Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1)

by Coco Mingolelli

  (She Calls Out to the Hollow Moon)

  Scampering about the kitchen, Dawn did a little dance while her iPhone blared another song. Bare feet tapped out a happy rhythm as she pirouetted across the room to deposit the washed plates back into their rightful spot.

  Today had been gloriously fun for her. Mallory had helped Dawn to unpack, organize, and stow boxes of belongings shipped from London without a single complaint or wounded, soulful stare. The surprises didn't end there. The suggestion to make pancakes together was issued like a challenge, and a challenge it was. Mayhem ensued, playful banter between throwing fistfuls of flour. It required her love to go upstairs and take a bath after the delicious dinner was eaten.

  Dawn was amazingly clean, all considering. She had never imagined Mallory to have bad aim, and smirked at the thought.

  Prior to cleaning up, flour had covered every surface of the kitchen, and Mallory. Dawn could only guess what the bathwater looked like, and shook her head while giggling. The woman couldn't have made more of a mess if she'd tried. Milk had been spilled, and batter wiped from the back of a hand to a sharp cheekbone as Mallory stared sternly into the bowl while mixing, willing it to behave.

  And yet, as Dawn wiped down the counter top with a damp rag, she couldn't help but feel like the other shoe was about to drop. When there was a knock at the door interrupting the quiet evening, she knew it had begun to. She deposited the rag into the sink and made her way down the hall and into the foyer.

  Once Dawn opened the front door, she gave a knowing pout. It was just so ironic that this particular person would be the interruption.

  Elisabeth stood on the other side, her blue eyes upset. "Dawn, don't give me that face. Where's Mallie? Why isn't she answering my texts?"

  Coughing into her hand to stifle the things she would have liked to say, Dawn then pointed down the hall and towards the far stairs. "Upstairs, taking a bath. What's – ”

  Her line of questioning was cut off as Elisabeth shrugged past and down the hall far faster than she could protest. She did anyhow. "Geez! What's wrong with you?"

  When she reached the threshold of the kitchen, Elisabeth turned to snatch up the iPhone, pausing the music. Holding out a palm, she laid it against Dawn's chest in a gentle request to wait. "Lille, it's October in a matter of hours," she tried to explain. "Is she not curled up in a ball, like usual?"

  "N-No!" Dawn waved her hands around the room. "We had a good day, Elisabeth; a really good day."

  Just as she was about to carry on about how very lovely their day was, Elisabeth grimaced and looked back towards the stairs. "Shhhht! Listen."

  Dawn stood still, and strained to pick up the noise from upstairs as well. What she heard didn't make any sense. It sounded like a wounded animal attempting to muffle its cries, while caught in the jaws of a trap.

  Mallory was sobbing, and trying her hardest to stay quiet.

  "She was fine, Elis –"

  "Faen alt til helvete," Elisabeth swore, and jogged up two steps. She was trying not to look disappointed at Dawn. "You hear this? This is fine?"

  Shrinking from the judgmental glance, Dawn huffed before deciding that being supplanted in comforting Mallory was not going to happen, no matter what date it was. A weird sort of territorial need was making itself known at Elisabeth's assumptive behavior.

  If Elisabeth knew this would happen, why wouldn't she have said something, or offered to help once they were both upstairs?

  In her heart, Dawn knew why. Elisabeth wasn't used to being anything but close and useful to Mallory during these kinds of days, and they hadn't seen each other more than twice since the trial concluded. Dawn even suspected that Elisabeth felt guilty for whatever unkind words had gone between both her and Mallory during the summer, though she still wasn't privy to the exact script.

  Squaring her shoulders, Dawn gave the best impression of her girlfriend's glare to the taller blonde. "I'll go up. Not you."

  When Elisabeth looked fit to be tied at the request, Dawn fluttered her eyes shut in annoyance, and put her hands on her hips. Would people ever stop looking at her as if she were a child? "I'm not going to say please. It's what she wants; you know this."

