terms, but his friend knows it’s about you. The letter is here somewhere.” She rubbed her eyes, which made them sting. The adrenaline was leaving her system, and exhaustion settled over her like a blanket. How lovely it would be to take a hot bath and wash herself clean, then slip into bed and sleep for hours and hours… She curled her hands into fists to stay awake, made herself listen to her sister talk.

Not-Sarah thought for a while, a frown etched on her face. “It doesn’t much signify whether he wrote to anyone about me or not,” she decided, “not when I’ve made a miraculous recovery and the need for an asylum has passed. And believe me, it shall have passed after I’ve eaten.”

“What about Mrs. van Dijk? I don’t think she’ll be convinced, not after you ate some of her fingers.”

“Oh. That.” Not-Sarah said. She touched the cavity where her porcelain tooth had been with the tip of her tongue and saw Lucy look. “I cracked it on her wedding ring. I think I must’ve swallowed it after. The ring, I mean, though probably also the tooth. Do you think there’s a way for us to convince her to keep quiet?”

“I don’t know.” Her skin felt tight and dry under the peeling mask of dried blood. She rubbed at it. “Oh, Saartje, what are we to do? I don’t want you to be committed. I don’t much want to be committed myself either, but I don’t see how I can prevent it, not after everything that has happened today. God, I feel silly now. All this slaughter, all this gore, and to what end?”

“I think our lives will be much improved without Michael in it, and don’t forget I will finally be able to feed now. Once I’ve eaten him, I won’t have to eat for a long time. He’s a big man. He’ll last me a year, probably longer if I conserve my energy. My kind is snakelike in that way. And once I have healed, I shan’t have to eat entire bodies anymore. I can make do with blood then, plus a finger here and there. So, if you ask me, I think all this slaughter and all this gore does serve a purpose.”

Lucy leaned her head back against the wall. Now that the adrenaline had gone, all the little pains and discomforts of her body reasserted themselves. She was frightfully thirsty. She pictured biting into a lemon, the sour juice spraying against her soft palate, and that helped a little because it made her salivate. She swallowed, then asked, “What does any of that matter if we both end up in the madhouse anyway?”

Not-Sarah thought for a moment, her brow like the small bumps made by a thread tugged on too hard, wrinkling the fabric. Then the thread broke and her brow smoothed. “We won’t. Now, here’s what we will do. You’ll clean yourself up, then fetch Katje with Arthur’s pony trap.”

“Katje?”

“Of course. I can’t abandon my little love, now, can I? Besides, she’s well used to various horrors and very practical. Whenever anyone presses you, just say Arthur has sent for her because he needs someone to stay with me while he tries to sort out the matter of the madhouse, someone other than just you; after what I’ve done, it would be madness to leave me alone with only one other person, wouldn’t it? No one knows yet that Michael and Arthur are dead; we’ll keep it that way for much longer if I eat Michael. I won’t be able to consume Arthur as well, but that doesn’t matter. It’ll be easy to make his body disappear.”

Lucy softly cleared her throat. Her trick with imagining the lemon had done only so much, and her throat ached with tightness. “How?”

“The bog, of course! It took centuries for anyone to find Marianne’s body even though people knew she was in there. No one will know with Arthur, especially not if we clean up properly. We could even leave a note saying he has gone away for a while, perhaps to study a particular case. If we take some of his things, no one will be any the wiser for weeks.” She began to laugh. “Hell, we might even make it out that he and Katje eloped!”

“Eloped?” Lucy asked, bewildered.

“Yes!” Not-Sarah said, her one eye gleaming. “It’s brilliant, Lucy darling, don’t you see? The police won’t be looking for a couple who have made it clear they don’t wish to be found. They will focus on finding Michael and you and me instead, making it much easier for us to travel unobserved because no one will be looking for three women! Now, for this to work, you must make sure Katje packs some of her things when you go and fetch her from Zwartwater; that’ll make it look like she eloped. You should grab some of my things, too: clothes, jewelry, some shoes. All the little things I might need if I really were staying here for a few days.”

“And then we will disappear?”

“Exactly so. It shall be as if we never existed. It’ll be the mystery of the century. Now, where’s that letter Arthur received from his friend?”

“I threw it on the chair.”

Not-Sarah limped over, then felt in the slits of the chair. Triumphantly, she pulled the crumpled letter out. She tore it into small bits. “Open up,” she said, then placed a bit on Lucy’s tongue. It tasted of wood and something chemical. She rolled it around her mouth until it was a ball of pulp, then swallowed. It took a long time, with her mouth being so dry. Sarah fed her another bit and another, until there was nothing left.

“There. As if it never existed. That might buy us some more time, and if not, no harm done.”

“Where will we flee to?” Lucy asked. The taste of the paper lingered on her tongue, making her lips pucker.

“Anywhere that takes our fancy. Paris. Milan. New York. Think about it while you scrub the blood off your face and clothes. In the meantime, I’ll eat Michael. Glad to see that snaggletoothed bastard is good for something after all.”

“I must tell you something first,” Lucy said. She swallowed. Her throat really was frightfully dry, reducing her voice to a whisper.

“I’m sure it can wait. There’s much to do, Lucy darling. Time is of the essence!”

“I must tell you first because I think you deserve to know before you decide whether you want to run away with me. You see, I was Michael’s mistress.”

Not-Sarah said nothing.

Lucy rubbed at her throat to get rid of the taut feeling there, but that served only to redden her skin. The words still came out small, sounding absolutely pathetic to her own ears. “Please say something, Saartje. I know it must come as a shock, and I’m sorry.”

“I already know.”

Lucy stared at her dear face through a mist of tears. “You do? Since when?”

“From the beginning.”

