"Ivy, what have you done?"
Margaret's voice startled me out of my thoughts. I shut the door but didn't turn from it, imagining her there in her billowy nightgown—spooked by such a macabre scene, her gaze wide and mouth agape. I hadn't put much thought into what I would tell her afterwards. Once his blood had run cold and had dried on the knife.
I gripped the loose fabric of my nightgown. The floorboards whined as she took another step closer, possibly peering down at his lifeless form over the couch.
Manderley hadn't stopped crying, at least what I thought was her version of crying, her blue-black wing lifted over her face in an expression of utter devastation, as if she still couldn't bear to see him in such a way, couldn't believe I'd killed him. Her true love.
"Margaret, I had no choice." I swallowed, trying to ease my nerves so that when I spoke again, I wouldn't stammer.
"We always have a choice."
She didn't understand. Of course, she wouldn't. She hadn't seen all of what I'd seen, hadn't heard all that I'd heard. "You think I wanted to do it?" I spun, the hem of my nightgown brushing my feet. "It was the only way to free us both. Come on, you must see. There was no other way."
I took a step forward. She stepped back, shaking her head. She was ghost-pale, tears shining in her eyes. As one fell, she swiped it away hurriedly, as if she didn't want me to see.
"Should I remind you what he did to us? What he stole from us?" I stomped my foot, sourly irritated. "Come on, don't tell me you've already forgotten."
She wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I haven't forgotten."
"Then you understand I had to do it."
She wrapped her arms around her belly. "This isn't you, Ivy."
"No, it isn't me." I stepped closer. "It's what he turned me into. This is all his fault. His poisoning me. His poisoning us." I pointed between us. "He encouraged it."
A look of comprehension passed across her face. She glanced again at Phillip, then at me. "What are we going to do with the body? What are we going to say when they ask about him? Have you even thought this through?"
I bit my lip, gaze turned down, not wanting to meet her eyes. I hadn't thought it through. "I guess I hadn't," I said. I began to pace the room in circles, kneading my knuckles, thinking. "We'll just... We'll just have to keep it to ourselves."
Margaret scoffed. "And what if someone finds his body and links it back to us. What about Simon? He could easily have told someone he saw us here."
"Simon?" I repeated, furrowing my brow.
Margaret turned from me. "Unbelievable."
"Simon is long gone now," I said, shifting my gaze to Phillip, what remained of him. I hadn't allowed my thoughts to wander to Simon again. It was clear now that Phillip had lied to us about him; that he hadn't really found his way home. Moonlight danced across his features, those pink lips, that defined jaw, and strong brow. Even in death his beauty was beyond compare, still such a sad, lovable thing. I understood even better now why Nora had painted those portraits. The fae were a sovereign sort. Beauty infinite.
"Why does he look like that?" Margaret leaned over the couch, reaching out as if to pluck a feather from his plumed body.
"Don't touch him," I said, raising my hand.
"Why not? We're all over this cabin. It doesn't matter what we say or do, they'll know."
I let my hand fall to my side. She was right. In some weird spell, we were all tied together now. Heart to heart. The cabin door struck the wall, letting in the blustery wind, scattering snow across the floor. I whirled to shut it again.
A figure lingering by the trees down below caught my eye. I rubbed my eyes, thinking my vision had failed me. The snow, falling nearly a foot tall, lit up the sky well enough for me to see. It could've been the long shadow of a tree, but then the figure began to move on swift feet. The longer I stared at it the closer it got until it reached the fence.
I shut the door and pressed my back against it, eyes closed, heart thudding.
"What is it?" asked Margaret.
"Someone's out there," I said. "Out in the storm." I opened my eyes as she traipsed to the window. "Don't look. Don't look. They might see you."
Too late. She was already at the window, hands pressed flat against the pane. "I don't see anyone."
A hard knock rattled the door beneath my back. I leapt away from it. Stumbling, I fell and landed hard on the floor. Margaret pulled me up. They knocked a second time—and even Manderley stopped weeping and let out a shrill caw. Margaret and I held onto each other. Who could it be? Had Nora awakened from her death, roused by me murdering Phillip? Could it be her ghost, mournfully roaming the woods?
"I know you're in there," said a woman. "Let me in or I'll break down this door."
This couldn't be real. I shut my eyes again; wishing that when I opened them the person at the door would be gone, there wouldn't be a dead body on the couch, and my soul, my blood, wouldn't be tainted by committing such a heinous act.
