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With Thomas and Lucille gone, and no living kin to contest it, Allerdale passes to Edith.
"They can sell the place, or burn it for all I care," Edith had said to Alan after her meeting with the solicitor. "Or collapse the foundations and bury it under all that awful red clay. It houses unholy memories the way rotted logs hold termites. No one is the better for it being left standing."
"I don't disagree," Alan had said as he'd moved to stoke the fire. "I cannot imagine how you must've suffered there—I doubt anyone but God and the Sharpes know fully the extent of it." He'd hesitated then; Edith could see his mouth shifting in the half-shadowed light of the fire. "However—"
"Yes?"
A cluster of sparks burst above the logs and flickered out, dancing bright against the black of the heart. Like butterflies, Edith thought. No, she amended, like moths.
"I just ask you consider this," Alan had gone on. "You are not the only Lady Sharpe to have visited Allerdale, but you are alone in having survived it. There are spirits in those halls that still know no peace, bones deserving of proper burials. You said that Lucille and—" Alan paused, reconsidered; around Edith, he still avoids saying Thomas's name, "—you said that they chose women with no families, none who might seek answers for their missing kin. I am not saying the burden need fall on your shoulders, but you have been granted a unique opportunity to facilitate for these women the justice they have been denied. If not now, Edith, if not by your blessing, how else might those spirits be laid to rest?"
She's yet to tell Alan about the ghosts—either that of her mother, or those of the women who fell by Lucille's hand—and so he can't possibly anticipate how his words will resonate with her, a clarion call that echoes down to her bones. Not only does she understand intimately the suffering they endured at Allerdale, but by her own witness has she seen how their souls remain bound there. For as little as she wants to return, who better an actor than Edith to help bring about their true and proper passing?
She thinks of the older Lady Sharpe with her skull split wide from Lucille's knife, Pamela Upton pulling herself pleadingly down the hallway carpet, the missing section of Margaret McDermott's bludgeoned face, brave Enola Sciotti cradling Lucille's ill-fated child. Enola Sciotti—who certainly had not lacked those who'd wondered after her, evidenced by the letter from Milan.
For the ghosts and for the living, there are answers still to be found at Allerdale. Perhaps under Edith's hand, they both may find some peace.
—
Alan determines to return with her to Allerdale—a comfort, even if Edith's yet to tell him all of what she intends to uncover. He enjoys his ghost stories and photo slides, phantom shadows trapped against the glass, but Edith has never braved to share the truth of her visions with any other—excepting that final, determinous moment with Lucille—and cannot convince herself that he would respond favorably. Already he is so careful when broaching any memory of her time at Allerdale, careful and kind always, but with the effect of leaving Edith supposing she must now be made of glass for the fragility with which he treats her. And such treatment borne only of what he knows from her material circumstances, let alone introducing the supernatural.
No, the matter of the ghosts is altogether too complicated. Were Edith in his stead, she cannot herself imagine reacting to such news with anything other than doubt, likely crediting it to fantastic imaginings induced by recent events. Certainly there were moments in the years following her mother's post-funereal appearance when Edith considered the whole evening with far more skepticism than not, and that even with her having experienced it firsthand.
So, Edith keeps the truth of the matter secreted away, giving to Alan only the names of the former Lady Sharpes—Pamela Upton of London, Margaret McDermott of Edinburgh, and Enola Sciotti of Milan—and leaving him and her father's man, Holly, to perform the further detective work of tracking down any living kin, however distantly related they might be, or other social ties to whom news of the women's death might be reported.
For her part, Edith remains at Allerdale.
Initially, Alan balks at the arrangement. "The house is one strong breeze from collapsing in on itself, and help is altogether too distant should trouble arise. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to come with me, or wait in town for my return? I know this venture was my idea, but whatever closure it is you hope to find here, you don't have to search for it alone."
But Edith demures, offering the compromise of employing the groundskeeper to remain on site and ensure she comes to no further injury in Alan's absence. Over the many years they have known each other, she has always appreciated Alan for his interest in listening to her, but treasured him for his willingness to truly hear her. When Edith makes clear she has business to attend to in Allerdale's halls—business that cannot be delayed further—Alan sees her earnestness in it, and does not doubt the merits of the request. They part ways in the town, with him assuring regular appraisal of his and Holly's efforts, and promising to reconvene as soon as the moment allows.
