Sweet Madness

by Trisha Leaver

  A muted thump sounded downstairs, and I forced myself to breathe deep as the icy grip of terror began to take hold. Someone was in the house. Whoever had done this was still in the house.

  I eased back out the door, desperately trying to keep my footsteps light. I had a clear view of the front door from the top of the landing. It was closed up tight, the lock engaged, the entryway silent.

  I dug the key out of my apron pocket and jammed it into the door that connected Lizzie's room to her parents'. The lock there was nothing more than a spring latch, and would be easier and quicker to manipulate than the front.

  I cleared the first few steps, my attention focused solely on getting outside as quickly as my feet could carry me, when I ran smack into her. I would’ve toppled down the stairs had she not placed a steadying hand on my shoulder.

  “Bridget?” Lizzie asked, her hands holding my trembling body still. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Quickly, I scanned her dress. Same plain blue dress she’d had on this morning at breakfast, and with the exception of a spot of dirt from rummaging through the barn, it was completely clean. No blood, no hair, not even a pleat out of place.

  “Bridget?” She shook me hard this time, forcing me to meet her eyes. “What is going on?”

  I grabbed her hand, and rather than answer, dragged her up the steps and into her father’s room. If she was surprised to find it unlocked, she didn’t let on. She followed me in and stared at the open chest and train tickets on the bed.

  “What is—” Lizzie went to sift through the open trunk, and I yanked her hand hard. We didn’t have time to sort through her stepmother’s things. I needed her to see what had happened, to see firsthand that her stepmother was dead, slaughtered in her own house. Then we needed to get out of here and get to Liam’s, where he and Seamus could keep us safe.

  I stopped at the door to the guest room. I wasn’t going back in there. I was certain the image of Mrs. Borden’s butchered body would haunt my every dream for years to come. I didn’t need another look to nourish my nightmares.

  “Look,” I whispered as I gently nudged Lizzie into the room. “Just look at what they did to her.”

  “To who?” Lizzie asked, not moving.

  “Your stepmother. Abigail. She’s gone. Dead.”

  Lizzie shook me off, stifling a laugh. “Don’t be silly, Bridget. I am sure she is just sleeping off whatever illness has plagued this house. If Father had just let Dr. Bowen see to her yesterday like she asked, then—”

  “No, she won’t be fine,” I said, cutting her off. “She’s not sick; she’s dead. Her hair. It’s hacked off. Her head . . . it’s . . . it’s . . .”

  I couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t even begin to describe the sight of her broken skull. Fragments missing, shards of bone mingled with the blood pooling on the rug. Her scalp ripped clean from her brain. She hadn’t simply been killed, she’d been hacked to death.

  Something in my hurried words made Lizzie take notice. She gently eased me back against the banister, her hand resting on my shoulder in silent reassurance. “Stay here,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere or do anything without me.”

  I closed my eyes and counted her footsteps, knew the instant she came upon Mrs. Borden’s body. Lizzie’s gasp echoed off the walls, and I could almost hear the silent scream tearing from her chest.

  “What happened?” She was standing in front of me now, the words tumbling from her lips in a rushed demand. “Bridget. What. Happened?”

  “I don’t know,” I choked out. My eyes refused to leave the red stains on her palms. Like in a bad dream, that red seemed to grow until it swallowed everything in my line of vision. I shook my head, desperate to keep my grip on my sanity.

  “Did you do this?”

  Lizzie’s voice broke through the haze of red, and I stepped back. There wasn’t an ounce of anger in her tone, no reproach, not even a tinge of fear. If anything, there was an unspoken promise there, one that said she’d protect me, keep me safe regardless of my answer.

  “God, no. You have to believe me. I didn’t do this. I could never.” My voice rose in panic. Of course she thought I did it, anyone would. I was the only one home . . . a poor Irish maid who in a few weeks would no longer be employed by the Bordens. No one would ask why; they’d assume I’d been dismissed. That I was angry. Vengeful.

