Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil — Chapter no 54

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A girl bends at the waist as she pours tea.

Another stands with a box balanced on her head.

A third perches primly on an ottoman, a placid smile on her face.

Charlotte turns page after page, each with its own picture of propriety.

Around her, the sitting room is humming. Nearly a week ago, Margaret made a match with a fine gentleman named Reginald, and Edith expects her own proposal any day now. The Season is racing toward its end, and the whole house has taken on a nervous energy, a held-breath kind of hope, but Charlotte feels herself weighted down by dread. She dreads the imminent parting with Sabine, dreads returning home to James and Jocelyn, and a life that no longer fits.

She wishes she could curl up on the sofa, but Aunt Amelia caught her once, in those first days, and now Charlotte doesn’t dare. Instead, she sits stiffly on the sofa’s edge and pretends to read. As if she hasn’t had enough of etiquette.

She turns the page and sees a pair of women strolling arm in arm.

Like show ponies prancing . . . anyone you’d like to ride?

Charlotte smiles at the memory.

Another page, and here she finds a man and woman dancing, their arms locked at rigid angles as they turn.

You are merely going through the motions.

And here they are, the steps laid out on paper with little printed feet. But as she stares, the drawing twists, the stiffness gives way to looser limbs.

Imagine there is a wind . . .

She turns the page again, and again, twisting each image in her mind until the brittle lines give way to memories. It is not hard. She finds her thoughts are always going to Sabine. Her eyes. Her hair. Her mouth. Her hands.

She turns the page, half expecting to see a picture of two women playing cards, shoes kicked off and sherry glasses at their elbows.

Charlotte shifts at the thought of that last ball. Sabine’s body humming next to hers.

She presses her knees together, an ache pooling like heat.

When you discover what you want . . .

But Charlotte knows.

She lies awake and burns with it.

She twists and turns with it.

Last night, when she could not sleep, her hand found its way between her legs, and she let herself pretend it was Sabine’s. Could almost hear the breath against her neck, the voice in her ear, whispering her name as if it

were a secret, and— “Aren’t you a picture?”

Her aunt comes bustling in, and Charlotte sits up even straighter, trying to smother the flush that’s crept across her face.

“I must say,” continues Amelia, tugging off her gloves, “I had my doubts, but you have come a long way these past few weeks.”

And that much is true. Charlotte no longer protests at the cinching of the corsets, or the stiffness of the shoes, or the hundred pins the maid stabs in her hair each night to tame it. But she has submitted to these discomforts knowing they are temporary discomforts, and she will fling them off again the moment she is home.

“Thank you, Aunt,” she says, conjuring the same tepid smile as the faces in her book. “I’ve had good teachers.”

Amelia absorbs the compliment like light, and drifts toward a round table, laden with gifts for Margaret and Edith. She surveys the offerings: a small bouquet of roses, a handful of cards, a box of candied fruit, a dish of chocolates.

“Next Season, I’ve no doubt, the offerings will be for you.”

Charlotte ducks her head to hide the grimace as her aunt plucks a chocolate from a dish (she has a sweet tooth, though she’ll deny it, seems to think that if the sweet is small enough to swallow in one bite, it does not

count).

Just then, the bell rings.

“Finally,” sighs Aunt Amelia, as the house surges into motion.

Edith arrives, and for once the roses on her cheeks look more from stress than pinching. And yet, by the time she arranges herself on the divan and

snatches up a bit of needlework, every curl is in its place, her hands steady and her face as smooth as milk.

Charlotte closes her book and stands, eager to absent herself for the proposal, is halfway to the door when the butler arrives with the news that the caller is for her.

Edith’s expression turns to ice, and Aunt Amelia’s warms with something like delight, and Charlotte simply laughs, knowing there must be some mistake.

But then the man walks in, and her amusement dies.

It’s George Preston.

George, with whom she’s danced half a dozen times, and spoken to far less.

George, who was a pleasant enough partner, a way to pass the time.

George, who stands in the good sitting room with a bundle of flowers in one clammy hand and his hat in the other, a nervous smile tugging at his mouth.

As if he isn’t there to ruin everything.

“Miss Hastings,” he begins, and she wonders if he even knows her proper name until he clears his throat and croaks out, “Charlotte,” and it sounds wrong, harsh, nothing like Sabine’s soft purr, and then to her horror he begins to talk about how deep his feelings run, how surely she cannot be surprised, given that he’s been quite bold in his affection.

