My Wicked Fantasy

by Karen Ranney

  Not quick enough to save James.

  Chapter 39

  “Wasn’t it fortuitous that elderly Mrs. Gransted left me her rolling chair? Of course, the old dear hadn’t much else to leave. Still, she was grateful for my nursing.”

  James said nothing. He could not speak. She had incapacitated him with her mushroom tea, a blend of death angel mushrooms and spiced tea.

  Cecily finished binding his left hand to the arm of the chair, then stepped back and admired her handiwork. “It’s come in quite handy, this chair. And will continue to do so for a matter of months. But of course, you’ll have no way of knowing that. You’ll stop breathing soon, and then it will be between you and God, all these grievous sins you’ve accumulated.”

  She stood behind the high back of the wheeled chair and turned it so that it pointed toward the drawing room door. It was quite difficult, really, what with James being almost a deadweight. Still, God provided the strength for her to propel it through the door.

  “I really don’t think you realize all your very many sins, James. But I expect that in a matter of minutes, you will be read a litany of them.”

  She pushed the chair through the doorway, sighing with satisfaction as the tall, narrow wheels cleared easily.

  “I don’t think, James, that I will ever forgive you for making Alice a party to your evil. She was such a glorious girl, such radiance of form and face. She could have been one of God’s angels on earth. Imagine my horror, dear James, when she told me that she was in love with you, her own brother.”

  She walked around the chair to open the front door, bending and speaking into his wide, staring eyes. “Incest, James. If not of the body, then certainly the soul.”

  She smiled. “Mr. Moresham confessed to me that you were not his son. But I would have had to kill my darling, anyway, James. Because she was an adulteress, and God never makes angels of those among us who sin.”

  She pulled the chair through the front door. It slid easily over the threshold.

  “How fortuitous that I had been to services that morning. It was cold and my dear Alice was waiting for you, James. And she smiled, with delight and joy. A sinner’s smile and a deceitful heart. God gave me the strength to do what I must, just as now.”

  That morning she’d urged Alice into the pony cart, had warmed her hands within her own. Had coaxed the story from her own child, pretended joy where there was only horror, delight where there had been only revulsion.

  “She told me, you know, what the two of you planned. I pretended to wish to help her, which is a sure and certain way to trap Satan in his own web. But I knew, James, that I had to kill that spawn of evil inside of her, that child you gave her.”

  Cecily pushed the wheeled chair over the first step, then the second. It wobbled, but did not fall.

  “Oh, I knew all about the child, James. She told me so. She did not want to, but she was so very frightened by then. She was terrified of death, my glorious angel, which was so silly. Death freed her from her sins.”

  God had given her the strength to strangle her daughter, using the whip Cecily carried in the pony cart. It had been quite easily done; the fact Alice’s mortal soul was in jeopardy added strength to her arms and her mission.

  “Alice’s greatest transgression was replicating Eve’s sin of lust. I punished her for that, as I was told to do. But you cannot be allowed to go and sin even further, James. ‘Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.’ God forgave you through me once, but if you leave, I cannot save you from God’s punishment. I must stop you and save your immortal soul.”

  The paths between the main house and the outbuildings were designed for foot traffic, not a wheeled conveyance. It was difficult pushing the chair across the gravel, far more difficult than it had been with Alice, perhaps because James weighed so much more. Other than that small detail, the day was not so very different. That morning, too, the farm had been deserted, the men occupied with the race at Fairhaven, the women servants sent to town with lists of supplies to purchase.

  God had given her a mission, a duty to perform, and the glory of it fueled Cecily’s resolve.

  Some might have called it madness.

  Mary Kate limped the last few yards, blinked at the sight before her. James Moresham was trundled up in an invalid’s chair, bound at wrist, chest, and ankle. Behind him, nearly obscured by the chair’s high back, was Cecily, who pushed him down the path toward one of the farthest out-buildings. Mary Kate flattened herself against the stable wall, waited until the creaking of the chair indicated they were past.

