Maplecroft (The Borden Dispatches #1)(81)

Regardless, I did not hear Nance rise.

I do not know how she undid the ties that held her to the bed. I did not see her escape. I did not watch her tiptoe across the floor. I do not know if she saw me, or if she paused to look down upon me, or offer some kiss of affection—but I know how likely that last part is, so I’ll put it from my mind. It only makes me feel worse.

I do not know how I slept through it, and I’m surprised that Emma did.

But Nance arose; I’m not sure when.

She extricated herself; I’m not sure how.

She found her way to the washroom, a large, modern one here on the second floor. It has always been one of my favorite things about this house—with its wide dimensions, elevated iron tub on lion’s feet, and all the lovely pipes feeding back and forth, in and out of the wall. I have always loved that room.

I awoke to the sound of dripping water, so soft but so near, I thought it must’ve begun to rain. And in my half-sleep state, I wondered at the nighttime shower raining down outside, pattering against the windowsills. Rainstorms are such soothing things. So pleasant for sleeping through.

But the drip, drip, drip, was not the last of April’s showers, and something in the back of my mind insisted that I must collect myself and investigate.

I did so unwillingly. I was so tired, and so heavily asleep. Reluctantly, with awful slowness, my mind dragged itself up to alertness, or something like it. The effort to lift my head was herculean, and unkind.

Drip, drip, drip.

Coming from the washroom down the hall. There was no other water source so close by. Had I left a tap loose?

I rubbed my eyes. I forced them to focus.

And on the floor beside the bed, I saw the ties I’d used to keep Nance secure. Tangled but unknotted, lying in a loose heap.

My heart stopped.

It started again, banging like a hammer, and I threw myself from the settee—flying forth from my blanket and discarding it into some corner, somewhere. I ran to the bed, where the imprint of her body remained. There was no sign of how she’d undone the ties, but I did not have time to wonder about it—not when the water was there in the bathroom, drip, drip, dripping, and I knew where she must have gone.

Any minute I expected to hear the clang of Emma’s bell, but I didn’t, and for a tiny, horrible moment I wondered if she was even alive anymore. She might have died in the night, expiring from her persistent illness; or no, I’m lying again—because it crossed my mind that Nance might’ve gone on a spree like the rest of the maddened victims, or like so many of them have.

But surely not. Surely she would’ve started with me. (I deserve that much, don’t I?)

I dashed to the corridor. Washroom to my left. Emma’s room to my right. One ringing with the delicate patter of water on water. One silent as a tomb.

I went to the left.

In the washroom, the light was not on but I could see enough to know what I was up against. The tub was filled to overflowing, and a thin trickle of water spilled slowly, dripping over the lip, splashing down to the white hexagonal tiles, into a puddle that covered half the floor. My feet were soaked before I noticed. The water was spreading, pooling, creeping out into the hallway and the floors might be ruined but I hardly noticed, and did not care.

I stood half paralyzed in the doorway, until I shook myself lucid enough to fumble for the gaslight switch. When the hiss came and the light sparked it was too much—entirely too much—and I winced against the sudden brightness, but I could not look away.

I knew what was in the tub, so full of water, with a placid surface unbroken by anything except the coiling tendrils of Nance’s hair. Moving languidly. Stirred only by the persistent stream that still trickled from the tap.

I wondered what it meant, that the tap was mostly off. Either she’d been there an hour or more to fill it, at that rate, or she’d thought to turn it off when she was finished filling the tub. I told myself that must be it—it must have been a deliberate act, and she was still alive, still herself inside that muttering shell of skin.

Honestly, I had no idea. I still don’t know. Perhaps I never will.

But there she was. Wholly submerged, unmoving.

I moved, but I did it slowly, sluggishly. The whole moment was dreamlike in its stickiness, like I could walk toward the tub forever and ever and never reach it. Except that I did reach it, and I looked down, and I saw her wearing the oversized nightdress of mine that positively swam on me, as my stepmother would have put it—and I hated the phrase, because yes, it swam and billowed, and it was almost translucent. I could see every nook and curve of her skin through the light white cotton, pouring around her body, floating there, suspended just beneath the surface. Eyes wide-open, staring up toward me, but not at me. Mouth slightly parted. Wholly submerged. Unmoving. Ophelia drowned, needing only the flowers in her hair to make it uncanny.

There were no flowers. Only the body, almost as pale as the nightdress, almost as translucent. Serene, I wanted to say.

My throat was full of fear, full of my heart—which had leaped there and stuck like the inconstant bastard it truly was.

I didn’t know what to do.

I should pull her out. That’s what I thought. I should lay her on the floor, roll her over and over, push the water from her lungs, and command her to breathe, breathe, goddammit. I should send immediately for Seabury, and order him to revive her if I could not, because there was no chance she was dead—it simply was not an option, for this motionless, cold, empty thing to be my Nance, who had come to an end in this manner.