  “He’s going to think I did it. Your father. Mr. Morse . . . they are all going to believe it was me.” I’d seen it happen before; a poor Irish immigrant thrown in jail for something he didn’t do because a person of wealth pointed a finger in his direction. I was no different, and Mr. Borden certainly carried influence in Fall River.

  The expression that came over her face was gentle and short-lived, overshadowed by the fear that whoever had done this was possibly still in the house, waiting for us. Waiting for her. “No one is going to blame you, Bridget, ever. I give you my word.”

  Chapter 36

  The entire house seemed to hum with a dark energy. A wordless, soundless evil that swept up through the staircase and settled into every corner. It was a sinister calm, one that had me searching every second of the past week, trying to figure out who would do this, and why.

  I was frozen in place, my feet melded to the top of the landing as my mind churned. I needed to get out of this house. I needed to run to Liam and never look back. Yet I couldn’t even muster the courage to speak, never mind move.

  “Bridget?”

  My eyes were fixed on the front window of the house as I quickly tried to calculate the distance to the street below. It was the quickest way out. Maybe the only way out.

  “Bridget.” There it was again, my name floating through the air, pulling at me to respond. I quickly turned my head towards Lizzie’s room. If I could make my way to the back of the house, then maybe I could use the back staircase, hide out in the cellar behind the ash bin until nightfall, then slip out unnoticed.

  I didn’t see her raise her hand, but seconds later I felt the impact, the stinging burn blooming across my cheek. She’d hit me. Lizzie had actually hit me.

  Whatever had me trapped in my mind was gone, replaced with raw anger. And burning pain. I reached up to cradle my face, stunned.

  “Good,” she said before I could react. “I need you to keep your wits about you, Bridget. Now, I asked you a question. Is anyone else in the house?”

  I shook my head. I remembered John Morse and Mr. Borden talking after breakfast. If their raised voices were any indication, tensions had been high between them. But they’d both left shortly thereafter, Mr. Borden to attend to his morning duties and John Morse . . . well, I didn’t know where he was off to. I hadn’t cared before now.

  “Just me and Mrs. Borden,” I said. “I was washing windows, then laid down when the heat got the best of me. Your stepmother said she was going to change the linens and air out the guest room so Mr. Morse could retire there this evening.”

  Lizzie shook her head, a look of confusion crossing her features. “That doesn’t make any sense. Uncle John is leaving this afternoon. He told me so this morning. Abigail was there as well; she heard him clear as me.”

  “So that’s who the other ticket is for,” I said.

  “What other ticket? What are you going on about?”

  “The tickets on your father’s bed. There were two of them. Both leaving today,” I said, acknowledging a fact I hadn’t quite wrapped my own mind around. “Mrs. Borden’s clothes were packed, but your father’s—”

  “Bridget, stop,” Lizzie said to me. “It doesn’t matter what you saw or what you think you saw. We need to leave now and alert the police. Where Abigail was going and with whom isn’t important. Not when whoever did this could still be in the house.”

  I looked down at the splatters of blood coating the floral rug, then at my hands. They were shaking, trembling violently as I clutched at the folds of my skirts. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what people would think, knew that for a brief second, Lizzie had assumed
the worst of me herself.

  “If they lock me away, promise me you will take care of my sister,” I pleaded.

  Lizzie grabbed my hand and yanked me towards the front stairwell. “I won’t need to take care of your sister. I’m going to tell everyone I was home too, that you were with me in the barn looking for the sinkers when it happened.”

  I grabbed onto doorknob and refused to let go. “Promise me, Lizzie. It’s my fault Cara is the way she is, and I need to know she’ll be looked after.”

  She nodded once. “Like you, I consider her one of my own and would take care of her as such. I’ve never lied to you, Bridget, not once. And I’m not lying now when I say that when I’m through with this town, nobody will cast suspicion your way. Nobody.”

  Chapter 37

  Each of the thirteen steps creaked under our weight and we paused on each one, half-expecting to be caught and hacked to death ourselves. The front door came into view, and I nearly cried out in relief. We were close, so close to getting out.

  My eyes traveled the length of the deadbolts, wondering how we were possibly going to get them unlocked without calling attention to ourselves. On days like today, when the humidity swelled them tight, they were loud, often stuck. And right now, my hands were neither steady nor firm.