  She had no weapon, and despite Bernie’s encouragement, would not have known how to use one even if so equipped. Nor had she any idea of what to do next, except to follow Cecily and see where this strange journey culminated.

  The curing shed. Because of the cold temperature, Mary Kate could see the ribbons of air surrounding the building, indicating the heat escaping from the structure. She crept forward quietly, conscious of the eerie silence that seemed to surround them. There was no noise at Moresham Farms. No horses stamping impatiently in their stalls, no sounds of currying, of iron beating against the anvil. Only the crunch of ice-laden grass beneath her feet, and the puffs of air from her lungs.

  The door to the curing shed stood open, a maw of darkness. Hardly an invitation, certainly a warning. Mary Kate stood upon the threshold, empowered not by curiosity, but by a courage fostered from fear. She was desperately afraid to step inside, and even more terrified of not doing so.

  She placed her uninjured foot upon the floorboards, took a step inside.

  And the world went dark.

  “It must be fate, Peter, but is that not Archer’s carriage?”

  “Aye, Bernie, it is.”

  They had loosened the horses from their leading strings and remained where they were, reasoning that as close to the crossroads as they were, a carriage was bound to come this way in a few moments. And not five minutes later, Archer arrived.

  Was that not fortuitous timing? Or was it Fate again? Archer seemed inclined to think it damnable luck.

  “You let her go?”

  “I could do nothing else, Archer. She was determined.”

  “You’ve written that you have shouted down an entire tribe of aborigines, madam, who were determined to feast upon your flesh. How can one lone woman give you pause?”

  “Perhaps my missives were a bit overplayed, Archer. But that is another subject entirely.” She placed one foot upon the step and leaned into the carriage. “Can you speed us to the Moreshams’?”

  “Is that where she’s gone?” There was a look of such stillness on Archer’s face that it seemed to chill her even further.

  She nodded, but when she opened her mouth to expound upon her answer, Archer simply ignored her, pulled her into the carriage, and shouted something at Jeremy as Peter leapt in.

  Speed, it seemed, was more pressing than courtesy.

  “Do you not dislike it when people interfere with your plans, James?” Cecily stepped into the doorway, dropped the hook she used to lower the hams from the rafters, the same instrument she’d used to render Mary Kate unconscious. She bent her knees, grabbed twin fistfuls of fabric in her hands, pulling and dragging Mary Kate’s body across the wooden floor. She closed the door firmly.

  “It makes my job so much more difficult when people will not let me be an instrument of God’s will.” She retrieved the hook, inserted it into a small metal opening in the wall. With a twist, the panel came free. She slid it against the adjoining wall and turned to James. “The Moreshams have always been resourceful people, James, who planned on protecting their homes and their provisions during political unrest. I doubt even Samuel knows this room is here.” There was barely a flicker of life left in his eyes. She would have to be quick, then.

  “I am going to show you my most delicious secret now, James. God promised me this would gain me heaven’s gates. For this He will award me and reward
me. A perfect soul, frozen in time, offered up to my Maker in repentance for sins she and you performed.”

  She rolled the chair so that it stood balanced over the threshold, half-in, half-out of the small room. The air here, as in the larger room, was permeated with the smell of smoke, but another odor lingered, one sweeter and more ripe with decay. At the end of the narrow space was a makeshift altar, lovingly decorated with a lace cover, once delicate white, now yellowed due to the air of the curing shed. At either side of the altar were candles. A chalice sat in the middle; a Bible lay open as the final adornment.

  Alice St. John knelt before it, clad in the dress she’d worn to meet James, her hands clasped together, her swollen stomach sagging below her knees. Rotted rope gouged into her dark, shriveled flesh, at wrists and knee and below her jaw, forcing her body into this position of humility and piety. Her face was upturned, her eyes clouded over and sightless. Her blond hair trailed down her back, almost to the floor.

  She was preserved in perfect, abject submissiveness, a parody of faith mummified.

