The Dark Corner

To be frank, Kate was a colossal bitch. On a good day, she was unpleasant to be around, a cobra spitting venom at anyone who crossed her path. We fought like cats and dogs, and with her acid wit, she almost always came out on top, much to my irritation.

But she was still my sister. She was the one who beat the boy who grabbed my rear without permission at one of father’s parties, and she was the one who taught me all the skills mother never had the chance to pass to me. Kate was difficult to love sometimes, but I still loved her.

Father was desperate to marry her off, so when Patrick Allendale proposed, he jumped at the chance to get rid of her. Patrick was a man of equal standing and well respected by his peers. He had suffered the loss of his first and second wives in tragic accidents, and having completed his mourning duties for his second, was in the market for a new wife.

There was something off about him as he kissed my hand and introduced himself to me. His grin reminded me of a wily fox, more a baring of teeth than a genuine smile.

And then it was Kate’s turn. She seethed, refusing to offer her hand. “My father gave away my hand without my permission, but I will not give it away so willingly.”

“I don’t ask to keep it,” he replied, “only to borrow it and gift you a kiss in exchange.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Do you think I’m a library? I don’t lend myself to anyone, not even in parts.”

“Perhaps you are, because I can read you like a book,” he shot back.

Though I was skeptical of this man, as I watched them exchange barbs on equal footing, I began to wonder if a fox was just what this hen needed. She even seemed to be having fun.

But then he took it a step too far by grabbing her and kissing her on the lips. Furious, she struggled against him, and when that proved futile, she bit down hard on his lip. With a sharp cry, he staggered backwards, holding his bleeding mouth. Kate grinned, her teeth stained red.

“You wanted a taste of me. Did you find it to your liking?” With that, she left in a swirl of skirts and righteous fury. Though I often pitied her brave suitors, I could not find it in my heart to feel bad for him. The first rule of dealing with Kate is that you cannot touch her without expressed permission.

That night, she came into my room in a state I had never seen her in before. Her dark hair was mussed, and her blue eyes were red rimmed from tears. In my eighteen years of life, I had never seen my big sister cry. Though I knew she was just as capable of weeping as anyone else, a part of me thought she was incapable of it.

She sat on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest. “I’m to be married tomorrow,” she said, her voice barely a hoarse whisper. Her gaze was distant and unfocused, and I was struck by how young she looked.

“So soon?”

She sniffled. “He wants us wedded and home as soon as possible. Bianca, I…I don’t like him.”

“I’ve never seen you like any man,” I teased to try to lighten her poor spirits, but it only seemed to make her tense even more.

“It’s not like that,” she snapped, some of her usual fire returning.

“Then what is it?”

She looked askance, gnawing her lower lip with an anxiety I had never seen before. Seeming to steel herself, she reached into the collar of her nightgown and pulled out a familiar key tied with leather string. It once belonged to our mother and opened a chest that held the secrets that the women in our family had passed down for generations. It was Kate’s inheritance, and she guarded it as jealously as a dragon might guard its hoard of gold. And now she was holding it out to me. “It’s yours now.”

Rendered speechless, I picked it up like it was the holy bones of a saint. “Why?”

Kate sighed, looking away. “When I was young, Mother told me that I must never marry, because my husband will be the death of me. I have never desired love and romance, so it wasn’t a problem until today. And you know how Father is about Mother’s predictions.”

I nodded solemnly. Father was many things, but a believer in a world beyond the veil was not one of them. “I didn’t like the way he kissed you.”

She let out a weak laugh at that. “I’d hoped that nearly biting his lip off would frighten him away, but he’s still insistent on marrying me, and Father is forcing me to go through with it.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “I asked you why you’re giving it to me. Why can’t you take it with you?”

She looked at me as though I was stupid. “If Mother was right and he killed me, her chest would belong to him, so instead, I’m entrusting it to you.”

“No, no, you’ll be fine.” I pushed the key back to her, but she simply closed my fingers around it and held my hand.

“Perhaps you’re right. I hope you are, anyway. But I still want you to have it. The chest is safer with you. And if I’m proven wrong, you could always give it back to me.”

I nodded and slowly retracted my hand, putting the leather cord around my neck. “Only for safekeeping. And for what it’s worth, I think you’re too stubborn to be killed by any mortal man.”

At that, she threw her head back and laughed. “Why Bianca, that’s the kindest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

What a fool I was. Had I known that watching them ride off in a carriage after the wedding would be the second to last time that I saw my sister alive, I would have killed Patrick the moment he laid eyes on her.

One wife dead in an accident is a tragedy. Two is a coincidence. Three means a Bluebeard is in our midst.

I saw her for the last time at my own wedding the following year. I had been sending her letters for months inviting her to be in the bridal party but received no response. A part of me had resigned myself to the fact that she wasn’t coming to my wedding. Kate never cared for them anyway, not even her own.

But then, as I stood at the altar and listened to the priest drone on about the importance of marriage, I spotted her beside Patrick. She sat in the back corner of the chapel wearing a blue veil that obscured her face, and if I hadn’t seen Patrick beside her, I never would have known it was her.

