“With this blood, I mark you a true Morton, the last Jessica.” He smeared his thumb down my left cheek, then my right. “Forever one of us.”
“My last tears,” I said. “These tears of blood.”
“Fides sine cura,” he ended.
And I felt it there, in my dead cousin’s room, the final settling of the mors curae—the death of care. My rabbit, twelve years ago, and now Peter.
At last, everything was certain. No more conversations with dead girls. All the other Jessicas, finally at rest.
Cyrus wiped the knife, then handed it to me. “Is there anything else of his you’d like to keep?”
I looked around the room, and old memories of Peter rushed in. Long stretches together in absolute silence, standing still enough that birds would alight on us. Finding dead animals in the fields, the barns, the forest, prizes for the maggoting room. Seeing the gristle and liquids of the natural world, knowing its smells.
The gifts he’d give me afterward.
“His bone collection,” I said.
For the first time, Cyrus smiled. And it struck me that I’d loved Peter, even as I let him fall.
That was what the death of care allowed.
7
The next morning, my closet presented me with a dilemma.
My family wears black to funerals, like most. But a blooded Morton adds a stroke of red: a scarlet tie, a sprig of azaleas, the cardinal feather in Uncle Orrin’s hat.
It seemed disrespectful to wear all black today—as if Peter didn’t count. I’d had a necklace picked out since I was twelve years old.
But Grandmother’s order of secrecy stood. If rubies flashed at my throat, everyone would know in an instant what I’d done.
It felt strange lying to them, even by omission.
I needed clarification.
Before Faraday woke up, I walked through the morning mist to the Great House, let myself in the back door, and climbed the servants’ stairs behind the kitchen. I skipped the squeaky steps and took care not to disturb the spiderwebs.
Outside the door was a tray of dirty dishes and a covered bedpan. I knocked and went in.
Mother was awake. Mother was always awake. She was propped on a stack of pillows, holding a book and a pencil for scribbling in the margins.
She didn’t look up, just said, “Thereyou are,” as if she’d found me hiding behind the settee.
“Good morning, Mother.” Hunched by the slanted attic ceiling, I couldn’t really bow.
“It’s warmer today,” she said, and twirled her pencil at the window.
I went to crank it open, stepping my way across piles of papers and books. Mother had always been messy for a Morton. As her sickness had settled in, so had her bad habits.
A cold breeze coiled through the attic window, stirring the papers, the dust, the spiderwebs. It was not warmer today.
“Cyrus told me about your misstep,” she said. “You’re lucky it was Helshire. The FBI wouldn’t have missed that. Even a half-decent local detective might’ve noticed.”
“Peter sometimes carried loose chalk in his pockets.”
“Which would leave residue in those pockets, would it not?”
I didn’t respond. I’d already spent last night going over all the ways the police—or the always curious Lindqvists—might still catch my error.
