“Goodbye, Nadine. I’ll deal with you later.”
She watched him go with a sinking feeling, feeling once more as if something terribly important was just beyond her grasp. Why would he warn her away from his family and then give them exactly what they wanted? Why had he told her to leave, only to leave herhere?
No. It’s good he did that. Now you have time to study the book.
She locked the door and leaned back against the wood, as if trying to draw strength from it, before picking up one of her used t-shirts and carefully using that to pull the book out of its hiding space. She used it to open the covers as well, which were starting to crumble. Flecks of the deteriorating cover had gotten on the black fabric, where one entire corner was missing.
If her sisterhadhidden this book under her pillow, it would have gotten all over the case, shredding like this. Poor Noelle. She’d ruined her face trying to keep this book a secret. Thomas had said her husband had noticed and quickly ordered the bedding changed. Maybe he suspected what Noelle had done—he’d had a rash on his hands when she first came here. Maybe it had gotten onhim.
The pages were thick and yellowed with age but the ink that had been used to write them still gleamed as freshly as if it had been written yesterday. The first couple entries were undated, though given what Dottie had said on the tour, this must have been somewhere in the mid-1800s.
This is the journal of Caledon Cullraven, written to unveil the veracity of my life as I perceive it. I have attained the age of four and twenty years, and my constitution is hale and robust, having recently disembarked from the vessel that transported me hither from the shores of England.
The cost of land in this locale is low, even though it is proximate to a lucrative mine. The terrain is wild and unyielding, with stubborn soil that resists the plow. Nonetheless, I was able to procure a vast tract of land, encompassing a thousand acres, and have begun preparations for its development, for I do aspire to take a wife someday. Furthermore, there abounds an abundance of game to be hunted in these parts—most particularly sparrows and small deer.
The miners in this region are a wary and unsophisticated lot who do not take kindly to a gentleman of noble birth, traveling in their midst, striding with his bow and arrow across their lands. However, they are preoccupied with the toil of their mines and wise enough to avoid crossing my path, for these lands are theirs no longer.
They are mine.
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The journal went on like that for a while, pompous and affected. Caledon took liberal notes on his spending habits, complaining about the vendors in the very same breath that he validated the costs. Nothing seemed to please him except for the theft of life; there were whole pages of his accounts of tracking animals, and of his pleasure when they fought back. He had fallen in love with death, it seemed, the way other men fell in love with life.
Reading the words of the Cullravens’s patriarch, Nadine was struck by the cold tone of his arrogance. She had seen its shallow echoes in the other members of this family, particularly in Nathaniel and Ben, but neither of them had quite mastered Caledon Cullraven’s sangfroid, or his callousness. Reading this book, it was very easy to see why the town hadn’t taken kindly to him or any of his descendants. He seemed like a total asshole.
But that’s hardly worth killing for, Nadine thought, and turned the page.
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December 22nd, 187X
On this day I joined hand in matrimony to my beloved, Jesamyn Cullraven, nee Peters. She is the only daughter of the esteemed mayor, Edward Peters, and her mother, Victoria, has long sought a suitable match for her. She possesses a delicate complexion and “walks in beauty like the night,” yet her aspirations for life are confined to those lowly goals that are already sought upon by her mother. She resembles a pristine canvas or even a mirror, effortlessly reflecting back the desires imposed onto her by others.
This eve, however, it is my desire that shall be borne by her glistening surface. I commanded her presence in the chamber adjacent to my second bedroom and study, envisioning the opulent wallpaper’s gilded hues as a befitting backdrop for her pale countenance and raven tresses.
Tremors beset her form as I approached, and when my gaze fell briefly upon the tapestry haphazardly draped upon the wall, portraying the scene of a maiden captivating a unicorn in those white and marine threads, I thought for a moment of how much my own wife resembles that maiden. Alas, it shall be my lap her head nestles in, for tonight, my horn seeks to pierce.
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Nadine glanced at the tapestry with a sense of foreboding.
Odessa had said this room only became the unicorn room after his marriage to his second wife, but it sounded as if he had taken Jesamyn in here, too.
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May 5th, 187X
Today I did espy my wife Jesamyn in the company of another man. She, who is too frigid for my affections, did allow this brute to take her from behind like a stag rutting his doe. I have long suspected treachery; despite her weak constitution, she has begun taking turns in the forest, and knowing her disfavor for these lands and all who reside within them, I took it upon myself to follow her on the journey from whence she travels with growing frequencies. Thus, the scene before me.
I did observe their congress to completion, and I confess that I felt no emotion. For it did suddenly dawn upon me that they were naught but senseless beasts in that moment, no different from any other, and I, their all-seeing god.
As I gazed upon my wife later at eventide, garbed in naught but her thin shift and a mantle of infidelities, I did perceive her lissome grace and her fair, fragile neck. I pondered how lovely she would appear, unshod in the forest for me as she was for him, her poise ruffled by the elements. In sooth, she would resemble a startled doe in flight.
The notion stirred within me such primal urges that I did insist thusly upon my conjugal entitlements. I was not even disconcerted by the fact that another had already partaken of her favours before me. Nay, for the aversion and trepidation that flickered in the depths of her clear blue gaze did render her mine, as much as the mark I left upon her throat to stake my claim.
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May 16th, 187X