  “I brush her dear hair every day, James,” Cecily crooned, pulling the chair out of the doorway so that she could enter the room, then pulling it back again so that he could have a clear view of Alice.

  She walked to where her daughter knelt in perfect adoration and smiled beatifically. “She has never looked lovelier, don’t you think?”

  One hand smoothed over the skull matted with blond hair, not noticing when several long strands clung to her fingers. “I loved her, James, loved her enough to save her from sin. I delivered her from hell, James, as I shall you.”

  Cecily turned, smiled at the young man her daughter had loved to the cost of her mortal soul, then frowned when she realized that sometime during the last few minutes, James Moresham had quietly, and without protest, died.

  Help her….

  “Damn it, Jeremy, can’t you make them go any faster?”

  Bernie didn’t bother to question Archer’s haste, nor the look on his face, which must have indicated his stark fear. This was terror at its finest, the sheen-coated face, the grip of the bowels. This was death rearing its ugly head and a premonition that was too strong to deny.

  “We’ll be in time, Archer.”

  He gave her a sharp look, wondering how she could know. Archer knew something was desperately wrong, wrong in the way a two-headed cat is wrong. An aberration of nature, a mistake, something not meant to be. How he knew it affected Mary Kate so intimately and so vitally, he couldn’t say, only that he had to get to her, to shelter her and, if need be, stand between her and this horror.

  In all these months, he’d never found himself afraid. Not like now. He’d been concerned for Alice, but had he evinced any more fear for her than for his own reputation? No. Not like now, when he could feel the soles of his feet go wet and the roof of his mouth become arid.

  What was this feeling? Why did it seep into the very marrow of his bones? What did it mean? Why was he so afraid?

  And whose voice called him to caution and whispered of danger?

  Mary Kate awoke to the sound of praying. Her cheek was flattened against the hard and dusty floor. A muscle on the side of her face jerked spasmodically, and at first she thought it was an insect crawling on her skin. She tried to brush it away, only then realizing that she was bound and gagged. She choked back a moan, but something told her not to move and not to make a sound. She blinked once and a fierce pain welled in one eye.

  Her nose smelled the sickening stench of decay before her mind registered what she was seeing. She felt herself begin to tremble as the realization penetrated the dull numbness of pain. Warm, smoky air was sucked into her lungs as she tried not to scream, then realized she could not because of the cloth wedged into her mouth.

  Hot bursting blood racing through her veins. A heart muscle clenched and shivering. Nausea, hot, sickly sour, rose in her throat. The sound of Cecily’s voice, her prayers to heaven, buffeted against the walls of Mary Kate’s mind. Fear rolled through her muscles, clamping those in her neck and chest in spasms. A rictus of a smile spread her lips over dry teeth beneath the gag.

  James Moresham sat tied to the rolling chair, quite obviously dead, his eyes vacant and staring. Before him knelt the woman he’d loved, a woman who had been the subject of too much speculation and not enough concern. Alice St. John. Had she been here all along, kneeling in silent vigil, waiting for someone to rescue her from eternal penitence?

  “Will it not be the most perfect sacrifice to our Lord? You cannot cheat me of it, you know. God has promised that He will share in this vengeance.”

  Mary Kate felt the bile rush to the back of her throat.

  The look of venomous dislike from Cecily was not unexpected. Mary Kate stared at the other woman, no anger in her gaze, no strong emotion. Strangely enough, there was no longer fear. That had been burned out of her in those first few seconds upon awakening, by the diorama created by madness, by devotion rendered deadly. And by the sudden and sweeping knowledge that there was no voice within to warn her.

  She had failed Alice.

  Mary Kate blinked, held her eyes closed against sudden tears. Help him…. She had not been able to do that. She had not been in time, or quick enough to prevent James’s death. She had not even known of the danger, of the madness that now sparkled so clearly from Cecily’s eyes. Would she live with that guilt forever? And how long was forever? Was Cecily going to ensure it was compressed into an hour, even less?

