Gwen Hayes Read online

  Mrs. Winston moaned, and I screamed again.

  Dear Lord, how had this happened?

  "Violet, are you in here?" John's voice called from the other chamber.

  Oh, poor John. I couldn't let him see his mother. Not like this. He called again and it spurred me to run out of the room. I didn't stop until I reached him, and then I propelled myself into his arms. "Oh, John"

  "Violet, are you all right?" He held me close, probably trying to discern how to help me. John was always so caring. He didn't deserve this.

  The Colonel was a monster. And he'd turned his wife into one as well. I was enraged and frightened at the same time. How could a person so sick manage to keep his true nature hidden for so long?

  "Darling, you're shaking," John said into my hair. "What is it that has you so agitated?"

  I pulled back to look into his face. The calm I found in his eyes made me feel even worse. That he should have to deal with yet another family tragedy was so unfair. "We must leave this room immediately, John."

  "What is wrong?"

  I shook my head. "We have to call the authorities." I pulled him toward the entrance, but he refused to budge.

  "What did you see, Violet? Is there something on the other side of that door?" He started that direction.

  "No," I cried. "You must not enter that vile room. Please, John. You must trust me. There is nothing on the other side of that door but heartbreak." I pulled harder, but he was stalwart in his direction. "It's awful. Your father…he has done something atrocious but I cannot allow you to see it. Please, I beg you. Please just come out of here with me. We'll let the authorities deal with this."

  "It must be bad, Vi. You're in your nightclothes. What propelled you out of your bed at this hour?"

  He wasn't taking me seriously. Of course, I must have appeared a hysterical wreck. There was no help for that as it was an understatement of my condition. "John, we must go. Please."

  "How did you even find this place?"

  I began to cry then. Fat tears that served no purpose and would not get us out of there. "I heard noises. I'm afraid he will come back. Please, we have to leave now."

  "Who will come back, Violet?"

  "The Colonel!" I turned towards the exit, but John pulled me back into his chest.

  "I daresay the Colonel will not find you here," he said. One of his arms banded around me tightly.

  I was trapped with my back against him. If he thought to calm me down, caging me was doing the opposite. "Please loosen your grip, John. I can hardly breathe."

  He kissed my cheek. "That could pose a problem, my love." He held a handkerchief to my nose. "For I need you to take several very deep breaths right now."

  I couldn't move away from the sweet smelling kerchief for I was pinned in place. I didn't understand what was happening as I began to get woozy. I was so very tired, and suddenly, falling asleep in John's arms was very appealing indeed. I felt myself let go, then, even as part of me raged to stay awake. I drifted into beautiful oblivion.

  I danced in the clouds. A nagging voice told me to stop, to return to Thornfield. I had work to do-Phillip had a lesson I was to attend to. And yet, I danced. Gideon was there, dashing as ever, and he took me into his arms and we flew as if the world had no cares.

  "You should wake up, sprite," he said to me.

  "I like you better when you don't speak, Gideon," I retorted, and he laughed.

  We dipped and twirled until my stomach was unsettled and my head ached. I began coughing and my dreamscape changed. Gideon was gone and I was left with the sour tummy and blistering head. I couldn't move, my frozen limbs covered in snow.

  I blinked. No. Not frozen. Tied down. I was tethered to a table in the lab. I blinked some more. Oh dear God, John. John had done this.

  As if I summoned him, his face came into view. "Ho, there she is," he said jovially. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd misjudged my tincture. You must be in an awful way right now, and for that I'm sorry. Usually, I don't wake my subjects up at this point, but you…you are special."

  "John, what is going on? Why are you doing this?"

  He had a syringe in his hands that he tapped several times. I squeezed my eyes closed, but he injected the contents into his own arm. He looked euphoric for a moment, and then his normal countenance returned. "I'm sorry. Did you ask me something?"

  He was mad. There was no other explanation. "I asked you why you are doing this."

