The Woman at the Window (Halloween Story)

[Kiva]

Chapter 8

2026

I trade shifts on Monday. It takes three text messages, a call to the nurse manager, and a promise to cover two extra weekends in November. I tell them it's about my back. The twelve-hour floors have been brutal since the renovation started. And the story is plausible enough that nobody questions it. I am home on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

Jaden works here Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I want to be here.

So, the following Monday, I am home when Jaden arrives.

She pulls into the driveway shortly after eight, carrying a canvas tool bag in one hand and a travel mug in the other. I watch her through the kitchen window as she gets out of her truck, checks her phone, and walks toward the house.

She's attractive. I don't particularly want to admit that, even to myself, but denying it would be ridiculous. She's younger than I am, with a confident way of moving that suggests she's comfortable in her own skin. Her dark hair is tied back, and she wears practical work clothes that aren't unflattering.

Daniel meets her at the door. They exchange greetings. He says something I can't hear, and she laughs.

I stand at the kitchen counter, holding my coffee. Nothing about the exchange is unusual. Contractors laugh with subcontractors. People who work together develop an easy familiarity. I know all this.

I also know how an affair begins.

I remember the woman at the Marriott. I remember the hotel room, the bed, Daniel's face when I walked in. I remember how ordinary the room looked, how utterly ordinary the two of them looked together, as if what they were doing were the most natural thing in the world.

I slam my coffee mug down, almost breaking it.

By the time I reach the hallway, Jaden is inside, and Daniel is showing her more electrical work in the master bedroom.

"Morning," Jaden says pleasantly.

"Good morning."

I stand beside Daniel.

She explains that she wants to inspect the wiring before closing the wall. Daniel nods, asks a question, and she answers. They speak in the shorthand of people who know their trades. I understand very little of it.

"So how long is this going to take?" I ask.

Jaden glances at me. "The inspection? Maybe an hour. It depends on what I find."

"And after that?"

"I can give you a better estimate once I've seen everything."

"Of course."

Daniel looks at me.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing."

Jaden turns back to the exposed wiring.

I remain where I am.

I tell myself that a wife has every right to know what's happening in her own home. I tell myself that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be present while work is being done. These are reasonable thoughts. I repeat them until I believe them.

Then Daniel asks Jaden to take a look at the lighting in the adjoining room.

"Sure," she says. "Show me what you've got."

He starts to lead her away. I follow. Daniel stops in the doorway and turns.

"Laura, we're just going to look at the fixture."

"I know."

"You don't need to come with us."

His words are mild. He doesn't raise his voice. He doesn't even sound particularly annoyed.

But I hear something else. I hear a man asking his wife to leave him alone with another woman.

"I live here, Daniel."

"I know you do."

"Then I don't see the problem."

He looks at me for a moment, then turns to Jaden.

"Let's take a look."

They walk into the adjoining room together.

I follow them.

By Wednesday, I think Daniel notices I've rearranged my schedule so I'm home whenever Jaden is expected to work. I say the hospital has offered me some flexibility, which is true. I say I need a break from the usual routine, which is also true. I say I want to be involved in the renovation, which is also true.

I don't say I can't bear the thought of the two of them alone in the house. Or that every time I leave for work, I imagine coming home to find them standing too close together, their voices lowered, their faces turning toward each other with that private, familiar warmth that once belonged to Daniel and me.

I don't say that I have begun to think of Jaden as a woman who has come into my home to take something from me.

On Friday, Jaden arrives carrying a box of switches and fittings. She sets it down in the hallway and wipes her hands on her trousers.

"Daniel," she calls, "I found those dimmers you wanted. The ones with the antique finish."

"Great," he says from the bedroom. "Bring them in when you get a chance."

She picks up the box and walks toward him. I step into her path.

"Leave it here. I'll take it."

She pauses. "It's all right. I can carry it."

"I said I'll take it."

For a second, neither of us moves. Then she hands me the box.

"Thanks," she says.

She doesn't sound angry. If anything, she sounds cautious and confused.

That makes it worse. I want her to show some sign of what I believe is happening. I want a flash of irritation, a defensive remark, something that will reveal the woman I am convinced she must be underneath all that professional courtesy.

Instead, she walks past me and goes to work.

I carry the box into the bedroom. Daniel looks at it, then at me.

"What was that about?"

"She was carrying too much."

"She was carrying a box."

"I was helping."

"No, Laura. You were being rude."

I feel my face flush.

"Why are you so concerned about her feelings?"

"Because she's a person doing a job, and you're treating her like she's done something wrong."

"Maybe she has."

His expression changes.

"What does that mean?"

I look at him. For a moment, I consider telling him exactly what I think. I want to ask why he laughs with her, why he seems so eager to talk to her, why he has started watching me whenever she enters the room, as if I'm the one who might do something inappropriate.

But I know what he'll say. He'll deny everything. He'll tell me I'm imagining things.

He'll make me feel like the woman I was in that hotel room, standing in a doorway and watching my marriage collapse while everyone else acted as though I were the problem.

"Nothing," I say.

Daniel studies me.

"Laura, this has to stop."

"What has to stop?"

"This." He gestures toward the hallway, where Jaden is working. "Whatever you think is going on between us. There is nothing going on. She's engaged, for God's sake."

I stare at him
.
"Engaged?"

"Yes. She mentioned her fiancé the other day. They're getting married next spring. They put a down payment on a house in Somerville"

For one brief, humiliating instant, I feel relief.

Then I remember that being engaged doesn't prevent a woman from wanting another man.

Perhaps she is unhappy with her fiancé. Perhaps Daniel knows more about her personal life than he's letting on. Perhaps the engagement is precisely why she feels safe pursuing someone else's husband.

Part of me finds that absurd. Part of me believes it anyway.

"Good for her," I say.

Daniel shakes his head.

"You're not listening to me."

"No, Daniel. I'm listening very carefully."

He looks at me as though he no longer recognizes the person standing in front of him.

That hurts. I want him to come to me, wrap his arms around me, and tell me I am the woman he wants. I want him to make the uncertainty go away.

Instead, he walks out of the room.

I hear him speaking to Jaden in the hallway. His voice is too quiet for me to make out the words.

I stand perfectly still. I tell myself they are discussing the work. There is nothing to worry about. I repeat these things until I can no longer hear my own thoughts.

Last night, I had a strange dream of the window.

I'm standing in the master bedroom, though it looks different from the room I know. The walls are bare, the floorboards dark, and the furniture is old-fashioned and unfamiliar. Moonlight falls across the bed.

A woman stands beside the window.

I cannot see her face clearly. Her hair is pinned up, and she wears a long, pale gown. She has one hand resting on the wooden frame.

I know she is looking at me. I try to speak, but my mouth is dry.

The woman turns her head. A voice, low and furious, comes from somewhere behind me.

"He's mine."

I wake with a gasp.

The bedroom is dark. Daniel lies beside me, breathing evenly. For several seconds, I cannot remember where I am.

Then I smell lavender.

It's faint, almost sweet enough to mistake for the scent of clean linen. I sit up and look toward the window. The curtains are still.

I get out of bed and cross the room. The latch is fastened. I test it with my hand, then test it again.

Secure.

I stand there for a long time, listening.

Nothing.

When I return to bed, Daniel stirs.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"You were talking."

"I had a dream."

He reaches toward me, but I lie down facing away from him.

I don't want to tell him what I heard. I don't want him to look at me with that expression he has worn so often lately, the one that suggests he is trying to decide whether I am telling him the truth or whether I have begun to lose my grip on it.

I close my eyes.

The voice comes back to me.

He's mine.

I think of Jaden's easy laugh, her confident movements, the way Daniel looks up when she speaks.

I tell myself the voice belongs to the woman in the dream. But another thought has already taken root.

Perhaps the woman was not warning me.

Perhaps she was telling me what I must do.

________________________________________

On Saturday morning, Jaden arrives to finish the work in the master bedroom. I am waiting in the kitchen when she comes through the door.

"Good morning," she says.

I don't answer immediately.

She sets her tool bag down and looks at me.

"Is Daniel around?"

"Why?"

She blinks.

"Because I need to go over the window wiring with him before I start."

"Can't you do that yourself?"

Her expression changes subtly.

"Of course. I just wanted to make sure we're doing it the way he wants."

"Daniel has a great many things he wants."

The words come out sharper than I meant them to.

Jaden looks at me for a moment.

"I'm sorry if I've done something to upset you, Laura. That's not my intention."

There it is again: the calm voice, the reasonable words, the appearance of innocence. She is making me look unreasonable without ever saying that I am.

"Then perhaps you should concentrate on your work."

She nods once.

"That's what I'm here to do."

She picks up her bag and walks toward the bedroom.

I follow her.

For the next hour, I remain nearby while she works. I watch her inspect the wiring, remove a switch plate, and explain to Daniel why one connection needs to change. She knows what she's doing. I can see that much, even if I don't understand the details.

Daniel listens to her. He asks questions. He smiles once when she makes a dry remark about the previous owner's approach to electrical safety.

I feel something tighten inside my chest.

When Jaden bends to retrieve a tool, I move closer to Daniel and rest my hand on his arm.

He glances at me.

I smile. He doesn't smile back.

Jaden continues working, apparently oblivious.

I begin to hate her for that, too.
________________________________________

The next afternoon, I am in the master bedroom while Daniel examines the damaged plaster around the chimney breast. The original masonry is exposed in places, and the lath behind the wall has begun to crumble where the old chimney meets the window recess.

Jaden pulls the last of the old circuit out and finds that the wall above it needs to come down -- the lath has blackened and the plaster is only holding because it has been holding this long. Daniel is pleased. He says it explains the cold, finally, with the flat certainty of a man who has been waiting for a factual explanation. There is a gap in the sheathing. There is old brick. There is air coming in from someplace it should not be coming in from.

I want to believe him.

"You were right," he says to me. "Something's been open back there the whole time."

We take down the plaster in a sheet, and the cavity behind it opens up like a mouth.

Jaden reaches in with the inspection light.

