The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

  Crows are gathering in the branches above me. They arrive as if by invitation, gliding in on silent wings, their feathers slick with recent rain. There are dozens of them, pressed together like mourners at a funeral, watching me with a curiosity that makes my skin crawl.

  “Up until an hour ago, we had Anna in our custody,” continues Daniel. “Somehow she’s managed to escape. Where would she go, Aiden? Tell me where she’s hiding and I’ll instruct my men to make your death quick. There’s only you and Gold left now. Two gunshots and you’ll wake up in Bell, knock on Blackheath’s door, and start everything again without me getting in your way. You’re a clever fellow. I’m certain you’ll solve Evelyn’s murder in no time.”

  His face is ghoulish in the lantern light, twisted by need.

  “How frightened are you, Daniel?” I say slowly. “You’ve killed my future hosts, so I’m not a threat, but you have no idea where Anna is. It’s been eating away at you all day, hasn’t it? The fear that she’s going to solve this before you.”

  It’s my smile that scares him, the faintest sense that I might not be quite so trapped as he first believed.

  “If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll start cutting,” says Daniel, drawing a line across my cheek with his fingertip. “I’ll take you apart an inch at a time.”

  “I know. I’ve met myself after you’re done,” I say, staring at him. “You break my mind so badly, I carry my madness into Gregory Gold. He slashes his own arms and babbles warnings at Edward Dance. It’s horrific. And my answer is still no.”

  “Tell me where she is,” he says, raising his voice. “Coleridge has half the servants in this house on his payroll, and I have a pocketbook thick enough to buy the other half if necessary. I can surround the lake twice over. Don’t you see? I’ve already won. What’s the use of being stubborn now?”

  “Practice,” I snarl. “I’m not going to tell you anything, Daniel. Every minute I frustrate you is another minute Anna has to reach the Plague Doctor with the answer. You’d need a hundred men to guard that lake on a pitch-black night like this, and I doubt even Silver Tear can help with that.”

  “You’ll suffer,” he hisses.

  “One hour until 11:00 p.m.,” I say. “Which one of us do you think can hold out the longer?”

  Daniel hits me hard enough to rip the air from my lungs and knock me to my knees. When I look up, he’s looming over me, rubbing his grazed knuckles. Anger flickers at the edges of his face like a storm creeping across a cloudless sky. Gone is the suave gambler of earlier, replaced by a scrappy con man, his body twisted by red-hot anger.

  “I’m going to kill you slowly,” he growls.

  “I’m not the one who dies here, Daniel,” I say, letting loose a shrill whistle. Birds scatter from the trees, the underbrush rustling with movement. In the inky blackness of the forest, a lantern flares into life. It’s followed by another a few feet away, and then another.

  Daniel spins on the spot, following the lanterns. He hasn’t spotted Silver Tear, who’s backing toward the forest, looking unsure of herself.

  “You’ve hurt a lot of people,” I say, as the lights come closer. “And now you get to face them.”

  “How?” he stammers, confounded by the reversal in his fortunes. “I killed all your future hosts.”

  “You didn’t kill their friends,” I say. “When Anna told me her plan to lure the footman here, I decided we’d need more bodies to capture him. Once I realized you and the footman were in league together, I expanded my recruiting drive. It wasn’t hard to find enemies of yours.”

  Grace Davies appears first, shotgun raised. Rashton nearly bit his tongue off to prevent me from asking for her help, but I was short of options. The rest of my hosts are busy, or dead, and Cunningham is at the ball with Ravencourt.

  The second light belongs to Lucy Harper, who was easily swayed to my cause by the revelation that Daniel murdered her father, and finally comes Stanwin’s bodyguard, his head completely bandaged, aside from those cold, hard eyes. Though they’re all armed, none of them looks very confident, and I wouldn’t trust a single one to hit anything they’re aiming at. It doesn’t matter. At this stage, it’s the numbers that count, and they’re enough to rattle Daniel and Silver Tear, whose mask is sweeping back and forth, searching for an escape.

