Chapter Eight - Cordelia

 

Upon falling into the glas, and the subsequent return romp through the countryside back to Old Billie Lane, Cordelia had, at some impossible-to-recall moment, sustained a fracture to her shin. This was demarcated by a distinct one-inch diagonal depression into her right shinbone, three-quarters of the way down between the patella of her knee and the round joint of her ankle. 

It’s called the patella because it derives from Latin. Small Plate. Or Cup. 

It was accompanied by three different sensations of pain. Direct pressure, such as a prodding finger, results in a sharp, narrow sort of pain - highly localized to the miniature canyon cleaved through the firm ridge of bone. Pressure of ground impact, such as walking, running, or jumping produces an even harsher bolt of anguish, one which spirals out from the wound itself and into the surrounding organic material.

Lastly, and adorning Cordelia with the greatest source of aggravation, is the dull, hollow, constant pressure of chronic action. The march back from the glas only revealed this pain to her upon the following morning, whereby descending the stairs at the Drayburh residence was enough to force her to halt at the concluding step and catch her breath. Her prolonged usage of it in the following days had done nothing to abate this pain - in fact, it should not have surprised her that such extraneous expenditure would only worsen the feeling. It should not have surprised her. And yet it did. 

During some long ago dissection, some surgeon held aloft a patella and decided it was most fittingly reminiscent of a small plate. Or cup. Patella. Brilliant. 

As for the former two sources of pain, those acute damages, she had become aware of them during their slog home. She realized this quite early into the return journey, as the pain became too notable to dismiss outright, but she’d said nothing about it to Annette. To begin, it didn’t feel imminently dangerous at the time - her leg hurt, she could cope, and there was nothing to be done about it when they had miles of countryside to hike through. No sense in causing new problems. She’d intended to resolve that issue back at Old Billie Lane - a plan which was forgotten quickly in the face of a blossoming miracle of witchery before them. 

Beyond this accident of intent, there was a modicum of intentional deception in her action. Annette had not taken well to the theory of her detective’s poisoning, nor had she responded with great acceptance at Cordelia’s reluctance to seek medical attention. Cordelia felt, in that instance, that adding yet another concern for her own health would only further Annette’s impatience with her. She’d meant to bring it up the next morning, just as she’d meant to apologize for her dismissal of Annette’s care for her health, but the sudden disappearance of the tree which had spawned, destroyed Old Billie Lane, and left without so much as a whisper of goodbye before the next morning, placed Cordelia in a firmly sour mood.

So she said nothing of her fracture that day as she tended to her frustration that Annette had insisted they find shelter instead of investigating the miracle in the moment. Cordelia intended to tell Annette the next day. And then she did not. And so she promised herself she would raise it to Annette the day after. And then she did not. And all the while she was modifying her gait in front of Annette so that she did not seem to possess a limp. And then she was deflecting when Annette was worried about her. And then she was swept away into the grit of detective work. 

And it was not until the fourth day of their time at the Drayburh home that Cordelia realized she was avoiding Annette. Deliberately. 

It made her feel monstrous. 

So she immolated herself on the vice of her work to atone; or, perhaps, to cope.  

The first documented presence of the Coven is a mystery to Cordelia and to Fieldston at large. Accounts vary widely and with scrupulously fantastical detail. Some claim its lineage carries back thousands of years, prior to invasions of the Kerish Isle by those from abroad. These stories are often joined by methodical, nonsensical genealogical accounts which Cordelia dismisses wholeheartedly. Others claim it a more recent innovation of the prior year - a sudden burst of cavorting wild women laying assault to the foundations of modernity. 

The truth likely lay between. Cordelia documents between nineteen and twenty-four encounters with the Coven; six of which she uncovers significant enough testimony or evidence to corroborate. This six, in her reporting, does not include the reforestation of Old Billie Lane, nor the mysterious buried forest underneath the glas. 

Cordelia credibly accepts the first interaction with this Coven at two-and-a-half years prior. Related to her by a widower on the edge of town, one James Carbes, she learns the report of his wife’s demise. For months leading up to it, Martha Carbes was, in James’ perception, acting wholly unlike herself. Her typically stoic demeanor was slowly growing more erratic, and she began to make horrid exclamations at random, would hardly sleep at night, and carried a glassy-eyed stare through most days. James pleads with the Abbot to speak with her, fearful she’s been possessed by some ill spirit, only to return home and find Martha lifeless upon the porch with no clear cause of death. The next morning, James awakes to find a bone-and-twig idol standing at the edge of his property and concludes she had been hexed by a vengeful witch. 