The second is smaller than the first. A twist of dark cloth, stabbed through with pins -- I count them, and there are nine again. It was a stub of something pale, knotted into the bundle, wax or bone. It was wedged in the gap between the chimney breast and the lath, tight against the window frame, so close to the glass that I wonder how anyone got a hand in there to place it.

Something about the little bundles makes my stomach turn. I cannot explain it. It isn't merely old or strange. It feels private, as if we have opened a letter that was never intended for us.

"Don't touch it," I say.

Daniel looks at me.

"I've already got it."

"I mean, don't pull it apart."

He pauses.

"Why not?"

I have no answer.

Jaden shines the flashlight on the bundle. Like the first one, a few strands of hair have caught in the decaying cloth. There is a length of thread, dark and delicate, wound around it.

I look at the window.

For an instant, I think I see a woman's face reflected in the glass.

I turn sharply.

There is nothing there.

"Laura?" Daniel says.

I look back at him. He is still holding the bundle.

"Put it down," I say.

He does, carefully, on a piece of clean cloth.

The three of us stand around it.

Outside, a gust of wind rattles the bare branches against the house. Somewhere in the wall, a faint sound begins--so quiet I cannot tell whether it is the settling of old timber or something moving behind the plaster.

I hold my breath.

The sound stops.

I look at the bundle again
.
I don't know who put it there. I don't know why. I don't know what the pins or the hair or the cloth are meant to do.

But I know, with a certainty that makes me cold, that it has something to do with the woman at the window.

And I know that whatever happened in this house has not finished happening.



1795


The voice spoke my name. I know what I heard.

I had heard it plainly, from within the wall where I had hidden the charm. I had been so certain that it was Mr. Forbes' voice that I had scarcely questioned it. I had gone to bed with tears upon my cheeks and a joy I had not known in many weeks.

He remembered me. Thank heaven, he remembered me.

The thought sustained me through the following morning. I performed my duties with renewed care, and when I passed Mrs. Forbes in the passage, I lowered my eyes as I had been taught. I was determined that no one should see the happiness I carried within me.

I would not make the mistake of speaking too soon. I would wait for a proper opportunity, when Mr. Forbes and I might be alone for a few moments.

It came that afternoon.

I was carrying a folded linen cloth toward the upper chambers when I saw him standing near the door of his study. He had a letter in his hand and seemed displeased by something he had read.

My heart began to beat faster.

"Sir," I said.

He looked up.

"What is it?"

I approached a little, keeping my voice low.

"I wished only to tell you that I have never doubted your affection for me."

For a moment, he stared at me as though I had spoken in a foreign tongue.

Then his face hardened.

"Sir. I have thought of nothing but you."

He stopped. He looked at me the way a man looks at a bill he cannot remember incurring.

"Have you lost your senses?"

"You told me you would not forget." My voice was shaking and I did not care. "You told me -- in the study, when the household was abroad. You said you would not forget me, and I know you have not. I know what is required of you. I know your position. But I have never doubted you, Edmund. Not once. Not even when you could not speak to me. I know why you cannot speak to me."

"What foolishness is this?"

I felt the blood fill my cheeks.

"Sir, I know that you cannot speak freely before Mrs. Forbes. I understand that. But I have never doubted what passed between us."

He folded the letter in his hand.

"You presume greatly, young lady."

I could scarcely breathe.

"I meant no offense."

"Then you should have kept silent."

"Edmund -"

"Do not use my name."

He stepped toward me, and I retreated until my back touched the wall.

"Whatever notions you have formed in that foolish head of yours, you will put them aside. I have shown you kindness, and you have mistaken it for something it was not."

I stared at him.

Kindness.

The word seemed to hollow the air between us.

"But, sir--"

"Enough."

His voice struck me with such force that I fell silent.

"You are a servant in this house. You will remember your place, and you will not speak to me again in this manner. Do you understand?"

I nodded, though I could not feel my own neck move.

He looked at me with disgust.

"Go about your duties."

I went.

I do not remember walking down the passage. I remember only the sound of his study door closing and the linen cloth crushed in my hands.

He had spoken my name from within the wall.

I knew he had.

And yet he had looked upon me as though I were some troublesome creature he had found in his way.

I tried to make the two things agree. Perhaps he had been frightened that someone would discover us. Perhaps he was angry because I had approached him at an improper time. Perhaps Mrs. Forbes had threatened him, as I had feared she might.

I found a reason for every cruelty, and each reason required another. By the time I reached the kitchen, I had convinced myself that he still loved me. I had only to be patient.

________________________________________

Mrs. Forbes sent for me before supper.

I found her in the small withdrawing room, seated beside the window. The fire had burned low, and the room smelled of beeswax and woodsmoke. She did not look up when I entered.

"Shut the door, Natalie."

I obeyed.

"Mr. Forbes has told me of your behavior."

My body went cold.

I had not expected him to speak of it to her. I had imagined he would keep our private affairs to himself, if only to protect his own reputation.

"What behavior, ma'am?"

She raised her eyes.

"Do not insult me with a falsehood."

I lowered my head.

"I beg your pardon."

"You have presumed to address my husband in a manner most improper. You have spoken to him of affection, and you have suggested that there is some understanding between you."

I could not answer.

"Look at me."

I raised my eyes.

Her face was pale, but her expression was composed. I could see anger in the tightness around her mouth, though she made no effort to display it openly.

"Do you imagine that your position in this house permits such conduct?"

"No, ma'am."

"Do you imagine that a gentleman's passing kindness gives you leave to make a fool of yourself?"

"No, ma'am."

"Then perhaps you will explain why you have done so."

I could not tell her the truth. I could not speak of the kisses, the whispered words, the lavender oil hidden in my chamber. I could not tell her that Mr. Forbes had come to me willingly, that he had held me in his arms, that he had spoken my name as though it were precious to him.

If I spoke, I would be ruined.

If I remained silent, I would be condemned for a thing she believed I had imagined.

"I have offended you," I whispered.

"Indeed you have."

She rose.

"Let me make myself plain. You will not seek out Mr. Forbes. You will not speak to him unless your duties require it, and then only as you would speak to any gentleman of the household. From this day forward, you will answer to me directly."

"Yes, ma'am."

"If you repeat this disgraceful behavior, I shall dismiss you. I will not have a servant in my house who forgets her station or brings shame upon my family."

I felt the room spin.

My place in the household was all I possessed. My father had warned me that a young woman had little in this world but her good name. If I lost my place, if word of my conduct reached the village, I did not know where I might go or who would take me in.

Mrs. Forbes watched me closely.

"You understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

She moved toward the door, then paused beside me.

"Mr. Forbes is my husband, Natalie."

Her voice was quiet, almost conversational.

"He's mine."

She opened the door.

"You may go."

I left the room with my head bowed and my hands clasped before me, as a servant ought. I did not run. I did not weep. I went to the kitchen and began preparing the evening meal.

But something inside me had changed.

Until that moment, I had thought of Mrs. Forbes as a woman whose good opinion I must preserve, whose household I must serve faithfully, whose displeasure I must avoid.

Now I saw her as the keeper of a door that had been shut against me.

She had taken my place. She had the name, the house, the bed, the right to stand beside Mr. Forbes in church while he spoke of virtue and the sanctity of marriage.

And she had the power to cast me out.

I began to hate her.

________________________________________

The days that followed were the hardest I had known since coming to the house.

Mrs. Forbes found work for me from the first light of morning until the household retired. She sent me to scrub the cellar steps, to carry water from the well, to scour pots blackened by the fire, and to sort linens in the cold garret. When I had finished one task, another awaited me.

If I moved too slowly, she rebuked me. If I answered too quickly, she accused me of impertinence. If I lowered my eyes, she said I was sulking; if I looked at her, she said I was insolent.

I tried to tell myself that I had brought this upon myself. I had been foolish to approach Mr. Forbes. I had exposed myself to suspicion. I had forgotten the difference between a gentleman and a servant, and now I must endure the consequences.

But each night, when I returned to my chamber, I remembered the voice in the wall.

Natalie.

I had heard it.

I could not surrender that certainty. If the voice had been his, then he had not forgotten me. If he had not forgotten me, then his cruelty must have some cause beyond what he had told me.

I began to imagine that Mrs. Forbes had threatened him, that she watched him at every hour, that he dared not show me the least kindness lest she discover it.

These thoughts brought me comfort, though they made me more miserable. I could not bear to consider that he had simply ceased to care.

Mrs. Forbes continued to work me without mercy. Scouring that no one had asked for. The garret, twice, in the cold. Silver enough to rub the skin off my knuckles. Flour to be sifted that had already been sifted. She watched me do it, or she had Mary the kitchen girl watch me and report. I slept badly and I ate less, and every morning she found a fresh fault, and every fault she found she named aloud in front of the others, in her even, instructing voice.

I bore it. I bore it because I had decided what it meant.

Because a woman does not go to such trouble over nothing. Elizabeth Forbes did not work a serving girl to the bone out of a sense of duty. She did it because she had seen, in her husband's face, a thing she could not afford to have looked at. She had seen him silenced. She had seen him made to lie in his own parlour, in his own pew, with his hand on her gloved fingers.

She was afraid of me. That was it. She was afraid of me as a wife is afraid, and I was afraid of nothing, because I had his voice in the wall to answer mine.

I looked at her across the supper table and I thought: you are the only thing standing between.

Not the distance. Not his position. Not God, nor my father, nor the law, nor the meetinghouse. Just a woman at a window, in a dark gown and a white apron, doing arithmetic on how long I could stand.

Then I thought of Mr. Forbes, standing in the passage and telling me that I had imagined his affection.

I could not make myself hate him. That was the worst of it. I could hate his words, his coldness, his cowardice. I could hate the ease with which he had returned to his life while I struggled to hold mine together. Yet when I pictured him, I still remembered the man who had given me the lavender oil, who had touched my cheek and spoken softly in the dark.

Still, I could not turn my anger upon him.

So I turned it upon his wife.

I knew where to go.

I lit a candle in my chamber and took the book from beneath the boards by the chimney, where I had hidden it, and I opened it where Nan had marked the first working with a fold at the corner. That fold had served me once. I had thought, on the tenth night, that it had served me well.

