He still wont believe me about everything that happened in the basement. About Deirdre. I vaguely remember whispering about her in my medicated delirium, and about Jennas body hiding away in some freezer. He rubbed my arm, whispering words that sounded like moth bodies flying into glass windows. Nonsensical things I tried to cling to. Maybe, lying there, I was so pitiful that he felt no choice but to love me. Now he says I can take care of myself. Now Im the liar trying to destroy the perfect world his father set up for him, who ran away, broke everything. And its getting late, and its time to part ways.
But the words come out of me anyway. Dont go.
He looks at me.
Dont go, I say. And dont take Cecily back there. I know you dont believe me, but I have a terrible feeling that
I can take care of Cecily, he says. I would have taken care of you, too. If Id known you were so worried about my father.
Bowen has fallen asleep against Lindens chest, and Linden shifts him to the other arm. My father thought that if you didnt want to be married to me, he could have you. Its because of your eyes. He wanted to study them, and he took it too far. He can be that way. His eyebrows knit together, and he looks at his feet, struggling to make sense of what hes saying, to force logic where there is none. He isnt the monster you think he is. He justhe gets so into his work that he forgets people are people. He gets carried away.
Carried away? I spit back. He drove needles into my eyes, Linden! He murdered a newborn
Dont you think I know my own father? he interrupts. Id trust him before Id believe anything you say. You couldnt even do me the dignity of telling the truth.
There was a night, months ago, when I almost did. It was after the expo. I was half-drunk, my hair sticky and perfumed and teased, the bed tipping under me. He climbed over my body, and he kissed me. I could hear tree branches murmuring to one another in the moonlight. And Linden said, so close that I could feel his breath on my eyelashes, But I dont know who you are. I dont know where you came from. His eyes were bright. I wanted so badly to tell him, but something about that entire night seemed so beautiful, so bizarre, that I didnt trust it with my secrets. Or maybe I just wanted to play along, to wear his ring and be his wife for a little while before the magic took the light from the moon.
Now I say nothing. Theres no brightness in his eyes for me.
If you didnt love me, he says, you should have said it. I would have let you go.
You might have, I admit. But not your father.
My father has never been in charge of what I do, he says.
Your father has always been in charge of what you do, I say.
He looks at me, and I stop breathing. Something comes surging up behind his eyes, some argument of love or vengeance. Something thats been building every second Ive been away. And I want it, whatever it is. Want to hold it in both hands like his leaping heart thats been ripped from his chest. Want to warm it with my body heat.
He says, When Cecily comes back, tell her Ill be waiting by the car.
Then hes gone.
I dont want to leave you here, Cecily says when I relay the message. This place looks like it could give you cancer or something. Shes remembering that word, cancer, from a soap opera Jenna used to watch. Its a disease that was eliminated from our genetics.
I dont think cancer was something you could catch, I tell her.
Thats my point, she says.
We must be making too much noise, because Reed bangs on the ceiling.
Cecily huffs and sits on the bed next to me. After a few seconds she puts her arm around my shoulders and stares at her stomach. At four months along shes already looking tired and swollen. Her cheeks and fingertips are flushed. Her face and hair are damp from where shes splashed herself with cold water, something she does after a bout of nausea.
Have you been sick a lot? I ask her.
Its not so bad, she says softly. Linden takes care of me.
Im worried about her. I wonder if it has even occurred to her or to Linden that she hardly had a rest between pregnancies. Vaughn surely knows how unsafe this is, and he allowed it, which worries me even more. Im scared that shell enter that dark hall, descend the stairs, and be forever in Vaughns clutches. I think shes scared too, because she doesnt move. I dont know how much time passes before Linden comes looking for her.
Ready to go? He stands in the doorway, mostly in shadow.
Im staying the night, she says.
They have some sort of conversation with their eyes. A husband-and-wife thingsomething I could never quite get the hang of. Cecily wins, because Linden picks up the diaper bag and says, Ill be back for you in the morning, first thing.
A few minutes later, through the window, we watch the limo drive out of sight.
