The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

His face hardens again, the levity slipping from his tone. ‘That’s why I’ve taken my mask off, Aiden. I need you to see my face and hear my voice, and know that what I’m telling you is the absolute truth. We can’t have doubts between us, any more.’

‘I understand,’ I say. It’s all I can manage. I feel like a man waiting for the fall.

‘The name Annabelle Caulker, the woman you know as Anna, is a curse in every language in which it is spoken,’ he says, pinning me in place with his gaze. ‘She was the leader of a group which sowed destruction and death across half the nations of the world and would surely still be doing so if she hadn’t been caught, over thirty years ago. That’s who you’re trying to free.’

I should be surprised. I should be shocked, or angry. I should protest, but I don’t feel any of those things. This doesn’t feel like a revelation, more the voicing of facts I’ve long been familiar with. Anna’s fierce and fearless, even brutal when she needs to be. I saw her expression in the gatehouse when she came at Dance with the shotgun, not realising it was me. She would have pulled the trigger without any regret at all. She killed Daniel when I could not, and casually suggested murdering Evelyn ourselves as a way of answering the Plague Doctor’s question. She said it was a joke, but even now I’m not certain.

And yet, Anna only killed those people to protect me, buying time so that I could solve this mystery. She’s strong, she’s kind and she stayed loyal, even when my desire to save Evelyn threatened to undermine our investigation into her murder.

Of all the people in the house, she’s the only one who never hid who she truly was.

‘She’s not that person any more,’ I argue. ‘You said Blackheath was meant to rehabilitate people, to break down their old personalities and test the new ones. Well, I’ve seen Anna up close this last week. She’s helped me, saved my life more than once. She’s my friend.’

‘She murdered your sister,’ he says bluntly.

My world empties.

‘She tortured her, humiliated her and made the world watch,’ he continues. ‘That’s who Anna is, and people like that don’t change, Aiden.’

I drop to my knees, clutching my temples as old memories erupt.

My sister was called Juliette. She had brown hair, and a bright smile. She was charged with capturing Annabelle Caulker, and I was so proud of her.

Every recollection feels like a shard of glass tearing through my mind.

Juliette was driven and clever, and thought justice was something that had to be defended and not simply expected. She made me laugh. She thought that was worth doing.

Tears roll down my cheeks.

Annabelle Caulker’s men came in the night, and took Juliette from her home. They executed her husband with a single bullet to the head. He was lucky. Juliette’s bullet didn’t come for seven days. They tortured her and let everybody watch.

They called it justice for their persecution.

They said we should have expected this.

I don’t know anything more about myself, or the rest of my family. I didn’t keep hold of my happy memories. Only those that could help me, only hate and grief.

It was Juliette’s murder that brought me to Blackheath. It was the weekly phone calls that stopped coming. The stories we stopped sharing. It was the space where she should have been and would never be again. It was the way Annabelle was eventually caught.

Bloodlessly. Painlessly.

Entirely without incident.

And they sent her to Blackheath, where my sister’s murderer would spend a lifetime solving the death of a murdered sister. They called it justice. They patted themselves on the back for their ingenuity, thinking I’d be as pleased as they were. Thinking it was enough.

They were wrong.

The injustice tore into me at night, and stalked me during the day. It whittled me down until she was the only thing I could think about.

I followed her through the gates of hell. I pursued, terrified and tortured Annabelle Caulker, until I forgot the reasons why. Until I forgot Juliette. Until Annabelle became Anna, and all I saw was a terrified girl at the mercy of monsters.

I became the thing I hated, and made Annabelle into the thing I loved.

And I blamed Blackheath.

I look up at the Plague Doctor through eyes raw with tears. He’s looking me full in the face, weighing my reaction. I wonder what he sees, because I have no idea what to think. All of this is happening to me because of the person I’m trying to save.

This is Anna’s fault.

Annabelle.

‘What?’ I ask, surprised by how insistent the voice in my head sounds.

It’s Annabelle Caulker’s fault, not Anna’s. That’s who we hated.

‘Aiden?’ asks the Plague Doctor.

And Annabelle Caulker’s dead.

‘Annabelle Caulker’s dead,’ I repeat slowly, meeting the Plague Doctor’s startled gaze.

He shakes his head. ‘You’re wrong.’

‘It took thirty years,’ I say. ‘And it wasn’t done with violence and it wasn’t done with hatred. It was done with forgiveness. Annabelle Caulker is dead.’