With that, Edith journeys the final leg to Allerdale to reunite with its ghosts.
—
The oldest is Lady Sharpe, and as such, Edith attempts to address her first. The prospect does not frighten her as it once would have, when she jumped at every shadow and believed the specters to be the true danger in the house. But they are only the victims of monsters altogether more complicated.
In the upstairs bathroom, Edith runs the water in the tub, sputtering red-brown at first as the pipes free themselves of accumulated clay. Eventually it turns clear, and when the bath is half full, Edith turns the knob off, trailing her fingers across the surface while perched on the edge of the porcelain. She waits.
And then Lady Sharpe is there—standing in the doorway, red vapors flickering around her edges. Her skin sags across her bare figure, as if she still lies submerged, pruned and misshapen from decades of erosion. But Edith's focus is solely for the wound in her scalp, cloven deep enough for wisping shadows of brain matter to smoke out of the gap.
"I know what your daughter did to you," Edith says to the woman, who has no voice with which to respond. "I'm sorry. I cannot bring you back, but I hope I can help you rest. You deserve more peace than Allerdale has to offer."
Lady Sharpe's mouth opens and closes a few times, but any words she means to say are lost. Still, she follows Edith out to the yard, where the snow has long since melted away, leaving behind only the thatched brush and rain-churned earth. Under the chill of the autumn sun, Lady Sharpe's figure fades—not entirely, but enough that Edith has to train her eye carefully to detect the flickering haze of her outline.
It takes less time than she would have supposed to locate the butcher's knife, half-buried by the grass and further rusted by the elements, but still sitting by the corner of Thomas's mining machine where she had—where Lucille had fell.
Lady Sharpe recoils slightly upon seeing the knife in Edith's hand, but Edith's voice is soothing and patient as she explains her intent. She cannot restore Lady Sharpe to life, but she can destroy the implement of her murder, ensuring no others succumb to a similar fate. (And, if Lady Sharpe is still tormented by the nature of her children's relationship—well. That story has reached its conclusion, too.)
The blade is thick, a rough rectangle of stone sharpened on one side to a murderous edge. It's as weighty as Edith would've expected, given Lucille's wide, desperate swings of the thing, but it does seem far too unwieldy for her thirteen-year-old self to have managed. Edith feels a grim sort of appreciation for young Lucille's determination that she drove the blade as deep as she did.
Thomas's machines have been left undisturbed, two great sloping beasts with their long metal snouts dug deep into the earth. The seasons of Edith's absence have not been kind to them, rust finding its way into all their many corners, but when she looks for the lever in imitation of Thomas's movements, the machine does still groan to life, awakening from its hibernation to trundle more of that rich, red, suffocating clay from the earth. Its harvest is the least of Edith's concerns, though. Her focus lies instead on the gears themselves—particularly the sturdiest, thickest cogs, and the brief gaps between their teeth as the metal chews against itself.
Quickly—though the act itself poses no great risk, and Edith has no nerves that need steeling—she drives the knife forward when an opening appears, setting the blade in the path of the next inexorable bite. The grinding sound of the knife lodged between the gears is horrible, the strain of it groaning all throughout the mechanism. But eventually, the pressure wins out, and the blade is snapped into pieces.
When it does, Lady Sharpe's ghost seems to let out an exhale—a sudden rush of wind as the terrible strain holding her together finally gives, and relaxes. Strings under tension, not snapped, but allowed to unwind in peace. One moment she's there, and the next she's gone, no more than lingering wisps on the breeze, and the afterimage of a red silhouette.
Edith would swear she feels something in her own chest loosen.
—
Alan writes from London with news of a neighbor, Dolores Sinclair, who remembers Pamela from childhood outings when their parents' paths had intersected. The two of them grew apart through age and difference, as friends brought about by circumstance are wont to do, but Dolores's memories of Pamela are fond. When Alan explains the situation, she agrees to take the remainder of Pamela's belongings, arrange a service, purchase a funeral plot with a stone—pending a casket, depending on if the body should be found. She understands identification may be difficult.