Five months later, Sharon Leeds is walking home from visiting her family in the outer countryside. She takes the Lowhills road, which tucks up right along Beuir Woods, and finds herself out past dark. An innocuous glance into the woods reveals an unusual campfire not far in, and when she investigates it to ensure it isn’t a wildfire in the making, she suddenly finds the world around her is spinning. Her right hand and forearm feel cool and wet without warning, and she claims to lift off into the sky, flying around in the night for hours before being deposited in a grassy field not far from her home. Multiple neighbors of hers attest to discovering her unconscious in the grass the next morning, where she spoke these events frantically upon awakening. Cordelia was loath to consider it with much seriousness, until Sharon mentions that beside the campfire, where moving shapes of people flickered back and forth before the flames, she witnessed a standing altar eerily similar to the one she and Annette witnessed in the glas. 

Three months past that, Edgar Wainrow purchased a new property east of Fieldston. From day one, he attests that the land which seemed lush and fertile prior to his purchase was suddenly barren and hostile. All of his livestock die without warning or cause, approximately fifty lost in total. Seeds won’t take root. The soil seems empty of life. Even in the present, he’s abandoned the land in favor of the other properties he owns in the county, letting this lot lay vacant and downtrodden. A visit from Cordelia to the location confirms a salted field, just as with the O’Darcy farm. 

A year ago, Rian McDowell bolts awake to find a witch in his bedroom, covered in a strange furry cloak and standing over him chanting. He finds himself unable to move, completely paralyzed upon his mattress, while the woman’s words blur together incomprehensibly. All the words are lost upon him, save an utterance of the Coven’s patron goddess, Hanelliaen. The witch disappears shortly after he awakes. The next morning, he can move completely fine once more, and no damage is done to him other than a soiled pair of undergarments he must’ve produced while unconscious. A surprisingly similar story happens to Ian Faithull two months later, except that a return visit from the witch leaves him dead a week later. 

And finally, the salting of Alma Brien O’Darcy’s farm. 

Connections between the cases elude Cordelia. The reports come from a mixture of Emrish and Kerish residence, span across town - though occur more often on outskirts or rural roads - and remain unstratified on wealth. Edgar Wainrow is a landlord of prominence in the county. Rian McDowell lives in destitution. Emrish and Kerish respectively. 

Which leads her to speculate a cause that is not ideological, at first glance. Unlike the Mallets and the Winchester Conspiracy, whose victims fell clearly along lines of labor and economy, the Coven seemingly strikes at random, with no clear factors amongst victims indicating features of note. She questions each for some duration, finding no common through lines save for an enjoyment of lamb’s meat and a belief that one ought to stay away from the glas. Most, though not all, grew upset that Cordelia was willing to state the name “Hanelliaen” aloud and without fear. 

Cordelia does consider another venture out towards the glas. One morning she even assembles a small pack of supplies to take with her - a canteen of water, an extra pair of socks, another coat, and a full loaf of the bread Annette baked for her that day. She ultimately decided not to risk the stress upon her fracture, and resolved to return as soon as her injury would allow. 

Ah, and there is her first appearance of the morning. 

It’s as she’s making her way through Main Street on the fourth day of the Drayburh vacation that she once more notices the Shadow Woman. In this instance, she has taken up her lifeless posting upon a rooftop three houses down from her, standing still and frightless as ever. Her long, obsidian hair remains sprawled and motionless in the air, unfettered by the caress of a morning breeze. 

Cordelia doesn’t even halt her step to consider the apparition. Shadow Woman has become something of a constant fixture in her periphery these last days, sometimes disappearing for a few hours before inevitably making herself known once more. She stays mostly unchanging in her appearance, only deviating from her stoic stillness when certain environmental promptings support it. Cordelia had once seen her sit in a chair. Thrice she’s been leaned up against a chimney. 

She considers the representation of her slowly forming madness without much fear anymore. In the glas, Cordelia had tested the hypothesis that the Shadow Woman might have been a product of poisoning - and so she induced herself to expunge that possible poison, much to Annette’s displeasure. And true, the Shadow Woman disappeared from her for a few hours, almost giving credence to the idea. But midway through the return journey, after Annette and her stopped to consume the remainder of the little pouch of food they’d each brought for themselves (Cordelia was still jealous of the soda bread Annette saved from Alma’s bakery, having been forbidden from consuming it herself), Shadow Woman reappeared as though nothing was the matter. 

