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Valerie reeled back in her seat, barely able to open her mouth to breathe like a fish out of the water, her eyes looking for marks of usual ridicule and scorn, yet Mrs. Harker was busy eating the second half of her biscuit, holding butter in her free hand.
Valerie glanced at Mircalla. She was sitting listlessly on the other side of the large table, shaking her head in unison every now and then. She did not touch a single cake or cucumber sandwich. A similar confusion pervaded her gaze and the corners of her mouth drifted downward.
“I know we had a rough start,” Mrs. Harker continued like she didn’t pause, an edge of regret in her voice, “There’s no way to put it better: I have been a scoundrel. I have been an awful mentor, let alone a confidant, and threw you to the wolves. I mistreated you in my house and broke your heart. For all that, I am deeply sorry. I want to atone for my sins, if you let me, and put us on the right track.”
Valerie began to stutter, glancing nervously at the room. She could not make sense of Mrs. Harker’s drastic change of manner, the most placid and kind she had ever seen from her, and could not help but wonder if there was a deeper reason underlying it.
“I am most thankful,” she replied at last, pressing her wedding ring to her flesh, finding a sudden yet ambitious impulse to peek behind Cecilia’s skin and bones. “I’d be honored.”
Cecilia clapped her hands in response, jumping in her seat, a smudge of butter on top of her lips. “That’s wonderful! Did you hear that ladies? My goodness, we have a lot to do! You must join us for shopping. My tailor has the latest fashion materials. From ribbons to petticoats and feathers!”
Then the room took notice of her cheers and carried on with the laughter. The room seemed much brighter as the reflecting light of snow poured through the paned windows, slanting at the edge of their table, flooding their figures in a cool glow. It was only Mircalla who was left in the dark, appearing between floating dust motes when Valerie had a chance to look, arms folded, inscrutable in her brooding silence.
23
Valerie was on thetop of her dresser, giggling and breathing in Mircalla's mouth. Moonbeams shone through the naked branches of trees, casting broken shapes through the dusty panes. She stirred. Mircalla was all angles and shadows, a figment of her imagination perhaps, and she could not help but feel what she reached out for was long gone. Still, her lips parted in a sigh as she held onto Mircalla’s waist to catch her breath who then flashed her teeth and pulled her in for a kiss.
“Look at me,” Mircalla said, kneeling before her. The floor creaked under her steps. The vibrating thud of her knees scraping the floor rang in Valerie’s ears. For so long, Valerie had dreamt of leaving this life behind, perturbed and aware of what rested in her was apathy, yet longing to swarm around bodies she did not know like a homesick ghost, eager to skin her elbows and knees, so that she may touch someone for the first time.
As she inhaled, the woman before her shifted position, and it was impossible not to dissolve away in this fondness. At the same time, Ethan said, “Keep your eyes on me.” But his lips weren’t moving. “I dare you.”
So Valerie nibbled on her husband’s severed finger. She did not question when or where it appeared. It must have been in her hand all her life, in a blaze, sealed behind the coldness of January. She was meant to be here, cradled by her bloodthirsty lover, and sucking on her husband’s flesh until the hard bone grated against her teeth. Even then, she pushed the finger down her throat, feeling the cold touch of his wedding ring on her tongue, her gaze fixed on his ashen face.
He was just a few steps away from her, rocking back and forth on his heels, as if drunk. He put pressure on where his finger stretched a moment ago. Beads of sweat shimmered on his forehead but his eyes did not falter: spawning hatred, vicious, vindictive.
Meanwhile, Mircalla’s hands were making their way up Valerie’s woolen stockings, head buried under her billowing skirt, and Valerie felt a sharp pang in her stomach, resisting the urge to grab Mircalla by the hair and press her wandering lips harder to her trembling skin.
Ethan’s voice thundered. “You’re a crook,” he said. “A heathen, whore.” He attempted to lurch forward, raised his arms to tumble her down, but blood streaked down his shirt, and his body failed him. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
Valerie continued to gorge on his finger, though slightly nauseous. The flesh warmed on her lips, blood dripping down her chest and into her dress, and she swallowed another chewy, sour bite.
Mircalla’s hasty fingers tickled her calves as she tugged on her drawers. She lifted her hips while the fabric loosened around her ankles and her lover’s lips followed the path her hands wandered and Valerie moaned every time she left burning kisses. She looked down, the bulge of Mircalla’s head fluttered her skirt like ripples on a lake. Her cheek pressed against the inside of her thigh, roaming over the soft spot where Valerie had been aching the most. A jolt of electricity ran through her as Mircalla tore her skirt apart and their eyes met.