For her part, Edith has been gathering what personal effects remain in Allerdale that Lucille and Thomas had not seen fit to dispose of. With the grim honor of being the first of Thomas's wives, enough time has passed since Pamela's passing that Edith has trouble finding much. There are only a handful of photographs—one of her marriage to Thomas, which Edith debates before including, as well as a later image of Pamela in the wheelchair, smiling sweetly despite the circumstances.
Her body, Edith assumes, is in the clay.
As in life, Pamela's ghost had lost the use of her legs, withered beyond use from the cruelties of Lucille's poison. Edith remembers the slow drag of her torso down the hall, her left hand grasping forward with its severed finger where Lucille had reclaimed the wedding ring. (Whether the truth of a likelier scenario, or the simplicity of a comforting lie that Edith mentally attributes any past acts of violence to Lucille instead of Thomas, she doesn't know.) Edith believes she would recognize the body were she to see it, even knows the likely location of its burial, but the thought of sifting through each of those stone wells for a clay-sodden collection of bones feels like it would require more mettle than Edith possesses. Does that make her a coward? Were their positions reversed—and God knows how likely the possibility had been—Edith would not want her body left to decay slowly in the depths of this haunted home, rather than laid to rest beside her mother and father.
Well. There is time enough that the decision need not be made today. Alan and Holly have yet to write from Edinburgh or Milan, and there are still other labors remaining around the house.
If Pamela's ghost disapproves, she does not show herself to indicate it.
—
Edith avoids the drawing room as much as possible, preferring to leave the tall double doors closed, and entering only as briefly as possible when she needs to fetch something within. Wind whistles down the flue, stirring ashes in the grate, sending book pages fluttering against their covers. The piano looms, sullen and imposing; a fine layer of snow and dust coats the keys.
Whenever she has had cause to enter, to her knowledge, she has remained alone. But sometimes, when Edith is laying down to rest, or circumstances conspire that all of Allerdale falls silent, Edith is sure she hears a faint melody stirred from within, as if some ghostly vibration stirs against the piano's strings.
—
For Margaret, Edith can uncover even less in the way of possessions—her marriage photo and a land certificate, but nothing else. When Margaret's ghost had appeared to her, she was missing the whole front of her face, as if it had been bludgeoned in. Had she discovered Lucille and Thomas's intentions and fought back? The wound suggests greater violence than the slow march of poison, but any further details Edith must supply for herself.
In similar fashion to the lack of any lingering effects, a connection for Margaret proves impossible to come by. She seems to have truly been the final branch of her family tree, and solitary enough before her marriage that no former companions or friends present themselves. After Holly has searched under every proverbial stone, determining at last that there is simply nothing to be found, he and Alan acquire a plot themselves. It is less than what Margaret deserves—someone who knew her in life to carry her name and memory onward—but it is what they can give her. A physical remembrance, and the assurance that a record will remain of her name, a known ending to her story.
Edith apologizes to Margaret for the inadequacy, hoping her ghost listens from somewhere within the house. Again, though, the question of the body presents itself. Again, Edith sets it aside.
—
While in Buffalo, they'd found someone to translate Enola's letter and, with their help, composed a response. In many ways, matters are simplest when it comes to settling Enola's affairs—they have a name and address for a family member, her own voice recorded on the wax cylinders, luggage containing photos and possessions, even her dog. But that the quantity of her remaining belongings is so rich introduces its own complications—evidence aplenty of the life Enola had lived before it was stolen by Lucille and Thomas. Yes, they have the name and address of her cousin, but how to begin to explain what Enola had undergone and her ultimate end? What words could do justice to such tragedy?
The decision is finally made that there can be no better messenger of her fate than Enola herself. Edith mails her possessions forward to Milan, with an additional letter warning that the subject matter on the cylinders will be—difficult to listen to.
The reply comes in the form of a letter, hand-delivered by Alan and Holly.
"The family is distraught, as is only to be expected," Alan says after greeting her (warm, and with admiration of her courage for the time she has spent in Allerdale on her own.) "Heartbroken, to be sure, but furious as well. They do not understand how this has been allowed to happen, how the Sharpes managed to execute—" he winces at his choice of words, "—their intentions three, nearly four times."
