Elizabeth

But She Was More Than Comfortable

"But she was more than comfortable coming into the basement to see me," Tabitha reasoned aloud, crossing yet another theory off of her checklist. At this point, she'd forgotten that the list was carved into her arm with the pointy part of the corkscrew to compensate for her lack of paper, and was adding notes and commentary liberally.

She reread her list. The title, which was "Reasons Why Elizabeth Could Have Wanted to Murder Me," was written more shakily than the items below it, betraying that the words had pained her, but the rest was legible. The remaining items included:

She was possessed. She thought I stole her father from her.She was insane.It sounded like fun to her at the time.She didn't, and had pictures of instruments of murder hanging in her attic for some other reason.

For some reason, every time Tabitha looked at the last one she felt sick. It might have been the small quarters getting to her.

But she was more than comfortable; as promised, Emerson had brought her a six course meal. Well, the leftovers from James's six course meals. He usually ate all of his food, though, so Tabitha hadn't had much dinner, and she now felt truly hungry for the first time since when her father had locked her in a room for three weeks.

Then again, she'd been slow bringing him his morning coffee. So she'd probably deserved it.

She heard a knock at the door for the first time since moving to the Manor, as far as she could remember. She squealed with excitement.

"He's here! The devil's come for me! A moment, please; I need to make myself presentable," she called as loudly as she could. Of late she'd taken to the idea that she'd been possessed, and that the devil would therefore be obligated to escort her to hell in person. She hurried to change out of her nightgown and into the black dress she'd been been wearing when she was locked in her (barely) glorified cell. She pulled back her hair, which had been falling out, into a messy bun, tidied up the experiments on her nightstand, and pressed herself across the locked door.

"Claim my soul now!" she shouted, trembling with anticipation. She thought about how wondrously spacious hell would be, and about what a relief it would be to finally get treatment as bad as what she deserved.

Unless the devil was really mean, in which case she would have a rather comfortable death. Although that would cause her even more pain, which would be even better...

Maybe an average existence would be the ideal punishment.

Tabitha might have been on the floor for seconds or hours before she accepted the reality that nothing had happened. Tabitha gasped for air, drowning in disappointment as she reminded herself that no one was coming for her. She was going to waste away in this godawful room until she died.

Or she was going to escape, an opportunity as enticing as it was unlikely. Forcing herself to stand up, she made her way over to the nightstand, which had become a sort of display for her useful objects.

She already knew how everything worked, thanks to a keen intuitive understanding of the scientific method that she had been putting to good use since being woken rather unpleasantly the morning before. Now she just had to wait around for Emerson to bring supper. She had to catch the footsteps while Emerson was still far away, but not too far away; if Tabitha made that mistake, she would be as good as dead.

As in, she would literally be dead.

Finally, she heard footsteps. Quiet at first, then much louder; walking directly past her room. Thank God; if her supper had arrived, Tabitha would have had to wait until the next morning to enact her plan, and she didn't know that she could have survived that long. Of course, she wouldn't have starved, but she would've forgotten why it was so important that she not take advantage of the many splendid opportunities to end her life with which her little room provided her. Actually, as it was she didn't know why it was so important, but that reality was yet to set in, giving her a brief window of opportunity before she would inevitably take her own life, whether she wanted to or not.