It’s been about four hours, I guess, since we’ve left London, and we’re still not even close to there.
To be honest, though, I’ve no clue where ‘there’ is. Only Bella, my older sister knows, and refuses to tell the rest of us.
I take my gaze away from the rain-saturated landscape out the window, and glance across from me, where she sits now, staring at the stitching on the corner of her shawl as though it might attack her at any moment. I force myself into giving an ironic little laugh at that thought, just to make up for the total absence of noise inside the carriage. Bella glares up at me when I do so, although it can hardly be called a glare because all that’s in it is a loneliness as empty as the fields out the window.
The entire reason we’re headed ‘there’, is because my sister has, in fact, witnessed things far more terrible than the corner of her shawl.
I wasn’t actually involved in the scene. In fact, I barely know what happened, what set it off, though I’ve wondered at it for the past hour with a kind of morbid curiosity. All I heard were screams from upstairs, when Bella had rushed into my bedchamber and shouted that we had to get out.
He was Bella’s husband. All the rest of us loved him as though he was our brother, although, looking back on it, I don’t know why, given his ‘moods’. All of a sudden, he would spring into a sudden rage, triggered by a single word, or a look, or often nothing at all. He had never done anything like this, though.
Rose was his sister, and a close friend of mine. She was only 16, and just as well loved by our family as her brother. She had never done anything to anger him, and why she was his chosen victim is completely beyond my comprehension.
Now thoughts occur to me and won’t get out of my mind. Was I the one who set him off? She didn’t deserve to die! I do much more than her! Why wasn’t it me? Why wasn’t it me?! Even as I think them, I’m aware how pointless and stupid they are, but they won’t leave me alone. Why wasn’t it me?!
I have to bite my tongue to keep myself from screaming at my thoughts to just leave me alone. I take a deep breath and rest my head on the back of the carriage-seat, trying to will myself to go to sleep. All I want is to get the whole thing out of my head, but I’m afraid of living imagined versions of the scene in my sleep.
After an unsuccessful half hour, I return to staring out the window at a landscape that’s almost entirely trees, all odd shades of brown and gray, like a photograph. The silence in here is unnerving, but I can’t think of any way to break it, and comments about the weather seem just a bit unfitting in our present situation. So I return to staring miserably out the window and chewing on a lock of hair.
“Jane?” a little girl’s voice whispers in my ear, nearly causing me to jump. I look over and see my sister Celia staring up at me, wide-eyed. I’d forgotten she was there.
“Yes?”
“Are we there yet?”
I let out the kind of long sigh you’d expect to hear when girls my age whine about how life isn’t fair. I suppose that’s what I’ve been doing for the past two hours, so it fits.
“I’ve told you six times already. I have no idea. Ask Bella.”
She repeats her question to our sister, who has long since stopped staring at her shawl, and has moved on to my device of gazing blankly out the window and chewing on hair.
Before Bella has time to respond, the carriage comes to a skidding halt, and all three of us jump.
“Well,” she says, “I suppose we are now.”
As we step out of the carriage, we’re faced with a house about the size of Bella’s back in London, though this has a yard, and is far cleaner and more elegant. It would have been almost ideal if it weren’t for the pouring rain and the apprehension that all of us feel at present. It looks vaguely familiar, but my memory refuses to tell me where we are. I feel Celia clinging to my skirt, and staring, just as apprehensively upward at the place. Bella is the first to actually approach, knocking on the door like this is some sort of perfectly normal activity for her.After about ten minutes, the door is answered by a tall, skinny young man, probably about a year older than myself, who bows politely, takes our bonnets and shawls, and shows us upstairs to a book-filled drawing room, glowing with the yellow light of gas lamps. On any other day, I would have been overjoyed at the sight of so many books, but at the moment, my attention is fixed on the woman who was just sitting at a desk under the window, and now embraces my older sister. She appears to be about Bella’s age, tall and thin like her servant, though, unlike the both of them, she’s unnaturally pale.
They exchange the usual “How’ve you been”s, although obviously far more worried than usual, with nervous glances at myself and Celia, who both curtsy politely, and take the cue to leave the room while they whisper nervously inside. I sit now on the dark staircase, with Celia sleeping, head on my lap, and my ear pressed to the cold wooden door, trying to make out bits of conversation. There are only a few words I can catch, but my tired mind can’t make sense of them, and sleep eventually gets the better of me for the first time in the past two days.
When I awake, I find myself under the covers, in the large bed of an empty, fire-lit room, and Celia’s curly blond head on my left shoulder. I’m filled with a dull ache, and roll over, letting out an exhausted groan. A nightgowned Bella sits on the floor by the fire, dark, silky hair falling over her eyes. She makes no noise at all, but I can tell by her breathing that she’s crying into her tea, which she holds to her cheek for warmth. She hears me awaken and immediately turns to stare into the low, crackling fire, the dark golden light reflecting onto her tears.
“Bella?”
She makes no attempt to answer, save a small, low, “mm” kind of sound, as though she doesn’t trust herself to actually talk.
I feel like the polite thing to do is ask her if she’s alright, but the answer is obvious, though she’ll do her best to deny it. I must admit that I’m a little bit nervous as I approach her, but I feel almost as if it’s my duty to comfort her, although I know that nothing will. Shivering, I sit down beside her, not expecting the floor to be as cold as it is.
“Bella...” I trail off, not wanting to worsen her state. I find myself suddenly overcome with terrible curiosity.
She takes a sip of cold, salt-water infused tea, not looking up. I’m aware that it would be incredibly selfish to make her tell me, but I take a deep breath.
“Bella... I know the last thing you want is to tell me, but... what happened... that night?”
She sighs, almost exasperatedly, through her nose and takes another sip before she speaks.
“Nothing happened,” she says, quietly, but with the force of a shout. She avoids me as she says it, and keeps on staring into the fire, which, by this point, is little more than embers.
“Nothing happened?” I ask, realising as I say it that I must seem completely heartless to my poor sister. “But what about Rose? Your husband? What about-”
She cuts me off, snapping and obviously struggling not to break into sobs:
“It never happened. He never happened.”
“But-”
“Don’t talk about it. It’s over. We can never go back again.”
I don’t want to cause her any more pain, but my curiosity and fear are still wild within me.
For now, though, I give up asking questions, raise myself from the freezing floor, and return to bed in this mysterious house.