  “It’s over, Daniel,” I say, my voice steely. “Surrender, and I’ll let you go back to Blackheath unharmed.”

  He glares at me desperately, then at my friends.

  “I know what this place can do to us,” I continue. “But you were kind to Bell that first morning, and I saw your affection for Michael on the hunt. Be a good man one more time, and call off the footman. Let me and Anna go with your blessing.”

  His expression wavers, torment showing on his face, but it’s not enough. Blackheath has poisoned him completely.

  “Kill them,” he says savagely.

  A shotgun explodes behind me, and I instinctively throw myself to the ground. My allies scatter as Daniel’s man advances on them, firing shot after shot into the darkness. The unarmed man is cutting left, keeping low as he tries to take them by surprise.

  I can’t tell whether it’s my anger, or my host’s, which drives me to lash out at Daniel. Donald Davies is raging, although his fury is one of class rather than crime. He’s aggrieved that anybody should presume to treat him so shabbily.

  My anger is altogether more personal.

  Daniel has blocked my way ever since that first morning. He sought to escape Blackheath by climbing out over me, undoing my plans in service of his own. He came to me as a friend, smiling as he lied, laughing as he betrayed me, and it’s this that causes me to hurl myself like a spear at his midriff.

  He slips aside, catching me in the stomach with an uppercut. Doubled over, I punch him in the groin and then grab his neck, dragging him to the ground.

  I see the compass too late.

  He smashes it into my cheek, the glass splintering, blood dripping off my chin. My eyes are watering, sodden leaves squelching beneath my palms. Daniel advances, but a shot whistles past him, catching Silver Tear who screams, clutching her shoulder and falling in a heap.

  Glancing at the trembling gun in Lucy Harper’s hand, Daniel sprints off toward Blackheath. Picking myself up, I give chase.

  We run like a hound and fox across the lawn in front of the house and down the driveway, flying past the gatehouse. I’m almost convinced he’s fleeing to the village when, finally, he turns left, following the trail to the well and, beyond that, the lake.

  The moon is prowling the clouds like a dog behind an old wooden fence, and bereft of its light, I soon lose sight of my quarry. Fearing an ambush, I slow my pursuit, listening intently. Owls hoot, rain drips through the leaves of the trees. Branches snatch at me as I duck and weave, emerging upon Daniel, doubled over by the edge of the water with his hands on his knees, panting for breath, a storm lantern at his feet.

  There’s nowhere left for him to run.

  My hands are shaking, fear squirming in my chest. Anger gave me courage, but it’s also made a fool of me. Donald Davies is short and slight, softer than the beds he lies in. Daniel is taller, stronger. He preys on these people. Whatever numerical advantage I had in the graveyard I’ve left far behind, which means that for the first time since I arrived in Blackheath, neither of us knows what’s coming next.

  Spotting my approach, Daniel waves me back, gesturing for a minute to catch his breath. I give it to him, using the time to select a heavy rock I can use as a weapon. After the compass, we’re beyond fighting fair.

  “Whatever you do, they’re not going to let Anna leave,” he says, forcing out the words between breaths. “Silver Tear told me everything about you in exchange for a promise that I’d find and kill Anna. She told me about your hosts, where they woke up, and when. Don’t you understand? None of this matters. I’m the only one
who can escape.”

  “You could have told me this earlier,” I say. “It didn’t have to end like this.”

  “I have a wife and a son,” he says. “That’s the memory I brought with me. Can you imagine how that feels? Knowing they’re out there, waiting for me. Or, they were.”

  I take a step toward him, the rock by my side.

  “How will you face them, knowing what you did to escape this place?” I ask.

  “I’m only what Blackheath has made me,” he pants, spitting phlegm into the mud.

  “No, Blackheath’s what we made it,” I say, advancing a little more. He’s still buckled, still tired. A couple more steps and this will all be over. “Our decisions led us here, Daniel. If this is hell, then it’s one of our making.”

  “And what would you have us do?” he says, looking up at me. “Sit here and repent until somebody sees fit to open the doors?”