"Lucille was cunning, Thomas charming, and all their targets largely unattached," Edith says, deliberately matter-of-fact. "They cannot blame themselves. I had you watching over me, and even that was nearly not enough."
"Nevertheless, they seem tremendously motivated to make amends however they can. They were grateful for the forwarding of Enola's belongings, but they would like to see her properly laid to rest." Alan clears his throat. "Do you know where—that is, do you know what they did—"
"I do." Some small reprieve that Edith's prior cowardice has been rewarded thus; she will not be facing this most unpleasant of endeavors alone. "Or, I have my suspicions." She no longer trusts the elevator's mechanisms, and so instead guides Alan and Holly to the stairs that descend down to the basement.
Seeing their path, understanding its terminus, Alan rests a hand on her arm. "Are you sure? Holly and I together can retrieve them."
Edith shakes her head. "You'll need help identifying them. Besides, Enola's messages saved my life. I have no means to properly repay the favor, but this I can do for her."
Their descent is careful, slow steps taken to avoid the slick of moss and clay. At the bottom, even before turning on the lights, the room is relatively well lit from the hole on the far side where the conveyer arm of Thomas's machine reaches through the gap. Edith remembers her own desperate clamber up its steps into the sun, the metal edges biting into her palms, Lucille at her heels and the cleaver hungry in her hand. Edith swallows. She reaches for Alan, lacing her fingers through his, and he gives her a gentle, reassuring squeeze before taking the lead into the cavernous space, Holly following close behind.
There are more vats than buried bodies—or, at least, there are more vats than ghosts who had appeared to Edith. They begin with the first row, Holly and Alan breaking the locks securing the lids with the tip of a shovel before stirring through the clay. They cannot know the efficacy of the process—that is, until they stumble across that first red-soaked tomb. It becomes clear immediately that the bones are encouraged to float, bobbing to the surface as vague clay-muted shapes, muscle and sinew still hanging on in thin strips. The skull is the last to appear, eye sockets and nose revealing themselves as the slurry slowly drains from the recesses, a face coming patient and determinedly into focus.
At the first sight of it, Edith's body tenses, immediate and involuntary. The slightest change in circumstances before this was to be her fate as well, forgotten and lost in an unceremonious grave. By the end, Lucille's poison had just begun to take the use of her legs—still, the muscles are weak, and Edith finds she tires easily—but how many more weeks or days had remained before she would have joined the ghosts of her fellow Lady Sharpes? She'd believed herself to possess the fortitude necessary for this endeavor, but finds herself forced to reconsider, suddenly besieged by visions of her own decaying body drowned in the clay, hair and skin and muscle suffused with the stuff as death broke her down slowly to no more than her bones.
There's the gentle pressure of Alan's hand at her shoulder, and Edith finds herself being guided away from the vat. How long had she stood there, stock still and oblivious?
"I'm fine," Edith says, quieter than she intends, quiet enough that the lie betrays itself. "I only need a moment."
Alan does not argue, though certainly Edith has already taken more than a few. His hand is solid at her upper back, and Edith appreciates that steady comfort as much as she does his patience, refusing to either encourage her forward or press her back to the relative safety of the manor's upper floors. He understands her need to be present for this task, and is more sympathetic than most to the deeply unsettling sentiment of nearly having joined the ranks of Allerdale's dead.
Edith is still not altogether composed when she nods for them to continue, but she has enough of her nerves about her to rejoin Holly and Alan as they begin retrieving the bones from the muck, creating a small cairn at the base of the vat. The clay smothers much of the smell that would otherwise be emanating from the remains, and Edith focuses on that and other such sensory details to keep her thoughts grounded, and her worries at bay. The chill of the stone under her feet. The faint taste of iron and damp in the air. The creak of settling metal and the drip of watery clay landing on the stone floor. She is here, and she is alive, and her time in Allerdale has left her uniquely qualified to identify one body from the next. In this effort, for the sake of the women who passed here before her, she will not allow herself to fail.
As more of the body emerges, Edith crouches down to examine the bones more closely. The skull is intact, ruling out Margaret as a possibility. What Alan identifies as a femur seems to be unusually thin, and though not all of the many bones in the hands have remained together, the persistent absence of the left ring finger leaves Edith sure of her determination. Pamela Upton.