  "I see!" Elisabeth snapped, and plunked her feet roughly as she descended the stairs.

  Another lament sounded from upstairs, followed by more weeping.

  Looking hesitantly between the sounds of pain and Dawn, Elisabeth gave a curt nod. "Well then, feisty. Let's see if you've been paying attention to what I've been telling you all summer long."

  Dawn might have rolled her eyes again, or given a nasty retort under her breath, but she didn't notice much else than a singular pull that began from her chest, tugging her up the stairs. It led her towards Mallory with such force that each despairing cry that met her ears left her without breath. She pushed the bedroom door open, and was surprised to find her girlfriend sitting at the dressing table; one hand over her mouth, and the other wrapped around her stomach.

  The fist that clenched and unclenched against Mallory's taut stomach brought Dawn's attention to the fact that her love was naked, and sopping wet. Tendrils of bathwater streaked down from the fanned edges of inky brown hair, weaving to and fro between each protrusion and valley of Mallory's spine as she heaved. Water trailed from the bathroom and across the carpet, to puddle beneath the ivory silk tufted bench. It was as though Mallory had only just sat up in the tub, and found herself somehow seated at the vanity; not a single, soaked tress disturbed.

  "Mallory, hey," Dawn held out a tentative hand towards her. 'What's happened?' sounded trite, even in her mind. 'What's wrong?' was ridiculous. "Don't be sad..."

  'Don't be sad,' her inner voice rebuked. 'Smooth, Dawn.'

  Her words finally registered with the woman gazing into the mirror with sightless eyes. Recognition flickered in the pale green irises, and Mallory turned towards Dawn with a hitching sob.

  Dawn had seen Mallory cry, but even in the worst moments just after a nightmare, it was a war for control. Those rare cracks in the surface of her girlfriend's guise of restraint were quickly swept away, and hardly ever acknowledged. Mallory could rage and scream bloody murder with the best of them, but crying represented weakness.

  For months, Dawn had entertained the idea that she, and only she, was privy to Mallory's tears. She didn't know why. Now she was faced with an unpleasant question. How many years had Elisabeth seen Mallory cry like this?

  While Mallory's damp skin met hers, Dawn realized that she'd been standing still, deep in thought. Somehow, her love had teetered across the room, and when arms wrapped around Dawn in an attempt to seek comfort, Mallory's weight dragged them to the floor.

  'Ten, now. Ten years-'

  The hold around her tightened, and a particularly guttural cry was let loose beside her ear as Mallory buried her face in Dawn's hair.

  "Oh, my darling, my darling," Mallory chanted as she rocked them back and forth. Those words, over and over, were punctuated with a shaky sob here, and a shriek there.

  Dawn tried not to wince at the volume of the sorrow. It was preferable to Mallory keeping it inside. Was that what she had been doing all day – hiding these feelings and keeping them locked away?

  Cupping her hand around the back of Mallory's head, Dawn wove her fingers into the dripping tangles of hair, and rubbed at the flesh of her neck. The more Mallory carried on, the more palpable and visceral the emotions became. If she concentrated hard enough, Dawn could practically taste the despair, and the grief.

  What confused her was the way some of it sounded like mourning. Though, if it were true that Mallory did this every October, then the mourning must be for her long-dead parents.

  That didn't feel right though, and Dawn shook her head at it. Mallory shook her head as well, and continued her invocation; the repetitive calling out to her darling.

  Hugging her girlfriend even closer, Dawn tried to reassure her. "I'm right here, Mallory. It's okay, now."

  "I was a good person, ama
re," Mallory bemoaned, and shivered. "I was good."

  The creak of the hardwood floor alerted Dawn, and she was faced with Elisabeth's horrified stare. The teacher had entered the bedroom, and now crept around the edge of it, hands brushing against the wall in an attempt to ground herself.

  "Herregud, Dawn," she gulped, and cupped a hand against her mouth, before letting it drop again. "This isn't right."