And Cordelia does figure the Shadow Woman to be something of an icon - an omen of her impossible mind. She’d grown used to possessing a mind unlike others; had accepted her difference and borne it forth as a central feature of her identity in the world. Cordelia Jones is not capable of being similar to a common man, and therefore, must internalize and comprehend those differences instead of fighting for conformity. The common man’s mind does not conjure up incanterous figures to haunt their periphery - but Cordelia’s might. Annette already joked that Cordelia was like a figure from one of her novels, and how fitting, in a way. It is certainly one way of typifying her differences. 

To have one’s mind demarcate its loosening grip on reality with an ill omen is as storybook as Cordelia could fathom. Therefore, she accepts Shadow Woman’s intrusion without further protest, and adopts the hope that befriending this omen, or at least providing her calm nonchalance, will make that journey easier. 

More difficult is to accept the potential consequences of her metaphor. Cordelia is not fond of the possibility that her mind’s candle might be flickering. She has always considered herself to be a profoundly and beautifully lonely person, separated from everyday company by an invisible barrier of their minds. Everyone has something she seems to lack. She possesses something that no one seems willing to understand, save a few who have made the effort. And so, amongst this poverty of companionship, her mind is something like her only friend. To be losing it… well, Cordelia wonders if she might be unique in grieving the destruction of her mental acuity. 

Her stomach turns as she finds herself standing in place. Her eyes target the now-empty position where Shadow Woman had been. Her right hand rests on her breast pocket where the letter still is. A quickly drawn breath to compose herself, and then she’s off once more, briefly allowing her mind to wonder how long it would take Annette to notice her building insanity. 

 

– – – 

 

It’s not the worst infirmary Cordelia has ever been in, though she can’t remember what is. It’s the sort of thought that consumes her as she sits on a spare cot, fidgeting with her hands in her pockets and waiting longer than she’d like to wait. This wing of the Abbey is relatively small; a quaint room with space enough for five slightly grimy cots, with cracked brick walls and a smoldering fireplace in desperate need of a chimney sweep. 

Her finger keeps worming its way to the trigger of her revolver in her coat pocket, sliding down the curved hook thoughtlessly. She removes her hand from it as quickly as she notices, unsure of why she was feeling such a need for its comfort. Cordelia isn’t particularly fond of the weapon, doesn’t like the dispassionate anger of a bullet when compared to the intimate brutality of the fist, but she keeps it with her all the same. 

Something about the Winchester Conspiracy changed her, she realizes. She never used to carry a pistol on every case, regardless of whether or not she was hunting down an active murderer. In her first few years as a detective, she couldn’t even bring herself to own one. It was actually at her mother’s insistence that she took up arms in this way, training herself fiercely in how to wield one and how to take care of it. How many cases could have so quickly gone violent and she would have had no recourse to protect herself, save for a bloody knuckle? 

Yet, after the whole mess with the Mallets, with the Winchesters, with Pemberley Exports and Morrigan Blackburne… Cordelia finds herself latching on to the comfort of quick, retributive violence. If a gun were to be drawn she could respond just as quickly. She spent hours practicing nothing but a fast draw and a quiet holstering. 

It was the look in Annette’s eyes when Cordelia had handed her a revolver for the first time. The poor girl was frigid as the Fennes river, unnerved by even the weight and possession of it. She’d stared down the chamber and almost resented Cordelia for teaching her how to aim it, as though Annette was now party to a violence of action she could never again claim not to know. Cordelia instead wonders if all she did was rob her of her innocence. Annette could never un-fire her first bullet. She’d killed Darrius Winchester in self-defense, but so too did the act damage something within her. 

Thank you for teaching me to be Annette, this wonderful woman had once said, then kissed Cordelia for the first time. But what education had Cordelia provided her, save that of the destruction of Annette’s innocence? What newfound pain had she introduced Annette to, solely so that Cordelia might not feel quite as lonely? 

Cordelia knew this right away. She remembers just as clearly the first time she brought forth her pistol to bear and lept into a gunfight. No one had died that day, but that was not true for every battle she’d been in. Cordelia kept a private count of the lives she had taken, and tried not to feel burdened with guilt for it. Unsuccessfully, she might add. 

But Cordelia is used to shouldering impossible feelings. She’s had years of witnessing the grotesque, urban horrors people pretend not to see in a city. No one likes to look down a dark alley, and even less are willing to stoop down and gaze upon a mutilated body at its furthest point. Behind every article of discarded clothing in the street, Cordelia can see the person who would have worn it and hazard a guess as to what took it from them. With every scream in the night, whether a person or a locomotive, Cordelia can picture the violence creeping underneath - the violence of murder or the violence of coal, it doesn’t matter. 