"Maybe it's the police," Margaret said, her hand loosening in mine.
"If it was the police they would have said so."
"I know you're in there." The door shook under the weight of a fist. A strong, unyielding fist. Did we have time to move the body into the other room? I didn't know what to do but to hold Margaret's hand tightly. Tears filled my eyes. In my head, I was already preparing my confession, absolving Margaret from the crime.
It was me. I killed him. Take me. Leave Margaret alone.
The door tore from the wall, hinges and all. Margaret and I screamed and scrambled back but where would we hide in a three-room cabin? In the doorway stood a tall figure, face darkened by a hood. We couldn't see eyes beneath the cloak, but it was obvious we were being glared at, scrutinized. A chill wound around my spine, curling up, up, up into my heart. I couldn't read Margaret's features, a look between shock and awe. I, on the other hand, had grown stoic. Whatever this person wanted I would oblige if they left us alone. Where had Phillip kept the money? I dared not glance away from this person.
"Where is my son?" she asked.
"What?" The word left my mouth before I could think.
"I've come to take his body home. Where is he?"
Margaret and I said nothing more, but when Manderley cawed the woman's head shifted. She thrust off the hood of her cloak, revealing her face to the light. I gasped. Margaret didn't move, as if she couldn't, as if the shock of it all had settled in her like cement. It was her. The woman in Nora's paintings.
Wingless, beakless, but tall and as slender as a wrist turned on its side. Hair the color of chestnuts. A sharp nose. A pink mouth. A thick, black brow. Her forehead curved. I saw this as she gazed down at Phillip. I didn't know what I expected her to do, cry, grab me around the throat, or tear more of the cabin apart.
She walked to him, no glided, because the fae had such a buoyant way of moving. She knelt by him. Taking his limp hand, she kissed his fingertips one at a time.
"My son," she said. "Death does not become you."
"How..." Margaret cleared her throat. "How did you know he's dead?" Even as she said it her voice was soft.
"I share a special bond with all my children," said the faerie, while she smoothed the hair on his head. "You wouldn't believe the agony I've felt, like a dagger straight through the heart. I came as soon as I could."
In the heart, right where the knife had pierced Phillip. I held my tongue, though Margaret's lingering gaze wasn't lost on me.
"I assume one of you is responsible for his death," said the faerie. "Or maybe both." She drew herself up to her full height, as if she was being unfolded joint by joint. "Tell me, which one of you murdered him? You must have had a reason. Tell me."
Margaret and I were silent, neither of us sparing a glance at each other. What could we say? Yes, I'd driven a knife through his heart, but it had been in self-defense. In defense of a spell that was cast to make me love him, to keep me and Margaret here with him. Who would believe it? Even as I had the thought, it sounded absurd. A love spell. What lunacy.
"Tell me or I will drag you back to my country where you will surely be judged!" The wind howled; snow piled up right at the foot of the doorway. I curled my bare toes, her voice shaking loose something inside me—a confession. My hands and feet had grown cold.
"It was me. I did it," My bottom lip trembled. "Only me. I swear. Leave Margaret out of it." I wasn't some white knight who'd swept in to save us, the damsels, from the blood thirsty monster. I couldn't even meet her eyes.
"And what is your name?"
"Ivy."
"Well, Ivy, fortunately for you, I won't be taking you back to my home. This has been an inconvenience already, bringing you with me will only inconvenience me more."
"What will you do to us then?" asked Margaret.
"Nothing."
"But... But he was your son." I took Margaret's hand and squeezed, as a warning not to be stupid and say the wrong thing.
"I have many sons; each one like him." She looked to Phillip again. "It's a shame he didn't live as long as his brothers and sisters. His body will come back with me to be buried as is our custom. I have no need for either of you." She held out her arm, surprising Margaret and I when Manderley flew to her. "I was younger and foolish when I left him with that woman, thinking it would be safer for him here. Then she went mad and wandered off. I should have come for him sooner, but fear kept me away. How could he ever consider me his mother when I hadn't raised him?" She ran her long finger down Manderley's beak. "You've done your job, sweet friend," she said to her, smiling. Then to us, "I guess you have unburdened us both. I no longer have to worry about him."
Unburdened us both. She spoke about it like he was merely dropped off to stay with Nora for a few hours. Her flippancy saddened me. Wrecked by my doubts, I sank to the floor, arms clasped around my knees, weeping. Had he not deserved his death?
Had the baton of wretchedness passed to me?
