Ever Bound (15 page)

Everything had gone just as planned so far, but the closer the wedding day grew, the more I sweated and the more my heart felt as though it would fail.

As I approached Grace’s room to inform her of her carriage’s wait, I heard her mother’s voice inside the room. “You do realize that the seamstress here doesn’t have the material and that it’s only a day. He’s not going anywhere.”

“But I don’t know why you can’t go, Mother. Why me?” Grace whined.

“You are the one being fitted, and since the pantaloons were lost in the mail, we would be taking fewer chances if you go and make sure it’s right. It’s not something that can be the wrong size. The dress is going to fit without room to breathe as it is. Loose pantaloons would be disastrous. Everything has to be perfect,” Mrs. Rollins said with extra dramatics.

I knocked on the doorjamb of the open suite of rooms.

A wild, scared look had invaded Grace’s expression, and her mother’s face was flushed with frustration to match.

“The carriage is ready, Grace.” Gulping back guilt, I leaned in to kiss her cheek.

“Well.” The scared look dissipated with my touch. “Why don’t you accompany me, Colby? Then I wouldn’t feel so nervous about leaving so close to our big day.”

“Um, I have a few final preparations of my own. A surprise for you.”

“Also, your father needs him to stay to sign some documents. You will be fine with the driver. Besides, it’s bad luck for the bride to spend the night before her wedding with the bridegroom. You should take this time to reflect on your life, and try to decide what you’d like to do. There are so many things to think about.” Mrs. Rollins ushered Grace out of the room.

The next day, Mrs. Rollins and I went to the city.

At the Tennessee Lunatic Asylum, the wagon halted at the main entrance. The building looked like a castle with red brick and countless windows spanning the front.

“Mrs. Rollins, I can’t take another patient. The institution budget far exceeds the state budget. We have no way to humanely care for even one more. Moral treatment is my utmost concern.” At his desk, the superintendent steepled his long, skinny fingers. He looked like a human twisted twig in his doctor’s coat. His eyes were nice, though.

“Money is of no consequence. I’ll see to it that my daughter is cared for and that the budget shortages are seen to as long as the asylum doors are open, as well. I’ll need men at my house June twenty-eighth before two o’clock. They are to enter by staff entrance on the left side of the house.”

The superintendent jotted notes and had Mrs. Rollins sign papers.

The interior of the building seemed as nice as the outside. I wouldn’t have agreed to put her in any other place, no matter how atrocious she’d treated me.

In less than an hour, Mrs. Rollins had Grace’s paperwork completed.

“I honestly think this place can care for her much better than I could hope to.” Mrs. Rollins took my hand and boarded the wagon. Her sad eyes glanced back up at the building as I drove the horses away. “She’ll be close by. I can visit often and see to her care. We’re doing the right thing.”

“I think so too.”

Mrs. Rollins helped me choose a wedding ring set I would have never been able to afford. Though she refused to hear talk of it, I promised to work off the cost. If they wouldn’t accept repayment, then I’d work day in day out to clear my own conscience.

“They’ll be plenty of time to work it off. You’ll be the new groundskeeper. That wage is the highest we offer. How’s that? Then you won’t feel the money you receive is charity.”

I sighed. There was no winning with the Rollins women. At least with two of them.

One of them, I was sure I’d beat at her own game.

* * * *

The night before the wedding, I had one final meeting with Annabeth. I told her of her mother’s plan to lock her sister away in an Asylum. She was worried at first, but soon agreed after I recalled all Grace had done and was capable of.

Our new life would start, and we’d be free of Grace. At least until someone gave her the help she needed. I wanted Annabeth to have a connection with her sister. Grace needed forgiveness. Maybe one day, I’d find it in my heart.

The next day, I rushed around with Mrs. Rollins and helped her with final preparations. An ocean of white flowers flowed over the property. Most were fixed to chairs, railings, the fountain, and sitting atop tables on the patio. Women guests wore a single white rose on their dresses.

I imagined Annabeth with little white flowers in her hair. She always loved to run her hands over the baby’s breath on the walk home from school. She’d look beautiful with little sprigs of them in her hair as she made her way down the aisle toward me.