There were other folds.

I read them slowly, by candlelight, with the wind against the sash, and I made myself understand every word, because I did not intend to be careless twice.

This one was not for love. It was for the other thing. The pages were brief, and they did not promise much, and what they promised was not gentle: not his death, not her death, nothing done with iron or with fire. Only this -- that the affliction she had made for me should return upon her, that her strength should turn to water, that every day she rose would be harder than the day before, that the thing she prized most would be taken from her hand while she watched it go and could not say why.

I would not have to touch her. I would not have to say a word to her ever again.

And there was no nine nights in it. There was no warning at all, no "let it rest," no counsel from a woman beyond a gristmill. Only nine pins, and a scrap of cloth, and a name to be spoken, and after that a silence I would have to keep.

I sat with the candle until it guttered, and then I thought of her saying it, in her even voice, in the room where the light was going.

He is mine.

And I began to work.

I took a scrap of linen and laid it upon the table. From the little box where I kept my few possessions, I fetched a length of dark thread. I had seen Mrs. Forbes' comb upon her dressing table and knew that a few strands of her hair might be taken without notice. I had also learned which of her gowns she wore most often, and where a loose thread might be drawn from the hem.

My hands were steady now.

I did not pray before beginning. I did not ask forgiveness. I told myself that I sought only to make her feel a portion of the misery she had brought upon me.

I bound the thread and hair within the linen, then pierced the little bundle with the iron pins.

When I had finished, I held it in my palm.

It seemed a poor thing to carry so much hatred.

I touched the bottle of lavender oil, but did not lift it. That gift belonged to another hope, and I could not bear to bring it into this work. Instead, I folded the linen tightly around the bundle and tied it with thread.

I would not ask for love this time.

I would ask that Mrs. Forbes should know unease. That she should lose her rest, that she should feel the helplessness she had made me feel. I would ask that the house which gave her power should no longer be a place of peace.

I knew these were wicked thoughts. I knew it even as I formed them.

Yet I had come to believe that no one would answer my suffering unless I made someone else suffer in turn.

I took the charm and went quietly through the passage to the master bedroom. The house was still. From beyond the closed door of Mrs. Forbes chamber came no sound.

The window stood dark against the night. I knelt beside the chimney breast, where the lath had not yet been covered, and found the narrow space behind the wooden frame.

I pressed the bundle deep into the gap.

For a moment, I rested my fingers against the wall.

Then I whispered her name.

"Elizabeth."

Once.

Again.

And a third time.

I withdrew my hand and listened.

The house made no sound. The candle burned steadily in the passage, and the air smelled only of cold ash and old wood.

I told myself I had done what I must.

I told myself that I had asked for no more than justice.

Then I returned to my chamber, leaving the charm hidden beside the window, where no one would think to look.

[Tiberius J.C.]

This is fantastic!

[Kiva]

Chapter 9

2026

Jaden calls Daniel shortly after seven on Tuesday morning.

I am standing at the kitchen counter when his phone rings. He glances at the screen, carries it into the dining room, and answers. He does not close the door, but he lowers his voice.

I stop cutting an apple and listen. At first, I can hear only fragments.

"Jesus. Is he all right?"

A pause.

"No, don't worry about us."

Another pause, longer this time.

"Take whatever time you need."


He returns to the kitchen, phone still in hand. His face is serious.

"That was Jaden."

I set down the knife. "I gathered."

"Her father had a heart attack last night."

The words strike something in me, almost compassion. Almost. The nurse in me immediately imagines the progression: chest pain, an ambulance, monitors, blood tests, a cardiologist speaking in careful language under fluorescent lights, a cardiac catheterization lab.

"Is he alive?"

"Yes. They put in a stent. He's stable, but she's driving to Vermont to be with him."

"When will she be back?"

Daniel looks at me.

I realize how quickly I asked.

"I don't know. She said she'd call when she knows more."

"Of course."

I pick up the apple and keep cutting. The pieces come out uneven. One is nearly twice as big as the others.

"That's terrible," I say.

"Yeah."
"She should be with her family."

"That's what I told her."

"Family comes first."

I carry the apple to the table and sit down. Daniel remains by the counter, watching me.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You keep saying that."

"Saying what?"

"Nothing."

He rubs his face. "I have to figure out what we're doing about the wiring."

"You can handle it."

"Some of it. Not all of it."

"We can wait."

He looks surprised.

"We've waited this long," I say. "A few more days won't matter."

He nods, but he keeps watching me. I lower my eyes to the apple and eat a piece. It tastes sweeter than it should.

He studies me for another moment, then shrugs and goes to make coffee.

That evening, we eat dinner together at the kitchen table. He has washed the plaster dust from his hair and changed into the blue shirt I bought him last Christmas. I make roast chicken and potatoes, and I open a bottle of wine.

Daniel tells me about a problem with the electrical work and a delayed delivery. I listen, ask a few questions, and follow the conversation without wondering whether he's thinking about Jaden.

For the first time in weeks, I don't imagine the two of them exchanging private smiles or sharing some understanding from which I'm excluded.

When Daniel reaches across the table and takes my hand, I hold on.

"I love you," I say.

He looks surprised. Not because I've never said it before, but because of the way I say it. There's an urgency in my voice that I don't intend.

"I love you, too."

"I know things have been difficult. I know I haven't made this easy."

He squeezes my hand.

"We've both had a hard time."

I want to tell him that the affair has changed something in me that I can't simply change back. That I can remember the woman I was before the Marriott, but I can't quite find my way back to her. I want him to understand that sometimes I watch him across a room and see the man I love, and sometimes I see a stranger whose promises I once believed.

Instead, I say, "I want us to be happy again."

"So do I."

"Really happy. The way we were before."

Daniel looks down at our joined hands.

"I want that, too, Laura."

I feel a brief, sharp disappointment. I want him to say that everything can be as it was, that we can repair the house and our marriage until no trace of the damage remains.

But perhaps he's right. We can't go back. We can only go forward.

I lean across the table and kiss him.

After dinner, we carry our glasses into the parlor. Daniel lights the fireplace, and I curl beside him on the sofa. The house is warmer than it has been in days.

That night, the window stays closed.

I notice this when I wake shortly after three. The curtains hang perfectly still. No cold air moves across the floorboards, no faint scratching inside the wall, no scent of lavender. The old house is silent except for the heating pipes and Daniel's breathing beside me.

I get out of bed and cross the room. The latch is secure. For the first time in weeks, the glass shows only my reflection.

I sleep until morning.

The quiet continues the following day. No whispers disturb me. Nothing shifts behind the plaster. The two charms remain on the dresser where Daniel placed them beneath an overturned glass bowl. He thinks we should call the historical society. It blows his mind to think they've been inside the wall for two hundred years.

For the next several days, life takes on a shape I've almost forgotten. Daniel and I have breakfast together. We work on the house, plan the rooms we still need to finish, and talk about things other than the renovation. In the evenings, we sit together, sometimes reading, sometimes watching television, and sometimes doing nothing at all.

I begin to look forward to coming home.

Over the next four days, the house settles into peace.

One morning, Daniel works downstairs, removing the damaged parlor trim. I help him measure replacement boards, and we discuss paint colors. Once, standing together beneath the chandelier, we laugh at an uneven patch in the ceiling that resembles the state of Maine.

Our laughter surprises us both.

For a moment, we are happy.

That night, I lie beside him and imagine the house finished. Clean walls. Polished floors. Curtains at every window. No strangers walking through the rooms. No women arriving with tool bags and easy smiles.

Only Daniel and me.

I begin to think Jaden will not return.

Her father may need weeks to recover. She may decide the drive is too much. She may give the work to someone else. Perhaps she and Stephen will move up their wedding. Perhaps they will stay in Vermont.

Each possibility brings me such profound relief that I cannot understand how I ever endured her presence before.

On Monday morning, Daniel makes coffee while I stand at the stove scrambling eggs.

"You're humming," he says.

"Am I?"

"You haven't done that in a while."

I smile. "Maybe I'm happy."

He leans against the counter. Caution still lingers in his expression, but less than before.

"I'm glad."

"So am I."

A truck door closes outside.

I stop stirring. Daniel turns toward the front of the house. Footsteps cross the porch.

Three knocks sound from the front door. Daniel looks through the hall window.

"It's Jaden."

The eggs begin to burn. I smell them scorching in the pan, but I don't move.

Daniel opens the door.

Jaden stands on the porch with her canvas tool bag hanging from one shoulder. She looks tired. Shadows lie beneath her eyes, and her hair is pulled back carelessly.

"Sorry I didn't call last night," she says. "I got in late."

"How's your dad?" Daniel asks.

"Better. They discharged him on Saturday. He's in cardiac rehab now. My mother's with him, and my brother's coming up next week."

"That's good."

"Yeah." She gives a tired smile. "Scared the hell out of us, but he's going to be okay."

"I'm glad."

"So am I." She glances past him and sees me in the kitchen. "Morning, Laura."

I turn off the stove.

"Good morning."

"I hope it's okay that I came. I thought I could finish the bedroom today and get out of your way."

Get out of my way. The phrase hits me differently than she intended.

Daniel takes her coat. His hand brushes her shoulder. It means nothing. I know it means nothing.

Behind me, the master-bedroom window slams open. The sound carries down the stairs: the sash cracking against the frame, followed by a sudden rush of cold air through the upper hall.

All three of us look toward the ceiling.

"What was that?" Jaden asks.

"The window," I say.

Daniel frowns. "I latched it."

He starts upstairs. Jaden picks up her tool bag and follows him.

I remain in the kitchen.

The smell of burned eggs fills the room. Beneath it comes another scent, faint but unmistakable.

Lavender.

The house had been quiet while she was gone.

Now she has returned, and it is awake again.

For weeks, I have waited for Daniel to understand. I have waited for Jaden to keep her distance. I have waited for the house to tell me what it wants.

Waiting has accomplished nothing. If I want my marriage back, I must act.

I will have to do it with my own hands.