Was that—? Edith turns her head, chasing the flicker of red at the corner of her eye, perhaps Pamela's apparition come to make itself known? On closer inspection, however—nothing. A trick of the light, perhaps, or a reluctance to manifest fully when Edith is not alone. Either way, Edith sets aside the question for now; the basement still looms large with remaining vats to search.
Halfway down the row, the next set of bones appears. When the skull emerges, forehead and cheeks and eye sockets collapsed inward, Holly whistles, low. "Hope this was—what do you call it, doc? A post-mortem injury?"
Alan nods, but in her periphery, Edith can see him glancing in her direction. Her own voice sounds slightly distant as she answers in his stead. "Perhaps, but we know the Sharpes were certainly capable of violence. I wouldn't be surprised if this was how they'd chosen to hasten Ms. McDermott's end in lieu of the poison."
They. Difficult still to imagine Thomas being the instrument of such brutality, but Edith's subconscious no longer balks at placing him in the room. Whatever love there may have been, whatever acts of atonement he may have made toward the end, the question of his innocence is hardly in doubt. The part of Edith's heart that still harbors some affection toward him rises to a quiet defense, wonders if any actions he'd taken would have even mattered, knowing the strength of Lucille's determination. Perhaps he had tried to argue, object, mount an opposition and was soundly overruled. But that is the question, isn't it? Would he have tried?
Another wisp of red. Edith glances over, but the space between the vats where she thought she'd detected movement remains empty.
Alan and Holly locate Enola last, when the shovel they'd been using on the locks is just threatening to break in two. In this particular tomb, though, they find a most unwelcome surprise—a small, blanket-wrapped collection of bones, no larger in total than a loaf of bread.
"Lucille's child," Edith says. Then adds, "with Thomas." Holly's reaction is immediate, Alan gives only a nod of acknowledgment. "She mentioned that it had been born unwell. I suppose she felt it too great a risk to give it a proper burial, but clearly attended to it with more care than she afforded the others."
Clay drips into the grooves between her fingers as she sets the baby on the tile, next to the growing collection of Enola's bones. Certainly it too deserves a grave, but Edith feels a brief surge of reluctance to let it be known publicly that the baby was a product of Lucille and Thomas both. Though the violence they committed is by now well known, the more intimate nature of their relationship has thus far been spared from wider notice. Even now—even in death—the impulse remains in Edith to protect Thomas from such notoriety, but to what end? Surely suspicions are already present. Surely the baby deserves to suffer no longer for the sins of its parents, and to misdirect in this matter, to attribute its parentage to one of the other late Lady Sharpes would be to accumulate unnecessary additional tragedy.
Edith exhales. No decision made straightforward, no choice spared from the consequences of the Sharpes.
—
That night, Edith wakes abruptly, and understands in an instant that she is not alone. She reaches reflexively for the lamp before it registers that the room is already lit with an unearthly and persistent glow.
They stand in a row at the end of the bed, excepting Pamela who rests in her armchair. Margaret waits at her left and Enola completes the line, Lucille and Thomas's baby in her arms. Edith wets her lips. By now she knows they mean her no harm, but that doesn't dissuade some deep, primal part of her from feeling slightly unnerved at their presence.
"Alan and Holly have arranged for the transport of your remains," Edith says, quiet enough so as not to disturb either man in question, sleeping in guest rooms just down the hall. "I'm not sure if you overheard those discussions, but plots have been acquired, as close to each of your respective family members as could be arranged." Pamela's ghost nods. Margaret no longer has eyes to meet Edith, but she tilts her head, listening closely. "I'm sorry that this particular matter has taken so long to remedy, but I hope the result will be to some satisfaction—as much as I am able to give you, as much as you can enjoy given the circumstances."
Edith clears her throat. "I cannot know how this feels—the restlessness you all have endured, the endless injustice. I can only imagine, and in those supposings, I return to the fear and desolation that would mire me at being trapped in the home of my final and most prolonged suffering. The anguish in the uncertainty, and the erasure of my fate from any known record. Not just a ghost in body, but to history as well.