  I was furiously trying to the twist the deadbolt open when Lizzie laid a silencing hand on my shoulder and motioned to the small table in the entryway. There was a package sitting there, and next to it was Mr. Borden’s ring of keys. I immediately understood her unspoken plea. Her father was home, and regardless of the strife between them, he needed to be warned.

  “Did you see him when you came in?” I asked, hoping we didn’t have to wander through every one of the downstairs rooms looking for him.

  She shook her head, and I took a steadying breath. Andrew Borden may have been a miserable old man who cherished his holdings more than his family, but he was Lizzie’s father, and I wouldn’t leave the dangerous task of warning him to Lizzie alone.

  We slowly inched our way into the sitting room and saw him standing by the unlit fireplace. He was staring at the mantel, his shoulders hunched forward and his back to us. He hadn’t heard us enter, but we had kept our footsteps purposely light for fear of the murderer.

  “Father,” Lizzie whispered.

  He didn’t respond, no hitch in his breathing, not even a nod of his head to indicate he realized we were there. It was as if his mind was impervious to anything around him, his eyes completely focused on that tiny spot on the mantel.

  I took a step forward, wondering what had Mr. Borden so entranced, but Lizzie swept her hand out to the side, stopping me. “Father,” she whispered again, her hand coming to rest on his upper arm. “We need to leave. Now.”

  I thought it odd that Lizzie didn’t tell him why. Perhaps she didn’t want to agitate him, risk causing a scene that would draw the perpetrator’s attention before we were all safely outside. Or perhaps she knew more than she was letting on and was approaching him as if he were a skittish foal for a reason . . . a dark, deadly reason.

  Mr. Borden flinched at the contact, a violent tremor working its way through his body. He raised his head as if to speak, but nothing came out. I waited for his words, counting the seconds in time with the clock. Seconds turned into minutes and all we got from him was silence. Terrifying silence.

  “Father?” Lizzie repeated. She stepped around him, hoping to catch his attention and break him from whatever thought had him trapped in immobility.

  Her face went pale, every ounce of color draining from her cheeks as she reached for me. She swatted me backwards, sweeping her hand out in the direction of the door. “Bridget, go. Now.”

  I widened my stance and stood firm. I wasn’t leaving her here. I wasn’t leaving Mr. Borden here. “Mr. Borden, please mind Lizzie’s words. We have to leave this house and fetch the police. Your wife . . . Mrs. Borden . . . something has happened to her.”

  Mr. Borden turned at the sound of my voice, his movements slow, drawn out, as if dealing with my interference was costing him more energy than he wished to expend. “I am well aware of what has befallen my precious wife. Do you think me ignorant of what goes on in my own home?”

  I drew a hand up to cover my mouth as he turned and took a step towards me. The black suit coat he wore each day was perfectly pressed in the back, not a stitch of lint or a pulled seam. But the front . . . the front was stained. Splatters of crimson covered him from his neck to his ankles. Long strands of brown hair had dried onto his white shirt and a few remained tangled between his fingers. His face was flushed, his wrinkles etched with what I could only assume was blood. And that dull look in his eyes was back, the same dead expression I’d seen on him when he killed the pigeons.

  The sound that tore from my throat was feral, something between a cry and a screech. I covered my ears and squeezed my eyes shut in a futile attempt to drown it all out. He was there in a second, his bloodied hand clamping down over my mouth, the taste of blood . . . of Abigail Borden’s blood making me gag.

  “Scream and you will suffer her fate,” he warned, as he let go and took a tentative step back. “The police will be notified in due time, my dear. All in due time.”

  I followed Lizzie’s gaze to the corner of the room, gasping at the axe propped against the wall. Everything, including the handle, was coated in blood. That was the last thing Abigail Borden had known before she died—the biting edge of that blade and the crazed look of rage in her husband’s eyes.

  “Why?” Lizzie choked out.

  I grasped Lizzie’s arm and yanked hard. Why didn’t matter. I didn’t care why Mr. Borden had killed his wife or if he even remembered. All that mattered was getting out of there before he turned on me and Lizzie.