It should not feel like paradise, Valerie thought, the last piece of the gnarly finger dangling from the tip of her lips. But when Mircalla was this close, her breath like crashing waves against her skin, slick with sweat and warm with kisses, Valerie only wanted to move her hands and invite her deeper inside, where every fiber of her existence exploded with one name.
Mircalla Karnstein.
Restless and brimming with ecstasy, Valerie grabbed the corners of the nightstand. She swallowed the last piece of the finger, the hairs on it sticking to her teeth, the veins soft and chewy, the marrow salacious and sweet. His ring fell and thudded against the floor, sending a web of scarlet in every direction and Ethan faded from her view.
Mircalla always touched her as she was. She was never incomplete, never unfilled. Free from the torment of her own angles, Valerie truly felt alive and boundless. She did not have a reason to complicate things: She wanted Mircalla, she needed Mircalla. She wanted to collapse, lay her foundation in front of her so she may pace her untended soil. She was overgrown with wishful lust and only Mircalla could absolve her clean.
Her lover looked up with a wicked grin. Valerie could only gasp at the sight of her. Her hair cascaded down her back in twined curls, the gleam in her eye reflected the same need. Her legs hung from Mircalla’s shoulders like vines winding around each other’s stems, and Valerie’s heart raced against her chest as Mircalla buried her face between her legs. She was teasing her as she always did. Her breath was quick and loud on her stomach before she finally dived in with her tongue. In that moment, she quit lingering. She was here, and she had always been. Burying her hands in Mircalla’s hair, she arched her back, moaning loudly as Mircalla licked her and she felt like she was about to drown, inescapably writhing around Mircalla’s lips.
Mircalla’s tongue flicked over her clitoris. It was as if she had lived on the edge of the world until now and the jump only made the cliff look pitiable. She was falling apart, screaming and shaking with pleasure. The heat inside her built until she could not take anymore, a thousand needles devoutly crawling her skin.
24
Her meetings with Mrs.Harker had gone beyond ordinary shopping trips. Cecilia sometimes invited her to her home and they chatted about the state of the town, treading warily around the subjects that concerned Vertigo Peaks and her reputation. In the company of warm tea and buttery scones, Valerie spent hours and was most often kept by her host to stay for supper.
They also made a habit of visiting other ladies of the group together, sharing a carriage, girdled by the windswept plains as they, inch by inch, climbed up the snow-clad hills, and the crunch of ice upon steel filled the air. Their conversation slowly found a rhythm—expanding without hindrance, occasionally defensive, yet still remarkably comforting. Valerie was usually the listening party. Emboldened by the urgency of the present, Cecilia Harker was getting her own way. As she spoke, she masterfully changed subjects without Valerie noticing, almost without effort, and elongated certain words and controlled the lucid pitch of her voice, which made her speech notably more elegant.
Together, they had even started giving weekly hot meals, coal, and clothes to the townspeople. Children were lining the streets with rice and crushed petals in their hands to greet them, young boys were climbing on the thatched roofs to wave and shout their names, and even the merchants would fall silent and stare. Valerie had never been this visible. She felt like a comet that suddenly appeared in the heavens; for her presence presented an imposing and astonishing quality to the crowd, her spectators, alarmed and inspired, stood with mouths agape and eyes widened.
Her resolve to keep away was dissolving. Those early days, she did not know how to move, embarrassingly naive and terrified. She had been wicked, disloyal. These people wanted to love her, waited hours just to see the turn of her head, and Cecilia assured her things would only get better. How could they not when she tried to be worthy of their gaze every day? They were cut from the same cloth. She could not bear to live as she once did, knowing there were days when she did not want to be around, still obscure to herself and this town, crawling for an exit, yet waiting for another blow.
“You don’t think they still hate you, do you?” asked Cecilia one day as they, arm in arm, walked back to their carriage. “They adore you, my dear. You have shown them who Mrs. Vertigo is. You’re still the mistress here. They are the luckiest lot in the world.”
Valerie buried her head in her cloak, trying to hide her smile. Everything resembled a fairytale from that point. Lights twinkled, cheeks turned red with affection. She felt alive under the warm gaze of people;herpeople. Her husband became unusually animated and less ill-tempered, spending his days in his study, devising new plans for spring, mapping new crossroads and festivities to keep the townspeople excited. Labor was a sanctuary in which all found safety, a sort of paradise, fragile yet beaming, simple though it was, where comfort was not a question but something that occurred naturally. Valerie found herself to be one of those happy wives, who granted herself freedom by keeping her husband content, all ghost stories forgotten, and started each day next to her lover.
