The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

by Stuart Turton

Blackheath’s picked him up and dusted him off, winding his key so he can do it all again. If this isn’t hell, the devil is surely taking notes.

He glances at me, the facade of nonchalance slipping to reveal the calculation at its foundation.

the silence stretches, growing taut.

A pulse throbs violently in his neck,

“Of course, now I know she just wanted to go riding and not have to look after us, but at the time we thought her terribly kind.

Besides, the idea of spending time with somebody who isn’t mired in today’s many tragedies is appealing.

I can feel myself being slotted into place, a cog in a massive ticking clock, propelling a mechanism I’m too small to understand.

Amid all the plots, it seems an inconsequential thing to bother with, but I can still remember how much comfort it brought me, how much strength.

It was a kindness when I needed one most, and it cheers me to be the one delivering it.

With so few hosts left, I’d rather not tempt Death’s gaze back toward me.

“Strychnine,” I say, staring into the victim’s twisted, smiling face. He looks delighted by the news, as though he’s sitting here all this time waiting for somebody to tell him how he died.

Three hours of fidgeting and worrying, the shotgun laid across my lap, leaping into my hands at the slightest noise, making it a near-constant presence in my arms. I don’t know how Anna did it.

This place is never at rest. The wind claws its way through the cracks in the windows, howling up and down the corridor. Timbers creak, floorboards stretch, shifting under their own weight as though the gatehouse were an old man trying to rise out of his chair.

The breeze from the opened door touches my neck an instant before a step sounds behind me. Throwing myself to the floor, I hear a knife slashing through the air. Rolling onto my back, I bring the revolver up in time to see the footman fleeing into the corridor.

maids scrubbing their youth away on the floor.

Her voice is distant, almost annoyed. I feel like a squashed insect she’s discovered on the bottom of her shoe.

As with Ravencourt, I’m struck by the disdain with which Evelyn armors herself.

“I’m caught between the devil and the deep, blue sea, aren’t I?” she says.

I can feel every one of my hosts pressed up against the inside of my skull. Their memories crowd the edges of my mind,

I feel their aches and am made timid by their fears. I’m no longer a man, I’m a chorus.

The last one is next to the greenhouse, the flames reflecting on the glass panels so that the entire thing seems to be ablaze.

Sweat is trickling down my spine, the tension in the room thick enough to scoop up in handfuls.

“What’s it to be?” he asks.

can only hope that’s true and fate is in a charitable mood, because if it’s not I’ve damned both myself and Anna.

I sought to bring balance, not offer advantage. I’m begging you, don’t do this. Let events follow their natural course. He’s so close to solving it.”

After the compass, we’re beyond fighting fair.

If this is hell, then it’s one of our making.”

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

By seeing through Daniel’s betrayal, and overwhelming him in the graveyard, I’ve avoided that fate.

If Rashton and Ravencourt have taught me anything, it’s to value my host’s talents, rather than lament their limitations.

“You came for Anna, but you got trapped, and loop after loop Blackheath picked you apart until you forgot yourself, as it was designed to.”

The beak mask turns toward me slowly, and for a full minute, he stands there, deep in thought. I can feel myself being measured, my qualities weighed and set aside, my flaws held up to the light that they might be better judged. It’s not you he’s measuring. What does that mean? He’s a good man. This is when he finds out how good.

And they sent her to Blackheath, where my sister’s murderer would spend a lifetime solving the death of a murdered sister.

“I should never have taken the mask off,” he growls, getting to his feet and striding into the garden, scattering the rabbits who’d been eating the grass.

Hands on hips, he stares at Blackheath in the distance, and for the first time, I realize it’s as much his master as mine.

Even if they can, they’ll be looking for any excuse to keep her imprisoned, Aiden.”

I search for the brighter world behind this one, imagining Blackheath alight, wearing a crown of flames and a cape of fire. I see the gray sky burning, black ash falling like snow. I imagine the world remade, if only for an instant.

I make bricks of her laughter, her touch, her kindness and warmth, and only when I’m content my wall is high enough, do I resume my study of the sunroom, letting myself inside when I’m satisfied the house sleeps.

“It wasn’t the first time,” I say, my voice cracked by regret. “We’ve both hurt each other, Anna, and we’ve both paid for it. I’m never going to betray you again, I promise. You can trust me. You already have trusted me; you just can’t remember it.”

So many memories and secrets, so many burdens. Every life has such weight. I don’t know how anybody carries even one.

“It’s the book of me,”

I shiver, horrified at the margins between life and death.

She must have come straight from the room next door, because her apron is covered in the footman’s blood. Brow furrowed, she saws at the rope, her haste making her clumsy. Swearing, she slows down, but after a few minutes my bonds are slack enough for me to wriggle my hands free.

A breeze is stirring, rain plinking against our lanterns.

“That’s the beauty of corrupt men, you can always rely on them to be corrupt.”

Her love is rabid, pulsing and rotten, but it’s sincere. Somehow that only makes her more monstrous.

A single candle burns on the road, illuminating a porcelain beak mask. Hope stirs, but withers immediately. He isn’t moving. He can’t even hear what’s being said.

I need to pack Blackheath away, deep in the dark, where my nightmares live, and I’m not going to be free of it for a very long time.

Anna’s waiting on the road, her eyes fixed on Blackheath. She looks so young, so carefree, but it’s a mask. There’s another face beneath this one, a woman hated by half the world, and I’ve helped free her.

No ticking clock hanging over a puzzle-box house.