Archive of Our Own

“I have other things to be concerned about,” she shrugs, when I ask her for the thousandth time why she doesn’t get another blanket.

She’s cold all over, but somehow, squashed together in this pathetic excuse for a train cabin bed, all springs and background hum of late night working students, it’s her feet that have me moving and complaining. We have to be inconspicuous, travel like we don’t have a dead man’s fortune being transferred slowly into new bank accounts.

“For God’s sake,” Danny says, and then something in German that she knows I can’t understand. She gets out of bed, and I prop myself up on my elbow to watch, constantly curious how she’ll change her surroundings.

She crosses over to the dresser, takes out a pair of socks, and leans against the wall to up them on. She slides back into the bed, pressing herself along my back.

“Be still,” Danny breathes in my ear, and I shiver, her hand on my waist, socked feet brushing against my own.

I shoot Maxim DeWinter dead-one bullet, right at the temple because anything else would be  wasteful- crouch, sit back on my heels, and consider what to do. 

I didn’t think he would have so much blood in him. It’s going to get on my bare feet.

Dawn is threatening to grow across the sea. Burning.

Mrs. Danvers eases my fingers off of the weapon, my cold hands stiff. She murmurs half forgotten instructions. Not before her thumb smooths blood from my cheek. 

I brace myself and let the cold jewels of a diamond necklace from my birthday slam across my face. Sharp, stinging pain at my left eye. A bloody, battered wife.

Perfection.

She is nothing like I wanted her to be, nothing like I wanted to hate.

The cold, brilliant light of a morning in Brussels, Rebecca DeWinter says hello, and with a tenderness that makes me want to burst into tears, presses a kiss to my scarred optic.

Gasoline is sharp. Manderley is burning. Wind across the sea makes things even better.

We will never go back.

Even so, as we speed down the hill, her hand leaves the steering wheel to hold my own. I’m crying, close to dying in our getaway car. Mrs. Danvers’ mouth is set.

“It’s too fucking cold,” I moan.

“Language,” says Danny, unmoved. I didn’t think I would mourn when she cut her hair, more fashionably, normal for the times. “You picked Vienna.”

“You should have worn gloves,” says Rebecca. I can see the edges of a sly smile starting, marked with red lipstick. Her own dark hair, managed to be dyed a beautiful auburn. “Catch your death.”

According to them, I look more alive as a brunette. 

“Hilarious,” I say. I try to rearrange myself on the lounger. Get comfortable. It’s impossible with wicker. Rebecca rises, crosses over, and sits beside me. She takes off a glove.

“Give her your hand,” Danny says, and watches the scene over another cup of coffee.

I sigh, stretch out my arm and close my eyes against the winter sun. Rebecca turns my palm up and presses two warm fingers against my wrist.

A beat.

Her breath is at my pulse point. My blood warms, my heart quickens. I breathe.

“She has a rabbit heart, dear,” Rebecca says. I open my eyes.

Danny smiles. “Now stop whining.”

“Why?” I mumble, half asleep in this expensive car, speeding down a road surrounded by thick, dark trees on all sides. We can’t stay in one place for too long. Vienna to Munich.

Mrs. DeWinter must know I’m a physical creature, they both must know, because my head is against Danny’s shoulder and my hand in Rebecca’s lap.

She hasn’t stopped tracing the lines of my palm for fifteen minutes.

“Why now?” I press. Stifle a yawn. I’m drifting. Close to dreaming.

Rebecca’s gaze doesn’t move from the blurring sight of trees outside.

“I learned to die a long time ago. You allowed something different.”

We stay in the Alps, a plan of a month. Some days, I make coffee. Some days, I crawl underneath my bed for hours. They have to coax me out, tame the frightened animal inside of me. Maybe I was a solider in a past life, held by shell shock. 

I scream too much at two in the morning. I wake up in the garden, dirt stained feet from sleepwalking. I train Jasper to go to them when I vanish. I can do nothing but stare into space while they make breakfast. I twich. I can do nothing else. 

Strawberries. They taste like ashes. I burst into tears. 

When the well bribed doctor says hysteria, Rebecca’s fingers pause their carding through my hair. My favorite spot on Tuesdays is the sunroom couch with my head in her lap. Danny’s mouth turns down in displeasure. Her thumb runs over my knuckles.

I’ve known I was sexless in desire since I was 15. I will not be subjected to such nonsense. A waste. The stupidity of orgasms three times a week.

Supervision, then. He has glasses that are too big. Exercise. Laudanum for the nightmares.

I watch Danny master a stubborn mare with circles and kind words. I let my fingers entwine with Rebecca’s on cold early mornings, our shoes on grass with Jasper trailing behind. 

I move to their bed three times a week.

They’re strange about the snow. It’s one of the things I like about the two of them. Thin dressing gowns, bare feet on freezing marble. 

I have faint memories. False memories of growing up. This is the first that is real.

I have frosty windows now, pressing impatient hands to the glass. The hum of their conversations in French and German. Living, kind hands leading me back to bed, my steps half-asleep.

Nightmares fading with blue comforters and the familiar weights on either side of me.