Widowing

A bit of this, a bit of that, pluck and grind and shake about. Hug the bowl between my palms, bring it up and sniff, place it back on the table with a thud. Once more. And again. Seven thuds for the seven days the monster has left to live. That part of the ritual is no alchemy; it is not magic, either. It’s the power of my own superstition that completes the potion-making dance, and once the herbs are nicely tucked in a little pouch, I stuff it in the hidden pocket of my dress. Safer not to let it lie about.

The girl comes just before noon, as agreed. The door opens, my aide Marienne unwraps the blindfold that protects everything I hold dear from being discovered, and the girl sits down. Marianne cannot say goodbye, so the closing door signals her farewell, fencing the girl in. Sealing her fate.

She fidgets on the opposite side of the paravent in my confessional, a small dark chamber with nothing but blank walls and candles burning all around. The fire transforms our bodies into writhing shadows as we conduct our soul-breaking business. We break souls so that ours can be rebuilt again. We destroy worlds so that our own can expand, filling in the cracks we did not make, the holes we did not punch in.

In other words, we deal in killing husbands.

The girl whose shadow is before me is no more than twenty, less than a decade younger than me, yet she has already borne suffering that has aged her soul to a husk of a woman. A week prior, she told me of purple and yellow bruises hidden beneath clothes, of welted skin, torn hair, pain below the waist; she told me of a broken rib and sleepless nights, of one miscarriage after another and the punishments that came after. She told me of a voice silenced, of desires left to die. Of a life not worth living because all her aliveness served to feed his own.

Many have come before her and many will come after, yet each time, the confessions set alight a rage within me. It scorches from the inside, making me shiver, the heat transforming into ice that leaves me cold and free of feeling. Only the rules remain.

“Rule one,” I say, “keep it on your person.”

She nods her head. I hear a sniff, and she brings a hand to her face, wiping away her hopes for a happily ever after.

“Rule two,” I continue in a firm voice, “don’t rush and don’t hesitate. If you’re too hurried and therefore clumsy, he’ll get suspicious. If you don’t make use of a good opportunity, you’ll have to wait longer. This will make you nervous, and therefore clumsy. He’ll get suspicious. Both end the same. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“That does not sound convincing.”

Silence. And then, in a firmer, more determined voice: “Understood.”

“Rule three: play the role. It will look like a very bad fever. They will call the doctors, prescribe medication. You’ll look after him, feed him, stay by his side. And, of course, continue your task. The first time, you’ll mix about a quarter into his tea or soup. Then you’ll keep adding a bit each day for a week. It may be tempting to throw it all in at once, but an immediate death is more suspicious than a slow one,” I warn her. “Are we clear?”

“What if the doctors find out?”

“They won’t.”

“But what if…”

“They won’t know unless you tell them,” I cut her off, “which you won’t, because the moment you do it, there’s no going back. You will play your role to save your life. You will cry and pray and, when it’s done, organise a funeral worthy of a better man.” I fish the pouch out of my pocket and push it underneath the paravent toward her feet. She picks it up.

“Rule four: You pretend this never happened. You were never here. None of this was your fault. Your hand did not mix the herbs in. It was his own evil that doomed him.”

Crying softly, she hiccups, “What if I can’t live with myself when it’s done?”

I can’t help but smile. “My dear, you’re doing this to live for yourself. And one day, when it’s all in the past, you’ll realise one vital truth. You didn’t have a choice. It was him or you, and he is the monster in this story. I am granting you your happy ending. Thank me and go.”

She does.

*

I hoped I would never see her clothed in Queen Victoria’s white, her hair done up and crow’s feet stretching her face into that beautiful smile she once reserved only for me. Yet here we are. She lets him shackle her finger and seal her damnation with a kiss, and a while later, her skirts ebb and flow as his guiding hands tell her body how to move and where to go.

The band plays a gleeful song, and I think back to my late husband’s shrivelled face from three years ago. I think of the shock in his eyes when I told him why he’d gotten sick just a few moments before he left his body to burn in Hell. There was no betrayal or sadness etched in his features. Instead, an impressed and defeated surprise flicked in his eyes — he realised that he had underestimated me after all. He thought I didn’t have it in me to be so cruel. I bested him and his violent ways through violence of my own, but the proud look on his face still haunts me, reminding me that each time I help kill someone, I slice away a piece of myself, too, like a parting gift sent into the afterlife.