  “Help me save Evelyn and we can take what we know to the Plague Doctor together,” I say passionately. “All of us—you, me, and Anna. We have a chance to walk out of this place better men than we arrived.”

  “I can’t risk it,” he says in a flat, dead voice. “I won’t let this opportunity to escape pass me by. Not for guilt, and not to help people long past helping.”

  Without warning, he kicks the storm lantern over.

  Night floods my eyes.

  I hear the splash of his steps before his shoulder drives into my stomach, knocking the wind from me.

  We hit the ground with a thud, the rock dropping from my hands.

  It’s all I can do to throw my arms up to protect myself, but they’re thin and frail, and his punches easily break through. Blood fills my mouth. I’m numb, inside and out, but the blows keep coming until his knuckles slip off my bloody cheeks.

  His weight recedes as he lifts himself free of me.

  He’s panting, his sweat dripping onto me.

  “I tried to avoid this,” he says.

  Strong fingers grip my ankle, dragging me through the mud toward the water. I reach for him, but his assault has driven the strength from me and I collapse back.

  He pauses, wiping the sweat from his brow. Moonlight hammers through the clouds, bleaching his features. His hair is silver, his skin white as fresh snow. He’s looking down at me with the same pity he showed Bell the first morning I arrived.

  “We don’t…” I say, coughing up blood.

  “You should have stayed out of my way,” he says, yanking me forward once again. “That’s all I ever asked of you.”

  He splashes into the lake, pulling me with him, the cold water rushing up my legs, soaking my chest and head. The shock of it stirs some fight within me, and I try to claw my way back up the bank, but Daniel grabs my hair, pushing my face into the freezing water.

  I scratch at his hand, kicking my legs, but he’s too strong.

  My body convulses, desperate for a breath.

  Still, he holds me down.

  I see Thomas Hardcastle, dead these last nineteen years, swimming toward me out of the murk. He’s blond-haired and wide-eyed, lost down here, but he takes my hand and squeezes my fingers, urging me to be brave.

  Unable to hold my breath any longer, my mouth springs open, gulping in cold, muddy water.

  My body spasms.

  Thomas pulls my spirit clear of this dying flesh, and we float side by side in the water, watching Donald Davies drown.

  It’s peaceful and still. Surprisingly quiet.

  Then something crashes into the water.

  Hands plunge through the surface, gripping the body of Donald Davies, tearing him upward, and a second later I follow him.

  The dead boy’s fingers are still entwined in mine, but I can’t pull him clear of the lake. He died here and so he’s trapped here, watching sorrowfully as I’m dragged to safety.

  I’m lying in the mud coughing water, my body made of lead.

  Daniel is floating facedown in the lake.

  Somebody slaps me.

  Then again harder.

  Anna’s hovering above me, but everything’s blurry. The lake’s holding its hands over my ears, tugging me back.

  Darkness is calling me.

  She leans closer, a smudge of a person.

  “…find me,” screams Anna, the words faint. “7:12 a.m. in the entrance hall…”

  Beneath the lake, Thomas beckons me back, and closing my eyes, I join the drowned boy.

  53

  DAY EIGHT

  My cheek is resting against the curve of a woman’s back. We’re naked, tangled in sweat-soaked sheets on a dirty mattress, rain wriggling through the rotten window frames to run down the wall and collect on the bare floorboards.

  She stirs as I do, Madeline Aubert rolling over to meet me. The maid’s green eyes shine with a sickly need, her dark hair stuck to her damp cheeks. She looks much as Thomas Hardcastle did in my dream, drowned and desperate, clinging to whatever’s at hand.

  Finding me lying beside her, she drops her head on the pillow with a disappointed sigh. Such obvious disdain should make me uncomfortable, but any ruffled feathers are smoothed by the remembrance of our first meeting; the shame of our mutual need and the eagerness with which she came into my arms when I pulled one of Bell’s laudanum vials from my pocket.

