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To the ones who hunger— for love, for time, or simply to be free
“Careful. In nature, beauty is a warning. The pretty ones are often poisonous.”
They don’t so much tangle up as fold together, arm on arm, ribs on ribs, a girl and her shadow, or a shadow and its light, and she’s heard a hundred songs and sayings about how the right person can make the whole world disappear, but the world is still there, raging around them, only it’s background noise, it’s set dressing, and for once in her life she is standing center stage, performing for an audience of one, this violet girl.
It’s because there’s a moment, pressed beneath the weighted blanket of the storm, when her body stops fighting, when all the voices inside her finally go quiet, and her shoulders loosen and her lungs unclench and her skin goes numb and the line between girl and world gets smudged, and she is washed away. Made new.
(She is used to wanting plenty, but it is another thing to be wanted.)
Lottie stays as long as she can, which is never long enough.
She is Orpheus, she tells herself. She won’t look back.
Six words at the bottom of the list. Alice. Scottish. Gentle. Tastes like grief. Lottie frowns, not at the words, but the punctuation on the end.
This stranger, who is not a stranger now. Husband. Wife. Words that hardly fit, especially here, in this odd state of in-between, one game ended and another not yet started.
Ysabel looks lovely, she looks gentle, but above all, she looks like what she is. The illegitimate daughter of a count. They have not spoken of it—they do not need to.
“Mother, Father, allow me to present … my wife.” María hates them instantly.
When Alice wakes the day after the party, her first and only thought is this: The world is far too fucking bright.
They don’t sing along, it’s not that kind of song, would never show up on someone’s karaoke list. Instead, they simply lie there, and let it wash over them.
The roof is full of odd angles. Stretches of harsh light, and crevices of shade in which to hide—if one is reckless enough to climb through the open window and brave the slanted pitch. María has always been reckless.
María has learned to find joy where she can.
By the way he still insists on wrapping her hair around his fist as if it is a rope, a rein. More and more she thinks of cutting it off. Her hair. His hand. Depending on the day.
At first, she could not fathom her mother-in-law’s love for such a place, but she soon learned: the Countess Olivares trades in two things, misery and gossip, and the market brings her both.
“Did you know,” she would say brightly, “that sometimes I think of the cemetery plot where you will lie, beneath all that dirt and stone, and it brings me joy.
“They call me Madame Boucher.” The smile breaks free at last, revealing a wolfish point to her longest teeth as she adds, “But you may call me Sabine.”
Sabine looks at her kindly. “A name is like a dress. It might be by nature pretty or plain, but it is the person wearing it who matters most.”
“One can be alone without feeling lonely,” she muses. “One can feel lonely without being alone.”
The fire spreads, licking the stone walls of the Olivares house. And just like that, her old life burns.
She should have stayed in bed, she thinks.
It stares back, startled, but unhurt, so she leans closer, till the tip of her nose touches the mirror, close enough for her breath to fog the glass. But it doesn’t. And that is how Alice learns she isn’t breathing. She reels back from the mirror, as if she’s seen a ghost. Her hands go to her mouth, a preemptive gesture, in case there is a scream, but nothing comes out.
But here’s the thing. Alice is no fool. She was raised on good books and bad TV, and she knows what this looks like, but she also knows that it’s not real.
“Is that blood?” asks the farmer’s wife as the lamplight catches on her dress. “Don’t worry,” says Sabine as she reaches back to close the door. “Most of it’s not mine.”
Death is a kind of freedom, after all.
That is the maddening thing about the hunger: it is always there.
“Those grown in the midnight soil are never alone.” “The midnight soil?” she echoes. It is an odd choice of words.
“Bury my bones in the midnight soil,” he begins, infusing the words with the air of theater. “Plant them shallow and water them deep. And in my place will grow a feral rose.”
“We are the roses that grew in the midnight soil,” he says, eyes bright as candles now. “Our thorns are sharp enough to prick. We are watered by life, and with its bounty, our roots grow deep, our blooms unmarred by age. In fact, for us, time fortifies, renders us more noble. We are no monster, no mean thing. We are nature’s finest flower.”
