Her Dark Lies

by J. T. Ellison

  “Claire? Claire, where are you?” Shit. Shit! It’s Katie.

  I scream as loudly as I can. “Don’t come in here. Get help!”

  Morgan glances over her shoulder and starts to turn toward the door.

  “Don’t you dare,” I yell at her, taking advantage of her momentary distraction to leap toward her, shoving her to the ground.

  Then I dive toward the remnants of the tapestry, fling it aside, and barrel into the darkness.

  69

  The Deepest Dark

  Morgan follows me into the tunnel, as I hoped she would. I can hear her behind me, cursing, calling my name. It’s a risk, running from her, drawing her down here, but I can’t let her hurt anyone else I love.

  As I run through the tunnel, I realize it’s not dark. There’s some sort of ambient light, a trail of illumination. This is how she’s been moving in and out of the Villa, through this tunnel into my bedroom. Jack said these routes to the grottos were blocked off years ago, but he was wrong.

  I recall the strange dream I had, and the sense that someone had touched my forehead. And that I was choking. It was her. It was Morgan.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” she trills, hunting me in the gloom. She knows where she’s going. Knows where this path leads. I don’t.

  Come and get me, you crazy bitch.

  I shudder and run faster. I’m going downhill now; we must be outside of the Villa walls. Where in the hell does this go? The grotto, clearly, but how far is it?

  The tiny, rising thought—Is Jack alive?

  Don’t. Don’t think about him right now. Whatever you do, you have to keep it together so you can stop her.

  All I want to do is draw her away from the people I love. I have no plan.

  “Claire? Where are you going? Are you lost?” Morgan calls with a laugh. She knows what I’m going to run into. “I wasn’t finished talking with you. We need to decide what you’re going to do now that Jack is dead. You need to get away from the Comptons, they are terrible, evil people. Stop, and let’s talk, just you and me. We’ll make a plan. My timing is off with the boat. That wasn’t supposed to happen until everyone was on it. But most of them were there. When it became clear the wedding was postponed, Brice and Harper decided to go ahead and have everyone move to The Hebrides, start the party early. They’re all dead. Everyone who matters dead but you, and me. And that’s a good thing. We’ll make this work, together. I promise.”

  That can’t be true.

  And yet, it can. It totally can. Ana saw people on the funicular. There’s no telling how many were on the boat.

  I feel sick.

  Morgan is truly insane.

  And she isn’t running. She’s walking steadily. Stalking me in the darkness. I can hear her voice wavering as it bounces off the earthen walls. There is flickering light in front of me and I put on a burst of speed to get ahead enough and find something to hide behind. She has a gun and the knowledge of the surroundings, but I have my wits and the element of surprise.

  The declivity steepens; the air around me is getting fresher, cooler, saltier. Damper, too. I can hear the waves rushing outside, the insistent ebb and flow as old as life itself. This island, this sea, predates all of us.

  How many women have felt terror in this darkness?

  I burst into an opening, a good-sized sea cave. This is the grotto. The water is clearest cerulean, unlike the sea outside. There is a break in the rock that leads out to the sea, and I can see the orange fire of The Hebrides burning, smell the overwhelming, choking stench of fuel and the smoky scent of sulfur and gunpowder.

  I realize this is where the photo on Harper’s Instagram was taken.

  Big News Coming...

  Morgan sent it. And all those horrid texts. How easily she’s hacked all of us.

  She was trying to get me to come to her. If I had, would Jack and Ana still be alive?

  Don’t, Claire. Don’t think about them yet.

  “Claaaaire...”

  The water is high, the tide must be in. There is no gentle slope, the basalt walls drop straight into the water. The light here is dim but I can see, across from me, indentations in the rock. Openings. Other paths. Escapes. One is lit up. If I can just get there, maybe I can circle back into the Villa...

  But what if this is the only path that’s not walled off?

