The Dead Travel Fast

evenly.

And now we come to it, I thought. I could repudiate my convictions about Cosmina, even now. I had told no one save Dr. Frankopan my thoughts. The objects I had taken from her room were my only proofs of her instability. Without them, it was simply my word to hers, and she was nothing if not clever. It would be an easy thing to turn them all against me. She was, after all, as good as the daughter of the house.

I glanced at her, and she was watching me, her eyes large and sorrowful.

“I was afraid.” I temporised.

The count lifted a brow to suggest disbelief. “Afraid of what?”

I hesitated again. I could say I feared the strigoi; I could claim I was afraid of them for keeping me locked in my room. I could choose expediency and hope to leave as soon as possible, putting all of the horrors of the place behind me.

Or I could choose to tell the truth and damn the lie.

“I was afraid of Cosmina,” I said boldly, and stirring in the depths of the count’s eyes I saw approval.

The countess gave an indignant sniff, and Cosmina put her hands to her mouth as if to smother a sob. Charles looked frankly astonished, and only Florian and Frau Amsel betrayed no emotion.

“Why were you afraid of Cosmina?” the count asked, leading me gently towards the edge of the precipice.

I looked only at him then, putting the others out of my mind. I spoke only to him, cared only for him.

“I think I always was. She used to fly into terrible rages at school. I told myself I never wanted to be friends with the other girls, but now I think back, I see I was afraid to befriend them-afraid of what she might do. I loved her as a sister, but I see now that I was always afraid, only I did not understand it was fear. I used to work so hard to make certain she was happy. I left off speaking to girls she did not like because I did not wish her to become angry. I studied German instead of French because she wished me to and I wanted to please her because she was my friend. At least, I believed she was. I found a rosary in her possession. It was the only thing I owned of my mother’s and she stole it.”

“Was there anything else?” the count prodded.

“A letter,” I said softly. “A letter addressed to me that I never received. It was stolen from my room and when I discovered it, it had been torn to pieces and sewn back together.”

I dared not look at Cosmina, but she had made no sound of protest. Doubtless she had discovered the objects missing from her room almost as soon as I had taken them.

“If we are to believe you, Miss Lestrange, then Cosmina is at worst a thief. You had only to confront her with the items and they would have been restored to you. Why did you flee?”

I twisted my hands together. They were cold, as cold as they had been when I had lain upon the forest floor, waiting to die.

“Because I was certain she had killed Aurelia. Under her pillow, with my things, I found the carving fork from the dining hall. It has been missing since Aurelia’s death, and if it were compared to Aurelia’s body, I believe the prongs would fit the wounds that killed the girl.” I had seen it as soon as I had held the object in my hands, the two wickedly sharp prongs, a few inches between. If Cosmina had stabbed Aurelia with the thing, it would have rendered a wound precisely the same as a pair of very sharp teeth.

“No!” cried Cosmina. I looked at her then and her expression was one of outrage, her tone that of profound denial. She had been found out, and the shock of it was too much for her to bear. At the sound of her outcry, Tereza burst out sobbing and praying and Frau Graben hastened to calm her. The rest of the group said nothing, but I heard the countess’s hiss of disbelief.

“This is an extremely serious charge,” the count said soberly. “If you believed her to be a murderess, why did you not come forward?”

I flushed painfully. My flight had been foolish and ill-advised, and I had no excuse save that Dr. Frankopan had been sensible and persuasive and I had feared for my life.

“Dr. Frankopan insisted we leave. He said we could accomplish much more by leaving the castle and going directly to the obergespan in Hermannstadt. I believed he meant to help me.”

“And instead he attempted your life,” the count finished softly. My flush deepened.

“I trusted where I ought not to have,” I said.

“And doubted where you ought not to have as well,” he added. For a long moment, he said nothing, merely holding my gaze with his until I dropped my eyes to my lap. “Cosmina, Miss Lestrange believes you killed the maid Aurelia and ought to be brought to justice. What say you?”

I looked at her then, and her expression was blank, her voice soft and low. But under it all, I caught the note of rage, barely suppressed. “I can only say that I am sorry, profoundly sorry, that we have broken trust with one another. I cannot say how her things came to be in my room except that she must have put them there with an eye to discrediting me and blaming me for her own misdeeds.”

Too late I saw the trap, springing neatly about me, catching me in its grim teeth. I could only sit, numbed to the horror of it.

“I did love Theodora, and I believed her my friend, but I see now I was deceived, and every lie she tells carries a seed of truth within it. She did lose a rosary at school, but I restored it to her when I found it and she has had it ever since. I do not know what letter she speaks of, nor have I seen the carving fork since it disappeared from the dining hall, but I think it is quite obvious she placed the things in my room, attempting to discredit me in the eyes of my family. We must thank God that she left her shawl behind when she attacked Count Andrei, or we would never know the depth of her villainy,” she finished viciously.

Her facade was cool and almost entirely composed, but I knew something dark and violent seethed within. I thought of the time it must have taken her to stitch the love letter back together, the anger that must have raged within her as she set each stitch. I thought of the sharp blades of her scissors snapping my silhouetted head from my shoulders, and I knew what I must do.

“It maddens you, doesn’t it?” I said softly. “Even now, you cannot stop thinking about it. You think about it every day, don’t you? He refused you. You are not good enough for him because he knows what you are.”

She flew at me then, cursing, but the count had anticipated her, and raised his walking stick to block her. Florian darted forward, but the count waved him off.

“Cosmina, sit. You will not respond to Miss Lestrange’s provocations,” he said coolly. But even as he said the words, he gave me a nod, almost imperceptible, and I continued on.

“And you know what you are as well, do you not? You know the truth about your mother. She is not dead. She lives on, completely mad, locked in the same asylum where she has been since you were a small child. You know madness runs in the blood and you have waited for it to come for you.”

She gave me a basilisk stare, as if she wished the flesh would melt from my bones, but I dared not stop.

“But did you know that you are Dr. Frankopan’s child? He told me himself last night. You are his natural daughter, no more a legitimate Dragulescu than the child Aurelia carried. You do not belong here.”

The words poured from my lips, goading her to some reaction that would betray her villainy. I laid at her door all of the crimes I believed her guilty of, but to my astonishment, it would be the most venal of them that broke her. I raised again the subject of my rosary. “It was my mother’s. Why would you take it from me?”

“Because it was the only thing I had of yours,” she cried, breaking her reserve at last. “That was the day that Fraulein Moller made such a pet of you, and you spent ages discussing the poetry of Heine with her, do you remember? But it was supposed to be our outing, our day. And you neglected me to sit and talk about poems with that stupid schoolmistress.”

“And you took the rosary to punish her?” the count asked quietly.

“No, to make her look at me!” Cosmina returned, her eyes bright and lit with some unnatural fire. “We were friends and she ought not to have ignored me. When she thought the rosary was lost, she noticed me again. We were friends, and women must cling together in this world, for men are our destruction,” she said, turning to the countess, pleading with her aunt to understand.

“And the letter?” I urged.

The beautiful complexion flushed, a stain of anger spreading across her cheeks. “Andrei should not have written it. It was wrong of him to write it. I had to take it away,” she said stubbornly.

“And my son?” the countess asked, her voice even and low.