The mattress is lumpy and hard, and Cecily, who is back to snoring the way she did in her later trimesters, spends the night thrashing and turning. She kicks me so many times that I eventually take a pillow and settle on the floor. But every position on the hard wood aggravates the recovering gash in my thigh. In my dreams, it bleeds and seeps through the floorboards, and Reed pounds on the ceiling because blood is raining down on his work. The engine on the table comes to life. It pulses and breathes.
In the darkness Cecily whispers my name. At first I think its part of my dream, but she persists, increasing in frequency and intensity until I say, What?
Why are you on the floor? I can just make out her face and arm leaning over the mattress, tangle of hair coming over one shoulder.
You were kicking, I say.
Im sorry. Come back up. I promise I wont anymore.
She makes room for me, and I cram in beside her. Her skin is sticky and hot. You shouldnt wear socks to bed, I tell her. They keep heat in. Last time you were pregnant, you always got feverish at night.
Her legs move under the blanket as she kicks her socks off. It takes her a while to get comfortable, and I can tell shes trying not to disturb me, so I dont complain as Im knocked around the mattress. Eventually she settles on her side, facing me.
Did you get sick earlier, when you went to use the bathroom? I ask.
Dont tell Linden, she says, yawning. Hes squeamish about that stuff. He worries.
Thats to be expected after what happened with Roses pregnancy. But its not as though I can tell her that. And soon I find, despite my worries, that Im exhausted enough to fall asleep.
Just as Im beginning to dream, she says, I think about those other girls in the van with us. The ones who were killed.
My dreams fade away from me, and I wish desperately that theyd return. Even a nightmare would be welcome over that memory. Its not something my sister wives and I ever talked about, the odd and horrific thing that bonded us to one another. I especially wouldnt expect to hear about it from Cecily, who has always wanted to be the happy housewife.
I just wanted you to know that, she says. Im not a monster.
I turn my head to look at her. Of course you arent.
You called me one, she says. The day you ran away.
I was upset, I say, pushing the sweaty hair from her face. But what happened to Jenna isnt your fault.
She draws a shaky breath, closes her eyes for a long moment. Yes, it is.
Here is where I expect her to cry, but she doesnt. She only looks at me. And it strikes me again how much shes grown in my absence. Maybe she had no choice. There were no sister wives to console her, the father-in-law she trusted had only been using her, and its not as though she could explain any of this to her husband.
I struggle for words of comfort, but nothing feels sincere enough. And no matter what I say, Jenna is still gone, and so are the other girls that were Gathered, and the girl Silas and I found lying in a ditch. Cecily still wont live to see Bowen grow, and my brother has spiraled out of control in his grief, and Im no closer to finding him than I was last year.
I am entirely powerless.
The whole time we were married, I treated you like you were too small to understand what was happening to us, I say. But I felt small too. I couldnt control the way things were any more than you could.
You looked so confident, she says. I envied you from the day we were married. Ive decided Im going to be more like you. She says it with conviction. Im going to be stronger.
The last thing I am is strong.
Get some sleep, I whisper.
Rhine?
What?
I told Linden to believe you. I told him its true that Housemaster Vaughn is doing awful things downstairs.
I feel hope. Linden might not have any reason to believe me, but hell listen to Cecily. Even if its just to humor her so she doesnt go hysterical on him. You did?
He wouldnt listen at first, she says. It was while you were in the hospital. But I begged him to go and see for himself.
Did he? I ask.
Yes, she says. Butwhen he came back, he said there was nothing down there. A few of Housemaster Vaughns chemicals and things, lots of machines and attendants working on them, but no bodies. No Deirdre. He says you must have been hallucinating, or making it all up.
Hope swims away, leaving me with less than nothing. But you saw those things too, I press. Did you tell him that?
Now shes the one brushing her fingers through my hair, trying to console me. I only saw what was happening to you, she says. I wish Id seen more. I wish Id seen Deirdre, or Roses domestic, what was her
Lydia, I say.
Right. Lydia. I wish I could prove it. Shes talking to me in that hushed, cooing tone usually reserved for her son. Trying to lull me to sleep, or compliance.