"I am terribly, unfathomably sorry for what befell each of you. I cannot restore your lives, but I can return your memories to your families and your friends and your homes, and I hope that, through these endeavors, you will find the peace that has thus far been denied to you." Her eyes are red-rimmed. "You all appeared to me, a stranger, warning of the danger I had not even begun to realize. I can never be grateful enough."
Edith pushes back the bedspread and slides her feet to the floor, to walk closer toward this unexpected sisterhood to which she now belongs. When she reaches Pamela, Edith extends a hand, taking Pamela's in her own. She interlaces their fingers, feeling where the fourth ends at the knuckle.
"Pamela Upton, of London," Edith says, leaning down to press her lips to Pamela's forehead. Her ghost is not altogether solid, but there is substance there, flexible as water. For a moment, Edith imagines she feels the slight pressure of Pamela's hand tightening against hers, and then with a slight exhale, the ghost is gone.
Edith turns, her hand reaching out once more. "Margaret McDermott, of Edinburgh." Margaret is slightly taller than her, and Edith has to go up to her tiptoes to reach the unbroken line of Margaret's temple. When she does, Margaret breathes a sigh of relief, and then she, too, disappears.
Last, "Enola Sciotti, of Milan." With Lucille's baby in her arms, Edith instead settles her palms on Enola's shoulders. "I owe a debt to you most of all. I am alive only because of the efforts you made in identifying the others, for recording what you discovered and keeping that information safe for whomever would inevitably follow." Edith isn't sure when she started crying, but she is suddenly aware of the dampness under her eyes. "I wish desperately that you had survived. Though I am sorry that I never had the chance to meet you in life, it has been an honor to know you in death. There are no means by which I may begin to express my gratitude, but know that I will never forget you, and that I pray you may now enjoy all the peace and quietude you deserve."
First, Edith smooths back the silk-fine hairs from the baby's forehead and places a soft kiss there. Then, she settles her palm on Enola's cheek, and leans forward to mirror the motion, her eyes closed, cheeks wet with quiet tears.
"Thank you," Edith whispers as the sensation of touch fades under her lips and fingers, Enola's ghost finally released from its overextended stay on earth.
—
In the days that follow, Alan and Holly begin navigating the logistics of transporting the exhumed bodies to their final places of rest. It is an endeavor that involves much time spent in the village and coordinating with the port authorities, and though Alan asks if Edith would like to accompany them—perhaps enjoy the local sights she'd had no opportunity to indulge before—she declines. Her work is not quite finished.
When Edith enters the drawing room, she takes a seat on the sofa nearest to the piano; to sit on the bench itself seems unnecessarily fraught when she is here to extend an offer of peace.
"Hello, Lucille."
The room is silent. Perhaps the slightest breeze pulls at the curtains along the far wall—then again, there are always drafts running through Allerdale. Edith pulls back her shoulders.
"It's funny," she says to the seemingly empty room. "I almost feel the inclination to apologize—as if I should feel guilt that I sit here, alive, and you do not. But you would have seen me dead, and spared no similar thoughts of regret or compassion for Enola and Margaret and Pamela, and so with all that considered, perhaps it is a boon to the world that you are no longer a part of it. Still, I do not believe that means you should be left to suffer."
Ashes stir in the fireplace, the grate unswept for months and turned to black-tinted slush from snowfall down the chimney.
"The memory of her death held your mother here, and a similar pain kept your fellow victims. What tethers you, Lucille? What remains for you in this place? The memory of your brother's ghost?"
The timbers grown overhead. The hammers rattle inside the piano. Edith remains determinedly unconcerned.
"You say you loved him, and I believe that—I cannot imagine anyone acting in such a fashion if not for love. But that same love also kept him under your thumb, and is that what he wanted? You gave him the freedom to tinker in his workshop and enough leash not to feel the tension of it, and when that was no longer enough for him, you felt such horror as the murder of four women could never elicit. Is that not a poisonous love? Was it worth such pain?"
Edith smiles, sad.
"Of course it was—it was for love."
The room is now too still, as if the walls are holding their breath.