She seemed diminished in a way that I struggled to put my finger on. The Kate I knew swallowed the energy in the room like a wildfire burning everything in her path, but after months with her new husband, her flame had been smothered.

“…lawfully wedded husband?”

“What?” I blinked, suddenly remembering where I was. Lucian’s features were furrowed with concern. Scattered chuckles rose up from the crowd, and my face burned. “Forgive me, can you repeat that?”

“Do you take Lucian Burton to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“Then I now pronounce you man and wife. You may now kiss the bride.” We kissed and the crowd erupted into cheers. I would have been overjoyed too, but I couldn’t get the image of Kate out of my head.

“What happened back there?” Lucian hissed as soon as we sat at the head table.

“I saw Kate,” I replied.

At that, he seemed to relax minutely. “So, no second thoughts, then.”

I leaned over and kissed his cheek. The problem with being the one chosen by the girl surrounded by suitors is that you never feel truly settled about whether or not she regrets her choice. “Of course not.” I sighed. “But I am worried about her. She seemed off.”

“When has Kate never been off?” He laughed, shaking his head. “I have no idea how he did it, but he turned that feral bitch into a well-trained pet fit for the Westminster Dog Show.”

It was a joke. I knew it was a joke. But still, my hackles rose. How could he not see that something was wrong? How could Father walk up to Patrick and shake his hand like he was proud of what his son-in-law did to his own daughter?

“Would you excuse me? I need to talk to my sister in private.” I got to my feet and brushed past him, heading for where Patrick chortled with his friends on the dance floor while Kate stood meekly behind him.

“May I borrow my sister for a moment?” I said, taking Kate’s hand and whisking her away before her husband could protest.

I led her to the nearest empty room. Compared to the heat and din of the party, it was blessedly cool and quiet. I threw my arms around her in a hug, but she only stiffened. The last time I gave her an unsolicited hug, she’d pushed me to the ground almost on reflex. Now though, she stood frozen as a rabbit cornered by a fox.

I stepped backwards to get a good look at her. Up close, she was even worse than I feared. Her features were sallow and gaunt like she hadn’t been eating. Dark circles lined her eyes as though she hadn’t slept in days, and her long sleeves failed to fully cover the finger shaped bruises on her wrists.

I put my hand to my mouth in horror. “What did he do to you?”

She looked away, refusing to meet my eyes. “He showed me the error of my shrewish ways.”

I swallowed dryly, not wanting to hear the answer, but needing to know. “How?”

Her lips curled into a watery smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “He deprived me of food and clothing because none of it was good enough for me. I couldn’t sleep because he deemed that the beds and pillows were unfit for a wife as…perfect…as I.” She took a stuttering breath. “He’d insist that the sun was the moon until, in my half-mad delirium, I agreed with everything he said just to make it stop.”

“That—that’s monstrous.”

“I’ll ask you not to speak ill of my husband,” she said, but there was an undercurrent of fear in her voice. “He’s worked very hard to shape me into the perfect bride and I shouldn’t let that work be for naught.”

“Kate,” I said, cupping her cheek. “Let me help you.”

She jerked away. “What can you do? Father has made his approval very clear, as had your own husband when he and Patrick spoke yesterday.” For a moment, I saw that familiar fire in her eyes, that flame that burned everyone around her, but then it was gone, and hopeless defeat took its place.

“Surely there must be something…”

“I’ve tried everything. Running away, poisoning him, trying to smother him in our marriage bed, but he always finds me or finds a way to survive. I don’t know what else to do.”

If her fire had been smothered, one had been lit in me. I removed the fine jewelry I’d been given, everything but my wedding ring. “Leave tonight while he’s drunk at the party. I’ll find a servant’s uniform for you to wear. Sell the jewelry, and as soon as you find a place to stay, send me a letter under a false name.”

“Beatrice Peters,” she said, and there was that fire once more.

“Beatrice Peters,” I repeated, committing the name to memory. “Until then, go to the party and behave as your husband wishes for you to behave. Encourage him to drink. I’ll deliver the dress to you once he’s passed out from overindulgence.”

She pulled me into a rare hug, one that threatened to crush all the bones in my body, and I returned it with my own ferocity. “Thank you, Bianca. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, so I should say this. I love you, and I’m sorry for all the times I was horrid to you.”

“I appreciate it, and I apologize if I ever made you feel as though you deserve this. Because you don’t. No one does.” Despite what Lucian says. “I love you too. Now, go. I’ll summon a servant to prepare your escape.”

She gave me one of her genuine smiles, something almost as rare as her hugs. “I’ll write as soon as I’m safe.”

But she never had the chance to even leave the wedding party. This is what I understand to have happened:

As expected, Patrick overindulged on the food and drink. Kate waited until he was on the verge of passing out and slipped away, but Patrick must have seen her go, because he followed. The servants I spoke to in the aftermath described an argument between them near a stairwell, and then a woman screaming. They found Kate at the bottom of the staircase the next day, her neck broken.

A tragic accident, everyone insisted. She imbibed too much and fell down the stairs. You know servants. They love spreading outrageous rumors, Bianca. Patrick is a good and honorable man, and honestly, a saint for putting up with her for a year.