I’ve never had the heart to tell her I’d widowed myself. Nor that I turn wives into widows week after week, adding monsters’ names to my list like recipe ingredients. Ever since we met on her family’s estate as children, she has been the light of my life, and, if I dare to be so bold, I of hers. Some friendships are forged through convenience and others through shared interests, but ours has always gone a step beyond.

There was that time we sneaked out into the meadows underneath a full moon, braiding flowers into each other’s hair. There were afternoons when all we did was talk, our eyes boring into one another with so much intensity it felt like we wanted to scrape our souls out of our bodies and grind them together like herbs. And then there was that moment a year ago, when I finally gathered the courage to kiss her, only for her to pull away a few seconds too late and say, “We can’t. I want to, I do. I will admit as much, even if it’s bad, because I love you enough to tell you the truth. But this… it’s not possible. Maybe in another lifetime.”

But I have never been one to send wishes to lifetimes that don’t belong to me. I didn’t have a choice when my husband caused his downfall. I didn’t have a choice when I fell for her. I don’t have a choice when I erase evil from the world, freeing women from tyranny, because the alternative — accepting the cards I have been dealt with no more than a weak sigh of resignation — revolts against the universal rule of human agency. I have been granted a soul and a body of my own, and I will fight the darkness that seeks to steal both away, not just from me, but from everyone who yearns only to be free.

He, just like all the others, is all smiles and thoughtful gestures. But I know what hides beneath. I know how a marriage changes a man. He who has power thinks it equals permission. He who holds a wife thinks her submitted, not because she wills it so, but because she has to will herself to will it. To survive, she places herself under the whim of her predator, sleeping next to a beast as if to appease Death. She holds her enemy close under the shroud of night and hopes he will protect her from himself.

She says she has never been happier. Announces her wishes for a big family as if testing the limits of Life each time she gifts him a new soul is the utmost blessing. Claims he is kind, and he is loving, and he would never hurt a fly.

But I see it coming. It creeps up on her, silent like water before you throw a pebble in and make it splash. A bruise blossoms on her broken arm. She fell down the stairs, she says. She was sleepwalking, she says, though I have known her for over a decade and never heard of any journeys in the middle of the night. He fusses over her, selling the lie, and in moments of doubt, even I almost believe the sincerity in his eyes. But then I glance back at the bruise. It colours my world blind. The next steps are easy, chillingly so. I have been acquainted with Death for far too long.

A bit of this, a bit of that, pluck and grind and shake about. Hug the bowl between my palms, bring it up and sniff, place it back on the table with a thud. Once more. And again. Seven thuds for the seven days the monster has left to live.

When he falls ill, I visit every afternoon, allowing her a few hours of sleep after a fitful night. Each sip he takes of the tea I made, I release her from his tyranny, until the last day comes around, and he leaves nothing but loving words and smiles behind. She howls at God like a wolf at the moon. Does not eat. Does not sleep. Does not care for the difference between Life and Death.

I pack her things, arrange her affairs, sell the house in London she now detests. I welcome her in my new home in the countryside and give her all she could need. But she continues to leak water like a broken faucet.

Weeks stretch into months, and months yawn into years. Slowly, warily, she comes back alive. We lounge in the garden, reading our books. We go to social functions together, organise events of our own, nurture ourselves back to what we once were.

And I keep on widowing women. How could I ever stop when so many need my help? How could I rob them of their chance at a better life? How could I help her, help me, but not help them? I don’t have a choice. It has already been made for me.

My one rule is not to let her see. I keep this part of myself locked away, conducting my business while she’s off at the Sunday market. Once, though, she comes back early. She spots a blindfolded girl led by my aide Michelle leaving the house, and she grows suspicious. The next week, she pretends to have left only to sneak back in and listen at my chamber door, all my soul-saving secrets unravelling before her.

When she confronts me, a part of me feels relieved. Finally, she knows. Finally, she can join me, the two of us fighting evil as one. She may be upset now, but she’ll come about, and everything will be alright.

But then she quotes: “The first time, you’ll mix about a quarter into his tea or soup. Then you’ll keep adding a bit each day for a week.” Her eyes rimmed with tears, she whispers, “Did you kill him?”

I try to take her by the hand, but she pulls away, the revolt in her face like a slap in my own. “You did,” she breathes when I don’t reply. “You killed my love.”