  No, the light leads somewhere. I drop the robe and dive into the water. It is freezing cold, so cold my breath leaves me. I stroke across the grotto quickly, then scramble out of the water and run toward the light.

  I’ve gone only twenty feet or so before I run into an iron gate. I pull on it, but it is locked tight. Damn it.

  Back down to the path. I have to get out of here—I have to find my way back to the Villa.

  Bracing myself for the freezing temperature, I dive in and swim across the cavern again, haul myself into the nearest depression. This one goes nowhere, there are the remnants of a stone block. A statue once stood here. That makes sense; the smaller indentations are statuary niches. There’s a metal bracket as well. They probably once held torches, a spot to leave offerings to the sea goddess or to Venus herself.

  Back in again, to the next, and I can see from the water this one is no different. I feel the sea sucking at my legs, the current is pulling me hard, toward the small opening, toward the roiling sea. I have to get out of the water soon. Even if this one leads nowhere, I will be across the cavern from Morgan, and it’s better to try and face her from afar than be swept out to sea and drowned.

  What symmetry. Was this how she felt, sheer panic colliding with the urgent need to live as she slipped away from the rocks, the waves forcing her into the bay?

  Stop thinking. Move.

  The third impression has a dark seam. As I reach it, shivering, numb with cold, Morgan appears.

  The watery light shows the anger on her face.

  “Aren’t you clever,” she calls, the words echoing off the rock walls.

  I have to get out of the water; I’m starting to lose feeling. She can shoot me if I expose myself. Hell, she could just shoot me in the head.

  But she talks. It’s as if she hasn’t spoken to anyone for a very long time.

  “Did you know the emperor’s lovers were brought by boat for his pleasure? They would sneak them in, straight from the water up the tunnel to his bedchamber. They called them the Disciples of Venus, the women he used for pleasure. He fucked them, and then he killed them. Did you know that? It was like a roach motel—you go in, but you don’t come out. They’re all in the crypt, you know. All those women. All their dusty bones.”

  The crypt. Of course. It stands to reason the crypt has a path down to the grotto, too.

  “Too bad you decided to take a swim. You could have just...” and Morgan disappears into the wall. Darkness bleeds into the grotto in her wake.

  In my panic, I must have missed a passageway. I stupidly assumed the only way to the other side was through the water. There must be other paths around the cave.

  I take advantage of her movement to jump from the water and run, full speed, into the crack in the wall. I have never been so cold. And this seam doesn’t have the same ambient light as the one I traversed earlier. It’s dark, and I stumble. When I get to my feet, I hear footsteps. She’s coming.

  I have to fight to keep my teeth clenched so they don’t chatter. I surge ahead, not as fast as I’d like, a hand on the wall for guidance.

  Please, please, please.

  I don’t know who I’m praying to. God? Venus? My dad?

  All of them?

  I burst through a doorway without realizing it’s there, stubbing my toe against the wooden threshold. The door itself is standing open, and there is a path ahead.

  I don’t hesitate. I sprint again, upward this time. I’m heading back toward the Villa, but I have no id
ea where I’m going. I’m also half-naked, but that hardly matters, it’s not like I’m going to burst into the foyer where the guests are milling about.

  I hear someone calling my name and stop.

  “Claire? Claire? Where are you?”

  “Katie!”

  “Claire!” She calls back. “Oh, thank God. We’ve been looking everywhere.”

  I stop, wait for a second, see the bobbing flashlight ahead. I take off toward it.

  “Go back, go back,” I call. “I’m coming. We have to shut her in here. We have to shut the doors.”

  But Katie stops, waiting for me.

  And from behind me, Morgan appears.

  70

  Slow Motion

  It happens like they say, in slow motion.

  Morgan, stepping out from a side passageway behind me, the gun trained on my chest.

  Katie, realizing Morgan has appeared, shoving me to the side and moving right in front of me.

  The bullet, hitting her in the neck.

  The ground, hard under my knees as I catch her and fall.