  "Typical Violet. Most people would ask to be released, beg for forgiveness. Not our governess, of course. She wants to know why…why? Why? Why? Haven't you learned by now that ours is not to question why?" His smile was affable, but his eyes were tinged with manic zeal. "I wouldn't have you any other way, my dear." He paused. "Wait! Yes, I would." He closed the distance between us, bringing his face inches before mine. "I would have rather had you not be a whore."

  I gasped.

  "Oh, don't pretend to be puritanical with me. I know all about you and Gideon. In fact, I've watched you." He whispered into my ear, "The walls have eyes, Miss Merriweather."

  "You watched me?"

  He barked a harsh laugh. "I bet you wish you could have kept your legs closed now, don't you?"

  I winced. It was like a stranger had taken over the body of my friend. Each of his words was laced with unstable anger. The thought of him watching me with Gideon made me want to wretch.

  "My mother was a whore, too, Violet. But I think I can fix her. Really. I'm getting closer all the time." He retreated a few feet away from me, but I didn't know what he was about.

  I tried to reason with him. "Your mother died."

  "More or less," he agreed.

  Was there a way out of this situation? Once again, I cursed my impetuous nature. I thought that keeping him talking would either give me more time to find an escape or would give him more time to unhinge completely.

  "You see, she died in a sense…but science, science is a wonderful thing. I've kept her less than alive but more than dead for many years."

  Less than alive but more than dead? "What does that mean?"

  "It means I'm going to fix her. She will not die a whore-she'll be reborn and live the life she was meant to live. Be who she was meant to be. And you are going to help her, you selfless, wonderful girl."

  I DID NOT like the sound of that at all, and I struggled against the binds. "Please, John. Undo these straps. Let's go downstairs and have a cup of tea and find a solution. I want to help you. Really, I do. But not like this."

  "A cup of tea?" John scoffed. "Oh my goodness, you really are delusional, aren't you?"

  I wasn't the only delusional person in the room, but I didn't dare voice that. "What are you going to do to me?"

  "Mommy needs flesh. Flesh and blood to survive. You won't be needing yours much longer, so you'll donate to Mommy."

  I sobbed.

  He kissed me hard on the mouth and then went back to his machines. It was then I thought of Gideon and his kisses, how it was likely I would never have another. I'd never see his face again, never tease him, never argue. Though we'd been at odds lately, a part of me thought we had all the time in the world to make it up. How foolish. I would die here and they'd never find my body. I'd just be one more ghost to haunt Thornfield. One more lost chance to Gideon.

  I believed he would mourn me. I hoped he'd be there for Phillip, who would not understand my disappearance. Poor Phillip. What would become of him now? He would be another victim of Thornfield, where hate lived in the pockets of shadow and overtook the light at every opportunity. I ached to be able to ruffle his hair one more time. To leave him with at least the knowledge that he was loved like a son.

  I squeezed my eyes. A son. I'd never thought I'd have children of my own. I had resolved to a lifetime of caring for other people's children. I didn't expect that I would be so moved by a tiny hand clutching my skirt. I didn't know I had the capacity for a mother's love.

  For Phillip, I would beg. "Please, John. I don't want to di
e. Phillip needs me."

  "You've done enough damage to my family already. Phillip doesn't need a jezebel like you confusing him. Besides, before too long, he'll have our mother back and you'll be nothing but a memory. For all of us."

  He couldn't have cleaved my heart in two as efficiently with a knife than he just did with his words.

  "Because I'm just a nameless governess, right? I mean nothing to anyone. Like the other women you've killed?"

  John rolled my bed to the machine attached to his mother. "Is this the part where I confess to all my nefarious deeds? Will it balm your departing soul to hear them? Maybe make your journey into the afterlife a little easier? Fine, Violet. I abducted the servants and used them to keep my mother alive."

  "Used them? You mean killed them?"

  "It was their life or my mother's. Frankly, I don't think the courts would convict me. Not that they'll ever know. You certainly won't be able to tell them anything."