I couldn’t wait for the wedding to start, but I also dreaded the scene Grace would make. Mrs. Rollins had planned to have her removed from the ceremony, apologize to the guests for such an outburst, then carry on with the wedding as planned. It was the only way we could be sure that Grace would make it to the asylum. If Mr. Rollins could stop it, he would, but with an outburst from her in front of hundreds of people, he’d have no choice but to go along with us.

Thankfully, Grace was nowhere to be seen yet. Maybe we could get the wedding over with before Grace showed up.

Grace had insisted on helping downstairs, but Mrs. Rollins convinced her it would be bad luck to see me. So, Grace was busy trying to look as beautiful as possible. Her frazzled hair haloed a gaunt, pasty face. Her mental state had begun affecting her outward appearance.

She’d get the help she needed soon, though.

Two o’clock came sooner than I expected.

In a tight, itchy suit, I stood at the end of the altar with men from the farm. Men I’d grown closest to over the years. We stood in a line and waited for the cue from Mrs. Rollins.

Mrs. Rollins rushed out the back patio and motioned for the music to start. She gave me a wink and sat in her chair.

The orchestra played for a few long minutes, allowing light airy tones to float over the property.

As the July sun beat down, lady guests fanned themselves.

Mrs. Rollins must’ve invited the whole state of Tennessee.

I’d never seen so many humans seated in the same place.

The men nervously glanced at pocket watches. And I sweated more than I ever had in my life.

After about ten minutes, a shrill scream broke through the music. It came from the front of the property.

My hands shook. We couldn’t afford for anything to go wrong, and a woman’s screams couldn’t be a good sign.

White-clad people made their way in a wave toward the scene. Gasps broke out over the grounds. Whispers and sobs followed as Mrs. Rollins, forgetting her white mother-of-the-bride’s dress, threw herself down on the ground.

The crowd spread as I walked toward a scene that didn’t belong at a wedding. Sorrowful glances landed on me from hundreds of eyes.

Two sets of female legs poked from under Mrs. Rollins. Probably family members. From the absence of movement, they didn’t appear to be breathing.

An old lady I’d been introduced to during the pre-wedding gathering brushed my cheek. “You poor, poor child.”

Numbness tingled in my fingers and toes as I moved closer to the macabre scene. A wedding could not take place today. Not when two women had just lost their lives.

Numb, I shook my head.

Grace had probably been involved. Someone had probably made a rude comment about her dress, and she’d shoved them from the fourth floor window.

Without emotion in my voice, exhausted of Grace and all that came with being associated with her, I gave orders. “Could someone please find Annabeth. I don’t want her to see this.”

Mrs. Rollins leaned back, revealing the faces of the two corpses.

I couldn’t take my eyes from their twisted bodies, their faces locked in death’s final grimace.

They were so young. So pretty. A shame, really.

Mrs. Rollins turned to me and stood. Wiping her eyes, she ordered someone nearby, “Cover them. Now, please.”

My voice was hollow. “We can put the flowers in her hair, and she’ll smile again. I know she’ll smile again. We’ll put the flowers in her hair.”

Men rushed to console me, but I couldn’t stop my fists. I hit anyone who came within swinging range.

* * * *

After a day of sitting on the edge of the bed in my cottage, numbness left me almost paralyzed. I held the footboard of my bed until my legs regained feeling. Tingling replaced the absence of feeling in every portion-of my body. With a wobbly start, I made my way to the main house.

Whispers from guests in black tulle and cloaks hushed as I entered the back door. Their eyes followed me as I entered the parlor where past wakes had been held.

A man I didn’t recognize, though I’d probably known him all my life, whispered to the visitors of the newly deceased. Heads bowed, they exited the parlor, leaving me to stare at two pale figures lying peacefully in death’s final slumber.

The same force that beckoned me to the house pulled me past the bed Grace’s body rested upon and toward…

Clenching my eyes shut, I stopped beside the other bed.

When my hand searched for hers, I found cold flesh where joyous life had once coursed. Her fingers were no longer stiff when I took her hand.

For a fleeting moment, I thought I felt a twitch, so I opened my eyes.

Annabeth’s black eyelashes rested on her pale, but still olive, cheeks. Her chest was still and her feet poked straight up under the white sheet.