Charlotte feels herself inch backward, until the sofa’s arm abruptly stops her. She opens her mouth to speak, but cannot seem to find the air. George has stolen it all. The room and everyone in it is so far away, their voices little more than echoes, and George is still going on and on about how certain he is that she will make a good wife, a good mother, that they will have a happy life.

And all Charlotte can think is that, if she had known, she never would have danced with him. If she had known, she would have fled from that first ball. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she isn’t even here. She was just playing dress-up, after all.

She is not a lily or a rose. Not a flower ready and waiting to be picked.

She is still growing wild at the edges of her family garden. She is not ready. She will never be ready. This isn’t what she wants.

George has finally stopped speaking, and everyone is looking at her now,

as if waiting for an answer, and Charlotte finally drags in a great, heaving breath.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she says, too loud, the words crashing through the fog, “I just need a moment’s air.”

She hurries past them, toward the door, and George is trying to follow, and she is saying, “No, no, please stay, I’ll be right back,” and her aunt is calling after her, but it’s too late, she is already escaping from the parlor and the hall and the house on Merry Way.

She sees a hansom cab parked along the road, and she climbs in, asks the driver to take her to the widow Olivares.

Ten agonizing minutes later, she arrives.

Ten minutes to practice what she wants to say, and yet, as she steps out onto the curb, she feels her courage falter. She stands before a house that last night looked so inviting—the doors open and the windows lit, a row of tiny lanterns burning like fairy lights along the walk—but now looks dark, forbidding even.

But the image of George, standing in the parlor, spurs her up the path, and to the door. She knocks, but no one answers. Panic winds like weeds around

her ribs.

She knocks again.

“Miss?” asks the driver from the road. “Shall I wait?”

Charlotte hesitates, uncertain, knows only that she cannot bear the thought of turning back, not now, so she presses all the pocket change she has into the driver’s hand and sends him on his way, begs for his discretion, and whether it is the shillings, or the panic in her eyes, he bobs his head, and flicks the reins and goes.

Charlotte returns to the door, and knocks again, and this time when there is no answer she tries the handle, and finds the door unlocked. Before doubt can overwhelm again, she plunges in. She pulls the door shut behind her, and turns, expecting to cross paths with a butler or maid, some kind of staff.

The house was full of help the night before.

But today, there is no one.

The house sprawls around her, hollow, vacant.

“Sabine?” she calls out, softly first, and then in a voice that echoes off of

marble, tremors over wood.

“Sabine!”

The whole house feels so empty, so still, that a sudden terror grips her, that Sabine has up and left, abandoned London and her, or worse, that she was never there, some phantom haunting her these past few months, a

figment of— “Charlotte.”

The word wafts through the air like smoke, and there she is.

Sabine stands at the top of the stairs, dressed in nothing but a black silk robe, parting to reveal a pale dressing gown. Her hair, no longer up in an intricate braid or bun, hangs loose, burning trails down her front, and the sight of her is striking enough that for a moment, Charlotte forgets.

She forgets the horror of the last hour, the forces that sent her running from her aunt’s salon, and thinks only of her words that first night on the

stairs.

How could anyone not look at you?

Sabine drifts toward her down the stairs, her bare feet padding over marble. She looks drawn, as if she’s been in bed for days, fighting some long sickness—but that’s not possible. Charlotte saw her just the night

before.

“Are you ill?”

A slow blink. “Only resting,” she says, her voice fogged with sleep, even though it’s the middle of the afternoon. Sabine reaches the bottom of the stairs and frowns. “What’s wrong?”

And just like that, it all comes rushing back.

In one violent exhale, she remembers.

“Everything.” The word tears from Charlotte like a sob. “I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head. “I know it was thoughtless to come unannounced—I shouldn’t have—but George called on me today. He asked for my hand. My hand!” Her limbs begin to tremble, and so she paces as she talks. “And what he said beyond that, I don’t know. From the moment he opened his mouth, all I could hear was my own heart, hammering to get out.”

“So you came here. To me.” Sabine sounds bemused, as if it’s such a strange idea. As if she has not been the sole source of Charlotte’s comfort these past two months.

“I know it’s wrong to simply show up. But I did not know what else to do, or where to go—”

Sabine holds out a hand to halt her nervous movement, and it stops her, as sudden as a cage door swinging shut. And now there is nowhere else to look except Sabine. Her gaze is flat as glass, her expression unreadable. “Would you marry him?”

Charlotte recoils at the question. “I did not attend those balls for him. I did not dance each night hoping he was watching. I did not lie awake and hunger for his company. I—oh, do not look at me like that.”

Sabine inclines her head. “Like what?”