  I could see her from my new vantage point. She was watching me. Those frenzied, demonical eyes. "Why does she need flesh and blood?"

  "I've been able to keep her mostly alive, yet she is still technically a decomposing corpse. As parts of her body die, I must graft new flesh-flesh of a living person-to her. I tried to use the skin of the recently departed when I first started-but it doesn't last nearly as long. Hardly worth the hassle of robbing graves."

  I shuddered. Did she know what was happening to her? Was she aware of the heinous monster she had become? "And the…donor…must die?"

  "Well, you see, I've perfected the process. Mother also needs blood transfusions periodically. Large amounts of blood, mind you. I've been able to acquire the flesh while I drain the blood and then, well, there isn't much left of the donor."

  He was odious. All this time, I'd been living with a devil, and I was going to die at his hands. A horrible death. The kind of death most people couldn't dream up in their worst nightmares. And Gideon had thought John to be the better brother. The trustworthy, stalwart one. It hurt to know that everyone else agreed with him most of the time, and would continue to do so while John carried on with his lunatic experiments and his mad killing sprees.

  "You have a special distinction, though, my dear Violet. You are going to also help me test my inVirtuator chip." He held up a brass square. "If I insert this into your brain…you will no longer feel any sexual longing at all. In fact, even thinking about the act will send neuron impulses through your brain that register pain and loathing."

  "Why are you going to test it on me if you are going to kill me?"

  "To see if it works. I can't very well test it on my mother." He clucked as if I were the one talking crazy. "You see, I'll put this into your brain, and then we'll have sexual congress, in the name of science of course. If all goes according to my hypothesis, you will beg me to kill you while we're joined. You will hate every second of it, of course, and it will be extremely painful."

  He was going to defile me-first with an aberrant mechanism in my brain, and then he meant to rape me. He may have deluded himself that this was for science, but it was really because he hated women. His mother most especially.

  "If it works, I'm going to put it in Mother so she'll be good. And then, why I may sell the inVirtuator to men saddled with their own whores. Think of it, Violet, your gift to science will improve the lives of so many."

  "You're insane!" I cried.

  "No, not really. My reasoning is quite sound. Women who are whores abandon their children. They ruin everyone's lives-especially their own. This inVirtuator will save New Geneva."

  "I am not a whore. A woman who enjoys sex is not a whore. She is a woman-the way God made her." My rage was as hot as my fear was cold. "Women have as much right to enjoy the pleasure of life as men have. All of the pleasures since we share all of the pain and burden, do we not?"

  "A man doesn't leave his children to satisfy his baser cravings. That's what she was doing, my mother. The day she died, she was saying goodbye to her children. She was going to leave us all to take up with her paramour. Her love life couldn't be intruded upon by children. It was the second time she was leaving me for a man who was not my father-do you think that is how God made her?" John's face was bright red, and the veins in his forehead protruded violently.

  "I'm not saying your mother was right to abandon you, but all women can't be painted with the same brushstroke."

  "You cannot mean to say that being my brother's lover and risking everything you hold dear was not a mistake. You let your sexual notions dictate your choices. Was it worth it? The fleeting romance? He left you, didn't he? You risked everything and he left you anyway."

  "It wasn't just sexual notions," I protested.

  "What was it, then? Love?" He scoffed.

  "Yes!" I shouted, surprising myself. "I loved him. I still love him." And it was true. "I would do it again. What we had was beautiful. It wasn't sordid or ugly, and we hurt no one else by finding solace in each other's arms." How I wished I'd said the same to Gideon when I had the chance.

  "If you could have controlled your libido, you wouldn't be here right now. Still think your pleasure trumps all?" He tied a tourniquet around my arm. "I fancied myself in love with you for a time. We could have been married by now. Perhaps starting a family of our own. Gideon would never have offered for you."

  The thought of willingly marrying John made me as sick as his promises of violence. Still, agitating him further wasn't in my best interests. "Is your mother aware of what is happening to her?" I risked a glance at the battered body staring at me with an unholy glee.

