“No, dear. He’s fine.” Kate rubbed the girl’s chained ankle beneath the blanket.
Charlotte flopped down into her pillow. “I tried so hard not to change. But that boy was throwing rocks at Imogen. He shouldn’t have done that! It made me so mad.” She squeezed her face tight, trying not to cry.
Imogen held out the dress to her friend.
Charlotte opened her eyes and stared at it. But she turned away. “Why should I bother? I’ll just ruin it. I’ve destroyed every dress you gave me.”
Imogen sagged and brought the dress back to her lap, and the two girls lapsed into silence.
Kate scowled and folded her arms. “Truly, the two of you give up too easily. Charlotte, I can have more dresses than an elephant can carry brought here from London. Mrs. Tolbert will have them altered in no time.”
“You mean I can stay?” Charlotte’s eyes brimmed.
“Of course, but you must calm down and not cry.”
“Not even tears of joy?”
Kate smiled. “Well, maybe just a few.” She grabbed up the two girls and hugged them.
That night, Malcolm unlocked the cellar door and swung it back. In the dim half-light from the short candle he carried, he saw the small shape curled on the bed. Heavy snoring came from the sleeping figure who appeared to be a little girl. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, leaving his hand against the heavy wood and iron for a moment. He set the candle on a small shelf and continued to watch the figure.
Charlotte.
They used its name when they talked about it; when they talked to it. Like it was a dog. God help them, like it was a girl. That pathetic pantomime of a tea party Kate staged was ghastly proof of just how deluded she was. The wulfsyl had failed. The thing went berserk out in the garden and could have killed that innocent farm boy. And it could have killed others who would’ve been complicit in their own deaths.
Malcolm wouldn’t stand by and watch them continue to make such a dreadful mistake. He would do what none of them could.
He pulled one of his Lancaster pistols, cracking the breech and checking to make sure it was loaded with silver cartridges although he knew it already. He had spent a long time in his room, loading and unloading, before he made the long walk through the silent house. Downstairs. Into the library. Through the door to the cellar. He had stood in front of the door to the cell with the key in his hand for nearly five minutes.
Malcolm carefully closed the pistol breech, but the snapping sound still echoed through the room. He froze. The werewolf grunted sleepily and kicked its feet. The chain jangled. The little creature rolled onto its back, dropping its blanket on the floor. It lay sprawled on the bed, arms outstretched, breathing through its wide-open mouth in the carefree slumber of youth.
The Lancaster hung heavy as if it weighed thirty pounds. Malcolm’s finger worked its way around the steel edge of the trigger guard as his arm lifted. He could smell the gun oil. The thing on the bed snorted and moved its little mouth up and down. It sniffed the air unconsciously, then gave a sigh. He watched the gentle rise and fall of the thing’s chest. It was clad in a soft nightgown embroidered with flowers. It pushed its head deep into the pillow and threw an arm over its forehead. The snoring commenced again.
Malcolm could no longer feel his fingers clutching the pistol. His heart pounded in his ears so loud he thought it would wake the sleeping creature. His arm lowered. He turned away from the bed, his jaw aching from clamping down so tight.
Imogen stood in the open door. The strange pale figure weaved on her feet. She wore a nightdress and had a bonnet tied tightly on her bald head. The common clothes against her inhuman, bleached skin made her even more disturbingly peculiar. The tendril-like fingers of her right hand dangled from her frilly lace sleeve and was paler than the skull that she clutched in the other. Imogen made no sound and her face had the stillness of rictus. Her glistening whitish eye gazed past him to the sleeping werewolf. The inhuman eye rolled downward to take in the massive pistol in Malcolm’s hand before it whirred up to lock on Malcolm.
“Imogen.” His voice was rough and hesitant. He held the queer gaze for a long moment, unsure what she could even see with that false eye. “You shouldn’t be down here.”
She merely stood bobbing slightly back and forth. The mechanical eye remained stationary, independent of the small movements of her head.
Malcolm looked away. He walked quickly to the door, but when he reached it, Imogen didn’t move aside. Her face was still turned forward as if the little werewolf snorting blissfully in the bed had her full attention. But the mechanical eye continued to make a soft whir as it tracked the Scotsman’s every move.