House of Salt and Sorrows(104)

Morella paused, her face blood red and thick with sweat.

“One night, I was coming home from a delivery and I saw your father. I didn’t know he was in town. He hadn’t written, hadn’t sent for me.” Morella pushed back a damp lock of hair, wheezing. “And on his arm was a woman. Just a girl, really.”

She rippled in pain, but I couldn’t tell if it was from a contraction or memories of that night.

“I flew at him, cursing and shouting, making such a scene.” She gasped, then let out a deep groan. “Water, please.”

Camille pointed the poker toward her neck, and she tipped her head back, cringing. “Keep talking.”

“He struck me. In front of his new little whore. He didn’t even care that she saw. He called me names, screamed, berated me. Said I was a fool for ever believing a person like him would marry a nothing like me. I wasn’t titled, I wasn’t rich. I was just…me.” Tears now openly streamed down her face.

Despite the horrors she’d confessed, in this one awful moment, with my own words ringing in her voice, I wanted to comfort her. She’d been hurt by my own father, a man who claimed to love her.

A sharp crack of thunder sounded directly above us, snapping me back to my senses. Impossibly, the afternoon grew darker still, the storm ready to slash the sky to bits.

“He left me there, lying in the street, as if I’d never mattered to him.” She let out a broken sob. “But even after all that…I still wanted him.”

A groan welled up from the very bowels of Morella’s belly. Her legs flailed with such force, it gave the impression there were more than two under the sheets. My gaze strayed to the Thaumas octopus at the top of the bed’s canopy. Its eyes seemed alive with condemnation, squinting down in judgment as it listened to her tale. Its arms spiraled down the posts, beaten metal against dark mahogany, reaching out in retribution. The silver reflected shots of lightning outside, and the wind picked up, howling past the windows in uneven pitches.

“So you summoned Viscardi,” I filled in. “You summoned him to make Papa fall in love with you?”

Morella nodded. “And to become pregnant with a son. If I was with child, Ortun would have to marry me. After all I’d done for him…I deserved that much. Once I returned to Highmoor, I saw Eulalie watching closely. She was starting to remember. Then that awful night…she confronted me, saying she was going to tell everyone. I…I couldn’t let her ruin everything.”

Edgar’s shadow on the cliff.

“You killed Eulalie?”

Her fevered eyes darted over mine, beseeching me to understand. “She wouldn’t keep it a secret.”

I recoiled, as if hit in the stomach. I’d befriended this woman, and all along she’d been killing off my family with no greater pain than crossing items off a list. A red mist clouded my vision, and my heart beat in double time. Fury raced through my body, pulsing from my core out to the very tips of my fingers. I grabbed the poker from Camille and pointed it at Morella’s throat.

“You used us as payment for a son.”

She cringed back toward the headboard, trying to escape the metal hook. “And it was all for naught. My son is dead, and I will be too before the night’s end.”

“Good,” Camille spat out.

A crack of thunder exploded directly over us, and Morella began to laugh, clinging to her belly as the next contraction ripped through her. A commotion rose at the far end of the hall, shouts and screaming.

“Go see what it is.” I kept the iron trained on Morella. “I’ll stay with her.”

Morella watched Camille go before meeting my gaze once more. “Annaleigh, you must believe me. I didn’t want you to die. I…I did at first, before I knew you—I wanted to make Ortun pay for how he’d treated me—but then…You’ve been so kind to me. You took care of me, befriended me. I didn’t know Viscardi would use the Harbinger to collect his payment, truly I didn’t. That’s why I gave you the book to read…so you wouldn’t sleep at night. So you wouldn’t dream of that thing.”

I said nothing.

A feeble mewing squeezed out of her. “I can’t do this, I can’t,” Morella groaned, shoulder blades popping. Her lower jaw jutted forward, sinking into her upper lip. “You could do it, you know. Just go ahead and do it.”

“Do what?”

A crazed sheen glazed her eyes. “Hit me. I know you want to. You know you want to.”

“I don’t.”

“Just raise it up and bring it down over my head. Then it’ll all be over.”

I backed away from the bed, looking out into the hall as the shouting grew. Servants ran by with buckets of water and towels. Smoke poured out of a room at the far end.

“Do it, Annaleigh,” she called out. “Bash my head in. Bash my brains out. I killed your mother. I killed your sisters. Take your revenge and kill me.” A bloodcurdling howl ripped from her mouth, and a spot of red appeared on her nightgown, growing larger and wet over her thighs. “Please!”

“I don’t care what happens to you, but I’m not killing my brother.”

Laughter erupted past bared teeth, cruel, sharp pieces of shrapnel ricocheting off the walls. “You idiot girl.” She groaned and hunkered down as she began to push, pushing around the contractions, pushing past the pain, pushing the baby free. Her voice was low and grating, like metal skidding down a cliff. “This is not your father’s son.”