“There are other names for us, of course,” continues Hector. “Night walker. Blood drinker. Abomination. Vampire. But those are words crafted by mortal tongues. They are imperfect, incomplete. They lack the poetry, the brutality, the grace. No,” he says. “We are roses.”
How strange it is, after so many years alone, to find herself with constant company. Strange, but not unwelcome.
“It is a compliment,” he says, tucking the rose behind Sabine’s ear. “We grow in the same soil, it is true, but some of us wither there, and some of us thrive. In time, you learn,” he adds, eyes dropping to the trinkets layered at her throat, “which of us makes better monsters.”
Sabine’s mouth twitches in a smile. She is glad to be a thorn.
Sabine may not spend her hours reading texts, but she has had fifteen years in which to read Hector and Renata, front to back. Has studied both enough to know that Renata can be as cruel as she is ardent, always burning hot, while Hector swings like a pendulum between sulking and exuberant, uncanny stillness and sudden bursts of movement. Tonight, he is restless. He paces, sits and rises again, a sea churned up, as if possessed, ignited. It is beginning to annoy her.
“You are not mad.” He only shrugs. “Why should I be? Because she is mine?” His mouth twitches. “Renata does not belong to me, Sabine. And even if she did, forever is a very long time. She is free to amuse herself however she likes. Sometimes that means she wanders off, into someone else’s bed.”
He shakes his head and says, “Perhaps one day you will understand what it means to truly matter to another. Until then, just remember, little thorn.” He smiles, with not so much as a candle’s worth of warmth. “You may be her plaything. But I am her god.” That night, Sabine thinks of killing Hector. Of fleeing Spain.
Renata bolts the doors, and Hector takes his place before the altar. The three of them exchange a knowing look. The air draws tight, coiled with their hunger. Renata winks, and Hector smiles, their good mood bathing her like moonlight. In these moments, it is easy to forget that Sabine is shackled to them.
If she had, she would have noticed that now— There are only twenty-three.
Hector and Renata may be dead, but Sabine is not. She has been resurrected. Alone, but alive.
She remembers a popular serial killer show about a guy (it’s always a guy) who targeted bad people, found a moral way to feed the urge to hurt, to kill, and as Alice gets back to her feet, she tries to figure out what makes a person bad enough to deserve that kind of thing. And then she passes a construction site, and hears the rise and fall of a whistle pointed her way.
“So he prefers it to Matteo?” Alessandro laughs. “No, he hates it. It drives him mad. But that can be fun, sometimes, as well.”
“Not at all,” he answers cheerfully. “He has offered many times. But I refuse to let him.” She frowns. “If you are so fond of living, why reject the gift of life?” “Is it life,” he counters, “if there is never death to balance it? Or is its brevity what makes it beautiful?”
“Don’t bother,” says Matteo from the doorway, and even though he’s just risen, he looks ready to take the town by storm, in his finely tailored vest, his polished boots, an emerald pin at the collar of his cloak. “He can be shockingly stubborn when he wants.” Alessandro flashes him a grin. “And yet, you love me.”
“And yet, I do.” Matteo turns his attention to Sabine. “I’m glad to see you are still here.”
“What is old, to those who do not age?” “Oh, but we do,” says Matteo. “It may not show in the luster of our hair, the smoothness of our skin, the strength of our bones. But do not be mistaken. All things are touched by time, and we are no exception.”
“You must learn to master it,” says Matteo, “or it will master you.” Sabine’s hand drifts to the charms around her throat. “Let me guess,” she muses. “You intend to show me how.” The boat slows to a stop before the house again. Her host rises to his feet. “I do,” he says, offering a hand. “And who knows. You might even enjoy it.”
“Why would I?” she says, nodding at the bodies crowded in the ballroom. “When there is so much to eat?” Matteo’s grip tightens a fraction on her sleeve. “Because every corpse that falls in the canal makes ripples. And I know for a fact you will not starve. I did it once. I promise, it took much longer than a fortnight. And I learned a valuable lesson.” “Which is?”
“As entertaining as it sounds,” says Sabine, “I have never been a fan of other people’s rules.” “Alas,” he says, “the world is governed by them.”