  Lifting her chin away from Mallory's shoulder, Dawn glowered. "What do you mean, 'this isn't right?'”

  Mallory stiffened in her embrace, and shuffled out of it. Backwards on the carpet she crawled, before snatching a blanket roughly from the hope chest at the end of their bed. Throwing it over her body, she coughed back another sob. "What are you looking at, Elisabeth?" she spat, and wiped the tears away from her cheeks and beneath her nose with sharp precision.

  Dawn did a double-take.

  Elisabeth crossed her arms at her friend. "What in the world did you do to your neck? It's all red, and raw."

  "I'm fine!" Mallory shouted, and shrugged the blanket higher.

  "I swear to Gud!" Elisabeth shouted back, just as furious. "If either of you says the word 'fine' again, I'll lose my own mind. I've only come to check on you, as I always do!"

  The two friends began a squabbling interlude of interrupting one another, replete with widely sweeping and gesturing hands. Meanwhile, Dawn's eyes slid over the indentation on Mallory's neck that Elisabeth had mentioned. She hadn't noticed it before, though she knew exactly what caused it.

  Her gaze zeroed in on the necklace that laid precariously on the edge of the dressing table, the diamond encrusted chain twinkling like some sick joke. The prosecution's evidence team brought it over this morning, and she'd thought it strange when Mallory placed the blue velvet box atop the vanity, instead of stuffing it into the safe.

  Dawn swallowed the bile that rose to her throat. She came between the arguing women. "Hey! If you're here to help Mallory, then pissing her off even more isn't a good start!"

  Both Mallory and Elisabeth froze in shock at her outburst, their eyes wide like owls at her gumption.

  Recovering her senses first, Elisabeth snarled at Dawn for the slight. "Fine! What would you have me do, hmm? Stand here some more and listen to some more of her caterwauling while you sit there and do nothing?"

  Mallory limped forward a step, in warning. "You want to do something for me? Go downstairs, Elisabeth."

  "But!"

  "Go downstairs, and call Dr. Sheehan," Mallory ordered forcefully, and pointed to the door. "I need to talk to her, face to face."

  Elisabeth's posture deflated a bit, resigned to doing what had been asked, but she wanted to make sure. "All these years you've resisted, and now you want a head doctor? I mean, I know it's been hard on you this year, Mallie. Faen, it's been shite for us all."

  Raising her chin in a show of strength, Mallory stared Elisabeth down. It would have been convincing if she wasn't sniffling every few seconds, or if her hands weren't trembling behind her back. Dawn reached behind her to hold one of those hands in solidarity, and squeezed.

  “I'd like," Mallory began, but paused to look at the wall to quell the glassy tears that collected faster than she could control. "I'd like a cuppa, too."

  Waiting until Elisabeth sighed in defeat and made her way downstairs, Dawn sat on the edge of the bed.

  "What now?" she whispered.

  "What now?" she had whispered, hands clasping the tops of her arms as she crossed them.

  Margaret smiled sympathetically, and reached for the bag of Mallory's things to take back with her. "Now? Now I suppose we'll both wait for the day when she accepts what is truly happening. That she's beginning to heal."

  Dawn fidgeted, discomfited by the idea of waiting rather than actively doing something to help. "How will I know when that is?"

  "I may work for the fuzz, as it were, Miss Rose. But, I'm also a trauma certified clinical psychologist," the doctor chuckled lightly. "If you'll pardon my poetic reflection on the inner workings of a mind, I'll try to explain."

  "Please," Dawn pleaded, desperate to know no matter how dreadful it all sounded.

  Nodding with satisfaction, Margaret folded her hands in an attempt to convey two things coming together.

  "There will come a day when the parts of a whole that have long been separated converge on each other. It's frightening to a patient, and to the people around them. Confusion, anger, grief, and self-harm are all very common, because the patient has long denied that they are anything than they appear to be: a loving person, or a doting teacher. Normal, and good."

  Nodding back to show she understood, Dawn tilted her head. "Like Mallory."

