The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

In the back of my mind, I can hear Anna screaming at me, demanding I run. She’s right, I should be afraid, and in any other host, I would be. This is clearly a trap, but I’m tired of fearing this man.

It’s time to fight, if only to convince myself I can.

For a moment, we watch each other, the rain falling and the wind swirling. Unsurprisingly, it’s the footman who forces the issue, turning on his heel and sprinting into the darkness of the forest.

Bellowing like a lunatic, I charge after him.

As I cross into the forest, the trees huddle around me, branches scratch my face, the foliage thickening.

My legs are tiring, but I keep running until I realise I can’t hear him any more.

Skidding to a halt, I spin on the spot, panting.

He’s on me in seconds, covering my mouth to stifle my scream as the blade enters my side and tears up into my ribcage, blood burbling into my throat. My knees buckle, but I’m prevented from falling by his strong arms around me. He’s breathing shallowly, eagerly. This isn’t the sound of tiredness, it’s excitement and anticipation.

A match flares, a tiny point of light held in front of my face.

He’s kneeling down directly opposite, his pitiless black eyes boring into me.

‘Brave rabbit,’ he says, slitting my throat.

32

Day Six

‘Wake up! Wake up, Aiden!’

Somebody’s banging on my door.

‘You have to wake up, Aiden. Aiden!’

Swallowing my tiredness, I blink at my surroundings. I’m in a chair, clammy with sweat, my clothes twisted tight around me. It’s night time, a candle guttering on a nearby table. There’s a tartan blanket over my lap, old man’s hands laid across a dog-eared book. Veins bulge in wrinkled flesh, criss-crossing dry ink stains and liver spots. I flex my fingers, stiff with age.

‘Aiden, please!’ says the voice in the corridor.

Rising from my chair, I move to the door, old aches stirring throughout my body like swarms of disturbed hornets. The hinges are loose, the bottom corner of the door scraping against the floor, revealing the lanky figure of Gregory Gold on the other side, slumped against the doorframe. He looks much as he will when he attacks the butler, though his dinner jacket’s torn and caked with mud, his breathing ragged.

He’s clutching the chess piece Anna gave me, and that, together with his use of my real name, is enough to convince me that he’s another of my hosts. Normally, I’d welcome such a meeting, but he’s in a frightful state, agitated and dishevelled, a man dragged to hell and back.

Upon seeing me, he grips my shoulders. His dark eyes are bloodshot, flicking this way and that.

‘Don’t get out of the carriage,’ he says, spittle hanging off his lips. ‘Whatever you do, don’t get out of the carriage.’

His fear is a disease, the infection spreading through me.

‘What happened to you?’ I ask, a tremor in my voice.

‘He... he never stops...’

‘Never stops what?’ I ask.

Gold’s shaking his head, pounding his temples. Tears stream down his cheeks, but I don’t know how to begin comforting him.

‘Never stops what, Gold?’ I ask again.

‘Cutting,’ he says, drawing up his sleeve to reveal the slices beneath. They look exactly like the knife wounds Bell woke up with that first morning.

‘You won’t want to, you won’t, but you’ll give her up, you’ll tell, you’ll tell them everything, you won’t want to, but you’ll tell,’ he babbles. ‘There’s two of them. Two. They look the same, but there’s two.’

His mind’s broken, I can see that now. There isn’t an ounce of sanity left to the man. I reach out a hand, hoping to draw him into the room, but he takes fright, backing away until he bumps into the far wall, only his voice remaining.

‘Don’t get out of the carriage,’ he hisses at me, wheeling away down the corridor.

I take a step out after him, but it’s too dark to see anything and by the time I return with a candle, the corridor’s empty.

33

Day Two (continued)

The butler’s body, the butler’s pain, heavy with sedative. It’s like coming home.

I’m barely awake, and already slipping back towards sleep.

It’s getting dark. A man’s pacing back and forth across the tiny room, a shotgun in his arms.

It’s not the Plague Doctor. It’s not Gold.

He hears me stir, and turns around. He’s in shade, I can’t make him out.

I open my mouth, but no words come out of it.

I close my eyes, and slip away again.

34

Day Six (continued)

‘Father.’

I’m startled to find the freckled face of a young man with red hair and blue eyes inches from my own. I’m old again, sitting in my chair with the tartan blanket across my lap. The boy is bent at ninety degrees, hands clasped behind his back as though he doesn’t trust them in company.

My scowl shoves him a step backwards.

‘You asked me to wake you at nine-fifteen,’ he says apologetically.

He smells of Scotch, tobacco and fear. It wells up within him, staining the whites of his eyes yellow. They’re wary and hunted, like an animal waiting for the shot.