1795

The first misfortune befell Mrs. Forbes three days after I concealed the second charm.

She was taking tea in the parlor when the handle of her cup broke in her hand. The cup fell upon the hearthstone and shattered, spilling tea across the floor. Mrs. Forbes cried out in vexation and ordered me to clear the pieces before anyone should tread upon them.

I obeyed, keeping my eyes upon the floor.

The cup had been a gift from her sister, and she spoke of it for the remainder of the morning. I said nothing, but as I carried the broken pieces away, I thought of the little bundle hidden in the wall beside her chamber window.

I had asked that she suffer. Had the working begun?

I scarcely dared to entertain the thought, yet I found myself returning to it throughout the day.

Two mornings later, Mrs. Forbes slipped upon the stairs. She caught the banister before she fell, but struck her hip against the rail and limped for the remainder of the day. She was cross with everyone, and when I brought her a fresh linen cloth, she accused me of being slow and careless.

I lowered my eyes and bore her reproaches.

I ought to have pitied her. Instead, I felt a wicked satisfaction that I could not entirely suppress.

For many weeks I had been made to suffer her displeasure, though I had done no wrong save to love a man who had first encouraged my affection and afterward cast it aside. I had been sent to the cellar in damp weather and made to climb into the cold garret when other servants might have performed the task. I had endured her sharp words without complaint because I possessed neither the means nor the station to answer them.

Now, it seemed, she had begun to suffer in her turn.

I did not ask whether the working was just. I asked only whether it was succeeding.

The third misfortune came upon the following Sunday.

Mrs. Forbes was dressing for meeting when the sleeve of her gown brushed against a candle. The flame caught the edge of the fabric before she perceived it. She cried out, and I, who stood near the door, ran forward and smothered it with a cloth.

No harm came to her, though a dark scorch marked the silk.

For a moment, she stood trembling before the mirror, staring at the ruined sleeve. Then she turned upon me and demanded to know why I had not been more attentive.

I had been attentive. I had seen the flame before she did, and had put it out before it could spread. But I dared not say so.

I bowed my head while she spoke.

All the while, I thought of the charm.

That evening, as I lay upon my narrow bed, I remembered Nan Marsh's warning that a working might bring forth what its maker did not understand. I had dismissed the warning when I made the second charm. I had thought only of Mrs. Forbes' face when she rebuked me, and of the satisfaction I imagined I should feel when she was made to suffer.

Now I wondered whether the charm had indeed taken hold.

The thought frightened me, but not enough to make me repent.

Not then.

It was only when Mrs. Forbes fell ill that I began to understand what I had done.

She complained first of a headache. Then came a weariness that kept her from her usual duties, and a loss of appetite that Mrs. Whitcomb, the cook, remarked upon with concern. Within a few days, Mrs. Forbes had taken to her bed. Her face was pale, and she seemed unable to rise without assistance.

Mr. Forbes sent for the physician.

The doctor arrived in the afternoon, carrying his leather case. He remained with Mrs. Forbes for some time, asking questions and examining her. When he came downstairs, he spoke quietly with Mr. Forbes in the parlor. I could not hear all that passed between them, but I heard the doctor say that he could not yet determine the cause of her illness.

He prescribed a draught and ordered that she be kept warm and allowed to rest. He would return if her condition worsened.

I stood in the passage as he departed, my hands clasped so tightly that my fingers hurt.

Until then, I had allowed myself to think that the charm might bring small misfortunes upon Mrs. Forbes, that she might know a little of the discomfort she had caused me. I had not truly considered what it would mean if she suffered greatly.

Now I imagined her lying in her bed, growing weaker while the doctor stood helpless beside her.

I thought of her husband. I thought of the household. I thought of what might happen if she died.

And then I thought of Edmund.

Would he grieve for her? Would he sit beside her bed and hold her hand? Would he mourn the wife he had chosen, while I remained the servant he had once taken into his arms and afterward denied?

A shameful thought came to me: that if Mrs. Forbes were no longer living, Edmund would be free.

But the thought had scarcely formed before I knew its folly.

Edmund had not promised to marry me. He had not promised to leave his wife. He had given me his attention, his kisses, and the little bottle of lavender oil, and I had mistaken these things for a future. When I had gone to him, believing he would acknowledge what had passed between us, he had looked upon me as though I were a foolish child.

Even if Mrs. Forbes were gone, he would not love me.

I had known this in some part of myself since the day he rebuked me. I had refused to believe it because the truth was harder to bear than any lie.

Now, as I thought of Mrs. Forbes lying ill, I could no longer hide from it.

I did not want her dead.

I did not want her to suffer.

I wanted only to be free of the shame and longing that had taken possession of me. I wanted to return to the day before Edmund first spoke tenderly to me, when I had known my place in the world and had not yet learned how easily a heart might be deceived.

I had believed Elizabeth stood between us. I had believed that without her watchfulness, her commands, and her marriage vows, Edmund would return to me.

Now I understood.

There had never been an us for her to stand between.

He had wanted me because I was near, because I was young, because I could be made to believe that desire was devotion. He had spoken tenderly because tenderness cost him nothing. When it threatened to cost him his household, his name, or his wife's regard, he had cast me aside.

And I had punished her for it.

I went to the place where I had hidden the second charm.

The wall beside the master-bedroom window had been repaired. The mason had returned while I was occupied with the household's duties, and the narrow opening between the chimney breast and the lath had been closed. The plaster was smooth, with no seam by which I might discover the place where I had put the bundle.

I pressed my fingers against the wall.

The charm was within it. I knew the place. I had chosen it myself.

I scratched at the plaster with my fingernail, then stopped, listening for footsteps. If anyone saw me clawing at the wall, I could give no sensible account of myself.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch

I had thought that the working was a thing I could begin and end at my will. Now I could not even reach the object by which I had called it forth.

I whispered that I wished it ended.

I said that I had repented. I promised that I would never make another working, nor trouble Nan Marsh again, nor seek to meddle in matters beyond my understanding.

But the wall gave no answer.

I returned to my chamber in a state of such agitation that I could scarcely breathe. There was one hope left to me. Nan's book might contain a means of reversing the working, some instruction I had overlooked when my heart was filled with anger.

I searched the small chest beneath my bed. I pulled aside my folded garments and felt beneath the straw mattress. I examined the few belongings I kept in a wooden box, though I knew I had not placed the book there.

It was gone.

I searched again, more wildly this time. I turned out my chest and shook the blanket. I knelt upon the floor and looked beneath the bed, as though the book might have slipped into some narrow space beyond my reach.

It was nowhere.

I sat back upon my heels, my breath coming in short, painful gasps.

Someone had found it.

The thought was more terrible than the discovery of the sealed wall. The book was proof of what I had done. It contained the workings I had read and the words I had copied. If it had fallen into the wrong hands, I could not explain its presence without confessing my guilt.

A sound came from the passage.

I rose and turned toward the door.

It opened before I could speak.

Mr. Forbes stood upon the threshold. Beside him was Mrs. Forbes, no longer pale and drawn from her illness, leaning upon his arm. Behind them stood Reverend Daggart, holding a small book in both hands.

Nan's book.

For an instant, I could not move. I looked from the Reverend to Mrs. Forbes, then to Edmund. He did not look at me as he had in the passage, nor as he had when he gave me the lavender oil. He looked at me as though he had never known me.

Mrs. Forbes' eyes were fixed upon my face.

The Reverend lifted the book slightly.

"Can you tell me, child," he asked, "what manner of book this is?"

I tried to answer, but my mouth had gone dry.

I thought of the charm sealed within the wall. I thought of Mrs. Forbes illness and the physician who could not name its cause. I thought of the words Nan had spoken when she placed the book in my hands.

Do not mistake longing for love, child. And do not mistake a man's desire for a promise.

I had mistaken both.

Now I stood before those who could take away my place, my name, and what little remained of my life, and I knew that I had waited too long to undo what I had done.

I lowered my eyes.

"I cannot tell you, sir," I whispered.

"Come with us," Edmund said.

"Sir--"

"Now."

[CuriousCombat]

Such a tantalizing chapter. I loved it!

[Kiva]

One of the challenges of writing is to decide how much detail to provide of physical characteristics to the characters. We discussed this previously in my writing series. It is well known in psychology that readers subconsciously construct in their minds what a character looks like, although the author said very little. However, sometimes physical attributes are very important as they can reveal a lot about a character. This is why I put a lot of data on Nan Marsh's look, but not others. I fed my story to Chat GPT and asked it to generate images of the characters based only on the text. Here are some of them. From top:

Natalie
Laura and Daniel
Jaden the electrician (love the toolbelt)
The house (I guess it counts as a character)

The story will finish this week in time for Halloween. Thank you all for reading!

[Tiberius J.C.]

Well if that's what Jaden looks like (and the way she dresses), I can well understand why another woman might be a little afraid to leave her alone with her husband - unless she looked like Laura, of course, in which case perhaps not. Natalie's cute too. However come AI's so much better than Mother Nature at this game? I look around the world and, sure, there are one or two good-looking people but a lot more potato heads. (Which is not to say they might not be excellent company.)

[Kiva]

Chapter 10

2026

I tell myself I am being ridiculous.

Jaden has a fiancé named Stephen. She's mentioned him more than once, including the wedding they plan for next spring. She wears a ring when she's not working and talks about him with the same earnestness others use for someone they love.

What more could I possibly want? A photograph, perhaps? A signed affidavit? A sworn statement that she has never looked at my husband and imagined him naked?

The thought is so absurd that I almost laugh...Almost.

I have been a nurse for nearly fifteen years. I've watched patients lie to their doctors, spouses lie to each other, and families construct elaborate fictions around things they cannot bear to acknowledge. I know people rarely tell the whole truth, even when they believe they are.

And I know what I saw at the Marriott.

I remember the hotel room with a clarity time that has done nothing to diminish. Daniel's clothes scattered across the floor. The woman in the bed. His face when he saw me standing in the doorway--not the face of a man caught in some terrible misunderstanding, but the face of a man who had been enjoying himself until someone interrupted.

