At the first row of trees, we paused. “Leave him here. We must take care of the carriage first,” I told Elin. I walked over to the empty, horseless coach. Raised the axe. Sank the blade into its side.
“Stepmother,” Elin called, from her spot behind me. I brushed my hair back from my face and turned. She was pointing to the front door, which now stood open, Alice in the frame. Her gray hair was loose, and she looked grimmer than usual.
She looked at the carriage, the axe. I doubted she could see the cart in the darkness, but she was peering past me, into the trees.
“How can I help?” she asked.
“There is blood upstairs,” I told her. “Scrub it.”
“And us?” Rosie and Mathilde, holding candles, appeared just behind her.
“Put cloaks on and light a fire. A large one.”
“Use the covered wood, ladies,” Wenthelen instructed, coming alongside them. “It’s dry.”
We all looked at one another. At the empty royal coach. The hacked-apart sides. Everything still wet from the rain. And then, wordlessly, they all moved away from me. Alice, to the kitchens to select a bucket and coarse brush. Wenthelen and Mathilde to gather more wood. Elin and Rosie to fetch more cloaks. And I turned back to the job ahead of me, axe in hand.
They had asked no questions. Whether blind loyalty or trust, I wasgrateful for it. If I had needed them, the words to explain couldn’t have done the situation justice.
The carriage was meticulously constructed from beautifully carved wood, with leather stretched over its top and sides. The windows were glass. The wheels marked by decorative carved spokes. I raised the axe again and again against the side of the coach. Hacking apart what remained of the heraldic symbols. Ripping velvet curtains from their frames. Smashing wooden wheels.
Each time I raised the long-handled tool, I felt grateful for the buckets of water I’d carried. The bundles of wood. The bushels of apples. The body of a hawk I’d lifted, again and again, arm extended, muscles taut.
Once the pieces of the coach were small enough, the women brought them, one by one, carrying the larger parts between them, to the fire they had built. Hot flames welcomed wheels and wood. Leather blackened. Carvings smoldered. Iron brackets glowed red. When the last of the dismantled carriage had been placed into the embers, we all stood around. Sparks flew up into the air. My girls’ faces were lit by the blaze. Their twin braids gleamed in the yellow light.
Elin reached into the folds of her dressing gown and pulled out her little booklet. Alice caught my eye. Both of us concerned, momentarily, that we were about to be quoted at.
But Elin surprised us all and tossed the thing into the fire.
“I will not be saved by a book,” she announced.
We said nothing, and instead stood for a moment, watching the cinders devour all those nice words of virtue.
Elin and I left everyone at the fire and pushed the cart across the property. Over the potholed, soaked grass. Past the rows of gnarled trees. I looked back, once. At all of them, circling the oversized flames. Working together in their ignoble pursuit.
We scraped ourselves going through the hole in the laurel. Shovedthe cart. Emerged with leaves in our hair. But from there, there were no obstructions along the familiar path. Across the road, down the embankment. Past the many skinny-trunked trees. Along the winding dirt walkway. The dense growth even denser at night.
At the stream, we abandoned the cart and reverted to carrying Simeon by ankles and wrists. There was no avoiding the water. We went in, shin deep. The body got drenched. Elin dropped his feet. His torso floated between us. When we finally made it over, we lowered the prince into the soft mud, panting.
“There you are,” I told him. “Royal land.”
His head cloth had come off in the stream and I looked at his disfigured face. “I suppose we’re both monsters now.” The thought did not bother me. I was done pretending. I was happy to gobble people up. To eat them whole.
To Elin, I said: “We need to bury him.”
I went back across the stream to get the shovel from the cart. We took turns, though I did the greater part of the labor. My body was ready for it, still running on some kind of inhuman fuel. Though it was a shallow grave, and the ground was softened by rain, the digging took hours. By the time we shoved him in, the sky had begun to lighten above us. A deep indigo that washed to gray. Just enough daylight to watch Simeon disappear beneath shovels and fistfuls of dirt.
Remorse still had not come. I thought of his hands on my neck. Of Lucy’s feathered body, twitching on the ground. Of blood spurting from Elin’s nose. Of a bite mark from unknown teeth. Of Hemma. I dropped another fistful of dirt on his ugly face and when we had finished, we flattened the ground with the soles of our boots. Covered the fresh dirt with old leaves.
We looked at one another a moment. We were sweating and our hems were blackened with mud. Dirt encrusted our nails. Elin’s nose had begun to bleed again. “I have a blister,” she told me, extending her hand to show me. And there it sat, in the meat of her palm. Round, white, perfect.
“It will heal.”
She withdrew her hand. Inspected the bleb. “I do not mind.”
We made our way back across the stream, wetting our hems anew.
“Should we have said some words for him?” Elin wondered.