"I have no further interest in blaming you, Lucille. Such feelings do neither of us any good. I do wish that you had chosen differently, though. I wish that my father were still alive. I wish your friendship had been true, and that I never would have had cause to feel yours or your brother's betrayals. But here we are."
The ache of loss is heavy in her breast, but her tears remain at bay.
"I'm not sure if you can tell, but the others have gone. I would like the same for you, though I am not sure how to achieve it. Perhaps for you, peace is remaining in this place, with your memories and your lovely melodies and your moths.
"Do you know that I have inherited Allerdale? Funny, almost, the lengths you went to for the sake of attaining my inheritance, and how the chips have fallen instead." Edith runs her hand along the sofa's brocade. "It is too beautiful to destroy, and too broken to rebuild, and so I've decided to let it be until it is finally claimed by the moors. If you would like to stay, know that you will have a home until that time comes, though I cannot guarantee when that might be. If instead, there is something I can do to help you depart, I will."
That same unnatural silence persists. Edith rises, brushing the dust from her skirts. "I imagine we will only be staying a few more days. Until then, Lucille."
—
They're due to depart from Allerdale within hours, all business having been attended to and nothing remaining now but for the foundations to give way. Edith wouldn't say she feels resolution, necessarily, but certainly there is a sense of this chapter of her life drawing to an end. And something to be said for the bulk of it being penned by her own hand.
With one footnote remaining, that is.
Unsurprising that Edith has left this last errand for the bitter end, and at times doubtful whether she would attend to it all. But here she is, taking the attic stairs to the room she still thinks of as Lucille's. It is too early for the moths to emerge, but Edith counts no less than two-dozen chrysalises along the wall, preparing for a birth she will not be here to witness.
The room at the end of the hall is much as she remembers, excepting—well. Upon leaving Allerdale initially, when Edith had made her statement to the local authorities, she'd given the locations of both Lucille and Thomas's remains, had later received a brief letter informing her of their burial. Even still, there is a part of her that is surprised not to see him sitting in the chair where he'd died, pale and lifeless, his eye and cheek unnaturally swollen with blood. But his body has long since been removed, and there is no evidence that his ghost persists.
"I don't believe you're here to listen," Edith says to the silence, "But these words are mine, and I want them heard, so I will say them.
"I loved you, Thomas—in truth, against each of my better instincts, a part of me loves you still. It is that love that causes me to grieve for the life we could have had, had matters been different. A house in New York, with a writing study for me and room enough for your inventions. Lunches in the park and evenings at the theater with my father. Children, even, and the only ghosts belonging to my stories."
Edith has shed enough tears on this matter; now her voice is steady. "How cruel, then, to consider all that happened instead—for you to have offered such promises, tempted me with a future in which I was loved and taken care of, and all the while knowing how Lucille intended for matters to end. Shouldn't I hate you for that? All the moments you had to warn me away—and if you'd truly loved me in return, wouldn't you have spirited me from Allerdale as soon as possible? Or had the nerve never to bring me here in the first place? But you walked me to death's door, smiling all the while. Did you love me, Thomas? I won't forget how you endeavored to protect Alan and myself at the end, but who knows if that was done out of love. Perhaps the weight of your guilt was finally too much to bear.
"I can't imagine the sort of life you must have had, Thomas, and I grieve also for the man you could have been, if you'd had the chance. But such wonderings belong to the world of fiction, and, in this matter, I insist on our considering only the facts at hand. You lured three other women to their death. You soothed them with false assurances of love and family while Lucille's poison devoured their insides. They trusted you, Thomas. I trusted you. I have never known such a betrayal as yours before, and I hope never to again. I grieve for the man you could have been, and for the life we could have had, but I do not grieve at your death. Perhaps, given all that has occurred, it is too much to rely on notions of justice meted out by God or the will of the heavens, but I do not believe it would have been right that you escaped Allerdale unscathed where so many others did not. I am grateful your final actions were not ones of complicity, but I do believe it just that this is where your story ended."
Edith steps forward, settles a hand on the back of the chair as if it were Thomas's shoulder.
"Goodbye, Thomas. I am giving myself permission to leave Allerdale behind me. If indeed your ghost remains here, I hope you are able to do the same."
And with that, Edith departs for the front hall, where Alan and Holly will be waiting for her.