Rosamund Hodge: Gilded Ashes

“Gladly,” says Koré.

“Then kiss my ring,” says the Gentle Lord, “and it will be so.”

I hear footsteps. A rustle of movement. And then he says, “Good-bye, Koré Alastorides.”

The air all around us sighs. I shudder and gasp as my body is my own to move again. Somebody falls to the ground.

Stepmother speaks up again, her voice jarringly shrill and human: “What have you done ?”

There’s a little gasping noise. Like somebody choking on the sudden sensation of a new mouth and throat.

Then I hear Thea say in her real voice, “Who—who are you?”

A voice like mine says weakly, “It’s me. Koré. Your sister.”

“I don’t have a sister. I don’t—I don’t have a family.” Thea’s voice is high and panicked. “Where am I? Who are you?”

He’s taken her memories. He’s set her free from our family.

My throat clenches as I batter at the door of the wardrobe. I don’t know why my heart is pounding with this awful, tearing feeling. Thea has forgotten us all. She’s stopped her stupid yearning to be loved, the idiot desire that kept her trapped with us. I should be glad.

The latch gives way and I tumble out of the wardrobe onto the floor. Thea is at the doorway, struggling with Stepmother; when she sees me, she gives a little shriek and breaks free. Her footsteps echo as she flees down the hall.

Stepmother wobbles, then sits down heavily by Koré, who is still crouched on the floor.

“She didn’t deserve the honor of our name,” she says, her voice quiet and vicious. “She never deserved it. Any more than that woman’s brat does.” She shoots me a poisonous look; then her hand drops down to Koré’s shoulder. “But you’re true to me, darling. You were brave enough to take the face Lord Anax wants. You’ll come with me to the palace and—”

“No.” Koré pushes her mother’s hand aside. Her voice is low and dull. “I won’t marry him.”

“You’ll do as you’re told, young miss.”

“Thea isn’t here to save anymore.” Koré’s eyes are hidden by the mask, but I can see her mouth twist into a helpless parody of a smile. “I don’t have to do anything.”

And I realize she means to do nothing else, not even live. Koré isn’t as strong as I am. I know this; I think I have always known. She can live with pain, but not without hope. She won’t survive this loss.

Stepmother seizes the sides of the mask and hauls Koré up to her knees, drawing a little gasp of pain from her throat.

“You’re my daughter,” she says.

“You’re dead,” says Koré. “You died seven years ago. Just like me.”

I am silent. I am the wallpaper. I am smiling. I am exactly the same as every other time Stepmother has raged at us, but I feel like I am made of cobwebs and broken crockery. Because I remember Koré’s eyes meeting mine in the cellar and Thea’s voice through the door—the promise of tea on the lawn—and I realize only now that I love them. Now that Thea is gone and Koré is dying, I think I may have always loved them, and always wanted them to turn to me. And now it is too late.

“You died very bravely,” Koré whispers. “I’m sorry, Mother. I should have stopped you. But I was afraid.”

Stepmother snarls and shakes her by the mask; blood dribbles from the seam where flesh meets gold, but Koré doesn’t make any noise except short little gasps.

I don’t move. I can’t. Koré’s words have wrapped around me, holding me fast as the Gentle Lord’s power. The words I should have said years ago, but I was never strong enough to say: I should have stopped you. I’m sorry. You’re dead.

My cheeks are wet.

I should be strong enough. I am always strong enough. But now there are tears running down my cheeks, because I have lost Anax and my sisters, because they have suffered so much from me and none of them needed to. Nobody needed to suffer from my mother’s madness. Not if I had been brave or strong enough to say what Koré just did.

For years I have pitied myself because I had no way to make my mother’s spirit rest. Because her duty to make me happy would never be done. And I drove myself near to madness trying to protect people from her. But I never even let myself think that perhaps I should tell her to rest. Perhaps I should tell her that her duty was finished, that it was time for her to be dead.

I was afraid of her, but I was also afraid to lose her, even the last, desperate scraps of her. And now I am weeping, and those tears will call down the demons upon my family.

I stand. My body feels numb and hollow, but I don’t hesitate. I grab Stepmother’s arm and haul her back; she lets go of Koré and stumbles into the wall beside the window.

“You ruined us,” she snarls. “With your sly, fresh face, like her portrait come to life. How could he love me? How could I love him? With you there to remind us every day that I was second best?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry. Please leave the house. It isn’t safe anymore.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Now that we’re ruined, you’ll drive us out. But I won’t be a beggar.” She flings the casement open. “I’ll show you how a lady of this house can die.”

“Mother!” Koré screams. I lunge for Stepmother, but it’s too late: she flings herself out, and I only reach the window in time to see her sprawled on the cobblestones below, blood spattered around her head.

Horror claws at my throat. I cannot hesitate now. I grab Koré’s arm and pull her up. “Come,” I say, and drag her out of the room with me. She stumbles and clings to me: she’s afraid because she can’t see anymore.

I hate that she is afraid.

But nothing matters right now except keeping her close to me, because I can see the shadows crawling and writhing at the edges of my vision, and if I hold my newly twin sister close enough, perhaps my mother and the demons will be confused for just long enough.

We stumble into the kitchen. I find an oil can and a packet of matches, and then I drag Koré outside, into the garden. Toward the apple tree, whose pale blossoms are brighter than moonlight should make them, whose branches cast shadows darker than the night. It is lovely and terrible and home, and I drop to my knees amid the gnarled roots. Beside me, Koré falls to her hands and knees.

“Mother,” I whisper, “my darling mother, you’ve taken such good care of me. You’ve given me everything I ever asked for.”

The leaves rustle as she curls around me, caressing my cheeks, my neck, my arms. I lay one hand against the rough bark of the tree.

“Please, there’s just one more thing that I want. I want it more than anything else in all the world.”

And this is my final lie. Because I realize now that I want her to stay with me, even like this, twisted into a mindless, cruel ghost. I have wanted it—if not more than all the world—more than my nurse’s life, and the butler’s and the chambermaid’s. I have wanted it more than Koré and Thea and Stepmother. Even more than Anax.

But now it’s time for me to stop.

“Please die,” I say.

Her cold touch goes still. My heart pounds jaggedly in my throat, but I pour out the words like sugar and cream: “You’re already dead, but you’ve worked so hard and long for me anyway. Please rest. Please leave this tree and rest forever.”

I wait. For a few agonized heartbeats, her touch doesn’t move; it rests cold and heavy as guilt around my neck. Then she begins to stroke me again, to run her bodiless fingers through my hair as she did when I was a little child, and she would untangle me before bed.

Maybe she can’t stop. Maybe she can’t understand me. Or maybe my true mother has never been in this tree at all; maybe her soul rests in Elysium, and what lingers in the tree is not even her ghost but only an idiot whirlwind of love and protection and mine, mine, mine.