The white ceiling rescued me from the scene as tears flowed freely down my cheeks.

Maybe it was madness or unbearable grief; I wasn’t sure. I didn’t care. I pulled the sheet back and tucked myself as closely beside her as possible.

Mrs. Rollins rushed into the room, but when she saw me, two family members had to hold her up.

“I just need to hold her once more.” My voice croaked as I regarded Annabeth.

Her head lolled unnaturally away from me, but with trembling hands and sobs shaking my chest, I righted it and leaned her against me. I brushed her hair off her forehead and over her shoulders.

Mrs. Rollins left us.

We lay that way for hours, my lips on her forehead, her body nestled to mine, the way it should have been that night, the way it would have been after we’d joined souls for the first time.

“Forever, Colby.” A taunting voice sounded from everywhere and nowhere in the room. “You’ll never have her. It will always be me.”

I buried my face in Annabeth’s hair as the taunting worsened. “I’m not crazy.”

“No, of course you aren’t. You’re perfectly sane. I’m the crazy one. Remember? You were going to lock me up and throw away the key. Now you have to live with me for the rest of your lives.” Grace laughed. But that was impossible. She was dead.

I opened my eyes.

She still lay as still as she’d been when I entered the room.

A whisper filled the air. “I don’t need that body anymore. Soon I’ll take hers.”

“Go away. Go away. Go away.” My voice shook as I pressed my face into Annabeth’s hair.

“When she comes back in the next life, she won’t remember you. The second she admits her love for you, I’ll take her body, and we can be together again. The way it was always supposed to be.”

No matter how much I demanded she stop talking, she continued.

I stopped listening and gently placed Annabeth on her back. I crossed her hands over her chest and slid the sheet up to her chin. I rounded the end of Annabeth’s bed, jerked the sheet off Grace, put both palms down on her mattress, and bowed my head.

* * * *

I found two farmhands to do my bidding.

“Mr. Rollins will have our hides.” One of the men said as he shook his head, backing away.

The other stared at Grace and then back to me. “She deserves whatever you have in mind, Master Colby. You don’t know how many times she visited my room at night and shamed me into unspeakable acts.”

Shuddering, I could only imagine how many of the men on the property held her in the same regard.

The undecided man looked to Grace. He was quiet.

“I’ll make it worth your while. Beyond your wildest imaginings. Put her in the damned box. You are never to speak of this. If asked, you have no idea where her body went.”

The men rushed to get Grace’s remains into her coffin. Once in the hearse, a black wagon with glass windows on the sides, they parked it on the wooden slats of the bridge over the pond, where I ordered them to stop. They slid her coffin out of the hearse and onto the bridge. With a bow, they left me.

Knuckles white, I clenched the bridge railing and stared out into the night.

The whole time we’d transported her body, from inside my head, she’d taunted me with things only a witch or a mad person would consider.

Her last sentence sent me beyond reason. “I killed her just for you.”

From the bank, I plucked the biggest rock I could find and removed the coffin lid. With anguished cries, I repeatedly slammed the rock into the top of the coffin.

Blood splattered me, bone and hair tangled in my fingers, but I didn’t stop until Grace’s face was unrecognizable.

“You. Vile. Man. All I ever did was love you. This is how you repay me. Such blatant disrespect for my body after death. Well, if you’re going to act like an animal, you can become one. Let’s see if you can control him or if he controls you.”

The transparent image of Grace loomed behind me on the bridge.

Without words, I walked to the outbuilding and found a handsaw.

Following me the whole while, she blabbered on about some more ridiculous conditions of the curse she’d laid upon me, her sister, and herself. Annabeth would have a crescent moon birthmark unlike any other birthmark. When I saw her, I’d know her, and all sorts of other nonsense.

When I returned to Grace’s body, I leaned over it.

“You really should heed my words, my dear.” Grace crossed her arms over her ethereal body as she stared down at the dead one and me.

“These hands will never do evil again.” Tendons jerked and ripped. Bone ground against the blade, but in a few minutes, her hands were detached. I stood and turned to Grace holding one of them in the air. “And I thought I’d never want to hold your hand.”