“Like I’m some foolish child. A silly girl who’s spent the entire Season clinging to your skirts.” For the first time, she is brave enough to find Sabine’s burning gaze, and hold it. “You told me to come find you, when I knew what I wanted. Well, I do.”

She swallows. How hard it is to say the words, even when they’re true.

How much it feels like standing on a precipice, like the smallest wind will either push her back, onto solid ground, or forward, into an abyss.

“I want you.”

Sabine’s cool hand settles on her cheek, and she holds her breath, waiting to see which direction she will fall. “Do you?” she asks, and there is a faint barb to the question, a challenge in her voice that fills Charlotte with fury.

“Yes!” she snaps, her voice ringing through the empty house. “I have wanted you since the night we met, and every moment since. I want the life you speak of, that belongs to no one else. I want to feel and love and live as boldly as I please. I want to be like you.” She closes the gap between them, lifts her hands to cup Sabine’s face, is shocked again by the coldness of her skin, but she doesn’t pull away. “But most of all, I want to be with you.”

Sabine’s expression clouds, as if the strange light in her eyes is guttering.

“I do not know if you are ready.”

Charlotte feels her balance falter. But then, a strange thing happens. Anger comes rushing up to steady her. “How dare you—I am here! I have just fled my own proposal to lay my heart bare at your feet.”

“There are things you do not know.”

Charlotte glares defiantly. “I know there is nothing you could tell me that would make me love you less, nothing that would make me want to leave.”

She swallows. “Nothing, save that you do not feel the same. That you do

not want me, too. Is that it?”

Sabine’s brow furrows. “No.”

“Say it, then,” demands Charlotte.

Sabine’s mouth twitches. She lifts her cool hands and rests them over Charlotte’s on her face. “I want you,” she says, the light rekindling behind her hazel eyes. “I have wanted you in ballrooms and in parlors, in crowds and behind closed doors. I have wanted you since before we ever met.”

Charlotte feels like a window flung open. Fresh air rushing in.

And then Sabine turns away, toward the stairs, but she is drawing Charlotte with her. They have wandered through a dozen houses arm in arm, but every time the halls were crowded with bodies, with music, with life. Now as Sabine leads Charlotte up the stairs, there are no onlookers, no pretenses. They are together. And they are alone. No gloves, just their laced fingers, Sabine’s cold, and hers hot. Her heart hammering inside her chest with fear and hope and want and wonder, and maybe Sabine was right, and her feelings are so loud that they spill out of her, because she looks back and smiles as if she can hear every single one.

Sabine leads Charlotte to a chamber with the curtains drawn.

The room is plunged into such a heavy darkness that even with the light spilling in from the hall, Charlotte can barely make out the outline of the furniture, the bed. She crosses to the window, reaching for the curtain’s edge to draw it back, but Sabine is there to catch her wrist.

She twists round, breath catching at the sudden closeness, Sabine’s body tangling with hers, as it did the night before, only this time, they are face-to- face, her mouth inches from Sabine’s, the air between them humming with want, and at last, Charlotte closes the distance and kisses her. Their lips brush, and this is the part where Jocelyn pulled away.

But Sabine doesn’t.

Instead, she answers, deepening the kiss, pressing Charlotte back against the curtained glass. Her lips part, teeth skimming Charlotte’s bottom lip. A pricking pain.

She flinches, and draws back, touching her lip. Even in the dark, she can see the stain against her fingertips before Sabine brings them to her mouth and swipes her tongue over the blood. And smiles. Not the secret smile, the ghostly tugging of her lips. She smiles showing teeth, two of them sharper and longer than the rest.

Something flashes through Charlotte then, something that is and isn’t panic. Something that is and isn’t fear.

There are things you do not know.

Everyone has choices.

They only have to make them.

You make it sound so simple.

Simple? No.

Sabine doesn’t let go of Charlotte’s hand. Instead, she turns it, exposing the soft inside of her wrist, the pulse visible beneath her skin.

“Do you trust me?”

How easy it is, to see danger once it’s passed. But she is young, and filled with dread and want, both warring in her chest. And she has come this far.

“Yes.”

“You’re afraid,” says Sabine, bringing her hand closer to her face.

“Yes,” says Charlotte. Then, “But not of you.”

Sabine’s smile widens, right before her teeth sink into Charlotte’s wrist.

She gasps, stiffens at the brightness of the pain, the way it lances through her flesh, followed by the sudden animal urge to tear free, to pull away. But to her surprise, she doesn’t. This moment, she knows, is a kind of test. The pain spreads up her arm, leaves her feeling dizzy, faint.

