Lauren DeStefano - Sever

I start to make a list in my head of all the things I know. Vaughn killed Jenna; he admitted as much. Rose’s body was in the basement that day the elevators gave out. I saw her. I recognized her nail polish, her blond hair. There was a tracker in my leg. Deirdre told me about it. Didn’t she? I think of all the attendants who came to work on me while I was in the basement. In my memory they all have the same blank expressions; they’re all voiceless, uncaring. Deirdre was warm. She spoke gently, made me feel safe, which was a bizarre thing in that place.

The list collapses in on itself, words and memories jumbling into a bloody mess. It’s so frustrating the way the pictures keep on changing.

In the end it’s Cecily I reach for. At least I can be certain she exists. Her skin is sweaty and warm as I scrunch up the sleeves of the nightgown she borrowed from me. I worry about how overheated she gets, like there’s a fire inside her. I think she drifted off to sleep and I woke her, because she mumbles something nonsensical before opening her eyes. “You don’t have to believe me,” I tell her. “You just have to believe that Vaughn is capable of those things.”

“I do,” she says. “Linden doesn’t. I think he chooses not to. He’s sensitive, you know?”

She strokes my cheek with the side of her hand—a repetitive, wispy motion. Like little ghost kisses.

“I thought Housemaster Vaughn wanted to do good things and save us all,” she says. “I was wrong. And admitting that meant admitting he won’t find an antidote and none of us has much time. You said you have to find your brother—so you should go do that. And Linden and I have Bowen, and this baby. I want to spend as much time with them as I can. I want to be with them until the end.”

These are all things she wouldn’t have dared to say last year. But now she’s unflinching. Her voice doesn’t even catch when she adds, “If all those things you saw are real, there’s nothing we can do about them. We have our own lives to take care of, and there’s only time to do so much with them.”

What she says is terrible and true. She grabs my hand. We squeeze each other’s fingers, and I wait for her to realize the magnitude of what she’s said. I wait for her to squish up against me and sob. But from the reason in her tone, I sense that those words have been in her for a long time. That while I was away, she had plenty of time to get used to them.

And when the sob does come, several minutes later, it’s mine.

My sister wife has already fallen asleep.

I dream of Linden in the doorway. He looks at me a long while, the green in his eyes changing every second. “The stars do look like a kite,” he admits. “But everything else you’ve said is a lie.”

In the morning I awaken to Cecily jumping from the bed, her feet crashing onto the floorboards like baritone notes, to get to the window. “Quiet,” I tell her, cringing at the sudden light when she yanks the window shade, forcing it to recoil with a slurping noise.

“No, no, no. You have to hide,” she tells me. Panic in her eyes. The sound of an engine purring under the window.

I stagger to my feet, every muscle sore, and walk to the window. And outside is the limo, a figure standing beside it waving us down. Linden said he’d be here to collect Cecily in the morning, but as my grogginess subsides, I realize that Linden isn’t here.

Vaughn is.

“STAY HERE,” I say, hurrying to put on a pair of jeans under my nightgown.

“Wait!” Cecily calls after me as I’m running down the stairs.

“Stay!” I tell her.

Outside, the early morning air is cold, and I hug my arms for warmth. Dewy grass clings to my bare feet as I move toward him. He smiles. “Ah, so she awakens,” he says. His voice disrupts the gray sky. A burst of blackbirds rushes past.

I maintain my distance, keep my tone neutral when I ask, “Where’s Linden?”

“Your husband had an early meeting with a potential contractor,” he says. “He sent me for you and Cecily.”

“Sure he did,” I say, bracing one foot behind me to take a step back.

“You’re still angry with me,” he says. “I understand. But, Rhine, darling, you’re such a fascinating creature. You should be flattered; before you came along, I was sure I’d seen everything. I couldn’t help but get carried away.”

Carried away. I laugh humorlessly, a cloud bursting from my open mouth.

“Let’s just be honest with each other. If it weren’t for me, you’d be dead,” he says.

“Thanks to you, I almost was,” I say. “What will you do if I refuse to go along this time? Burn down this house?”

“While I do think a fire would be an improvement, no. The choice is entirely your own,” he says, sounding sincere. “I thought you and I could put this sordid mess behind us. How does resuming first wife status sound?”

I open my mouth, aghast, but no words come. How did he even find me here? The tracker has been removed from my leg. Did Linden really send him here after me? I know he’s angry, but I don’t believe he’d do anything so venomous.

The screen door slams behind me, and then I realize it. Cecily. Vaughn can’t trace my steps anymore, but she is still his property. How does it work? Is there a computer somewhere that spells out our location on a digital map? Or some kind of beeping device that sounds an alarm when we’re nearby, like a metal detector hovering over coins? My parents used to have one of those; it was often how my father found scrap metal to build things with.

She moves to stand beside me, coiling her arm around mine. “She isn’t going back,” she says.

“You don’t want your sister wife to come home?” Vaughn says. “But you’ve been so lonely. So lonely, in fact, that you were sneaking down to visit her every time I left the house.”

She draws a deep breath. She’s scared, though she’s trying not to let on.

“Don’t go with him,” I say into her ear.

The screen door slams again, and I catch a whiff of smoke. Reed has a cigar in his mouth. Grease and brown splotches stain his white shirt. “Nobody was going to invite me to the reunion?” he says to Vaughn. “You can’t have it both ways, Little Brother. If I can’t come onto your property, you can’t come onto mine.”

“I’ve just come to collect something that belongs to me,” Vaughn says. “Put something decent on, Cecily. Run a brush through that hair, and let’s go.” She’s still wearing one of the nightgowns that Linden packed for me, the unbuttoned collar dipping over her shoulder.

“I’ll leave when my husband gets here,” Cecily says. “Not before then.”

“You heard the kid,” Reed says.

Vaughn opens his mouth to say something, but the sound of a baby crying interrupts him. And the words he was going to say turn into a grin. Cecily stiffens.

Vaughn opens the passenger door and says, “Come on out and talk some sense into your keeper.”

Elle, Cecily’s domestic, steps out of the car. She’s holding Bowen to her chest, and his face is red and wet with tears. Cecily reaches for him immediately, but Vaughn steps in her way. “It’s chilly out here, darling,” he says. “And you’re pregnant. You don’t even have the sense to wear a coat. What makes you think you can get by without me to supervise your prenatal care? You’ve already missed your vitamins this morning.”

“He’s right,” Elle says a bit too softly. She’s looking at the ground, and her words sound rehearsed. She’s smaller than Cecily—nine, maybe ten years old, and of all our domestics she’s always been the most timid. I’m sure it was no challenge for Vaughn to intimidate her.

Cecily purses her lips together, composing herself. I think she’s trying not to cry. “You can’t keep my son from me.”