She’s never quite at peace. The world can be a gruesome place. Victims suffer not just the aching of grief that comes with losing a loved one; they suffer even greater upon the shattering of normality that murder provides. The social contract, shredded like a used newspaper. The promise that life is beautiful and kind and that people are good cannot sustain the feeling of seeing a knife plunged into a chest for money. The two realities cannot coexist. Some see it and descend into denial. Others suffer with a darkness in them the rest of their days. 

Cordelia’s finger returns to the trigger and wonders when she stopped feeling either sensation. Did she ever? 

The letter. 

She swallows, and removes her finger just as quickly. Outside the angular, stained glass windows of the Abbey, the cool silhouette of Shadow Woman covers the morning dew. 

“It’s not… it’s not… armmpth.”  

Maud Clower’s voice gently nudges Cordelia out from her musings once more. The mad woman has flirted with consciousness the last hour, muttering nonsense as she tosses and turns. She makes a noise like her esophagus being sucked out through her lips, then twists so that she’s facing away from the detective. Cordelia isn’t sure whether or not her presence has been made known to the woman. 

She’s coming… and now she knows your name, Cordelia. She’s coming. 

Annette had dismissed Maud at their first encounter, deciding she’s nothing more than the local lunatic, and Cordelia doesn’t blame her for the fact. In every city there were Maud Clovers, screaming on street corners, spitting in faces, urinating in alleyways. Annette had grown up near the downtown of Bellchester, and had lived on the streets for no less than a few months. She had seen plenty of Maud Clovers. 

But that exposure, Cordelia surmises, has led to a heuristic in Annette’s mind to ignore them. There isn’t much to be done for Maud, save for what the Abbot may provide - a decent cot, warm soup, and company if she’ll accept it. It is frustrating, for Maud may never be pleasant company, may never show appreciation for the effort. Cordelia doesn’t even consider that a character fault, it’s simply the way it is. 

Maud makes a gurgling noise, then twists her knuckles around the frail blanket upon her. Her jaw chews rapidly, as though eating a great feast.

What people fail to consider properly, Cordelia decides, is the story behind Maud. No one ends up as the town lunatic overnight. There’s a history there; a trail of wretched events which led her to her present state. 

And somewhere along that trail, Cordelia sees the Coven. 

“For you should fear neither rain nor flame, 

Neither spear nor arrow, 

Nor pestilence nor plague - 

But only the vengeance of the dirt

And the Goddess who knows your name. 

 

Fear the very Earth, Cordelia Jones.”

 

Cordelia repeats the note aloud to herself, muttering under her breath. She’d committed it to memory almost immediately, which had been great fortune as the rain soaked it on the walk back. Subjects of her investigatory work have, on occasion, left notes of this sort to her, either to discourage her, or frighten her, or try and show off how much smarter they believed themselves compared to her. Most of the writing was bluster and theater, poetry with the intent of frightening her. Cordelia is not easily scared. 

But Maud, in her delusional, strange rambling, had uttered that same phrase in Alma’s bakery. The goddess knew Cordelia’s name. Never mind what symbolic significance either party intended to spiritualize onto that sentence, it was a connection she found impossible not to latch on to.  

“Still here, eh?” 

The Abbot shutters open the heavy wooden door, slipping past it as it struggles to open on its hinges. He smiles apologetically at his interruption, but steps his way into the room so that he might stop at Maud’s bedside. 

“She hasn’t awoken,” Cordelia says patiently. 

“Might not. She’s usually asleep most of the time,” he grunts, shrugging his shoulders. His burly, brown robes bounce up and down with his heavyset torso. He leans closer to Cordelia, and murmurs, “I think her mind’s just tired from being unwell so often.” 

Cordelia considers Abbot Dewey with the same disbelieving scrutiny she always treats him to. He’s not much to look at, save for a heavy mop of dark brown hair and thickly muddied eyes - plain, large, and priestly. But something is wrong about the man, apart from the obvious sin of taking up ministry as a profession. She’d known it instantly about him, though the particular details remain elusive. Rather than reply to him, she turns back towards Maud and watches her with intent. 

The Abbot places a sausage-fingered hand on Maud’s forehead, stooping over to check its temperature, then brushes his palms off on his smock. His arms cross non threateningly over his idle chest, and he shrugs. 

Without prompting, he says, “You know, not everyone hates the Coven. No, ma’am. They’ve got some sympathizers.” 

What’s he playing at? 

Cordelia holds static. “Have you ever known anyone to agree on anything?” She mumbles boredly. 

He chuckles. “True enough.” Cordelia doesn’t understand why he chuckles. She’d not said anything funny. “If that was the case, my job would be mightily easier.” Then he tilts his head to the sky and holds out his hands deferentially. “Not that I’m complaining, Holy Father.” 

Do I just implicitly distrust clergy? It seems a healthy bias, as far as biases go… but still… 

Annette, between the two of them, possesses far greater reason to treat the church with suspicion. The nuns of her orphanage were creative in their abilities to punish her into obedience; and despite their best efforts, Annette is not one to comply in that way. She’s a rowdy sort, at her core. Cordelia likes that. 

She’s briefly distracted by the image of Annette’s rain-drenched hair sticking to her face as the two of them hiked through Kerish countryside. The light flush of pink on her expression from exertion. The sweat mingled on her brow. The focused, determined threat of her eyes. 

Cordelia takes a low breath and secretly enjoys the scandal of fantasizing about a woman in the presence of an Abbot. She’d not made enough time for Annette these past days, and ought not to have been avoiding her. She should correct that upon her return home this evening. 

The parchment in her breast pocket presents a moral quandary, which she pushes aside. 

“I’d also ask, madam Detective,” Abbot Dewey breaks the silence, his voice far more serious than before, “if you’d refrain from bringing along your firearm upon your next visit.” 

Cordelia had not noticed her finger looping around the trigger in her pocket once more. The pang of guilt at being caught abates rapidly, replaced by a fascination that the Abbot recognized a pistol even when concealed in a coat pocket. What had given it away? 

She lies immediately. “What firearm?” 

Dewey rolls his eyes and sighs, bringing about the air of a parent catching an adolescent in an obvious lie but humoring them. “Of course. What firearm? There never is one, is there.” He looks weary, and Cordelia loses a few seconds trying to read the microexpressions in that breath. The Abbot shrugs once more, and steps between Cordelia and Maud. “She’ll likely sleep all day. If it’d ease your work, I can take note of what she says upon waking.” 

Cordelia recognizes the feeling of someone trying to kick her out, and decides not to fight the issue. She stands, thanks him, and slowly slips out of the room, allowing the backgrounds of her mind to concoct theories about the man based on the quick interaction. She’d learned a great deal in such a short time, and would need to allow those revelations to stew. 

The foregrounds of her mind remain preoccupied with the image of Annette’s form and the memory of its naked splendor, and her feet just as easily begin to carry her back home, eager. 

 

– – – 

 

“A base of operations? A secret lair? Some sign of where these foul bastards are operating out of?” 

Algers rests against his large shepherd’s crook like a wizard with a staff, wielding it in such a way one might assume he’s never before actually seen a shepherd at work. Cordelia concedes that neither has she; but even in the short amount of time she’s had to compare Algers Cunninghill to the true shepherds out flocking his beloved Wensleydale sheep it’s obvious the difference. The actual shepherds move efficiently, without exaggeration. Their actions are dedicated to a conservation of energy as they work tirelessly. Algers performs like an actor on stage - dramatic movements in imitation, in essence, but with none of the pragmatism of someone doing the proper work. 

He had his shoes shined this morning, too. Expensive polish, from the looks of it. 

“It is an investigation in progress-,” 

Algers interrupts as naturally as breathing, “But you will find it, won’t you?” He shuffles his weight so that the crook rests against his shoulder. “I’ll be damned if the witches outplay the great Cordelia Jones.” 

Cordelia holds herself stoic. “It is a slow process, Mr. Cunninghill. If the reports are true, the Coven has entrenched itself quite effectively throughout the town, a complicated web of members and sympathizers. If I pluck any strand of the web with too much force, it’ll-,”

“Summon the matriarch spider, to follow your metaphor,” he completes. “But that’s good, isn’t it? Provoke the leadership out from hiding, then prune them at the source.” 

“I was going to say it would snap the thread and they’ll retreat.” She purses her lips patiently, trying to get him to understand. She finds her pocketed hand flick against the revolver once more. 

Hardly any fresh mud upon the boots. Has he just been standing and watching this whole afternoon? Did he freshly polish them midday? 

“They are a fundamentally covert operation, Mr. Cunninghill,” she explains slowly, deciding he was more likely to follow her logic if the information was presented as one would to a schoolboy. “It has not been uncommon for them to act and then go to ground for months. If startled, if threatened, if made to believe they cannot act on their own terms, they will disappear and it will be months before I can pursue them again.” 

“Damn,” he grumbles, staring off at the flocks down the hills. “Damn.” 

He’s slouching and his left left is holding more tension than the right. He spent the morning playing shepherd, then retreated for a polish once he pulled a muscle. 

Cordelia wrinkles her nose as a waft of the flocks’ odor lifts along with the breeze. In her estimation, sheep are the fourth worst livestock in terms of aroma. Third falls to the pigs, second to goats, and first to cows. Cows might be her favorite to gaze upon, she finds the highland variety to be particularly endearing in form, but they are uniquely upsetting to her senses. She prefers to view them from some distance. 

“It is clear from these early stages that the Coven is no small outfit. There will be many figures at play, and I intend to take survey of it methodically and with purpose. Given time, a stray mistake will give way to a larger opening, and then progress will be more satisfying to your hopes.” 

Cunninghill nods, satisfied by her estimations. Content, he speaks to her for some time about his land and its productivity, which Cordelia listens to with little interest. Indeed, she finds his obsession with property to border upon embarrassing - so vacant an interest is land. Cordelia can’t imagine caring about such things as acreage or renovation. 

Unless, of course, such details were intricately connected to something of far more enjoyable interest. A murder, perhaps. Maybe an assassination. 

“-will be gathering together for company tonight,” Algers says suddenly. Cordelia realizes that his statement was not actually sudden, but rather that she had ceased to listen. His brilliant smile finds its way to her. “I should like you to be there, to give a report to interested parties.” 

Not wanting to give away that she had ignored him, she selects a neutral phrase. “And who all will be in attendance?” 

“It varies by who is available. On a good night, we should expect Thomas Norfolk, Edgar Wainrow, Alstair Goodman, and Clarke Caraman,” he says happily, as though such names were good omens and that Cordelia ought to be excited upon their utterance. It takes Cordelia a moment to deduce that they must be neighboring landowners, and as such, Alger’s social companions. 

Curious, and feeling obliged, Cordelia accepts the invitation. 

And with her acceptance, Algers bids her farewell, descending back upon his land as an over-eager partner, sure to stomp and march his way with the greatest of joys in his simple little heart. Cordelia is none too relieved to part ways. He’s paying an extensive sum to fund her investigation, such that her sometimes finicky finances will be sated for the next half year, but that doesn’t mean she must be enamored with the man. 

Far more interesting to her sense of enamor, Cordelia launches herself back towards Hill Castle to locate Annette. She’d learned from the Drayburhs that her woman was once again to be found alongside Susie O’Hinnley, helping with the many tasks it’d take to run a home, and surely having great fun. With luck, Annette is gleaning valuable information regarding Fieldston and its social intrigue. The Coven is enmeshed, and Annette is easy to speak with. She has no doubt in her partner’s capabilities. 

And should she perform a similar feat as with the Mallets, incurring such favor as to be fully welcome within their midsts… well… She swallows and pats her breast pocket. 

It’s better this way. Safer. 

Cordelia stamps down the dreadful ache in her stomach, the feeling of jittering angst in her bones. The feeling, brought about so suddenly and with a greater sense of realism, comes on surprisingly and with fury, gripping her as though fighting for its life. Christ, it was easier to endure in Bellchester. So many miles away, this difficult calculus couldn’t assail her in this way. But now, in Kereland, she can picture it so clearly. She can already feel the horrendous guilt on the ferry home. 

A brief nod to the Shadow Woman lurking somewhere off in the hills, a quick massage of the headache in her temples, and she buries the weight of all these emotions with the cool gravity of a gravedigger. 

You need to keep Annette safe. No matter the cost. 

It wasn’t fair of Cordelia to do what she has done to Annette. She could’ve lived a comfortable, secure life with someone like Samantha. A servant of a noblewoman’s house, tucked away as a perfect, adorable scandal and living with all of her needs met, with all of her safety ensured. An affair comes with risk, to be sure, but Samantha is careful and Annette would be well regarded.

But Cordelia had been lonely. She had seen potential within Annette, dormant and waiting for someone to activate it. Cordelia could no longer bear the weight of… well, whatever she could call the stupendous convolution of her mind, alone. She needed someone else to see her for something other than a brilliant disaster. How long had it been since someone had held her as sweetly as Annette does without Cordelia having paid them for the pleasure? How long had intimacy not been something bought and purchased? 

She’d ruined Annette. Spoiled her innocence for the sake of her own need for companionship. Someone else had to roll around in the muck with her, and Annette was the unsuspecting victim. The girl deserves a quiet, calm life, full of the simple joys - friendship, hearty meals, and peace-of-mind. Cordelia’s is a world of fresh horror, a world where the presumption of guilt clouded all and where murder is always a few important seconds away. 

She thinks about the first time she’d made Annette witness a murder scene and shudders. God, Cordelia had been so gleeful about it, pushed Annette to stifle her rightful disgust and to partake in the dark spectacle of investigation. Why had she been so insistent that Annette feel the way she feels about it? Why had it been so necessary for her soul to force that sin upon another? 

Unable to accept that quandary any further, Cordelia considers again the feeling of need upon her flesh. It’s all too easy to contemplate the seductive glow in Annette’s perceiving eyes, the desperate way the woman will latch onto Cordelia’s skin and refuse to grant her peace. Cordelia had known plenty of women in intimate moments, had given in to her fair share of stolen kisses, but none had ever felt quite as sweet as Annette. 

It’s because Annette is good, she decides. Fundamentally. The woman saw the world and could correctly worry out right from wrong; justice from the lack thereof. Annette carries a sense of moral righteousness within her, something which Cordelia envies greatly. Where Cordelia had experienced the Winchester Conspiracy as nothing but another mystery to solve, another covert actor to expose, Annette had been taken away by the morality of the issue. 

And if Annette, good and upstanding and perceptive, could gaze upon Cordelia and see something redeeming… perhaps there might be truth to that. 

The monstrous Cordelia Jones and the saintly Annette Baker. 

Cordelia finds herself smiling, until she considers again the possibility that her influence upon Annette is a corrupting one. A stern reproach finds her brow. 

Annette, at about the same moment, finds Cordelia. 

“Miss Jones, I’d not expected to see you until later this evening,” she chirps. Standing beside her, carrying a bin of freshly laundered clothes, Susie stands protectively. “Do you have need of me?” 

Cordelia catches Susie sizing her up, eyes carefully watching her as though ready to defend herself at a moment’s notice. She gazes upon Cordelia’s firm demeanor, the recently formed frown upon her face, and appears distrustful. 

“I… indeed, Miss Baker,” she replies, shaking off the grips of quiet which had seized her on the walk back. She feels her injured shin complain as she habitually places balance upon it, but decides not to adjust again for fear of Annette noticing. “I was just coming to speak with you.” 

Avoiding. 

“Miss Baker has been working all day,” Susie’s accent pips up, almost standoffish. Cordelia hadn’t realized early evening was beginning to form in the sky above them. “She’s entitled to leisure.” 

“It’s alright, Susie, I am happy to comply with-,”Annette begins.

“Collars still have rights.” 

Cordelia tilts her head, sharing an expression with Annette. It’s been some time since they’ve had to properly play the role of owner and collar. “I’d not meant to impose-,”

“You might not have assigned tasks to her today, but she has been working non-stop regardless,” Susie documents. “It is within the rights of her contract for her to rest and have time away from duty.” 

Cordelia pauses. “Miss Baker, might I speak with you alone, for a moment?” 

Annette bobs her head affirmatively, also seeming surprised by her friend’s sudden defense of her rights. She takes a step forward, only for Susie to gently tug her hand to hold her in place. “I’ll remain close, should you have need of me.” 

“Thank you, Susie,” Annette squeezes her hand appreciatively, then steps away with Cordelia. 

Susie remains perched upon the anterior porch, watching them from thirty paces away. She places the basket of clothing down beside her, and crosses her hands over her chest. 

Cordelia, caught unawares of the dynamics at play, turns to Annette apologetically. “I’d not meant to impose further hardship upon your day. Should you desire rest-,”

“You haven’t,” Annette dismisses. “I’m not sure what’s gotten into her just now.” 

“Have I been asking too much of you?” 

“Dearest, you could ask more of me.” 

Cordelia can’t shake the sternness of Susie’s gaze. “But she seems to think I’ve-,”

“Ignore her,” Annette shrugs. She takes a breath, allowing more warmth to enter her face. Cordelia notices her eyes also studying her, but with a different agenda that her friend had. “It’s good to see you.” 

“Likewise. I, erm, well, it’s good to see you.” 

Tell her you need her. 

“How goes the investigation? What excitement have I missed?” There’s something under Annette’s tone she can’t read. 

“It’s… well, I’ve simply been…” Her tongue feels tied into a knot. When did it become so difficult to speak to Annette? It’s been some time since she’s been so flustered around her. “I didn’t, erm, come to speak to you about the case.” 

“I see.” 

She’s disappointed. 

Cordelia swallows her dry mouth. “I haven’t seen you enough, these past days. That’s what I’m trying to say.” 

“Nor I, you.” 

“Splendid,” she puffs back, then quickly stammers, “Not that it is splendid you haven’t seen me. Rather, I meant it was good we feel the same about not having-,”

“What’s gotten into you?” Annette tilts her head, reading her over. “You’re like a schoolgirl fumbling about right now.” She smirks, and speaks slowly. “Unless, of course, you’re feeling particularly captivated by something.” 

“God, yes.” 

Annette is careful to ensure her back is to Susie as she replies. “I’m feeling quite the same.” 

Cordelia watches her lips form each shape with something ravenous inside her. She forces a long breath out of her nostrils and shoves her tightly clenched hands into her pockets. Revolver. She removes them. Unable to find words enough, she simply nods graciously. 

“Susie is insistent I join her and some friends at the pub shortly, which I suspect is the origin of her sudden defense of my leisure.” Annette tells her, and Cordelia’s eyes have taken to carefully watching the delicacy of her hands. “I feel it’s a commitment I should keep, for the sake of ingratiating myself within the town, but afterwards…” She steps closer and whispers. “Afterwards I should like to find a quiet, secluded place to take a walk with you.” 

“Very good, Miss Baker,” Cordelia chokes out, then clears her throat. “Excellent.” 

“If you’d meet me downtown in, say, three hours, I’d be more than happy to give you space to make amends to me.” 

“Amends?” 

Annette rolls her eyes. “It’s not been my choices that have kept us apart lately. Amends.” 

You’ve been avoiding her, monster. 

“Amends. Understood.” 

“Why, thank you, Miss Jones.” 

Cordelia nods, feeling herself buzzing underneath her heavy coat. “I’ve likewise been invited to a social engagement that I ought to attend. I look forward to greeting you afterwards.” 

Annette glows brightly. “Cordelia Jones, attending a social engagement? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” 

“Cunninghill, and his landlording fellows.” 

She makes a disgusted noise, like Cordelia had just suggested she was going to spend an evening shoveling dung. “Brave of you to agree. Have fun discussing acreage and cigars and scotch. News updates from the colonies. Lively.” She shudders. 

“It’ll go by quickly with the knowledge you’ll be awaiting as my reward.” 

“Awaiting your amends,” Annette corrects. 

“Amends. Right.” 

You’ve wronged her. 

And with a chipper smile full of a light, buzzing enthusiasm, Annette bids Cordelia farewell and returns to Susie’s side. The Hill Castle collar glares at Cordelia once more, for good measure, before hefting the laundry up onto her hip and departing inside. 

Cordelia, feeling a great many feelings and not knowing where to put any of them, finds herself watching them leave with the utmost interest; wondering, and wondering, how she could possibly deserve Annette. 

It’s simple. You don’t, culls the voice inside. 

Now with something sour in her heart, bristling against the pocket where the letter lay, Cordelia has little choice but to accept the analysis from within. She does not, and could never deserve Annette. 

She’s the greatest love you’ll ever know, says one voice. 

Cordelia eyes the Shadow Woman down the hill. 

A second voice emerges from within her, almost as though the spectre could speak into her mind. It would be a shame to bury her. 

Swallowing gravely, Cordelia feels hairs on her neck stand at attention - unsettled as soldiers upon a trench, ready to die for something they couldn’t possibly believe in enough to justify the act. A heaviness consumes her as she finds herself imagining what that beautiful name would look like engraved upon stone, set upright beside a grave. Instead of flowers, Cordelia would burn a fire with all her notes, all her case supplies, all her letters and journals, everything that made her herself. She would be nothing upon the tragedy of Annette’s death. 

You can’t deserve her. You can’t ask this of her. 

Cordelia sorely wants to. Selfishly, she concedes. She unfolds the letter from her pocket and reads it once. Twice. A third, for the sake of certainty. 

It will be kinder this way. Far kinder. 

She does not deserve to die. 

You would not survive grieving her. 

Still as marble, harsh as fire, cruel as a winter’s chill, Cordelia feels it deep within her chest. The next three hours are a challenge she needs to overcome. Her mouth feels parched. On the other side lay Annette, perfect and honorable and so, so, so adoring. Before her, the horrendous reality, written in ink. 

A decision rests between the two. 

I need a drink, she finds herself thinking. 

And thinking. 

And thinking. 

And approaching Hill Castle to meet with Cunninghill and his wretchedly boring friends, she has latched on to the only uninteresting thing Annette had said. Acreage and cigars and scotch. 

Scotch. 

She swallows. 

Scotch.

It was easier when the decision was made before leaving Bellchester. It was easier before her feet had disturbed the ground of this broken land. Annette’s home. 

It was easier when Cordelia could convince herself that her future self could find some clever way to solve the quandary. 

Cordelia would have to return to Bellchester alone. 

To bring Annette would be to condemn her. 

Annette is making friends. 

And Susie has become protective of her. Good.

Good. 

She, unsuccessfully, attempts to rationalize the irrational. And the great Cordelia Jones, detective extraordinaire, eccentric and perceptive, master of the art of murder - fails. 

Scotch.