  The echoing laughter.

  The blood. The blood. The blood.

  I try to staunch it, but it’s gushing. I’m covered in my best friend’s essence.

  “Oh, God, Katie. Katie!”

  “I love you, Claire. Be happy,” Katie whispers, blood bubbling on her lips. And then she is gone, her head tipping back onto the stone floor.

  It is that quick. She dies that fast, lying in my lap, her head trailing off my thighs, hair in the dirt.

  She has just saved my life. Katie has sacrificed herself for me. I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I didn’t have time to say thank you. I didn’t have time to tell her how much I love her. How grateful I am that she was my friend.

  Another whistling explosion from down the tunnel. I don’t have time to waste. I don’t know why Morgan hasn’t shot me, too, while I’m prone, but I have to move.

  I kiss Katie’s forehead, still warm, and lay her head gently on the packed earth floor and start back the way I’ve come. How dare Morgan try to take everything away from me? How dare she?

  * * *

  She knows I’m following her. She knows the tables have turned. She has nothing to lose—she is protected, she thinks, because the gun still has bullets. I’ve counted four shots, that revolver holds six bullets. She has two left; she doesn’t want to waste them.

  It doesn’t take long to realize she’s led me to the crypt.

  To the forever silent witnesses to our game of cat and mouse.

  I turn a corner and stop with a gasp.

  The bodies are stacked up in the corner like cordwood. Henna. Malcolm. A gray head as well—Fatima. Morgan must have killed her because she is no longer of use, or she defied her in the end. Karmen’s gone, too.

  How many victims will she leave behind when this is over?

  As distasteful as it seems, I run my hands along Malcolm’s body, digging my hand into his front right pocket.

  The knife is still there.

  I’ve seen him clean his nails with it, I’ve seen him open letters with it.

  And now, alone in the darkness surrounded by the dead, I’m going to use it to kill Morgan.

  The rational part of my mind says Run, run the other way, run to the safety of whoever’s left out there.

  The irrational, furious, obsessed part says Stop her, here and now, or you will never be free of her.

  I will never be free of her anyway. She is my nuclear winter; the fallout will last long after I am dead and gone. It doesn’t matter if that’s now or seventy years from now.

  Standing tall, I flick the knife open and seat it carefully in my hand.

  “Morgan,” I call. “Morgan. Where are you? I want to talk.”

  And I start down the path toward the grotto.

  * * *

  It doesn’t take long to find her. She is waiting by the door to the crypt. She is smiling, a pirate in the darkness. The revolver is at the ready, steady in her hand.

  “What is it, Claire? Changed your mind? Now you want to talk to me?”

  “Yes. What do you want from me?” I ask, still advancing.

  “I want you to listen to reason. I’ve grown to care about you these past few months. Jack will lead you to ruin. He will break your heart. He will never love you the way he loved me.”

  “You killed him. What does it matter now?”

  I took a self-defense class once, and one thing that stuck with me is this. Never hesitate. Don’t draw back and let them realize you’re going to swing. Plow ahead, even if you don’t have all your power in the swing. The unexpected motion is as much a weapon as the weapon you hold. Your attacker naturally expects some sort of windup if you’re trying to hit them. No pause. Just go straight in.

  I walk closer, closer, closer, then, exactly when she would expect me to hesitate and stop, I lunge forward, knife out. She turns slightly, flinching away from me, and I catch her in the shoulder, feel the blade sink into her flesh. She screams and drops the gun. I try to yank the knife back out to stab her again, but the metal is sunk in too deep. I’d been going for her heart and ready to crack bone. Now I’ve just pinioned her against the wall between a door and a massive stone sarcophagus.

  I don’t know who is interred inside. I don’t really care. Its edge is sharp, the stone as square as the day it was carved. It will do.

