Page 43 of Mortdale

Though her tone had been compassionate, I could taste the pity on my tongue. But I held my smile steady. “I’ve gotten used to it. They never considered this even the strangest part about me.” My attention dropped to my plate as I moved food around with the tip of my knife. “There was this rumour about me back home that I slept in the mortuary cabinets with the corpses.” I stabbed a bit of meat over and over, huffing a shaky laugh. “You should have seen the looks I started getting then.”

Philip lowered his drink, staring between my husband and I. “Why would they make up such a rumour for a respectable young witch?”

Their sudden solemnity choked me with apprehension. “Oh, it was harmless. When I was thirteen, as a prank, a few of the coven girls buried me with a corpse for three days.” Chewing slowly, I waited for them to laugh—but they didn’t. Swallowing down on the hard bite, I went on, needing to explain the joke. “They stuck a little pipe through the coffin; it was just big enough for me to breathe. Thank Goddess it didn’t rain.” My laughter bounced off the walls, stale. “The entire corpse thing sort of stuck with me since then,” I said, not noticing the noise the knife was making against the porcelain plate from my uncontrollable shaking until Logan’s hand came to cover mine. I smiled widely between all of them. “It was really funny.”

Logan’s eyes had turned a severe shade of gold, a raging cold kind, and I could see the veins sticking out against his temples, the tense muscles on his jaw working as he ground his molars tightly, and the quick breaths he devoured as if there wasn’t enough air for him. Briefly, I realised I’d never seen him truly angry until that very moment.

Something warm slid down my cheek. “It was,” I said, never letting my smile die.

I glanced back at the butler waiting by the door. “Where’s the lavatory?”

The solemn man pointed to the door. “Down the corridor, to your left.”

The chair groaned as I pushed it back and stood, despite Logan calling after me, followed by his grandmother’s soft words, “Let her breathe for a moment.”

The water ran in the sink for long minutes as I stared at myself in the mirror. They’d all laughed back then. They still did. Why wouldn’t he laugh? He should have laughed. I’d laughed with them, too, back then.

The bitter taste of sickness stuck to my tongue no matter how many times I rinsed my mouth. Shame filled every cavity in my teeth. And every time I bit down, I could feel it radiating to the front of my eyes.

I took shelter in the corridors, listening to their quiet chatter and Piper’s loud screeches and giggles while she enthusiastically told them all kinds of silly stories, mostly about Thomas.

Noise from a room far back in the corridor pulled my attention. The deep blue curtains fluttered back and forth from the stormy wind blowing from the open window. It was a child’s bedroom. Simple in its layout. Blue walls, a bed, a dresser, a pianoforte, and many toys lining the length of the walls.

A portrait was mounted above the pianoforte. A well-dressed little boy sat on a toy wooden horse. His hair was a fair blond, eyes a golden colour. He’d not changed all that much, and Piper was an almost identical copy.

I smiled, reaching to drag my fingers down his face.

“I see you have found your husband’s old room,” his grandmother said, her cane hitting the floor sharply as she came to stand by me. “He was such a lovely child. So much quieter than his rowdy brothers. Always in his head, dreaming away.” Her pause was somber. “My daughter was not an easy mother to love, but he loved her so dearly, so easily. Such a tender boy he was.” Her sigh was heavy, weighed down by sorrow. “It’s such a shame.”

“What is?”

“That she never loved him back.” She lifted a hand to his face. “But he never blamed Agatha for it.”

I stared at the young boy, wondering what had been so hard to love about him. Wondering if my own mother had thought the same. If she’d taken a look at me and had found me hard to love, too.

An unknown heaviness weighed my lungs. I didn’t think of her often. But I did think of her. Everyone thought of their mothers. What was this earth if not just mothers and their children? The fact had often brought me comfort—that I’d come from a mother. That I’d always and forever be someone’s child regardless. I wasn’t nothing, I was someone’s daughter. My heart had once beat next to hers, her lungs had once shared a breath with me—I’d been part of someone once. I’d been something. Something unwanted, but something.

Morgana’s diamond-adorned hand brushed against the surface of the small pianoforte, dragging marks through the layer of dust. “He used to stay with us for long periods of time when Agatha kept getting sicker and sicker. Edmund, Logan’s father, would come here without her knowing to see him nearly every week. He’d ride for an entire day back and forth, just to see his boy.”

“Why?”

“My daughter wanted nothing to do with him.” She angled her head in my direction. “You should say it’s cruel and horrible, it’s the right thing to say.”

Was it? Was that the right thing to say? “My own mother didn’t want anything to do with me either. I was left at the steps of an orphanage when I was just a few days old. I don’t like pity. I’m sure he doesn’t either.”

Her attention bore into me. “At least you were free from her resentment.”

A warm tear trickled down my cheek. “I would have loved to be resented by her. I think I understand him, for loving her despite. We’re born with the insatiable need to be loved and we’ll take it anyway we can. Even if it is poison.”

What would someone know about the deeply disgusting desperation to be loved if they’d never gone to sleep on an empty stomach that craved something they were born to need. What would they know about feeling filthy when asking for it? That expecting affection felt like chewing on rocks until all your teeth broke. That it felt like suffocating with my face pressed against the soil, needles digging into my heels with each step, ribs crushing with each breath.

“He doesn’t know, does he?” she asked, and I turned to her then. “That you’re dying. At the dinner table, I was trying to grasp how much of your condition he’s aware of. I didn’t mean to pry so hard, but I am glad I did. Turns out he’s not aware at all, is he?”

My fingers dug hard against my thigh, and I fought to inhale without choking. “I’m not sure what you are talking about.”

“My mother was a witch, you know. I can sense these things.” Her wrinkled old eyes softened around the edges for the first time since she’d set them on me. “You should tell him. He’s a good man, he deserves to know.”

I shook my head, desperate and struggling to find words. “He’ll be free to marry whoever he wants after I die. He’s still very young and your kind lives a long time; I am sure some other woman will provide him with heirs,” I quickly explained. “I won’t be any hindrance, I promise. I will be gone before he even notices. Please don’t tell him.”