  Mary Kate swallowed, wondered if she would be brave in death, wondered how Cecily was going to kill her. Would it be painful, or would it be simply as Mrs. Tonkett had once mused, a step over a threshold, up onto a staircase leading to a world far, far away?

  She didn’t want to be courageous; she didn’t want to die. Yet she was bound and trussed on the floor of the curing shed, with her eyes watering from the incessant smoke and her head still in agony from the first blow Cecily had administered. It did not seem as though there was much hope of survival.

  If only she had not raced from the carriage. If only she had reasoned things through. If only she had known what horror awaited her. If only she had not tried to find her family. If only she had not been in the farmer’s wagon. If only she’d not found herself entranced by a man with a hint of pain in his eyes. If only she’d not fallen in love with him, his rare laugh, his smile, the teasing look in his eyes. If only, if only, if only.

  Was sanity lost one thread of thought at a time?

  She felt the echo of the running thud of boots against her cheek before she heard the sound. The opening of the door, the flash of gray light against the candlelit interior, all these sensations flew into her mind like rushing birds just before the scream lanced through the air.

  It was a woman’s high-pitched screech, an animal’s cry of impotent fury. Archer turned toward the sound, unprepared for the attack by the barely recognizable Cecily Moresham.

  She came at him with teeth and nails, armed with the grappling iron. The first blow was deflected by his shoulder, the second found the side of his neck, gouging into his skin. He felt the blood flow, wondered at the size of the wound for only a second, until he glanced down and saw Mary Kate, huddled into a corner of the small shed. The sight of her wide, terrified eyes was enough to dismiss any momentary pain as he rounded on Cecily.

  Bernie was beside him in an instant, then pushed out of the way by the tall, muscular footman. Peter grabbed Cecily by the arms, had nearly restrained her when she turned her head and like the animal she sounded bit him smartly on the wrist. He released her with a bellow of pain. Cecily, impelled by madness, did not stop. She grabbed the meat hook with both hands, raised it above her head, and ran toward Archer.

  He glanced past her, his gaze caught and held by the lit candles, by the vision of Alice held captive in eternal piety.

  Mary Kate saw Archer freeze into immobility at the tableau he faced. She’d never felt terror as she did at this moment, watching him with fear sl
icking her blood and harnessing her breath. The gag stopped her from warning him; the screams she made emerged as small squeaks a mouse might make.

  “Archer!” A shout of warning from Bernie as the iron hook lowered toward him with violent force. It was a strange, slowed picture of impending disaster. Cecily, armed with madness and determination; Archer, unable to move his limbs or break free of this paralysis of thought and action.

  Bernie bent, withdrew the knife she always kept strapped to her ankle, and threw it. It found its target in the bodice of Cecily’s proper dress, buried itself hilt-deep into a pulsing, maddened heart. Cecily crumpled to the floor in front of them, her hands still fixed convulsively upon the iron hook.

  The most curious look of peace came over her face. A smile wreathed her lips, a strange sort of gurgling laughter emerged from her throat. What she said was lost to the world. It could have been an oath, a blessing, a warning. Nothing emerged but the rattle of death.

  Chapter 40

  “It was quite a magnanimous thing for you to do, Bernadette,” Samuel said. “To allow James to be buried beside Alice in the St. John crypt.”

  Bernie merely smiled. There was, after all, nothing to say. It had seemed fitting for the mausoleum to house the two lovers, an opinion she had seconded the moment Archer solicited her advice. Just Alice and James, alone for eternity, untainted by Cecily’s presence in death. Would future generations look at the inscription carved into the marble and wonder about the story of the two lovers, or would rumors of Cecily’s atrocities circle England for months upon years, becoming one of those legends that seemed to flourish on English soil? Only time itself would tell.

  She stood beside Samuel on the fringe of mourners, the neighborhood arrayed in brittle black. Whispers seemed to float like smoke, to pool in corners and slither under door-frames. But all those invited to the repast following the ceremony of interment were outwardly respectful, the shine of life dulled from their faces by the presence of death.