He told me he was sorry. He said it meant nothing. He told me he loved me. I wanted to believe him. I still want to believe him. But wanting something to be true doesn't make it true.

Jaden is good at her job. Daniel says so repeatedly, as though her competence is something I should find reassuring. She knows this old house's electrical systems better than anyone. She is quick, confident, and can solve problems that leave other contractors scratching their heads.

She is also attractive.

I don't like admitting that, even to myself. It seems petty, a concession to vanity. But there it is. She moves through a room as if she belongs wherever she happens to be. She doesn't seem to wonder whether people like her. She assumes they do.

Daniel likes competent women. He always has.

I know that isn't a crime. I'm a competent woman myself. I have spent my career making decisions under pressure, taking responsibility when others hesitate, and doing things that frighten me because someone has to do them.

Yet lately I find myself wondering whether Daniel has grown tired of my competence. Perhaps he prefers someone who hasn't spent years learning how to recognize the worst thing that can happen in a room. Someone who doesn't look at him and remember what he did.

Someone like Jaden.

I stop myself.

This is how it begins, I think. One thought, then another, each one finding a place to settle. Pretty soon your head is crowded with them.

I tell myself I won't do this anymore.

Then I hear Daniel's voice from the other room, and I find myself listening.

He's on the phone with Jaden. They're discussing the work at the bedroom window. I can't make out every word, but I hear him laugh. It's an ordinary laugh. A brief, unremarkable sound.

I know that laugh. I also know the way he used to laugh with me.

I stand in the hallway until their conversation ends. When Daniel comes into the kitchen, I ask him what was so funny.

He looks at me. "What?"

"On the phone. You were laughing."

"Jaden was telling me about a problem she had with a supplier. It was nothing."

"What kind of problem?"

He gives me a puzzled look. "Laura, I don't remember. Why?"

"No reason."

He watches me for a moment, then turns back to the counter. I can feel his attention lingering on me even after he looks away.

I hate that look. It is the look of someone trying to decide whether I am reasonable.

I have always been reasonable.

________________________________________

The voice comes from the bedroom.

At first, I think it is Jaden speaking, although I know she is downstairs in the workroom. The sound is muffled, as if someone is talking through a wall, but it has a sharpness that makes me stop in the hallway.

"You shameless creature."

I stand perfectly still.

The words have the peculiar clarity of something heard in a dream. I can almost make out the speaker's breathing between them.

"You would steal another woman's husband and call it love?"

Where is this coming from?

I take a step toward the bedroom.

The voice is a woman's, low and furious. There is something old-fashioned in its cadence, something I cannot quite identify. It sounds less like a voice from the other side of a wall than one from the other side of time.

"You have brought this upon yourself," it says. "You will answer for it before God."

Then silence.

I wait for another word. Another sound. A footstep, perhaps, or the scrape of furniture.

Nothing.

The bedroom is empty when I enter. The curtains hang motionless. The window is closed, its latch still stubbornly imperfect. I stand beside the wall where the voice seemed to come from and press my palm against the plaster

The surface is cool. I pull my hand away.

I should be frightened. I know that. A woman spoke from an empty room, and her words have no obvious connection to anything happening here.

But the fear I expect does not come.

Instead, I feel something else. A strange, almost shameful relief.

You would steal another woman's husband.

The voice has said it. Someone, somewhere, has said the thing I have been afraid to say aloud. It has named the offense, passed judgment, and left no room for argument.

I close my eyes.

For a moment, I am back at the Marriott. I can see the hotel-room door, the bed, Daniel's face. I can feel the peculiar numbness that came over me when I understood what I was looking at. I remember thinking that if I could only make the scene disappear, I could return to the life I had known an hour earlier.

I open my eyes.

The bedroom is still empty.

Perhaps the voice is mine. It's from my own head. The brain does funny things when it's stressed and fatigued. Perhaps I heard a recording. Perhaps someone outside was talking. Perhaps the old house carries sounds in unexpected ways. There are explanations for these things, and I am capable of finding them.

But I don't look for one.

Instead, I think of Jaden.

I think of the way she smiles at Daniel. The way she stands beside him while they discuss the work. The ease with which she occupies a place in our lives that I have spent months trying to make whole again.

I think of the voice's accusation.

Then a thought arrives with such force that I almost speak it aloud.

________________________________________

Daniel tells me he has to go out for a while.

A supplier has called about a part he needs for another job, and he wants to pick it up before the place closes. He asks whether I need anything while he's out.

"No," I say.

He hesitates. "You sure you're okay?"

"Of course."

He studies my face. I wonder what he sees. Perhaps he sees a tired woman who has been under too much strain. Perhaps he sees the woman he married, the woman who used to make him laugh, the woman who once trusted him without having to think about it.

Or perhaps he sees someone he no longer knows how to reach.

"I'm fine, Daniel."

He nods, but he doesn't look convinced.

At the door, he turns back. "Jaden will be working upstairs. She wants to finish the bedroom today."

"I know."

"Laura, try to give her some slack, okay? She's just doing her job."

I stare at him.

There it is. The defense. The insistence that I am the problem, that my suspicions are unreasonable, that the woman who has entered our house and taken up so much of Daniel's attention is simply an innocent person doing her job.

I want to ask him why he is so concerned about Jaden's feelings. I want to ask whether he would have defended me so readily if the situation were reversed.

Instead, I smile.

"Of course. I understand."

Daniel looks relieved.

He leaves. I hear the car start and move down the drive. Then the sound fades, and the house settles into silence.

For the first time in days, I am alone with Jaden.

I stand in the kitchen, listening to the faint sounds of her work above me. A tool clicks against wood. Something scrapes. She hums a few bars of a song, stops, then begins again.

Ordinary sounds. Harmless sounds.

I tell myself I am going upstairs to see how the window is coming along. That is all. I am entitled to know what is being done to my house. I am entitled to inspect the work and ask questions.

I climb the stairs.

The hallway is dim, the light from the windows falling in long, pale strips across the floor. As I approach the bedroom, I smell lavender.

It is faint, almost pleasant.

I stop.

For an instant I remember the voice. The fury in it. The certainty.

You would steal another woman's husband.

The scent seems to deepen. I turn toward the bedroom wall, but there is nothing to see. No movement. No shadow. No sign that anything has changed.

I could go back downstairs. I should go back downstairs.

Instead, I enter the bedroom.

Jaden is standing on the ladder beside the window, one hand braced against the frame as she works on the latch. She has her back to me. Her tool belt hangs at her waist, and a few strands of hair have come loose around her face.

She is humming again.

I watch her for several seconds.

I think about the days she was away. How peaceful the house seemed. How Daniel and I sat together in the evenings, how he touched my hand, how I slept without waking at every sound. I remember thinking that perhaps we could still save our marriage.

It is such a small step from that memory to the next thought that I scarcely notice crossing it.

Things were better when she was gone.

I know what Daniel would say. He would tell me that Jaden's absence had nothing to do with our marriage, that we had been getting along because we were making an effort, because we wanted things to improve.

Perhaps he would be right.

But I am tired of being told what I should think. Tired of doubting my own judgment. Tired of watching another woman move freely through my house while I wonder whether my husband is looking at her the way he once looked at me.

Jaden reaches upward to adjust something near the top of the frame. The ladder shifts slightly beneath her.

She doesn't seem to notice.

I look at the ladder's feet. I look at the space between her and the floor.

A thought enters my mind, quiet and complete.

I could make her leave.

I don't move. I barely breathe.

Jaden continues working, unaware that I am behind her. She reaches for a tool, her weight shifting to one side.

I take a step closer.

There is no one else in the house. No one to see me. No one to tell me to stop.

I think of Daniel at the Marriott. I think of the voice in the wall. I think of the peaceful days when Jaden was gone.

I tell myself I only want her to understand.

I move behind the ladder.

Jaden doesn't turn around. She doesn't notice me.

I reach out and place my hand against the rail.


1795

The three of them led me to the master chamber.

Reverend Daggart held the book between his hands, its worn leather cover resting against his black waistcoat. He regarded me with an expression of grave disappointment, as though I had already confessed to some dreadful sin and now sought only to escape its consequences.

"Cannot tell me?" he repeated. "Or will not?"

"I do not know how it came into your possession, sir."

Mr. Forbes gave a short, incredulous laugh.

"You would have us believe that this book appeared of its own accord?"

"No, sir."

"Then perhaps you will explain how it came to be found among your belongings."

I looked from him to Mrs. Forbes, who stood beside the hearth with her hands clasped tightly before her. She would not meet my eyes.

"I have nothing more to say."

"Nothing more?" Mr. Forbes' voice sharpened. "You have a great deal to answer for, girl. Do you understand what manner of book this is? Do you understand what it means to keep such a thing in a Christian household?"

I knew what manner of book it was. I had read its pages by candlelight, tracing the strange instructions with a trembling finger. I had followed its counsel in the foolish hope that a man who had once held me tenderly might return to me.

I had not imagined this.

"I meant no harm," I said.

"No harm!" Mrs. Forbes scoffed. "Is that what you call it?"

Her voice was so cold that I scarcely recognized it as the voice of the woman I had served.

"Madam, I--"

"You have brought shame into this house."

I lowered my eyes.

Mr. Forbes stepped toward me. "Look at me when I speak to you."

I obeyed.

"You have been treated with kindness here. You have been given a roof over your head, food at the table, and honest employment. And this is how you repay us?"

"Yes, sir. You have been kind to me."

The words came out before I could stop them. They were a plea, though I had not intended them as one. Some small, foolish part of me still believed that if I could remind him of what had passed between us, he might remember it too.

His face hardened.

"Do not presume upon my kindness."

I felt the blood rise to my cheeks.

Reverend Daggart opened the book. His finger moved down a page, stopping at a passage marked with a strip of linen.

"These are not the harmless fancies of a child's imagination," he said. "Here are instructions for workings, for the binding of men's wills, for the calling upon powers that do not come from God. Have you attempted these things?"

I could not answer.

"Have you?"

"Yes, sir."

The word was barely audible.