I wanted to scream that this man killed my sister, that he broke her spirit and broke her body and left me to live out the rest of my days alone. All the while, her murderer walked freely as a respected man in society.

As they dismissed me and brushed me off as a silly, hysterical, little girl, I began to feel the same acid in my veins that once flowed through my sister’s. I understood her rage, her bitterness. She always saw the world more clearly than me. I just wish it didn’t take me so long to understand her and the way she chafed at the restrictions put upon us as women. There was a time when I thought that painting roses on the chains that bound me would make their weight less heavy, that their pull would weaken on their own. But they’ve only ever wound tighter.

But I had a recourse that no other woman on earth had: the key to the contents of our mother’s chest. If the laws of men gave us no justice, then the magic of our mother surely would.

On the one-year anniversary of her death, I returned to her bedroom for the first time since she was found in that stairwell. The chest had never been moved from the corner of her closet, and with shaking hands, I inserted the precious key into the lock and opened it.

The items inside were clearly not made for Christian worship. An obsidian knife sat within a jade bowl on top of a leatherbound book. I had never seen a witch’s grimoire before, but that was the only thing it could be. As I removed the contents of the chest, a note came fluttering out.

My dearest Bianca,

I wish I could be there to guide you and Kate, but I will not live to hear your breath’s first cry. I know this, just as I know that Kate will grow too strong for her own good and be delivered into the hands of a monster, and that you will avenge her. Forgive me for failing to be there for you both when it truly mattered. I love you girls, and I can only hope that reaching across time will give you the chance to put things to right.

Love,

Mother

P.S. The page you want is 192. I wish you the best of luck.

Water droplets fell on the paper, staining the ink. It took me a moment to realize that they were coming from my eyes. Mother died in labor, pushing me out with the last of her energy before passing. I never knew her outside of the stories Kate and Father would tell, and I’d always longed to have a piece of her all my own. As I read the note, I felt her presence, warm and comforting, as though she’d always been at my side.

Steeling myself, I took her advice and opened the grimoire to page 192. It was a spell to resurrect the spirits of dead so that they might avenge themselves upon those who killed them. It didn’t seem to have any fine print selling my soul to the devil, but if Heaven was full of God-fearing men like Patrick, then perhaps I would be much happier in Hell anyway.

I began to chant as I sliced into the back of my forearm with the obsidian knife and drained the blood into the bowl, “Blood of my blood, kin of my kin, I summon you so that you may take what is rightfully yours. I summon you for justice, for vengeance so that you might truly be able to rest once more.”

Dabbing my finger in my spilled blood, I drew an eye upon my forehead and upon the backs of both my hands. The moment I finished, a bolt of lightning coursed through me.

When I opened my eyes, I was in the family crypt. The coffin that housed Kate exploded, and my sister rolled out of it. She was scarcely more than a skeleton now, most of her flesh having rotted away. Her neck was bent at an inhuman angle and her lips and gums had receded, revealing rotting teeth. Staggering to her feet, the door to the mausoleum blasted open and she shuffled out on ungainly limbs.

Silent as a shadow, I followed her as she limped single-mindedly in the direction of Patrick’s manor. A part of me wanted to scream and get her attention. Another part wanted me to embrace the fetid, rotting corpse of my sister, secure in the knowledge that she was alive, at least for a little while. But both would be fruitless. I brought Kate here for one purpose and one purpose only.

Finally, she reached the place her old husband once called home. Loose limbed and awkward, she banged on the door. After a few moments, it opened, and the wide, horrified eyes of a servant stared back at her. With a cry, he shrank away, letting her pass.

Upstairs, we could hear Patrick yelling at someone. A new wife, probably. He didn’t even wait until Kate was cold in the grave before taking a fourth one.

She found them in bed, the bride tied and frightened while Patrick loomed over her with a riding crop. The woman shrieked at the sight of the rotting corpse, but Kate and I only had eyes for Patrick.

He backed away; his face twisted in terror as Kate advanced upon him. She followed him out to the balcony, cornering him against the railing.

“Please,” he begged like the coward he was. She wrapped her hands around his throat and pushed, sending them both plummeting to the unforgiving ground below.

The final fall jarred me back into my own body, and I resurfaced with a gasp. Kate stood over me looking as fierce and beautiful as she did while she was alive. Beaming, she nodded her thanks and vanished.

She was satisfied with her justice, but I was not. We got our revenge on the man most responsible for her murder, but Father forced her into the marriage, and hardly seemed sorry that she’d passed. But a little arsenic in his tea should fix that.

And if my own husband decides to take a leaf from Patrick’s book, he too will learn what it’s like to feel my wrath.

Kay Hanifen was born on a Friday the 13th and once lived for three months in a haunted castle. So, obviously, she had to become a horror writer. Her work has appeared in over forty anthologies and magazines. When she’s not consuming pop culture with the voraciousness of a vampire at a 24-hour blood bank, you can usually find her with her two black cats or at kayhanifenauthor.wordpress.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheUnicornComi1 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katharinehanifen/