"You wouldn't judge me if you've seen my country," she said. "War-torn and savage, spanning a millennium. It was no place to raise a child."
I continued to cry despite her words, nightgown snot-stained and all. I cried even as she lifted his body as easily as plucking a hair. She paused in front of me. "Stop your whining," she said. "What use is it when you've already done the deed?"
But I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. She glowered at me. "Let me give you some advice, young Ivy, from someone who's taken a fair amount of lives. It's best if you don't quell your demons but somehow learn to live with them. It makes it more tolerable. Now I'll be going." She drifted away, or at least that's what it looked like, carrying Phillip out the door. Manderley swept out behind her. Before leaving us there, she restored the door into its holding like it had no weight at all. When she was gone, it was if she'd never been.
If she'd told us her name, I would have forgotten it.
"It's over now, Ivy." Margaret wrapped her arm around my shoulders. I rested my head in the crook of her neck.
He would haunt me forever.
***
The snow stopped falling the next day. We gathered our things solemnly, the air around us heavy with all the things we couldn't say. What would we tell our parents, our neighbors, our schoolmates? There were some things girls never spoke about, the trauma, the isolation led to an unspoken truce.
We swore our pact before we left that house, silently of course. We'd run away, swept into another town like the wind pushing away dust. It was the time we couldn't account for. Months in the woods and no one had found us. We hoped our parents would see that we needed rest, to let our thoughts settle before we could fully confess our version of the truth. Girls ran away all the time.
Margaret and I walked together through the woods, arms linked, bundled up tightly in our Nora sweaters and coats. The trees, the bushes, even the snow yielded to us, no longer keeping us here but making a way home for us.
We marched foot-sure, snow crunching beneath our boots and never once did we slip or fall into a bottomless pit. Never once did we grow restless, determined, the both of us, to make it home unscathed. The woods had let us go, opening to us like curtains being wrenched apart, how his gaze had entrapped us, but this time we were going home.
Home. It sounded exactly right.
"Will we burn her clothing?" I asked Margaret, whispering because the woods were so quiet who knew what shouting might rouse.
"I think I'll keep the coat," she said. "I'll leave it in the back of my closet as a keepsake. I bet Nora wouldn't mind."
I put my hand in one of the pockets and touched the pin Manderley had once given me, the bluebird. Just before we broke through the trees, onto the path home, I tossed it into the snow where I hoped it would be buried and forgotten forever.
"We're almost there," Margaret said, hurrying ahead.
I didn't want to frighten my parents by coming through the backdoor, so I walked the whole way around with her. "Do I look unrecognizably scathed?" I asked. Or rather, what I wanted to say, does murder suit me?
She squinted at me. "You look grown up. More mature and womanly."
"We've both been hardened by time."
We stepped out onto the front street, splendid in the morning light, the windows of cars frosted, the bare limbs of trees twitching beneath the weight of a breeze, so perfect, our path already cleared by our neighbors, snow piled high on the curb.
"Are you ready?" asked Margaret.
"Ready," I said.
She pulled me into a sidelong hug. "This just proves we can get through anything together. No matter what we did you're still Ivy and I'm still Margaret." I nodded; lips pursed. She let go of me and tilted her head back, taking a deep breath. "It's nice to know nothing here has changed." Even the air smelled familiar. "I'll call you later?" she said.
"Yeah." I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and watched as she walked down the street towards her house. I took our front steps one at a time, a kaleidoscope of butterflies fluttering in my stomach. It took a full minute for me to ring the bell. Once I did, hearing movement on the other side of the door, I had the most miserable thought.
What if they couldn't forgive me?
My mother opened the door, an oven mitt on one hand and apron around her waist which had gotten smaller since the last time I'd seen her, her eyes red and puffy. She hadn't been sleeping, hardly eating, hardly much of anything except doing the one thing she did best, bake.
"Mom."
Her face contorted into an expression that had me reaching for her. She got to me first, pulling me to her chest. She smelled sweet and felt soft all over—a well-worn kind of love.
"Ivy. My Ivy. My sweet Ivy," she said over and over, kissing me over and over. Then my father was there, his overgrown beard nearly reaching his collar.
We stood there for I don't know how long, hugging and kissing—and melting into each other's warmth, feeling safe in each other's arms. "It's okay. It's okay," I kept reassuring them every time they pulled away, studying me as if I weren't corporeal, wasn't real.
"I'm home now," I said. "You don't have to worry."
-- The End --