Mrs. Forbes drew a sharp breath. Mr. Forbes stared at me, his expression changing--not to sorrow, nor even to surprise, but to something colder. He looked at me as if I had become a thing he had discovered beneath his floorboards.

"What did you attempt?" Reverend Daggart asked.

I pressed my hands together until my knuckles hurt.

"I wished for something that could not be."

"That is no answer."

"I wished--" My voice failed me. "I wished for a man's affection."

Mr. Forbes' mouth tightened.

"A man's affection," he repeated. "And whose affection did you seek to command?"

I said nothing.

He took another step toward me.

"Whose?"

I looked at Mrs. Forbes. Her eyes were fixed upon my face now, and in them I saw something that frightened me more than anger. She was waiting for me to speak his name.

I could not bring myself to do it.

Reverend Daggart closed the book.

"Child, whatever your intentions, you have trespassed upon matters beyond your understanding. You have opened your heart to wickedness. The Lord alone knows what consequences may follow."

"I did not wish anyone harm," I said again.

"Yet you undertook a working to bend another soul to your will," he replied. "Would you have us believe that was an innocent act?"

"No, sir."

"Then you acknowledge your guilt?"

I swallowed.

"I acknowledge that I did wrong."

"And do you repent?"

"Yes, sir."

"Truly?"

I looked down at my hands. I thought of the little charm hidden behind the plaster, of the nine iron pins, of the hair and dark wool bound together with a hope I had mistaken for love. I thought of the tenth night, when I had whispered his name once more, though I knew I ought not.

"I do," I said.

It was the truth. I wished I could undo what I had done. I wished I had never sought Nan Marsh, never opened that book, never believed a few words and a handful of pins could turn longing into love.

But there was another truth I dared not speak.

I had not been the only one who had sinned.

Mr. Forbes seemed to read something in my face.

"You will not stand there and pretend yourself the injured party," he said. "Whatever notions you have entertained, you have forgotten your station. You are a servant in this house. You were taken in to work, not to make mischief among your betters."

I stared at him.

My station.

The word struck deep. It reminded me of every time I had stepped aside to let him pass, every time I had lowered my eyes, every time I had swallowed my words because he was master and I was only Natalie Ash, a girl with no fortune and no family to protect her.

"I have never forgotten my station, sir."

"Then you should have remembered it before you brought this disgrace upon us."

Upon us.

Not upon me, who had been foolish enough to believe him. Not upon Mrs. Forbes, who had been betrayed in her own house. Upon us, as though his reputation and their comfort were the only things that had suffered.

I looked at him then, and for a moment I saw the man I had known in secret standing before me: the man who had smiled when we were alone, who had spoken softly and touched my hand, who had given me the little bottle of lavender oil and watched my delight as though it pleased him to give me such a gift.

He did not look like that man now.

Now I know he never had.

Mrs. Forbes approached me.

"Tell us the truth," she said. Her voice had softened, but there was no kindness in it. "Did you think he would leave me for you?"

My breath caught.

"No, madam."

"Do not lie."

"I did not ask him to leave you."

"Did you think he loved you?"

I could not speak.


She gave a small, bitter laugh.
"Oh, you did. You truly did."

"Madam--"

"You shameless creature. You would steal another woman's husband and call it love?"

The words seemed to strike the air from my lungs.

I looked at Mr. Forbes, but he did not rebuke her. He did not tell her to stop. He stood beside the minister with his arms folded, his expression stern and composed, as though her words were no more than a just correction of an unruly servant.

"I never sought to steal him," I whispered.

"Yet you sought to bind him to you."

"I--"

"You have brought this upon yourself. You will answer for it before God."

Mrs. Forbes spoke the last words with such force that Reverend Daggart bowed his head.

I stood alone before them, my face burning, my throat tight. I wanted to tell them that I had answered before God already, in the long hours of the night when I had lain awake and understood, little by little, the wickedness of what I had done. I wanted to tell them that I had begged forgiveness in the darkness, that I had wished the charm undone, that I would have torn the wall apart with my bare hands if I could have reached it.

But what would it matter?

They had not summoned me to hear the truth. They had summoned me to be condemned.

Mr. Forbes turned to Reverend Daggart.

"I believe you have heard enough."

The minister looked at me with solemn pity. Somehow, his pity was worse than their anger.

"You must renounce these practices, Natalie. You must cast aside all such books and instruments and seek forgiveness for the sin you have committed. The path you have entered is a dangerous one."

"Yes, sir."

"Do not imagine that repentance will excuse you from the consequences of your actions."

"No, sir."

He held my gaze a moment longer, then tucked the book beneath his arm.

Mr. Forbes faced me again.

"You are dismissed from this household, effective immediately."

For a moment, I did not understand him.

"Sir?"

"You heard me. You will leave this house. Go to your room and gather your belongings. You will not take anything that belongs to my family, and you will not speak of what has occurred here. Do you understand?"

I stared at him.

"Where am I to go, sir?"

"That is no concern of mine."

The words were spoken without hesitation.

I felt something inside me give way, like a thread parting under a strain it could no longer bear.

I had nowhere to go. My father's home was far away, and I had no money enough for the journey. I had no character to recommend me, no mistress to give me a reference, no friend of standing who might take me in. If I left this house, I would carry the stain they had placed on me, whether I had earned it or not.

"Please, sir," I said. "I have served faithfully. I have done my work. I have nowhere else to--"

"Enough."

Mr. Forbes' voice cracked across the room.

"You have forfeited any claim upon our charity."

I stopped speaking.

Mrs. Forbes looked away.

Reverend Daggart opened the door. Mr. Forbes followed him into the passage, and I heard their footsteps move toward the stairs. I remained where I stood, my hands hanging uselessly at my sides, unable to make myself turn toward the servants' quarters.

Then Mrs. Forbes seized my arm.

I cried out in surprise as she pulled me backward into the master chamber.

"Madam!"

She shut the door with a sharp, decisive sound.

I heard Mr. Forbes stop in the passage. Mrs. Forbes opened the door a crack.

"I wish to speak with the girl privately," she called. "Please wait for me in the parlor."

There was a brief silence.

"As you wish," Mr. Forbes replied.   

The footsteps resumed, descending the stairs with Reverend Daggart following close behind.

Mrs. Forbes closed the door.

For several moments neither of us spoke.

She stood between me and the way out, one hand resting upon the latch. The room seemed suddenly smaller than I had ever known it, the bed and dressing table and tall windows pressing in upon us. I could hear the faint tick of the clock upon the mantel.

At last, she turned to face me.

"You have made a fool of me."

I drew back.

"Madam, I never wished--"

"Do not presume to speak."

Her voice was low now. That frightened me more than her shouting had.

"You came into this house a penniless girl, and we gave you shelter. You sat at our table. You wore the clothes we provided. You were trusted with the care of our rooms. And all the while you were scheming to take what belonged to me."

"I did not scheme--"

"Silence!"

I flinched.

She came closer.

"Did you imagine that because my husband showed you a little kindness, you might rise above your station? Did you think that a few sweet words and stolen moments made you his equal?"

My face burned again, but this time I could not lower my eyes. Something had begun to stir within me, something that had been pressed down for so long that I scarcely recognized it.

"He said he loved me," I whispered.

Mrs. Forbes went still.

For one terrible moment I thought she had not heard me.

Then her face changed.

"What did you say?"

I trembled, but I did not withdraw the words.

"He said he loved me."

She stared at me as though I had struck her.

"And the lavender," I said, my voice breaking. "He gave me the lavender himself. He told me he had brought it for me from Boston. I did not steal it. He gave it to me."

She slapped me.

The blow turned my face aside. Pain flared across my cheek. I stood motionless, one hand rising to touch the place where she had struck me.

Mrs. Forbes' breathing was quick and shallow.

"You lying little wretch."

I looked at her.

I thought of the lavender oil, of the way I had held the bottle in my hands and breathed its scent, believing that it was a token of something precious. I thought of how carefully I had hidden it, how foolishly I had treasured it, how I had told myself that even if he never spoke of his love before others, the gift itself was proof enough.

And now she stood before me, calling me a liar, while he waited downstairs in the parlor, safe in his good name.

I lowered my hand.

"You may strike me again, madam," I said, "but you cannot make it untrue."

Her eyes widened. I had never spoken to her in such a manner. I had scarcely spoken to her at all beyond the words required of a servant.

"You insolent girl!"

She raised her hand again.

This time, I caught her wrist.

For an instant, we stared at one another.

Then she wrenched her hand free and struck me across the mouth.

I cried out, more from astonishment than pain. The taste of blood came sharp upon my tongue. I stumbled backward, and she followed, her face contorted with a fury I had never before seen in her.

"You ungrateful creature!"

She seized the front of my gown. I caught at her wrists, trying to push her away, but she held fast, dragging me toward her.

"You shall not lay your hands upon me!" she screamed.

"You struck me first!"

The words had scarcely left my mouth before she shoved me. I staggered against the dressing table, knocking a small porcelain dish to the floor. It shattered beneath my feet.

For a moment we both looked down at the broken pieces.

Then she lunged at me again.

The mistress was taller than me. But I am younger and faster. I caught her by the shoulders. We stumbled together, grappling like two strangers in a tavern yard, each struggling to force the other away. Her fingers dug into my arms. I seized a handful of her gown, and the fine cloth twisted between my fists.

"Let go of me!" she cried.

"Then let go of me!"

She struck my shoulder, then my face. I struck back, blindly, and my hand caught her cheek. She gasped, and the sound seemed to enrage her beyond measure.

She got a fist in my hair before I could raise a hand, and she used it, snapping my head sideways and driving me into the very wall I had whispered through, so my skull cracked against the lath and the plaster dust came down like snow upon us.

Pain flashed across my scalp like fire. I cried out and clutched at her hands, but she pulled me forward, forcing me to bend beneath her grip. I clawed at the hand in my hair. I got her wrist and dug my nails in until I felt them break skin, and she hissed and let go.

"Wicked girl!" she hissed. "You would ruin me!"

I twisted away, tearing free of her grasp. A strand of my hair came loose, falling across my face. I swept it aside and looked at her.