  Lizzie pushed me away. She was bigger than me, stronger, and it took virtually all of my effort to stay upright. “What have you done?” Lizzie asked again. Her voice was calm, collected, as if the question she was posing were no different than one about where he’d laid the mail. It was peculiar, and it had my head shifting between her and her father, trying to gauge who was crazier.

  “There’s nothing worse than a liar . . . a fraud,” he growled, his jaw clenching and unclenching beneath his blood-crusted beard. “And there is nothing I value more than loyalty and family. She destroyed both. She’s been planning it for years. Taking money and valuables. Hiding them in this house and plotting with him.”

  His gaze softened as he turned to Lizzie, his voice dropping in remorse. “All the while I thought it was you who was stealing from this family. She led me to believe it was you. My own daughter. My own blood.”

  Chapter 38

  I watched the edges of Andrew Borden’s mouth turn up into a cruel smile. “You can’t think I was going to simply allow her to leave. Stand by and do nothing as she made a mockery of me, of this family?” He was drawing closer to Lizzie now, daring her to do anything but listen.

  “You know, I did Abigail a favor by marrying her. She was nothing more than a spinster without a single prospect. No money to even keep a proper home. I gave her my name and a place in society, and this is how she repays me. This.”

  Lizzie shook her head. “You’re mad!” She whirled in my direction, would’ve knocked me down if Andrew hadn’t grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back.

  “Am I?” Mr. Borden chuckled. “Actually, it’s you the entire town believes to be prone to fits. No one will suspect me of this, Lizzie. If anything, they’ll suspect her,” Andrew said, his head snapping in my direction, “A poor Irish maid who’d been relieved of her duties, one who has already tried to poison us, and who my wife suspects is taking up with John Morse.”

  His eyes shifted from Lizzie to me, a twisted smile of acknowledgement spreading across his face. “That is what the letter says, is it not? That you were dismissed from my house because of your unseemly behavior, taking up with my brother-in-law right under this roof.”

  Lizzie’s eyes met mine. There
was a silent question there, one the simultaneously broke my heart and had me seething mad. “That’s not true. She made that up; she said it was Mr. Morse who had shown interest in me. She was helping me find new employment, ’tis all. It was a lie . . . a story she made up so no one would ask questions.”

  “See,” he said, turning his eyes back to Lizzie. “That dear stepmother of yours was forcing her away too, stripping you of the one friend you had. Now you see why I did it, why this family is better off with her gone?”

  “I’ll tell them the truth.” The words stumbled from my mouth before I could stop them. “I’ll tell everybody who will listen what I saw in this house, what you did to Lizzie’s pigeons. What you did to Mrs. Borden.”

  I caught a glimpse of Lizzie’s fearful face from the corner of my eye and nodded. I didn’t care if I was tempting a madman. I was done living in darkness, done pretending I didn’t see or hear what went on in this house. I’d back up every rumor I ever heard about this family because at the end of the day, they weren’t rumors . . . they were the sordid truth. Mr. Borden was a miserly man who stifled his daughter’s wit and spoke of her as if she was touched in the head. Sure Lizzie may have stolen a corset and kept pigeons as pets, but it was Andrew Borden, not Lizzie, who carried the Borden curse.

  “I know the truth, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch you lie about it,” I said through clenched teeth.

  Mr. Borden returned his focus to me and I froze, my boots melded to the floor beneath me as my eyes darted in every direction, looking for an escape. He grabbed me, and I nearly toppled over onto the couch as I tried to wrench myself from his grasp.

  I closed my eyes and waited for my world to end. I’d seen what Andrew Borden was capable of the day he dropped the pigeons onto the table, seen it lying upstairs in a puddle of blood and bone shards on the bedroom floor. The demons had gotten into his soul, burrowed in so deep that all hope was gone.

  Lizzie was yelling in the background, her voice barely audible through the ringing in my ears. I tried to hone in on that sound, the high pitch of her anger. I found it, was turning my head in her direction, when the entire room went silent. Deadly silent.