A Beautiful Poison

Birdie had been staying in Allene’s room and welcomed her back after Allene’s influenza symptoms had finally dissipated. Holly stayed in the guest room, banned from sleeping with Birdie because a simple leg jerk in the middle of the night would break another of Birdie’s fragile bones.

The laudanum had reluctantly become a friend, but it nauseated her terribly. She watched the tumorous mass on her leg grow week by week, sometimes day by day, and wondered about her death. Like the menu at Delmonico’s, there were so many options. Would it be a gentle passing in the night or a tumorous stricture somehow choking her to death? Would her bones simply stop holding together and splinter into a million pieces?

The end was drawing near, and she had what she wanted. Holly was in the Cutter house; Allene doted on her, and her sisterly love grew daily. They had yet to discuss Holly’s status with Mr. Cutter, but Birdie didn’t doubt how strongly Allene would fight for her when the time came.

Allene had arrived over an hour ago from the morgue. She’d changed her clothes without waking the maids and crept into bed. She told Birdie everything that had happened, between sobs.

Andrew was gone. Gone! It was too difficult to believe. Andrew, who’d given so much to her family, who’d spent his heart on Birdie all these last months. Gone! Ernie would be having surgery tonight and would hopefully recover. But it was too difficult to understand.

“I still don’t understand why Andrew wanted to hurt him. Ernie is harmless.”

“No, he’s not. Not exactly. He was always in everyone’s business. He was a nuisance, always showing up uninvited.”

“Was he?” Allene’s voice quieted. “I would rather have Ernie be an alive, sweet nuisance than dead.”

“Well. I’m surprised,” Birdie began, then shut her mouth. “I guess it’s not the same unless Ernie’s around somewhere. He’ll be back to doting on you before you know it.”

Birdie waited for the usual quip about Ernie, about how even a stabbing wouldn’t keep him from returning to the Cutter house like a magnet. Her previous words were meant to cheer, but Allene shivered and frowned.

“I would never have dreamed that all this would happen. And . . . I know you must be upset,” Allene began bravely. “Oh God. Andrew! To think he killed your mother! And all the while, he was so sweet on you.”

“Allene—”

“No. It’s all right. But though I’m sad, you must be devastated.”

Was she? He’d been her benefactor and lover. He would have died for her. And now here he was, departed. Blamed for a string of deaths that changed everyone’s lives. It didn’t seem real. She would have felt it deeper in her heart if Allene had told her he’d boarded a train to California and planned never to return.

“I’ll be all right,” Birdie said truthfully. She allowed Allene to snuggle closer to her side (her ribs didn’t hurt so much as her legs and jaw) and sighed. “I have you and I have Holly, for now.”

“Don’t say that!” Allene dampened Birdie’s gown with her tears. “Don’t say for now.”

“But you know it’s true. I might only have another few hours, or days, or weeks. But we both know that before Christmas, I’ll be in the Evergreens like my mother.”

Allene sat up abruptly. In the darkness, only a tiny sliver of moonlight illuminated the room through the gauzy white curtains, which looked more like sentry ghosts than window coverings. “I miss those days when you used to glow in the dark at night.”

“Yes. It’s been a while since I was covered in radium dust,” she said, laughing. That was one of the most magical things about her factory work. No, it was the only magical thing, actually.

Allene reached over to flick on the bedside lamp, with its milky pendulum beads around the shade. They always reminded Birdie of drops of pure sugar. When she was a child, she’d actually licked one, disappointed to find it was tasteless and cool. The amber light flooded half the room.

“Let’s talk about something else. I can’t bear it,” Allene said, kicking off her bedcovers.

Birdie sat up straighter and bit her lip from the movement. Lately, the laudanum had not been working. Her body was in a flux of varying, violent states of torment, seemingly filled with shards of glass, needling her with lacerating, fiery jabs every second. Sleep was no respite, because sleep was impossible and she no longer wished to dose herself into a stupor.

Time was ticking, and she wanted to keep a clear mind while she could. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Let’s talk about the murders,” Allene suggested.

“Oh! And this is going to cheer you up? It’s ever so morbid, Allene!”

“But it helps to think, rather than to feel. If that makes any sense.”

Birdie nodded. Of course she understood. She would do anything to stop feeling so damned much, particularly when it came to her memories, which begged for attention at night. There were a lot of reasons why Birdie never slept any longer.

“Let me show you something.” Allene hopped off the bed and padded to her vanity table, the one Allene always kept locked. From her reticule, she pulled a scrolled, copper key and unlocked the drawer with a snick. She removed a large cigar box, cradling it carefully with both hands, and set it on the bed next to Birdie.

“What is it?” Birdie asked.

“Look.” She lifted the pasteboard box lid and took out a sheaf of papers. “These are the letters. I have four of them. One after Florence died; the one you got when Hazel died; the one Jasper received before his uncle died; and this one, before Andrew died.”

They laid them out on the bed. The script was perfectly written.

“But Andrew never said he killed Florence,” Allene said, confused. She rubbed her temples. “I still don’t understand.”

“What’s that?” Birdie pointed to a small handkerchief bundled in a ball.

Allene unwrapped it in her hand, as if peeling the petals off a lotus flower. Nestled in the center was a broken piece of glass.

“It’s part of the champagne glass, the one Florence drank from.” Allene reached for a tattered piece of printed paper. Birdie recognized it as a piece of the label from Hazel’s medicine, the one that was laudanum instead of the usual paregoric concentration. “You remember this, of course.”

Birdie nodded, but goose pimples ran up her arms and spine. There was no denying that Allene seemed to enjoy perusing and gathering the artifacts of death. “It’s quite a collection you have,” she said quietly.

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