“I didn’t,” I say. “He killed himself.”

Eyebrows knotted in confusion, she shakes her head. “What?”

“He hurt you,” I explain, hoping she’ll now understand. “He broke your arm, and he would keep breaking you forever, and I couldn’t let that happen!”

“I told you I’d been sleepwalking! He would never hurt me!”

“I don’t believe you!”

The next few hours play out in stages. First, she cries so bad she chokes. Then she hides in a cupboard and refuses to come out, the silence so loud I wonder if she fell asleep. Finally, she storms into the empty kitchen where I’m finishing up with a Victorian sponge cake, having dismissed Michelle. She stands in the doorway, watching me, before she says, “Let’s talk. I want to understand.”

I serve each of us a nice slice and watch her dig in. Some people cannot eat when anxious, but I know she has always resorted to food for comfort. It will make her feel better. I'm not very hungry myself.

She asks one question after another. When did this start? Did I kill my husband? Why? How? Who are these women? And why did I do this to her?

“You must understand,” I say, placing my palm over the back of her hand and watching her as she tries not to flinch, “that I did this for you. I love you more than anything in this world. As long as you’re safe with me, nothing bad will happen to you ever again.”

She is quiet for a moment. And then she lets out a bewildered laugh. “You truly believe this, don’t you? You think you saved me. You think he is the villain, and I am the maiden in distress, and you are the hero.” Before I reply, her features begin to twist, her cheeks gaining a red colour. I know the signs. She is growing agitated. Soon after, she is marching around the kitchen, screaming, throwing her hands up, talking about murder and justice and the law.

“I will have you sent to prison,” she spits, inching closer toward me while her legs tremble under the weight of her body, “and you will never see the light of day again. I can’t believe I ever loved you. I can’t believe I didn’t see the twisted evil lurking behind all this. I will tell them everything, I promise you that, and you will be brought to justice.”

I shake my head, saddened that it must end this way. “I know justice, my love. We walk hand in hand."

The poison in the cake silences her, and I catch her before she falls to the ground. She will sleep for a long while, but it’s better to get it done and over with quickly.

I’m doing this for her, I remind myself as I take the knife to her tongue. I’m keeping her away from harm, I think as I seal the wound with a heated rod, blood spattering everywhere. I’m guarding her from evil, I chant when I cut off her right thumb. I’m the only one who can protect her, I repeat in my mind once she’s bandaged up in bed, the house empty forever, with just the two of us in our own little world.

I watch her sleep. A lock of hair falls into her face, and I gently brush it away. “One day, you’ll understand,” I tell Marianne. “I didn’t have a choice.”

*

It hasn’t yet been a month since I showed Marienne how things would go from now on — the driver brings the women in a carriage and Marienne leads them into and out of the house — so she struggles with the blindfold a little when she enters the room to take the girl away. Her thumb still needs to heal fully.

She cries a lot, but we have made it through grief before. She’ll come around. For now, she’s locked in her chamber most of the time, just until she recovers from her wounds. Locked and safe.

Some days are worse than others, but overall, her mood seems to improve as the weeks go on, though I do wonder if she’s plotting some secret betrayals in that silent mind of hers. She hasn’t yet taken any opportunity to run away, which tells me that a part of her still loves me. Or that she’s thinking through her options now that she can’t speak or write. Even if she were to show people what happened to her, I could talk my way out of it. I have told her as much.

I check on her most nights, watching her sleep and wondering what sorts of dreams she’s conjuring up. One night, though, I come in to see that she’s not in bed. Instead, Marienne stands in front of the window, her fingers playing with the lock.

I move toward her and grab her by the shoulder, but she ignores me.

“Marianne?” I take her face in my hands and turn it in my direction. The look in her eyes is empty, devoid of consciousness. And that’s when I know.

She’s sleepwalking.

*

I wake her up, a silent ghost made of flesh and blood. “The house is unlocked. I’ve told the driver to escort you to your parents in London. I won’t ask for your forgiveness.”

She looks at me, and the hollowness in her face is far emptier than when she was asleep. Then she leaves me.

All that is left is a bit of this, a bit of that, pluck and grind and shake about. Hug the bowl between my palms, bring it up and sniff, place it back on the table with a thud. One thud for the one hour I have left to live. I fill up the bowl with water and watch the herbs flow on the surface like dead fish.

I don’t have a choice.