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“She’s really quite nice,” she said. “She’s always been so good to me.”
I thanked her then gave my bath as an excuse for not lingering over conversation as we often did. Despite this, she was hesitant to go.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, feeling a terrible friend for hurrying her off. “Here, sit. We can chat about it.”
“No,” she said, then opened her mouth as if she might change her answer, only to shake her head. “Have you been sleeping well?”
The question put me on guard. Felicity too? I could have laughed, but she was so distraught I thought it better not to. Callum had said no one in the house wouldn’t celebrate us. Felicity wasn’t jubilant at all. She looked disturbed.
“I’ve been sleeping all right,” I answered, measured. “Why?”
“I’ve been hearing noises at night,” she said in a rush. Mortified and thinking she’d heard our lovemaking, I prepared to explain when she continued.
“A woman crying. I assumed it must be you, and I was worried.”
The air grew thin. There wasn’t enough oxygen. My knees wobbled, and I sat under the guise of preparing the tea.
“It wasn’t me,” I said, trying to sound curious and not frightened. “Ms. Dillard?”
“Ms. Dillard sleeps in the room next to mine. She was quiet as a mouse. Are you sure you’re all right, Millie? You’d tell me if there was something wrong?”
Though her earnest friendship affected me, I had no way to remedy her anxieties. I might be able to put her own fears to rest, but not mine.
“Of course.” I sipped the tea to disguise my lie. Aside from the intense sweetness I’d come to expect recently, it was bitter, far too strong. I barely managed to keep from spitting the mouthful back into the cup. The taste lingered on my tongue even after I swallowed, sticky and biting. I lowered the cup and noticed a filmy white residue floating at the top, undissolved. The tea had gone bad.
“Do you believe in spirits?” she said, her voice fragile as butterfly wings.
I nearly dropped the teacup.
The slight color in her face had completely disappeared, and she seemed a ghost, pale and small in the late twilight seeping through the windows.
“No,” I said firmly.
“Mrs. Hughes did,” she whispered.
“I know,” I replied, then made up my mind. “It was me. I’ve been crying at night, Felicity. I’m sorry. I miss Boston, and I’m not sure what I’m going to do after this job is finished. I’m so sorry it frightened you. I promise I’m better now.”
Her small shoulders slumped with such relief that I got up from my seat and encircled her in my arms. Shocked, she stiffened and I held a statue, but as I moved to release her, she raised her arms to return the embrace. She smelled of honeysuckle and lanolin, and I wished she was somewhere happier.
“You’re a good friend, Felicity. Thank you for checking on me. Please don’t worry. Everything is fine,” I assured her, giving her one more squeeze.
When she left, after repeatedly asking if there was anything she could do for me, I went back to the table and shakily leaned against it. I tried to convince myself she’d overheard my and Callum’s activities and misinterpreted, but that was unlikely.
I needed to see Callum, needed to hear him tell me how absurd people who believed in spirits were, yet I was reluctant to go when I was in such a state. My fear embarrassed me. I was being silly, and so was Felicity. To prove I could approach things with a level mind, I decided to take a bath after all. I shoved one of the cookies in my mouth, hoping to dispel the horrible, rancid flavor of the tea, and headed to the bathroom.
I ran the bathwater as hot as I could stand, pouring in the scented salts. The fragrance filled the room with the luxury of violets, and I breathed it in, trying to banish the new unhappiness Felicity’s revelation had stirred in me. As I began to undress, I caught sight of myself in the mirror, fingertip-sized bruises spotting my hips and thighs from Callum’s vigorous handling of me. I touched them gingerly, desire blooming. Standing there naked, I tried to see what he did, and appreciate every part he sought to devour in his love.
Perhaps this was what Rodney had meant with his cryptic warning. Callum’s demands of my body were many, but weren’t my demands equally consuming? I’d never left his arms feeling less, as though something had been taken from me. No shame filled me, no sense of anxiety. When he was close I becamemore.
Heartbeat thrumming with need, I slipped my fingers between my legs and over the tight knot of pleasure, singing with want of him. I imagined the number of times Callum had done this job, as recently as this morning in the library as we’d stood poring over a poorly annotated text. His hand had traveled up my thigh, and he’d ordered me to stay perfectly still and continue reading aloud as he stroked me from behind, correcting my pronunciation when the building ecstasy caused me to fumble my words. I rubbed myself with sure movements, still knowing better than anyone how to efficiently satisfy my desire. Despite the mastery of my own body, the knowledge that this couldn’t sate me stoked my passion all the more. I closed my eyes, the stimulation leaving me curiously light-headed, the sensation of being unbound to gravity seeping through my limbs with every brush of my fingers. I brought myself to orgasm with a shuddering exhale.
When the bliss abated, I remained unmoored, aloof in a strange haze not as rosy as it should have been. I didn’t feel contented, but slightly ill, air heavy in my lungs. I opened my eyes to find the bathroom so thick with steam my image in the mirror appeared ghostlike, a mere smudge of color. My heart pounded, my stomach turning over as I hurried toward the tub to close the tap. As I approached, my feet splashed in hot water. The tub was overflowing onto the floor, and I berated myself for the brazen lust that led me to forget the bath and make such an ungodly mess. Something unusual became visible within the heavy vapor, the peculiar shape making me hesitate even as the scalding rivulets washed over my toes. I waved a hand through the haze to clear my line of sight.
A woman’s body floated at the crest of the water, lengths of white hair draped over the lip of the tub, pulled by the current. Her knees were folded beneath her as though she had drowned while kneeling to pray, and the tap spilled onto the back of her head, making it bob sickly up and down. Instinctively I charged forward to save her, hooking my arms under hers to haul her out. As my hands met her skin, it pulled away from the muscle and bone in soft, bloated patches. I opened my mouth to scream but gagged instead, shaking the fleshy gore off of me. It clung to my fingernails like clay. The motion caused me to slip, and I flailed backward. My effort to stay upright only imbalanced me further, and I careened to the floor, the side of my head grazing the porcelain bath. White filled my vision, and I lay on the floor, clutching the throbbing spot above my ear as nausea roiled up from pain and revulsion. I concentrated on rolling over and crawling to the vanity without vomiting, daring to glance back as I pulled myself up, only to find the tub empty of corpses. There was no woman, no decaying body tissue, only the tumult of water still rushing onto the floor.
Disoriented and horrified, I grabbed my robe as a noise reached me from beneath the bathroom door.
Crying.
