THIRTY-SEVEN
I walk back to Beacon Terrace in a daze. The streetlights are wavering, spinning almost. I feel like my legs might give way any second. I can’t seem to think straight and so perhaps that’s why, after walking through what seems like a tunnel made up of shadows and winking lights, I end up outside Bert’s house. I find myself barefoot on the cool grass of the lawn, staring up at the darkened windows. I don’t know what the Riddance involves but I’m almost certain it will have something to do with the things Bert keeps in his basement. The dress, the Devices. That head cage blotted with rust and old blood. I look around me to make sure no one is watching and then I stand on tiptoe just the way Alice had and feel along the lintel until my fingers chance upon the silver door key hidden up there. I pull it down and lookaround me again. I feel watched. No, not watched. Hunted. I open the door and slip inside.
Down, down to the basement. No key needed this time, the door is already open. I turn on the lights with caution but am greeted only by an empty room; immaculate, tidy, well-kept. This time, however, I know exactly where to go. I pull the dust sheet once again from the tailor’s dummy behind the shelves and stand back, staring at the Riddance dress. I run my hand over the heavy fabric, lifting the folds of the skirt and letting them drop satisfyingly back into place. I thought it was a drab, concrete-colored linen but now as I start to untie the waist straps, peeling it from the mannequin, I can see it is a faded Florentine blue. The color of spring flowers; love-in-a-mists and forget-me-nots. I hold the dress against my body, enjoying the soft rustle of the material as I move. It’s mesmerizing. There is the lightest scattering of stains on the chest, like rust spots. When I brush at them, they don’t come away.
“Put it on.”
The voice startles me and I utter a short scream, clamping my hands over my mouth as a figure steps out of the shadows under the stairs, blocking my exit. It’s Bert. In the harsh overhead lights the hollows of his temples look like pools of ink. He is wearing a long, purple robe fastened at his neck with a golden clasp, silvery hair swept back from his head. He reminds me of a Las Vegas magician and I almost blurt out a shrill, panicked laugh, not quite sane. Bert notices my expression and dusts his fingers down the velvet.
“Ah yes. My ceremonial robe. A touch grandiose, I’m afraid, but these things are worth doing correctly if they’re to be done well, don’t you think? And people do expect these traditions tobe performed a certain way. I see you’re getting into the spirit of things.” He points to the dress. “You want to see how it feels to be a Riddance girl, don’t you? Put it on.”
Mina,some soft internal voice says warningly,be careful.I keep my eyes fixed on him as I back away toward the far end of the table. Bert must have already been down here when he heard me come into the house. It’s unnerving to think of him stepping into the shadows and watching me in silence. It’s predatory. A wild animal hiding in the dark of a cave.
“I know you came down here yesterday, Mina. You left traces of yourself everywhere. Smudges on the glass, the banister, footprints on the carpet. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
“Bert, I just wanted to—”
He keeps talking, voice smooth and unruffled and almost idle sounding.
“You made a mess down here, though. Left everything out for me to find. I thought you were cleverer than this but you’re too far gone, aren’t you? You’re already bewitched.”
I think back to how I dashed out of the basement the previous day when Alice was screaming. I meant to come back down and tidy everything away but, of course, I never had the chance and in the chaos that had followed I’d forgotten all about it. Bert flashes me a sly grin, all dentures and pink gums. “Let’s see now—breaking and entering, trespass, theft.Murder.You’re building up quite the record, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t murder Mary, Bert. You know I didn’t.”
He gives a soft, dry chuckle. Another of those long, vulpine smiles.
“I wasn’t referring to my wife, Mina.”
I feel suddenly weak. Fear runs through me like ropes of mercury, slippery and poisonous.
Bert smiles again and nods toward the dress. “But! Accusations and recriminations will have to wait. We have a Riddance to attend, don’t we? The question is,whose?”
I stare at him, heart ticking in my throat. Bert’s old, but fit. I don’t doubt he has a certain wiry strength, even if he can’t move fast. But that’s the other thing, isn’t it? My ankle. I hobbled down here by leaning on the handrail but to run past him, up the stairs, and out the door? Not a chance. So if I want to get out of this basement, I have to play along. Get upstairs into the kitchen where there might be knives and scissors and meat cleavers, long steel skewers for barbeques. More important, there is a phone in the hallway. I’ve seen it there on the wall and I know it works because Lisa called Bert only the previous night when she’d been stranded. All I need to do is disable him long enough to get to the phone. But I can’t do that down here. Down here I’m cornered like a rat.
“Okay, Bert,” I tell him, holding up my hands. “I’ll put on the damn dress.”
He graciously turns away as I peel off my clothes, stained and crumpled and stiff with sweat. I catch a glimpse of my ankle, swollen and starting to bruise. I don’t like the look of that bruising, don’t like itat all.
The dress is designed to open up like an apron and be wrapped around the body, secured with long straps of material about the waist. I step into it, strapping it around me. The pale blue fabric drops away from my breasts like liquid and when I move, turning slowly around so the full skirt circles out, the material whispers to me in delight. My fingers carefully tie a bowat my waist, cinching it in. I almost gasp at the sensation of constriction, it’s muscular somehow. Color flares in my vision, the room seeming to take on a clarity that is almost supernatural. No wonder so many girls wanted to wear it, I think. It’s magical. The throb of my heart is slow and steady as I lift the necklaces one by one from the dummy, taking care to hang them from the shortest to longest so they don’t tangle around my neck. It’s heavy work, the stones rattling against each other with a sound like dice being thrown. By the time I lower the last one over my head, I can barely stand, yet it is a peaceful, almost meditative feeling, the weight bearing down on me. At the far end of the room is an old fly-spotted mirror, silvery with age. I stand in front of it and my breath catches in my throat. I look like a painting, some old master rich in shadow and shade, my hair coming undone, high spots of color in my cheeks. I am a pre-Raphaelite, bruised and heavy with love. I am strung with the bones of the earth around my neck. I am beautiful.
In the misty reflection a subtle movement catches my eye. Just for a second, I think I glimpse something pressed into the farthest corner of the ceiling; tilted, grinning face, bruised knees, blackened tongue. Then, gone. I catch that sweet scent again, iron rich; candied almonds and spoiled meat. It curdles in the air like bad words softly spoken. When Bert’s hands slide around my waist, I almost scream. They wind around the straps and begin to adjust the knots, his breath rasping in and out of him, his exhalations hot against the back of my neck. I am suddenly mute with dread. Bert pulls the knot so tight I clutch my stomach, sucking air in. I’m forced to lean forward, trying to create a space for my ribs to expand.
“You’re hurting me! Bert!”
“The combined weight of those stones is precisely five pointseven kilograms,” he whispers, as if I haven’t said a thing. “That’s how much it took to weigh down the original witch back in the seventeen hundreds.”
“Weigh her down? For what?”
“Her Riddance, Mina.” His eyes glitter dangerously. “Those women didn’t want to stand still.”
I stare down at the dress. The rust spatters are a fine spray, a constellation across the soft blue fabric. A spray of arterial blood, perhaps. Something is caving in inside of me, some vital prop shaking loose. I can feel it. I force my nails into my palms until they dig bloody grooves there, pain lighting up my brain, forcing my eyes wide open. I need to be thinking clearly if I’m getting out of this.
“I need some air, Bert. I feel like I can’t breathe. Please.”
Bert steps aside witha gallant sweep of his hand and I have a moment to consider just making a break for it, figure I can maybe get as far as the hallway before he brings me down, but as I turn, my injured ankle makes a sound like grating rocks and a shard of pain races up my leg. The hagstones clatter against my chest as I make my way up the stairs and by the time I reach the kitchen, one hand propped on the doorpost to prevent myself from collapsing, I’m sweating, my teeth gritted in effort. My heart sinks when Bert closes the kitchen door behind him before crossing over to the dining table. There, three boxes are laid out with the lids removed. The Devices have been unwrapped.
“It’s a shame you didn’t think to come to me and ask me about these, Mina,” Bert tells me. “I would happily have shown them to you. These Devices belonged to my ancestors, a long time ago. They were used as instruments of righteousness. Thescold’s bridle and the heretic’s fork, the witch pricker and the pincers. They were all necessary. They all had their place.”