CHAPTER 56: CHAPTER FIFTY SIX

A Few Days Ago...

The night was cold and heavy, a suffocating blanket of silence over the Thompson estate. In the lower corridors, where the servants slept and the storage rooms were kept, the air was still and musty, the torches in their sconces burning low.

Nora, one of the newer younger maids, crept along the stone passageway, her heart pounding a nervous rhythm against her ribs. She was carrying a small, wicker basket, a heavy burden of charity and fear. Earlier, the head cook had pulled her aside.

"The Dowager has instructed I send someone to the dark room, she doesn’t want His Grace to know," the cook had whispered, pressing the basket into her hands. "She may be a wicked woman, but no one deserves to die of thirst. Just leave this bread and water by the door to the dark room. No one will know. Be quick, child."

Nora had agreed, her desire to please overriding her terror of the locked, haunted room where the former household manager had been thrown. She approached the corridor, her soft-soled shoes making no sound. But as she neared the heavy iron-banded door, she froze.

She heard a voice.

It was a low, calm, woman’s voice. Not Lorena’s. She crept closer, her curiosity now a cold, sick feeling in her stomach.

The guard who was supposed to be stationed at the door was gone. There was a small, iron-barred slit in the wood, a peephole for checking on the prisoner.

Her hands trembling, she set the basket down and leaned forward, pressing her eye to the cold, tiny opening.

At first, all she could see was darkness, but then her vision adjusted. A single lantern sat on the floor, casting a weak, greasy, golden light. And in that small circle of light, she saw two people.

One was Miss Lorena, her body a still, unmoving heap on the stone floor, her face turned away, a dark, sticky pool spreading out from under her. The other figure was standing over the body. It was Lady Ashlyn.

Nora’s hand flew to her mouth, stifling a scream that burned in her throat. Her mind simply could not process what she was seeing. Lady Ashlyn, the "kind" sister, the new, happy bride...

She watched, paralyzed with a terror so profound it felt like a dream, as Lady Ashlyn calmly, methodically, wiped a long, thin, glittering knife clean with a white linen handkerchief. Her movements were not rushed or panicked. They were as deliberate and calm as if she were polishing silver after a dinner party. When the blade was spotless, she slipped it back into a hidden sheath inside her dark, expensive cloak.

She took one last, satisfied look at Lorena’s body, her face serene in the dim light. Then, she picked up her lantern, walked to the door, and unlatched the heavy, interior iron bar.

She’s coming out.

The thought was a jolt of panic. Nora didn’t think. She just moved. She darted back from the door, her eyes scanning the dark hallway. There. A few feet away, a deep, stone alcove, a recess in the wall that was almost total blackness. She pressed herself into it, her small body barely fitting, her back scraping against the cold, rough stone.

She held her breath, her heart feeling as if it would burst from her chest, a frantic drumbeat she was sure could be heard across the estate. She squeezed her eyes shut. Don’t see me. Don’t find me. Please, please, please.

The heavy cell door creaked open, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence. A small, swinging circle of light spilled into the corridor. Nora could feel the faint warmth of it on her face.

Ashlyn stepped out. She calmly re-locked the door from the outside, the heavy thud of the bar sounding final, like a coffin nail being hammered into place.

Then, she stood still. Her head tilted, as if she were listening.

Nora prayed, her whole body rigid with a terror that was almost paralyzing. She heard me. She heard my heart. She knows.

But in her terror, she had forgotten the basket. Her hand, which was pressed flat against the stone, was still shaking violently. The basket at her feet, nudged by her trembling, scraped against the wall. The clay jar of water inside made a single, soft, dull thud.

The sound was tiny. But in the dead, tomblike silence of the corridor, it was as loud as a scream.

The lantern light stopped moving.

Nora opened her eyes. The light was no longer moving away. It was swinging back, slowly, painting the wall of her alcove in a growing, terrifying brightness.

A hand shot into the darkness. Strong, iron-like fingers clamped around her arm.

Nora was yanked out of her hiding spot as if she were a doll. She stumbled into the lantern light, the basket crashing to the floor, the bread and water spilling across the stones. She fell in a heap at Lady Ashlyn’s feet.

Ashlyn looked down at the terrified, babbling maid. Her beautiful face, in the low, ominous light, was not angry. It was not surprised. It was perfectly, terribly calm.

"Unluckily for you," Ashlyn whispered, her voice a soft, chilling sound, "you just happened to stumble on this."

She still had hold of Nora’s arm. She unlocked the cell door again. She didn’t just tell her to go in. She grabbed a fistful of Nora’s hair and dragged her inside.

"No! No, please!" Nora shrieked, her feet scraping uselessly.

Ashlyn threw her onto the floor, pushing her so hard she skidded and fell near the body. Nora cried out in terror as her hand, flailing for balance, landed directly in the still-wet, sticky-cold pool of Lorena’s blood. She screamed, a high-pitched, piercing sound of pure horror, and scrambled backward, her eyes fixed on Lorena’s wide, dead, unseeing stare.

"Please!" Nora sobbed, her body shaking so violently she could barely speak. "Please don’t kill me! I swear, I didn’t see anything! I didn’t see anything at all!"

"If that’s the case," Ashlyn said, closing the heavy door and plunging them into the near-darkness of the cell, "then you can’t be left alive." She pulled the knife back out of its sheath, the long blade gleaming in the faint moonlight from the high window. "A witness who saw nothing is the most dangerous kind."

She advanced on Nora, the knife held low, her movements sleek. She raised her arm, the blade arcing up, ready to strike down.

Nora, in a final, desperate act of self-preservation, didn’t try to run. She lunged forward, not at Ashlyn, but at her feet. She grabbed the hem of her expensive cloak with both hands, pressing her face to the ground, her voice a high, broken wail.

"No! Please! I’ll do anything! I’ll do whatever you want me to do! I’ll be your servant! I’ll be your dog! Please, my lady, I don’t want to die! Please don’t kill me!"

The knife stopped, its sharp tip hovering just an inch from Nora’s back.

Ashlyn looked down at the groveling, sobbing young woman clinging to her feet. A new, far more useful idea, like a cold, bright star, bloomed in her mind. A dead maid was a problem. A body to dispose of. But a living maid... a living, terrified, and completely broken pawn... that was a weapon.

"Then you will do exactly as I say," Ashlyn whispered, her voice a hard, cold promise.

She let Nora cling to her for a moment longer before adding, "Even if you don’t care about your own life, which I can see you do, you must think of your family."

Nora looked up, her tear-streaked, blood-smeared face a mask of confusion. "My... my family?"

"Your mother. And your two little brothers. In the south village," Ashlyn said, her voice soft, almost sympathetic. She had done her research on all the new maids. "It would be so terrible if bandits... or perhaps a sudden, tragic fire... were to visit them. All because you made a mistake. All because you forgot how to be a good, silent girl."

This was the final, devastating blow. It wasn’t just her life on the line. It was theirs. The fight, the will, everything, just drained out of Nora, leaving a cold, empty, hollow shell. She stopped sobbing. She just knelt, her body shaking, her will completely, utterly shattered.

"Yes," she whispered, her voice a dead, hollow sound. "Yes, my lady. Anything. Anything you say."