She Walks in Shadows(37)

“I don’t think you should tell your father about this lesson.”

“Why not? It is very clever. He should be proud!”

“No. I think he’ll be mad we broke into the trunk. Promise me you won’t tell.”

“I promise.”

When Master Ephraim began his usual interrogation, Asenath ignored him, stabbing at the lapin à la cocotte and chasing carrots around her plate. I was in attendance by the sideboard.

“Child, did you hear me?” She nodded.

“‘Fhalma —” He clicked his teeth. “Er, Eunice taught me about ….” Dread rumbled in my stomach.

“History.”

“History, eh?”

“Em-hmm. The Arkham Sisters.”

“I’ve heard of no such sisters. Witches, I bet.” He chewed over this a bit while I refilled his glass with wine. “When did these sisters live? During the Trials?”

“Very recently.” She paused and then smirked at me. “Mistresses of transference. People say they’ve lived for centuries swapping bodies! And people don’t speak of it because they are Deep Ones.” He gestured at me with his forked potato.

“What have I told you about teaching her that drivel? If I wanted her to know about nonsense such as that, I’d throw her into the sea with her mother. See if she’d swim.”

This was the first time Master Ephraim had ever spoken the truth about Mother in front of Asenath.

She dropped her utensils and pushed her plate away, muttering under her breath, “It’s not nonsense. Eunice and I can perform that which you’ve only dreamed of performing.”

His crooked shark teeth jutted over his lips as he smiled.

“You and … that thing there … are talented, I admit. But you are weak, not only by your sex, but from your relations.” He glared at me. “You are both incapable of ruling over the material world. I expect you to resume the curriculum I designed, Eunice, or I will throw you to the sea, as well.”

“Yes, Master Ephraim. I am sorry.”

“Excused.” I curtseyed and turned to retreat into the kitchen.

“‘Fhalma!”

I looked over my shoulder at Asenath. She widened her eyes and locked me in her gaze. When I blinked, I saw myself standing stiffly against the sideboard. I dropped the gaze with myself and looked down to see Asenath’s navy blue cotton dress. I looked up at Master. He looked between me in Asenath’s body and Asenath in my body. He narrowed his eyes and considered my body and asked incredulously, “Eunice?”

I answered, but my words rang in Asenath’s soprano.

He rolled his eyes to Asenath’s body. “You are Eunice?” The head I looked out from nodded. “And Asenath is there?” Her giggle trickled out of my smile.

“How is this possible?”

“Silly man,” Asenath cackled from my body. “It isn’t always a secret, you know; sometimes, it is simply legacy. You knew this when you chose our mother. You knew being merely human wasn’t enough. Without us, you are nothing.”

“The trunk. You jimmied the trunk! Ungrateful demons, have you no respect!”

He stood up so quickly his chair tumbled under him and in one fell swoop he crossed across the dining room table and struck my body so hard that it knocked Asenath’s body out, too, and we both awoke in our own minds and swollen skulls.

He ordered us separated. He would undertake Asenath’s education, while I was exiled to the attic, only allowed to leave at night.

IV.

I became a living ghost. I would sleep during the day and live during the night. Sometimes, when I awoke, I’d find a smuggled text from the library sans a remorseful message from Asenath. I would strain my eyes reading faded texts about the witches of Arkham, or debates over Mother Hydra’s fecundity. When I grew weary of study, I would venture out of the house to go to the Harbor and night-fish.

The waters at Innsmouth are famous for their plentitude, but my expeditions were never very successful. Perhaps there was a certain vibration in my line, a contamination in my lure, that foretold nothing but ill-will would come to whoever was greedy enough to take a bite. Or, perhaps it was because I was impatient and couldn’t cast the line far enough, or let it sink deep enough, before it seemed like aeons had passed and I reeled it in. Even so, it was peaceful. My mind could wander while I watched the Devil Reef appear and recede with the tide. Lore had it that fish-people moonbathed on its shores. Sometimes, I would fantasize that I would see Mother there. But all that was a long time ago. The reef was abandoned — perhaps they knew it would be destroyed.

My mind would wonder about the household and what was transpiring while I slept during the day, or remember my mother’s transformation during her illness and how, in her sobbing, there was something of a song that I wondered whether I would sing one day, and how she always spoke of taking to the water.

My existence was thus for several years. Then, one April evening, a great struggling awoke me. There was screaming, which at first sounded as if it emitted from Asenath, but, like a dying operatic singer trilling her last scale, it went from soprano to alto to baritone to silence followed by Master’s heavy footfalls up the stairs. When the door unlocked, my mother’s light frame stood in the doorway. After rubbing my eyes, I realized it was Asenath, now 15 and completely grown during my years of confinement. I wondered if my body appeared as changed; she was unconcerned with re-acquaintance.