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My hands trembled against the wool of the jacket, and I drew away. I tried to keep my voice even, but it cracked, breaking with hurt. “Why would you lie to me? Why would you do something like this?”
“I had no choice.” There was dreadful pleading in Felicity’s tone. She wouldn’t approach me, afraid perhaps that I would strike her, but she held out her hands to me, like I might take them for comfort. “Please, I need you to understand.”
“What else? What else was hers?”
Felicity withdrew, instead grasping the skirt of her apron in both fists and glancing over my shoulder to the bed. I turned, not knowing what I was going to find, seeing at first only the white lace comforter with blue forget-me-nots embroidered in the center, and the blue tasseled lamps, their brass bases shining with care. At last, my eyes discovered the jewelry box sitting open on the nightstand.
I walked to it as though I were walking to my death.
The box was ornate silver, embossed with threads of vines, and on its front, two hands held a heart adorned with a crown. A claddagh. A symbol of eternal loyalty and love. I looked into the box, filled with glittering earrings and bracelets, delicate necklaces hanging on small hooks in the lid, their pendants tucked into a band of velvet. At the topmost portion was a row of cushions to display rings, and here there was only one, a wedding ring whose band boasted shining bright emeralds. Next to this, an indentation in the soft stuffing where another ring had long been stored. A ring that now encircled a finger on my left hand.
Tears at last spilled over, falling to the velvet and turning it black. Everything I’d been given, all the parts I’d played as a research assistant, a guest to his dinner party, a planner of his accounts, a partner in his bed had all been to mimic Mrs. Hughes. When Callum looked at me, I was not the woman he wanted to see. Mrs. Hughes’s ghost wasn’t trying to harm me, she’d been warning me of Callum’s intentions.
Called by my thoughts, the woman’s spectral form materialized in the vanity mirror, her head resting in her arms as she cried. Following the appearance of this phantom, another moved through the door, crossing the room so quickly to the bed it frightened me. She lay down, covering her face with her arm. Still more appeared, going about the routines they’d become accustomed to in life. A chill at my shoulder had me turning to find that I stood mere inches away from another specter, her back to me, reaching down into the jewelry box for a ring that was no longer there. My head swam, filled with Mrs. Hughes, and I brought my hands to my face, pressing the palms into my eyes to will the visions away.
“Millie,” Felicity whispered, “you have to leave now before it’s too late.”
“What are you doing in here?” Callum’s furious voice cracked like thunder in my ears, breaking me from the spell. I lowered my hands. The spirits had fled, and in their place was a yawning sense of betrayal. He loomed in the doorway, his brow furrowed in a rage I’d never seen. Felicity, who’d been standing near the dresser where I’d discovered the silk pajamas, took a shaky step away from him.
“This room was locked,” he boomed, and he was looking at the maid. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“I…” she started, but I marched to her side, stepping in the path of Callum’s anger, shielding her with my body. He started to speak, but I grabbed a perfume bottle from the top of the dresser and hurled it at him with a furor of my own. He caught it as it careened toward him, then threw it on the floor, where it shattered, saturating the rug and filling the space with an oppressive citrus scent.
“This is what the clothes were for, the gifts,” I hissed, wanting to throw more, to rip down the curtains, tip the dresser, fracture the vanity mirror. “All of the things that used to be hersfor me.”
“Millie.” Callum’s voice had dipped, smoothed into a cajoling tone, low and easy, the way someone would speak to a frightened mare. He took a step toward me, holding his hands out as Felicity had done, but instead of offering an embrace, they were a command for calm, and I knew he would grab me if I let him get close enough.
“No,” I grated. “I will not be the empty shell that your wife’s ghost fills.”
This time, I grabbed a decorative brass gas lamp with both hands and threw it. Unable to catch this without injury, he was forced to dodge. I took the opportunity to sprint, rushing around him toward the door, but he caught my wrist. Using the momentum I’d already created, I rounded with the entire weight of my body, striking him across the face. The shock loosened his grip, and I wrenched away, running with all of my might, pulling down pictures and pieces of furniture as I went. I made it to the stairs, and this time my feet barely touched the steps for an entirely different reason than only an hour ago. This time, I was running for my life.
I could hear his footsteps behind me, unable to determine how close he was. I put every bit of effort I could manage into running all the faster. He called to me, yelling my name over and over. In a panic I thought only to run where I could be safe for now. He’d surely catch up to me if I tried to make it outside. I careened down the hallways, making it at last to my room with just enough time to fling myself inside, closing the door and locking it as the bulk of him made impact upon the wood, shaking the knob, pounding.
“Millie!” he yelled repeatedly, rattling the door as I stood there trembling, hoping he didn’t have a key.
There were more voices in the hallway now. Ms. Dillard and Dr. Hannigan.
“Calm yourself, son!” the doctor bellowed at the same time Ms. Dillard was begging, “This must stop. It must!”
There was a bodily tussle, then Callum’s frantic yelling dissolved into weeping. The sound of it might have killed me, seizing my heart with so much anguish I could barely remain standing. Though I shook with the force of my own tears, I didn’t make a sound. I couldn’t let him hear me cry.
The voices quieted, and at last Callum agreed to leave. I listened to a pair of footsteps retreat from my door, and at length there was a gentle knock.
“Millie?” Ms. Dillard called with all the tenderness of a mother consoling a terrified child. It was the first time she’d used my name since I’d arrived. “Millie, will you let me in? I know you must be afraid, but if we could just talk…”
“Go away this instant!” The last word was a high shriek that ripped through my vocal cords, leaving my throat raw.
“All right,” she replied, sorrowful. “All right.”
When I could no longer hear her footsteps, I collapsed into a heap by the door, wailing my sorrows into the boards and beams of Willowfield.
When I was too exhausted to continue, I hauled myself up and returned to the bag I’d packed. A mere hope ago, it had represented a new life, and now it was all I had left to my name, ready to leave with me again just as we had come.
I removed the clothes that weren’t mine and hurled them into the dormant fireplace. Though there was no fire burning, it gave me pleasure to know it was where it all belonged. Thankful I hadn’t thrown my old things out, I collected them, going to the drawer to gather my underwear and stockings, disgusted by the sight of the expensive silks, not knowing if they had once been worn by Mrs. Hughes. I yanked my old slip from the drawer and with it came the small botany journal, tumbling to the floor.
I bent to retrieve it, my hatred so potent I thought it might be enough to start the fire I’d imagined. I hurled the offensive thing toward the grate, missing. It hit the mantel instead, spine first, and exploded into a shower of papers, pages scattering. I would have left it there, but the silk bindingof the back cover had come away, and a tightly folded letter peeked partially out.
I stooped to pick it up, giving in to a final morbid curiosity and a spiteful sense of entitlement. Why didn’t I have a right to know everything this woman had written about their lives? Her own husband had tried to make me her duplicate. I unfolded the papers to find the word:
