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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

“I know.” Rebecca pressed her hands to her eyes for a moment, and sighed again. “I don’t even know if the things I see in my dreams really happened or not. I remember—I think I remember—waking up lying on my bed with my hands tied, in the dark, but I have no idea how I got there. Orion had come earlier, of course, with some more of the Hand of the Lord’s wretched sermons, but I know he left. And I remember going out a little later, and seeing Queenie standing in the alley gate, talking to one of the men who buys kitchen leftovers—grease and suet and such, only of course Mrs. T. forbade her to sell them. The way she started when I spoke to her, I suspect she was selling other things, like the odd spoon, or a few ounces of Mr. T’s cognac.”

Abigail sniffed. “I wondered if ’twas something like that. The way she lied and prevaricated about having been in the alley, or having talked to you—”

“Miserable woman. I suppose,” she added, “that living under the same roof with Mrs. Tillet would make anyone miserable, let alone a thief and a liar. I remember talking to her, and going back into the house as the rain was starting, but nothing after that.”

“We think—John and I,” Abigail said slowly, “that Orion must have unlatched the window in the parlor when he was there earlier, and slipped back in that way while you were out talking to Queenie by the gate. Yours was the only house, you see, that he knew he could get Mrs. Pentyre to come to alone.”

It was the blood, Orion had said. I thought I could kill her without . . . But then I saw the blood. Smelled its smell . . .

Had Bargest told him, You’re a Weapon in the Hand of the Lord, but for God’s sake don’t go crazy and cut the woman to pieces like you did those others . . . ?

A Weapon in the Hand of the Lord.

Was Sam? Was she herself, as Lisette Droux had hoped?

“I dreamed—I don’t know even if this really happened,” whispered Rebecca. “I dreamed I saw him through the kitchen door, standing above her body . . . Blood all over his hands—”

“Don’t—”

She shook her head, pressing on as if driven to purge the scene from her thought. “Blood all over his hands, and he looked down at them, at her, as if he knew not for a moment how it had got there. Then he looked up, and in my dream I swear I saw the light of Heaven, falling from far-off on his face, and he cried, Why have you done this to me? Why did you create me this way? Abigail, why would God create a man that way? Will he be punished—is he now in Hell—for being as God made him?”