"Ruin you?" I cried. "What have I done to you that he did not do first?"

Her expression changed.

"Do not speak of him!"

"Why not? You speak of me readily enough!"

She struck me again. I staggered, and she came at me with both hands, clawing at my face. I caught her wrists, but she drove me backward. My heel caught against the broken porcelain, and I nearly fell.

We clung to one another to keep from going down. We came together chest to chest, two women gripping and hauling, our skirts tangling our legs, each of us trying to put the other on the floorboards.

For one strange instant, I felt the absurdity of it. Here we were, mistress and servant, our fine distinctions forgotten, our faces flushed and our clothes in disarray, struggling as though we were children fighting over some petty prize.

But the thought vanished when Elizabeth twisted her hand free and seized the collar of my gown.

"You will leave this house in disgrace," she said. Her voice shook with fury. "No decent household will take you. No honest man will have you. You shall go into the world with nothing, and you will have only yourself to blame."

I looked into her face.

I saw then that she meant it. She wished me cast out, stripped of every comfort, left to bear the shame of what had passed between Edmund and me. She wished me to suffer because she could not make him suffer without endangering herself.

And I, who had once pitied her, felt my own anger rise until it seemed to fill every part of me.

"You think I do not know what I have lost?" I cried. "You think I have not lain awake each night wishing I had never loved him?"

Her grip faltered.

"I never asked him to betray you. I never asked him to give me his promises. He came to me. He spoke of his affection. He gave me gifts, and he told me--"

"Lies!"

"Perhaps!" I shouted. "But they were his lies, not mine!"

She shoved me so violently that I struck the edge of the bed. I felt the breath leave my body. Before I could recover, she seized my gown again, and I caught her by the sleeves.

We fell against the bedstead, knocking the coverlet askew. I pushed at her shoulders. She clutched my arm and struck me in the chest, and I stumbled sideways, dragging her with me.

"Stop!" I gasped.

"You stop!"

She kicked at my shin. Pain shot up my leg, and I cried out. I struck her arm in return, then her shoulder, desperate only to make her release me. She caught my wrist and twisted it, and I struggled to pull free.

Neither of us seemed to know how to end what we had begun.

We were breathing hard now. My hair had fallen about my face; her carefully arranged cap hung crookedly, and one of the ribbons at her bodice had come undone. She looked less like the dignified mistress of the house than a woman who had lost every defense she possessed.

Perhaps that was what frightened her most.

"You shall not speak of him again!" she cried.

"He is your husband!" I shouted back. "Go and ask him why he came to me!"

Her face went white.

She struck me with a closed fist, catching me upon the shoulder. The blow hurt, but it was the look in her eyes that made me recoil. I had never seen such hatred directed at me, not even when she had discovered the lavender oil.

"You will be silent!"

"Why must I be silent?" I cried. "Because you cannot bear to hear what he has done? Because it is easier to call me wicked than to ask what sort of man you have married?"

She lunged at me.

I threw up my arms, and we collided hard enough to send a chair scraping across the floor. I felt her nails rake my cheek. I cried out and seized her wrists, pushing her away from my face.

She fought with a strength I would not have believed possible, particularly for someone recovering from illness. There was nothing measured in her now, nothing of the composed woman who sat at the head of the table and spoke of duty and propriety. She was furious and frightened, and I understood with a terrible clarity that she was not fighting only me.

She was fighting the shame of being betrayed.

And I was fighting the shame of having believed myself loved.

For a moment, our eyes met.

I might have let her go then. I might have stepped away, opened the door, and called for Mr. Forbes. I might have remembered that whatever she had done to me, she was still the woman whose household had given me shelter, and that I had no wish to harm her.

But she looked at me with such contempt that every better thought fled.

"You think yourself his equal," she spat. "You are nothing to him. Nothing! He has tired of you, and now he has cast you aside. You were a passing amusement, Natalie. Nothing more."

I felt the words enter me like a blade.

I thought of Edmund's hand upon mine. Of his voice in the darkness. Of the lavender bottle upon my little table. Of the nights I had whispered his name to the wall, waiting for a sign that I had not been a fool.

"You do not know what I was to him," I said.

"I know precisely what you were."

She seized my hair again.

This time I struck her before she could pull me forward.

My palm caught her cheek with a sharp crack. We both froze.

I had never struck another woman in my life.

Elizabeth touched her face, staring at me in disbelief. Then she screamed and flung herself upon me.

We crashed against the dressing table. A comb and several small bottles fell to the floor. I caught her around the waist, trying to hold her back, but she clawed at my neck and dragged me sideways. I shoved her away, and she stumbled, catching herself against the bedpost.

For one instant, we were apart.

I could hear the clock ticking. I could hear my own ragged breathing. Somewhere beyond the door, the house creaked in the wind.

Elizabeth looked at me, her chest rising and falling beneath her disordered gown.

"You will pay for this," she whispered.

I shook my head. I could scarcely speak.

"I have paid already."

She came toward me again.

I caught her arms. She struck at me, and I turned my face away. Her hand caught the side of my head; mine closed upon the sleeve of her gown. The cloth tore with a sharp ripping sound.

She stumbled. I stumbled with her.

We were no longer fighting for any purpose I could name. We were two frightened, furious women who had lost the power to stop.

Her foot struck mine. I lost my balance and caught at her to keep from falling. She seized me in return, and we lurched together across the chamber.

Behind us, the dressing table rattled. Ahead, the tall window stood against the gray afternoon light.

I got a flat hand against her jaw and shoved her head back and raked my nails down her throat, and she screamed and answered it by driving her knee up into my belly hard enough to fold me. I want down hard on the floorboards. She took my hair again, this time with both hands, and dragged me across the room by it. Pins scattered out of my hair and rolled across the board.
I got a foot under me. I came up to her with all my wildness. I hit her open-handed across the face, once, twice, hard cracks that turned her face each way, and I got both hands into the front of her gown and ran her backward the way she had run me, three stumbling steps.

I was looking at Elizabeth, at the fury and terror in her face, and she was looking at me. We were still clutching one another when my heel caught against the leg of a chair.

I stumbled backward.

Elizabeth grabbed at my gown. For one suspended instant, I felt her fingers close upon the fabric at my shoulder. I reached for her, not knowing whether I meant to steady myself or pull her with  me.

Then the chair toppled.

The window was suddenly behind me. I did not see it.

We hit the sill together, tangled, hauling at each other's hair, her nails in my cheek, my hands twisting at her collar, both of us screaming now, two women doing to each other what the man downstairs had done to both of them with his want.

I heard a terrible crack of wood and glass.

 I went back over the sill.

And the room disappeared.

The window gave way behind me.

A rush of cold air, and then nothing beneath me.

I remember Elizabeth's face. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open, one hand still reaching toward me. For an instant, I thought she was trying to catch me.

Then she was gone.

The gray sky rushed into view. My skirt billowed about me, and the wind tore the breath from my throat. I tried to cry out, but no sound came. The house rose above me, its dark windows staring down like the eyes of some great, unfeeling creature.

I thought of my father.

I thought of the little room where I had slept as a girl, of the sound of rain upon the roof, of my mother's hands smoothing my hair. I thought of the lavender oil, its sweet scent upon my fingers, and of Edmund's voice whispering words I had believed.

He loves me, I had told myself. How foolish I had been. I had wanted so little. A kind word. A promise kept. A life in which I might be more than a servant, more than a secret to be hidden when daylight came. I had wanted to be loved.

The ground rushed toward me.

And then, at last, I understood that I would never go home.

[CuriousCombat]

For the first time in days, I am alone with Jaden.

You know it's going to be good when you read this line.

[Kiva]

Chapter 11

2026

My hand closes around the ladder's rail.

For a moment, I feel lightheaded, like I'm about to pass out. Then, a blinding flash of light takes my vision. I shake my head and blink hard. It passes as if it never happened.

Jaden is facing the window, one hand braced against the frame, the other reaching toward her tool belt. She's concentrating on her work. She doesn't know I'm behind her.

I could still walk away.

The thought comes and goes so quickly that it barely registers. I see Daniel's face when he asked me to give slack and give her room. I hear the woman's voice in the wall, that harsh, accusing whisper. I remember the peaceful days when Jaden was gone, when Daniel was mine again, when I could almost believe we were going to be all right.

And now she's back.

I jerk the ladder sideways.

Jaden screams.

The sound is so sudden, so raw, that for a fraction of a second I almost let go. The ladder tilts acutely. Her hand shoots out, grasping at the window frame, but she can't hold on. Her boot slips from the rung, and she crashes down onto the hardwood floor.

The ladder clatters against the wall and crashes to the floor in front of the window .

For a moment, neither of us moves.

Then Jaden groans and rolls onto her side, clutching her arm.

"Oh, God. Oh, God."

I stand over her, breathing hard.

She looks up at me.

"Laura?"

There's disbelief in her voice. She looks bewildered, almost apologetic, as if she thinks she must have done something wrong and is waiting for me to explain it.

I hate how she looks at me.

"Get up," I say.

She stares at me.

"What?"

"Get up!"

She scrambles backward, her boots slipping on the polished floor. Her tool belt has twisted around her waist, and several tools rattle against the buckle.

"Laura, what the hell--"

"Don't you dare!"

She stops.

I don't know what I'm forbidding her to do. Speak? Move? Look at me? I only know I cannot bear the sound of her voice, the sight of her face, or the thought that she might stand up, walk out of this house, and leave me alone with everything I have tried so hard to escape.

She begins to rise.

I lunge at her.

Jaden throws up her hands, but I'm already on top of her. We collide hard, and she cries out as we slam against the side of the bed. She grabs my shoulders and tries to push me away.

"Laura! Stop! What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Shut up!"

I shove her backward. She stumbles, catches herself against the bedpost, and swings an arm at me. Her hand catches my cheek. The sting only makes me angrier.

I grab the front of her work shirt and yank her toward me.

"You think you can come in here and take everything from me?"

"What? No! Let go of me! What are you doing?"

She twists, trying to break my grip. We stagger sideways, knocking into the dresser. Something crashes to the floor. I hear glass shatter, but I don't look to see what it is.