  My eyes lazily search the cottage for more drugs. My work for the Hardcastles is complete, their new portraits hung in the long gallery. I’m not invited to the party, and I’m not expected at the house, leaving me a free morning on this mattress, the world circling me like paint down a plughole.

  My gaze snags on Madeline’s cap and apron, which are hanging off a chair.

  As if slapped, I immediately return to myself, the uniform summoning Anna’s face, her voice and touch, the peril of our situation.

  Clinging to this memory, I manage to elbow Gold’s personality to one side.

  I’m so filled with his hopes and fears, lusts and passions, that Aiden Bishop had felt like a dream in the morning light.

  I believed I was no more than this.

  Edging off the mattress, I knock over a pile of empty laudanum vials, which roll away across the floor like fleeing mice. Kicking them aside, I go to the fire where a single flame licks the embers, swelling as I add more tinder and wood from the pile. Chess pieces line the mantel, each of them handcrafted, a few painted, though splashed in color might describe them better. They’re only half-finished, and lying beside them is the small knife Gold is using to carve them. These are the chess pieces Anna will spend the day carrying around, and the blade is a perfect match for the slashes I saw on Gold’s arms yesterday.

  Fate is lighting signal fires again.

  Madeline’s retrieving her clothes, which are scattered across the floor. Such haste speaks of an unruly passion, though there’s only shame at work within her now. She dresses with her back to me, eyes on the wall opposite. Gold’s gaze is not so chaste, gorging on the sight of her pale flesh, her hair spilling down her back.

  “Do you have a mirror?” she asks, doing up her dress, the lightest touch of a French accent in her words.

  “I don’t believe so,” I say, enjoying the warmth of the fire on my bare skin.

  “I must look terrible,” she says absently.

  A gentleman would disagree out of respect, but Gold is no gentleman and Madeline is no Grace Davies. I’ve never seen her without powder and makeup, and I’m surprised by how sickly looking she appears. Her face is desperately thin, with yellow, pockmarked skin and tired eyes rubbed raw.

  Skirting along the far wall in order to stay as far away from me as possible, she opens the door to leave, cold air stealing the warmth from the room. It’s early, still hours until dawn, and there’s fog on the ground. Blackheath is framed by trees, night still draped around its shoulders. Given the angle I’m seeing it from, this cott
age must be somewhere out by the family graveyard.

  I watch Madeline hurrying along the path toward the house, a shawl pulled tight across her shoulders. If events had followed their original course, it would be me stumbling into the night. Driven mad by the footman’s torture, I’d have taken the carving knife to my own flesh before climbing Blackheath’s stairs to bang on Dance’s door, screaming my warning. By seeing through Daniel’s betrayal, and overwhelming him in the graveyard, I’ve avoided that fate. I’ve rewritten the day.

  Now I have to make sure it has a happy ending.

  Closing the door behind Madeline, I light an oil lamp, pondering my next move as the darkness slinks into the corners. Ideas claw at the inside of my skull, one last half-formed monster still waiting to be dragged into the brightness. To think, when I woke up that first morning as Bell, I fretted about possessing too few memories. Now I must contend with an overabundance. My mind is a stuffed trunk that needs unpacking, but for Gold the world only makes sense on canvas, and it’s there I must find my answer. If Rashton and Ravencourt have taught me anything, it’s to value my host’s talents, rather than lament their limitations.

  Picking up the lamp, I head toward the studio at the back of the cottage to search for some paint. Canvases are stacked against the walls, the paintings half-finished or slashed in a fury. Bottles of wine have been kicked over, spilling across the floor onto hundreds of pencil sketches, scrunched up and tossed aside. Turpentine drips down the wall, blurring a landscape Gold seems to have begun in a flurry and abandoned in a rage.

  Stacked at the center of the squalor like a pyre awaiting the torch are dozens of old family portraits, their woodworm-riddled frames ripped off and tossed aside. Most of the portraits have been destroyed by turpentine, though a few pale limbs have managed to survive the purge. Evelyn told me Gold had been commissioned to touch up the art around Blackheath. Seems he wasn’t terribly impressed with what he found.