  "Yes, like Mallory. But normal doesn't exist, Miss Rose. Nobody is one-hundred percent good, either," Margaret answered.

  Her hands came apart, and this time they slapped together hard. Gripping them tightly, Dr. Sheehan made a sound akin to an explosion. " Accepting this causes the most beautiful shattering of the soul when the separate parts come together again. They must kill the idea of existence as an abstract entity. It is painful, but exquisite."

  Mallory sat beside Dawn, their shoulders touching startling her.

  Having retrieved her iPhone from the bedside table, Mallory was attempting to dial a London number. Her shaky fingers were refusing though, and Dawn closed a hand gently over Mallory's.

  "Please," she pleaded, just like that day with Dr. Sheehan. 'Let me help.'

  So many things suddenly made sense, but Dawn admittedly found it difficult to reconcile the woman that had danced half-naked around the kitchen, covered in flour while singing 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' was the woman that beat Lenny Brewster's face to a pulp with the butt of a gun. The more she thought on it, Dawn wasn't sure that she wouldn't have done the same thing.

  The disconnect occurred when Mallory found it difficult to reconcile the parts of herself as well; the serious, dignified lady whose facade was as icy as it was impenetrable, and the alternately illogical, playful, and diabolically wicked woman. They were just two sides of a person, though. Where did this... alternate personality come in? Which parts of Mallory belonged to it?

  "Call the London office, please. Give your name, and tell them to send someone. Tell them I'm ready," Mallory entreated, folding the mobile phone into Dawn's palm. "They will know what you mean."

  Dawn looked back at the vanity, where the necklace still winked in the dim light of the bedroom's lamps. She understood now that each and every time Mallory looked into the mirror, she faced the impure; that tainted avenging angel inside. The woman who made pancakes and danced in her underwear was also the woman who nearly choked Dawn unconscious in the woods.

  They had been doing this dance since the first night Dawn stayed here: this waltz of compulsion, corruption, and pain. This waltz of love, forgiveness, and healing.

  Leaning against Mallory's shoulder, she cradled the iPhone between her hands. "All those tears over a pancake batter fight," Dawn joked, trying to convey what she knew. She secretly hoped that part of Mallory was still very much there, but inside and warm, rather than outside in the cold. "...and one very sleepy, sloppy kiss."

  Mallory's wary expression was all too revealing. She stared at Dawn until her astonishment faded, and rubbed at her neck. "Call London, amare."

  _____________________________________

  Claudia sat at the tiny cottage's kitchen table, shoved between Elisabeth and a former nun she couldn't quite remember the name of, now that the woman was out of her habit. It was funny how she could place the religious womenfolk's monikers more easily when it was just a face, and a Mary something-or-other to recall. However, the nuns at the school didn't typically bother with calling each other by Mary, which only made it more confusing.

  To the right of the penguin was the erstwhile Monsignor, Robin Flaherty. Claudia could remember his name perfectly well, for all the scandal his leaving the church and taking the nun with him caused. It was the newer talk of the
town. Though she felt sorry for the pair, their predicament took the spotlight further off Mallory and Dawn, and by proxy herself and Elisabeth.

  They had attended a concert in York last week, and Elisabeth was noticed by several intrepid photographers standing outside the music hall. Apparently, the rest of Britain had yet to move on from the trial, or the media hype that surrounded all involved.

  Now, Claudia's schedule had been interrupted by Mallory. The formidable woman had wanted as many witnesses present today as possible, and Elisabeth had jumped to comply.

  It wasn't that Claudia did not pity Mallory Moore. No, that certainly wasn't it. Claudia just couldn't help but feel that Mallory waiting until someone tried to murder her again before seeking assistance was a bit of malingering on the woman's part.

  Mallory sat on the other side of the table, her eyes narrowing at Claudia with a weird sixth sense for the mental wanderings. Claudia constrained herself to glaring back daggers instead of giving her a good verbal what for. They never liked each other, and never would, through it all. At least they could shut their traps, for now.