“Oh, Saartje, I’m so sorry. You must have felt so betrayed by me, so utterly forsaken. It shouldn’t have happened. All I can say to defend myself is that I was stupid and selfish and weak, just like you said I was. I hurt you, all for a man who turned out to be small and mean and self-obsessed. He wasn’t worth my affections, never was. I wish I’d never done it. I wish he weren’t dead so I could kill him all over again. I wish…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Not-Sarah interrupted her.

“But it does! I betrayed you!”

“You destroyed him because he threatened my existence. That makes it pretty clear to me where your allegiance lies.”

Lucy brought her hands to her face and dug her nails into her hairline. “But I coupled with him while you were grieving Lucille. You were half out of your mind with it, and rather than look after you, I rutted with your husband, like a common slut, like…”

Not-Sarah grabbed her hands and pulled them down. “Don’t do that. Your fingers are filthy. The last thing we need is for you to get sick. And you looked after me very well, I’ve always thought.”

“Even so! I debased myself, I…”

“And I married him knowing you loved him and I did not. Does that make us even?” Not-Sarah stroked a loving little line over the back of Lucy’s hands with her thumb.

Lucy looked at their hands together. Hers seemed very dark against her sister’s lighter ones. How many colors blood could take on, depending on the light. “Why did you marry him if you knew?”

Emotion bled into Not-Sarah’s voice. “Because I couldn’t bear you leaving me behind. I thought it would hurt less if I were the one leaving you behind instead.”

“And did it?”

She let go of Lucy’s hands to dash away the tears; even the cavity underneath her eye patch wept. “I don’t know. We all have our regrets. This one is mine. Now, do you still want to run away with me ?”

“Of course. You’re my sister.”

“And you’re mine. Let’s waste no more words on my husband. He’s dead, and in being so, he’ll prove useful after all. Now come. There’s much to do.”

But she didn’t get up, and after a while, Lucy laid her head on her sister’s lap. Not-Sarah stroked her hair, softly, sweetly. She was wearing skirts of heavy dark green velvet. Her cheek was still smeared with blood despite her crying and rubbing. If she was to go to Zwartwater and get Katje to come with her, she’d need to put on her sister’s clothes. Lucy heavily suspected her own were ruined beyond saving. Though some of the stains might come out if she let the dress soak overnight in a bucket of cold water. Not that she would. There wasn’t enough time, and why bother? She’d probably just throw the dress away together with Michael and Arthur’s things. She could afford to be profligate. Damned she was already.

“I’ve murdered two men,” Lucy whispered. She began to shiver violently, making her bones and teeth ache. She tried to stop but could not.

“All shall be well now,” Not-Sarah promised her and gently took hold of her hand, which was covered with blood also, now cooling and clotting. She licked at the tip of Lucy’s index finger, then took the whole digit into her mouth, sucking at it gently till all the blood was gone. One by one she lapped at her fingers, scraping the scab of dried blood out from under each nail with her incisor. She licked Lucy’s palm, until that, too, was clean. That done, Not-Sarah toyed with Lucy’s fingers, moving them this way and that, then rested Lucy’s palm against her cheek and closed her eye in bliss.

Softly, Lucy began to laugh.

Article from De Nieuwe Murmerwolderse Courant, dated Tuesday 15 November 1887, taken from the section “Strange Happenings”

Local Lady Raised from the Dead Vanished into Thin Air

On 8 October this year, this paper reported the miraculous case of Lady Sarah Schatteleyn, beloved wife of Lord Michael Schatteleyn. After a short but violent sickbed, she was pronounced dead, yet when her grieving family went to bury her, they discovered only just in time that their beloved wife and sister was, in fact, very much alive. The mistake must have come about due to a case of catalepsy caused by a fever of the brain, which can, in severe cases, mimic the state of death so convincingly that even a well-trained physician may be fooled.

Now this strange case has turned stranger still: since Thursday November 3 no one has seen nor heard from Lady Schatteleyn, nor her husband, nor her twin sister!

The facts as we know them are thus: the three missing persons were last seen at the local doctor’s office, where the Lady Schatteleyn presumably went to be treated for the lingering effects of the brain fever that almost caused her to be buried alive. The trio left there sometime during the night, though why and whether voluntarily or under duress, we cannot say; when the doctor’s housekeeper returned from her day off the following morning, the house was deserted.

Local police officer van Schouten believes they must have left because they had no other choice. “The roads were in a bad state due to the recent storm, and a thick fog had rolled in during the night. We therefore believe that Lord and Lady Schatteleyn’s situation must have been dire. Perhaps there was some sort of medical emergency; that would also explain why they had sought out their doctor rather than summoned him.”

When asked whether the police are considering foul play, Officer van Schouten said the following: “There are things I cannot reveal to the press without hindering an ongoing investigation. Suffice to say we are currently considering multiple options and are doing everything within our power to find Lord and Lady Schatteleyn and her sister.”

He urges the public to come forward if they have any information related to this strange case. They are especially interested in finding Doctor Hoefnagel, who was the last to see the three before they disappeared. Officer Schouten would neither deny or confirm the rumors that the doctor eloped with a poor relation of the Schatteleyns. “But what I do know is this: three people can’t simply vanish into thin air!”

Indeed, they cannot, and there might be a perfectly ordinary, if tragic, explanation for their disappearance. The roads through the bogs can be treacherous at the best of times, but on a dark and foggy night, it is especially easy to take a wrong turn and fall in. With the current temperatures and no one around to hear, drowning is not merely likely but inevitable. Why, it was only a few months ago that the body of an unfortunate claimed by the bog was discovered on the Schatteleyn estate !

If the three are not found soon, yours truly would advise the police to dredge the bogs. There is no saying what horrors might lurk in those black waters.