Jaden shoves me with both hands. I stumble backward, and for one instant there's space between us.

"Stay away from me!" she screams.

She turns toward the door.

I seize her from behind.

She shrieks and throws herself forward, and we both go down. My knee strikes the floor. Pain shoots up my leg, but I barely feel it. Jaden scrambles to her hands and knees, trying to crawl away. I grab her ankle.

"Let go!" she screams.

I pull her back by her boot.

She kicks wildly, catching me somewhere in the ribs. The blow drives the breath from me. I release her, gasping, and she twists around to face me.

"Jesus Christ, Laura! Have you lost your fucking mind?"

"Yes!"

The word flies out of me before I can think.

For a second, she simply stares.

Then she tries to get up.

I throw myself at her again.

We hit the floor together. Her elbow catches my mouth, and I taste blood. I hear myself making a sound I barely recognize, a low, furious noise that seems to come from somewhere beneath my ribs. I grab at her hair. She claws at my hands, shouting at me to stop.

"Get off me!"

"Tell me!"

"Tell you what?"

"You know what!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

She's lying. I know she's lying. The certainty is absolute, though I couldn't explain what I think she's hiding if someone put a gun to my head. But I know she's hiding something.

I strike her across the face.

Her head snaps sideways. She makes a small, shocked sound, and for one instant I see the woman who stood in my kitchen, talking about her fiancé and smiling as she described the wedding they were planning for next spring.

Then she drives her knee against me and shoves me away.

I roll onto my side, coughing. She scrambles toward the door.

I get to my feet before she does.

"Don't you walk away from me!"

She looks back, and her face shows no confusion now, only fear.

"Stay the fuck away from me, Laura!"

She reaches the doorway and tries to run away.

I catch her shirt and drag her backward. The fabric stretches between my hands. She twists violently, and the collar tears with a ripping sound. She turns and punches me in the shoulder, then again, striking wherever she can reach.

I barely register the blows. All I can see is her face, flushed and frightened, her mouth moving as she screams at me.

She is afraid of me.

The realization should stop me.

Instead, something inside me surges with a horrible, triumphant satisfaction. For months, I've been the one lying awake, watching Daniel for signs of deception, swallowing humiliation and pretending I can live with it.

Now she's the frightened one.

"Laura, please!"

Her voice breaks on the last word.

I seize her wrists.

"No!"

I don't know what I'm refusing. Her plea? The possibility that she's innocent? I only know that if I let her go, everything will return to the way it was, and I cannot bear that. I cannot go back to being the woman who waits for her husband to love her, who watches another woman walk through her house and wonders whether she is about to lose him again.

Jaden wrenches one hand free and strikes me across the face.

My head turns with the blow.

For a moment, the room goes utterly still.

Then I hear the woman in the wall.

He is mine.

The whisper is so clear that I turn toward it.

Jaden takes the opportunity to scramble away.

I hear her boots scrape against the floor. The rattle of her tools. Her ragged breathing as she tries to reach the door.

I turn back.

"No," I whisper.

She looks over her shoulder.

I launch myself at her.

I crash into her before she can reach the door.

We slam against the wall. Jaden cries out, and a framed picture drops behind us, hitting the floor with a brittle crack. She twists around and drives both hands against my chest. I stagger, but I keep hold of her shirt.

"Get the fuck off me!"

She strikes me again. I grab her arm, and we stumble together, each trying to force the other away. Her tool belt catches against the corner of the dresser. She jerks free, but the movement throws her off balance, and we go down hard.

My shoulder hits the floor. The impact sends a flash of pain through my arm.

Jaden scrambles away from me, dragging herself backward. Her belt has twisted around her hips. A screwdriver clatters across the hardwood, spinning to a stop near the window.

"Stay down!" she shouts.

I push myself upright.

She sees me coming and snatches up the first thing her hand finds: a heavy metal tool from the scattered belt. She holds it between us, her arm shaking.

"Don't come any closer!"

I stop.

For the first time, in a mirror across the room,  I see what she sees. My hair has fallen across my face. My lip is bleeding. My hands are curled into fists. I look utterly savage.

The thought passes through me without leaving a mark.

"You think you can threaten me?" I say.

"I'm trying to keep you away from me!"

She backs toward the window, keeping the tool raised. She breathes in short, ragged gasps.

"Laura, please. I don't know what's happening to you, but you need to stop."

"Don't pretend you care about me!"

"I don't want to hurt you!"

"Liar!"

I rush her.

She swings the tool between us, not aiming so much as trying to keep me back. I flinch away from the movement, and she shoves me with her free hand. We collide again. My fingers close around her wrist, and she cries out as we struggle for control of the tool.

"Let go!" she screams.

"You let go!"

We stagger sideways. Her heel catches on the fallen ladder, and she loses her footing. I fall against her, and we crash to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

The tool strikes the boards with a sharp metallic crack.

Jaden screams and claws at my hands. I grab her shirt. She catches my wrist and twists, and pain shoots up my arm. I let go with one hand and strike at her shoulder, desperate to make her release me.

She shoves hard against my chest.

For an instant, I can't breathe. She scrambles out from beneath me, leaving a smear of blood on the floor where one of us has cut a hand.

I stare at it.

Blood.

The sight should mean something. It should remind me that this is real, that Jaden is a person, that the two of us are on the floor of my bedroom tearing at each other while the rest of the world carries on without the slightest idea.

Instead, I hear myself laughing.

It is a horrible, breathless sound.

Jaden stares at me.

"Oh, my God," she whispers.

She scrambles to her feet and runs for the door.

I lunge after her, catching the loose end of her tool belt. The belt jerks tight around her waist, and she cries out as it pulls her backward. She twists and yanks at the buckle, trying to free herself.

"Let go of me!"

"Not until you tell me!"

"Tell you WHAT?"

Her voice breaks into a scream.

I pull again. The buckle slips, and the belt comes loose. Tools spill across the floor, scattering beneath the bed and dresser.

Jaden stumbles free and turns on me.

For a moment we stand facing each other, both gasping, both trembling. Her shirt is torn at the collar. My hands are shaking. The room is strewn with tools and broken glass.

She looks at me as if she has finally understood something terrible.

"You were going to kill me."

The words hang between us.

I want to deny them. I want to tell her she's wrong, that I only wanted her to leave, that she has misunderstood everything.

But I can find no words.

Because somewhere beneath the rage, beneath the voice in the wall and the months of fear and humiliation, I know she is right.

Jaden backs away. I take a step toward her. She turns and runs toward the window. Jaden then turns back toward me.

"Stay away from me," she says.

Her voice is hoarse. She holds one hand against her torn shirt, and the other is pressed to her mouth. There is blood on her fingers.

I look at it, and something inside me recoils
.
For one moment, I see the room as it must look to her. The broken glass. The overturned furniture. The tools scattered across the floor. The woman standing between her and the door, breathing hard, her face twisted with a rage she can no longer disguise.

Me.

I am the woman she is afraid of.

Then Jaden moves toward the door, and the moment is gone.

"No," I say.

She stops, staring at me.

"Laura, please. Just let me leave."

"I told you to listen to me."

"I don't know what you want!"

"You know exactly what I want!"

I hear the shrillness in my own voice, but I cannot seem to lower it. Every word she says feels like another refusal, another insulting attempt to escape without answering for what she has done.

She hasn't done anything.

Some small, buried part of me knows this. I can feel it trying to surface, a quiet voice beneath the shouting, beneath the whisper that has lived in the walls.

But if Jaden is innocent, then what have I been doing? What have I made of myself?

I can't bear the question.

She darts toward the door.

I catch her arm.

She twists free and shoves me hard enough that I stumble into the dresser. Pain flashes through my hip. I grab at her again, catching the shoulder of her shirt, and she turns on me with a cry of fury and fear.

"Get off me!"

She strikes my face. My head snaps sideways. I taste blood again, and the room seems to spin.

I seize her.

We crash into the bed, then stagger away from it, clutching at each other. My foot slips on something beneath me. Jaden wrenches herself loose, but I catch her shirt again, and the fabric tears farther at the collar.

She screams at me. I scream back.

I don't know what either of us is saying.

We slam against the wall beside the window. The old frame rattles. A cold draft rushes across my face, carrying that unmistakable scent of lavender.

For an instant, I am no longer certain whose breath I hear.

Jaden tries to turn sideways, to get around me. I block her. She pushes at my shoulders, and I shove her backward.

The window is behind her. I can see the pale rectangle of glass over her shoulder, the warped wooden frame, the latch that has never held properly.

I know. But I am too angry to stop.

"You don't get to walk away!" I shout.

"I'm trying to get away from you!"

Her hands press against my chest. She is crying now, whether from pain or terror I cannot tell. She looks past me toward the door, searching for a way out.

I have become the thing she needs to escape.

The thought cuts through me.

My grip loosens.

Jaden tries to slip past me. I grab her and shove her back. Her hand shoots out, catching the window frame, and she clings to it as the old wood rattles behind her.

"Laura, stop!"

I see the terror in her face. I see her fingers gripping the frame, her body pressed against the glass. I know I can step away. I know I can let her go.

For one suspended instant, I do nothing.

I could stop. I could let her walk out of this room. I could look at what I've done and admit that none of it was her fault.

Then the voice comes from the wall.

He is mine.

Something inside me snaps again.

I lunge.

Jaden twists away, releasing the frame as she tries to dodge me. My hands close on empty air. I stumble after her, reaching for her shirt, desperate to keep her from getting away.

My foot catches on a rung of the fallen ladder.

I pitch forward. My arms fly out, searching for something to stop me. Jaden cries out and throws herself aside.

For one terrible instant, I see the window directly in front of me. The warped frame. The glass shaking in its casing. The splintered wood where our bodies have struck it.

I reach for the frame.

It breaks beneath my hands.

The glass shatters around me. I hurdle over the windowsill.

I hear Jaden scream as she tries to seize my arm. Cold air rushes over my face, and the room moves violently away. The house disappears.

Then nothing remains beneath my feet but the ground below.

I am falling.

[Kiva]