  "She's in there somewhere. Once I get the inVirtuator in place, I'll work out the rest of her mind. It will be hard for her to get used to being part robotic and part human, but I'll be there for her." He tapped on my arm, bidding my veins to come to him. "I'm going to give you a mild tranquilizer. I'll need you to be somewhat coherent during the surgery."

  He was going to crack my head open and poke my brains while I was awake? I began keening and begging him for mercy. I didn't even know what I was saying.

  "Stop this!" a voice thundered. The unlikeliest of voices, for I recognized it to be the Colonel.

  I couldn't see him, but I could gauge by John's paler face that he wasn't expecting him to find this room.

  "What in God's name is going on here?" the older man blustered. "My God, John, what have you done?"

  "Father I can explain-"

  The Colonel shook his cane at the abomination. "What is that?"

  "Father-"

  "Miss Merriweather, what are you doing in here?" Recrimination laced his concern. As if I had done this to myself somehow.

  "Please, Colonel, untie me."

  "What have you done, John?"

  "Not another step, Father, or I inject this poison into Violet's heart."

  My eyes flew to the syringe in his hand.

  John pat my arm as if consoling a small child. "The tincture will not kill you if I put it into your veins slowly, however, this dose straight into your heart would be fatal."

  "Why would you want to kill the governess? I thought you were trying to win her favor. What the devil is going on?"

  It was awful being so helpless. I trusted that neither man really cared about my fate one way or the other. I'd tried appealing to John's basic human empathy to no avail. The Colonel's might not run any deeper, knowing how he felt about women and servants in general. That my fate lie solely in their hands-had always, in fact, been in the hands of men who cared not for me as a person, enraged me. I had been powerless since I was born-my small rebellions had not changed anything for anyone, much less myself.

  There was a brass button on the apparatus that billowed air into Mrs. Winston's machine. I didn't know what it did, but it seemed like a fairly good distraction, so while John tried to placate the Colonel, I stretched, ignoring the searing pain of muscle, until my finger hit the button. A screeching siren sounded.

  "You bitch!" John yelled, dropping the sy
ringe and scurrying around my table to set to rights whatever I'd accomplished. The Colonel picked up the syringe and pocketed it while he began unstrapping me.

  "Father, no. If you'll only let me explain."

  "Explain? Explain to me that my son has abducted the governess and is doing fiendish experiments in league with the devil?"

  I sat up in time for the Colonel to get his first good look at his wife.

  "My God." He paled considerably. "Is that…what have you done, John?"

  The Colonel clutched his chest. John looked at me in blame, taking strides toward the table. I hopped off it and pushed it so that it rolled into him. I tried to run around it, but he grabbed me by my middle as I passed. The Colonel, still in the throes of heart pain, had stumbled up to the living corpse.

  "Elizabeth…oh my Elizabeth. What has he done to you?"

  She began an awful keening sound. It wasn't human, the noise that emanated from her throat. The despair and horror should not have been born.

  The Colonel, shaking, began to unbind her.

  "Father, no!" John let go of me in the rush to stop his father. I searched for a weapon, lest I not make it to the door again. A bloody butcher knife dripping in an unknown source of gore sat on a block and I took it, pushing down the rising bile in my throat. I couldn't afford to be sickened or frightened. My life was in my hands. The lives of countless other future victims also depended on stopping John and his sordid experiments.

  John pushed his father away from Elizabeth Winston and they both went down to the floor. The monster that used to be a wife and mother saw me and howled, shambling towards me with a super human speed. I screamed as she grabbed my shoulder and howled in my face.

  Her grasp crushed against my bone, causing me to slump. She shook me like a rag doll and stared into my eyes as her lips slipped off her face and on onto the floor. She kept saying the same syllables over and over until I recognized that she was trying to form words.

  Words. Words from a corpse. Dear Lord, she was sentient.