  She wrenches herself free from my grip with a cry, eyes black with madness, and comes at me. She manages to punch me twice and I stumble back, blood slick down my face, mingling with Katie’s. That gives me strength, and I launch at her again, forcing her back against the stone before I pin her good arm. She kicks my knee, and pain shoots up my thigh, but I don’t let go. The edge of the crypt doorway is behind her, and I push hard against her body, forcing her back, back, back until she is wedged into the space. Slowly, my hand moves from her elbow, to her shoulder, to her throat.

  “What are you doing?” she grinds out. “Don’t be an idiot. We can work together, we can—”

  “I will never let you hurt another person I love.”

  I shove, and the momentum of my body propels her into the stone. With a twist of my hand, I force her head against the edge. I push, hard, until I’ve levered her neck around the corner. She is whimpering and screaming and fighting, clawing. She scratches my face. I don’t let up. She gets a finger under my pearls and pulls. The clasp, already damaged, breaks free. Pearls ping off the floor.

  And now she’s ruined my beautiful gift, too.

  I am stronger than she is. I am enraged. I have the right angle to accomplish my goal. It’s her, or it’s me. There cannot be a world in which we both survive.

  She says something I can barely hear, something pleading, please, and then the resounding crack of her neck snapping echoes in the chamber.

  I hold on to her lithe body as it shudders and shakes with the last moments of her life. It doesn’t take long. I release her, and she slumps to the floor.

  I wipe my hand under my nose and fling droplets of my blood onto her lifeless body, blood mingling with the scattered pearls in the darkness.

  “Goodbye, Morgan.”

  71

  Finis

  Will Compton finds me there, in the crypt, shivering with cold, lying next to Morgan’s dead body.

  “Claire. My God. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

  “It’s over,” I manage. “It’s over. Is Jack?” I can’t even finish the words. I’ve been down here all this time, afraid to find out the truth. Afraid to hear I’ve lost him forever.

  Will pulls me to my feet, wraps me in a blanket.

  “He’s alive. They’ve taken him to Naples. He was badly hurt, but he will make it. Ana...”

  He breaks off, and I know then my elegant mother-in-law is de
ad.

  “She killed Katie, too. And Fatima. Before I...”

  I collapse against Will, who shushes me. I allow him to walk me from the crypt.

  There is fire.

  There are lights.

  There are questions.

  All I can do is turn my face away. I am not capable of answering them.

  72

  Endings and Beginnings

  Ten Years Earlier

  I must get away, or I am going to die, I know it.

  “Morgan? Mooorgan?”

  He’s calling for me, and the wind sweeps his voice away, making the last syllables so much lighter. Gentler.

  The path is marked by towering cypress and laurel, verdant and lush. A gray stone waist-high wall is all that stands between me and the cliffside. It is cool inside this miniature forest; the sky blotted out by the purple-throated wisteria that drapes across and between the trees. Someone, years ago, built an archway along the arbor. The arch’s skeleton has long since rotted away and the flowers droop into the path, clinging trails and vines that brush against my head and shoulders. It should be beautiful; instead feels oppressive, as if the vines might animate, twist and curl around my neck and strangle me to death.

  The white dress, long and filmy, hampers my effort to run. The hem catches on a branch; a large rend in the fabric slashes open, exposing my leg. A deep cut blooms red along my thigh, and the blood runs down my calf. My hair has come loose from its braid, flies unbound behind me like gossamer wings.

  In my panic, I barely notice the pain. I hurry along the path, trying not to look down to the frothing water roiling against the rocks at the cliff’s base. I think the ruins are to my right. From what I remember, they are between the church and the artists’ colony, the four cottages cowering on the hillside, empty and waiting. We’ve been here only one night. I am such an idiot to think he was bringing me here to do anything other than see me dead.

  A horn shrieks, and I realize the ferry is pulling away. A crack of lightning, and I see the silhouette of the captain in the pilothouse, looking out to the turbulent seas ahead. A gamble that he makes it before the storm is upon us. It was my last chance of escape. Now I’m stuck here.