Chapters (46)
I shook my head and heaved out the words like vomit. “I don’t know who that is, or of any poison that killed him.”
A sudden commotion silenced the men as another officer ran up the bridge. I recognized him as the third constable from the alley. “There’s nothing there, sirs,” he said.
“What the hell do you mean?” Putnam asked.
“I broke through the door where the women came out. Not a thing inside. A dry storage bin full of rotted grain.”
Amid the distress of the moment, I felt a singular sense of pride. The register, and the countless names within, were safe. All of those women, safe.
Putnam jerked his hand at me. “Does this woman look familiar? Was she one of the two we saw?”
The third constable hesitated. “Hard to tell, sir. We were quite the distance.”
Putnam nodded as though he, too, hated to finally admit to this. Craw gave him a stiff pat on the back. “Your case against this woman is losing its legs, good sir.”
Putnam spat at my feet. “Get out of my face, wench,” he said. The three men gave a final glance over the railing, nodded at one another, and headed back down the bridge.
After they had gone, I peered over the edge, my eyes searching desperately for the swirling fabric of a soaked gown or the creamy paleness of skin. But I saw nothing. Only the muddy, unsettled churn of the river.
She needn’t have done it. Her little heart must have thought that by bringing the devastation upon us with her mistake, she must be the one to take the fall. Or perhaps it was something more, like her fear of spirits. Perhaps she feared my spirit, haunting her after my death, cursing her for bringing this upon us. Oh, how I wished I’d been gentler with her about the ghost of Mr. Amwell! How I wished I had softened my tone, gained her trust, convinced her of what was real and what was not. I wanted more than anything to reverse time and pull her back upward to me. I stumbled backward a step, my knees weakened under the suffocating sense of regret.
Regret, but also discontent.
I meant to be the one down there. I meant to be the one to die. Could I live another day bearing this new agony, too?
The crowds had mostly dispersed; they no longer pushed inward, curious. And if I forced aside the memory of Eliza’s fall, I could almost convince myself that nothing had changed. It was just me, alone with the end I had always imagined.
I squeezed my eyes shut and thought of all that I had lost, and then I stepped toward the railing and leaned over the hungry black waves.
32
Caroline