Years later, she will ask Sabine what would have happened, if in that moment she had fought, or screamed, or fled, and her love will only stroke her cheek and say, “Why dwell on things that did not happen?” and Charlotte will know, then, with grim certainty, that one way or another, she’d have never left that room alive.

Sabine’s teeth slide free, a strange ache pooling in their wake, and when she looks up, her eyes are burning brighter than they ever have, candles behind painted glass. How could Charlotte have ever thought that they were human?

“What are you?” she asks at last, and Sabine’s mouth twitches in that old familiar way.

“What am I?” she muses, almost to herself. “A widow.”

She tugs Charlotte forward, turns her in her arms as if they’re dancing. “A feral rose.”

She lets go suddenly, and Charlotte stumbles, catches herself against the bedpost. But in the next breath, Sabine is there again, cool hand cupping her chin. “I am free.” Those lantern eyes, the only thing she can make out in the dark. “Free from pain. Free from rules. Free from death. Free to live as I want. Free to take what I want. Free to be who I want. With whomever I want.” Her fingers slide through Charlotte’s hair, come to rest at the nape of her neck. “Is that what you want, Charlotte?”

The word leaves her, as easy as air. “Yes.”

It is all she wants. All she has ever wanted.

Sabine’s eyes flick to Charlotte’s injured wrist. “There is a cost,” she says, but when Charlotte looks down, she finds the wound closed, the bite marks fading, the pain already gone.

Her skin is still hungry. Her heart is still racing.

“I understand,” she says, even though she doesn’t, can’t. “I want more. I want this. I want you.”

Sabine draws her close, lips brushing Charlotte’s as she says, “Remember that.”

And then Charlotte is being pressed back, and down, into the bed, and Sabine is on top of her, her hand where Charlotte’s was the night before, making its way beneath her dress, and up her thigh, and then at last, between her legs. Her thumb grazes the darkness there, and Charlotte gasps, her entire body bright with longing.

She grips Sabine, not to push her back, only to drag her closer, digging her fingers into the woman’s arms, clutching at her as the heat builds between her legs. She arches in pleasure, clenching around Sabine’s wrist, and every time her mouth grazes Charlotte’s skin—laying kisses on her shoulder, her collar, her breast—she braces for a bite that doesn’t come.

Sabine only smiles, her fingers sliding deeper, and when Charlotte finds the breath to speak, the word that rises to her lips is please.

And perhaps this is all it is, she thinks. This is how to take what you want, to live as you want, this is how to be free. And then, right as the heat crests, Sabine’s mouth finds the curve of Charlotte’s neck, her lips part, her teeth

grazing skin.

And she bites down.

Charlotte shudders, the pleasure rolling through her first, and for an instant, she has two heartbeats, one at her throat, and one between her legs.

But then the latter fades, and in its wake, she feels the pain, that heavy ache spreading through her limbs, behind her ribs, around her heart.

And it hurts.

Worse than the teeth biting into her wrist, because this time, Sabine doesn’t stop. If anything, her teeth sink deeper, and Charlotte whimpers, the pain no longer hidden in the shadow of the pleasure. Fear steals through her, then, sudden, and animal, and sharp, but even if she wanted to fight back, it

is too late. Her heart is kicking but her limbs are leaden, and Sabine is made of stone, and the fear is already fading with the edges of her sight.

And her heart, her heart, which has gotten her into trouble all her life, her heart, which feels too much, and beats too hard, now falters. It trips, and stumbles, weakly, to a stop. And Charlotte feels like she is falling—no not falling, sinking. Down through the bed, into someplace quiet, empty, dark, like the stillness at the very edge of sleep.

And too late, she understands that it is death.

That she is dying.

And she doesn’t even feel betrayed.

This is what she asked for, isn’t it?

After all, death is another kind of freedom.

At least, she thinks, she’s not alone.

Sabine is with her, in the dark.

And then, distantly, she feels the weight of something against her mouth, and hears Sabine’s voice, so far away and just beside her ear, telling her to drink. Charlotte is too tired to move her lips, and yet, somehow she does, and then the liquid hits her lips, and it is something earthy, rotten, sweet. It slides across her tongue, and down her throat, and branches there, tendrils spreading through her chest, coiling around her heart, which now begins to

beat again.

A single drum, then two, then three.

The pulse, so loud in Charlotte’s chest, echoing like footsteps through an

empty hall.

Alive, alive, alive, it says.

Before the rhythm fades, and the darkness folds over her again.

Erasing everything.

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