And then I realize why.
You dont believe me, I say.
Oh, Rhine, Housemaster Vaughn did such terrible things to you. You were so delirious, and so sick. Maybe theres a chance some of it
It was real, I say, sitting up. It was all real.
She sits upright herself, facing me in the darkness. Shes frowning. There was nothing down there, Rhine.
He hid them, then, I say. The bodies. The domestics. If Gabriel were here, hed tell you the same thing.
Cecily straightens her posture, hopeful. She wants to believe me. Did he tell you there were bodies down there?
Not exactly, I say.
What did he tell you?
My stomach sinks. I collapse back onto the pillow, defeated. Not much, I admit. He was so high on opiates at first, and then it was one problem after the next, really. He didnt have a chance.
Cecily lies beside me, rubs my arm reassuringly. We both go silent. I struggle to cope with the fact that I am the only one who saw what Vaughn kept in the basement. But even worse than that, I want to believe what Linden and Cecily do, that none of it really happened. Maybe it didnt. Maybe Deirdre really did get sold to another house when I left, and Adair and Lydia too. Maybe theyre comfortable and safe, and Id conjured Deirdre up to cope with the loneliness as I lay strapped to that bed. She visited me often.
I start to make a list in my head of all the things I know. Vaughn killed Jenna; he admitted as much. Roses body was in the basement that day the elevators gave out. I saw her. I recognized her nail polish, her blond hair. There was a tracker in my leg. Deirdre told me about it. Didnt she? I think of all the attendants who came to work on me while I was in the basement. In my memory they all have the same blank expressions; theyre all voiceless, uncaring. Deirdre was warm. She spoke gently, made me feel safe, which was a bizarre thing in that place.
The list collapses in on itself, words and memories jumbling into a bloody mess. Its so frustrating the way the pictures keep on changing.
In the end its Cecily I reach for. At least I can be certain she exists. Her skin is sweaty and warm as I scrunch up the sleeves of the nightgown she borrowed from me. I worry about how overheated she gets, like theres a fire inside her. I think she drifted off to sleep and I woke her, because she mumbles something nonsensical before opening her eyes. You dont have to believe me, I tell her. You just have to believe that Vaughn is capable of those things.
I do, she says. Linden doesnt. I think he chooses not to. Hes sensitive, you know?
She strokes my cheek with the side of her handa repetitive, wispy motion. Like little ghost kisses.
I thought Housemaster Vaughn wanted to do good things and save us all, she says. I was wrong. And admitting that meant admitting he wont find an antidote and none of us has much time. You said you have to find your brotherso you should go do that. And Linden and I have Bowen, and this baby. I want to spend as much time with them as I can. I want to be with them until the end.
These are all things she wouldnt have dared to say last year. But now shes unflinching. Her voice doesnt even catch when she adds, If all those things you saw are real, theres nothing we can do about them. We have our own lives to take care of, and theres only time to do so much with them.
What she says is terrible and true. She grabs my hand. We squeeze each others fingers, and I wait for her to realize the magnitude of what shes said. I wait for her to squish up against me and sob. But from the reason in her tone, I sense that those words have been in her for a long time. That while I was away, she had plenty of time to get used to them.
And when the sob does come, several minutes later, its mine.
My sister wife has already fallen asleep.
I dream of Linden in the doorway. He looks at me a long while, the green in his eyes changing every second. The stars do look like a kite, he admits. But everything else youve said is a lie.
In the morning I awaken to Cecily jumping from the bed, her feet crashing onto the floorboards like baritone notes, to get to the window. Quiet, I tell her, cringing at the sudden light when she yanks the window shade, forcing it to recoil with a slurping noise.
No, no, no. You have to hide, she tells me. Panic in her eyes. The sound of an engine purring under the window.
I stagger to my feet, every muscle sore, and walk to the window. And outside is the limo, a figure standing beside it waving us down. Linden said hed be here to collect Cecily in the morning, but as my grogginess subsides, I realize that Linden isnt here.