Page 42 of My Darling Girls

With a sharp exhale, Grace rolls her shoulders and stares at the pattern on the wallpaper as if it’s made of glass and she can see through it. “What do you mean?” The girl’s voice is defeated, eaten away by something inevitable and dark.

“I think . . . I think there might be a connection. You and Sally running away. You and Millie talking about your plans. Millie wanting to come with you. I think you’re the connection.”

Grace’s eyes widen. “You think they died because of me?”

“I’m not saying that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m not sure yet. I need to think about it some more. I might be wrong.”

“I think you’re wrong. Ira’s a connection.”

“Why do you say that?”

Grace gets to her feet and walks over to the dresser by the window. She opens the bottom drawer, shuffles through the silky underthings, and takes out a stack of photographs. She shoves the pictures at Jo. “Take a look.”

In the picture, Sally, very much alive, is smiling. One hand is suspended in the air as if she just brushed a strand of her hair away from her face. Another is placed on her thigh. She is reclining on a purple sofa, surrounded by small pillows. She is naked, her breasts are on full display, nipples hard. Her legs are spread wide, her vagina framed by a mass of black hair. Her gaze is directed at the camera.

Jo’s mouth goes dry. Her stomach clenches so hard she cannot take a single breath.

“This is what Ira does to the girls here,” Grace says. “Sally was his favorite. He used to brag about how popular her pictures were.” She perches on the end of the bed. “When he found out Sally and I were trying to leave, he was furious. And he said if Sally left, he’d put Millie here instead.”

Jo’s blood boils, and she wants to scream in rage and in fear for the girls, but she pushes it all down. “Do you know how he found out about your plans?”

Grace shakes her head. “Someone must’ve overheard us talking about it. Millie used to be so loud.” A taut smile appears on her pale lips. “Never could keep her voice down.”

Jo looks down at the photograph in her hand. It’s professionally done. The images are clear and sharp. And then she sees it—the photographer’s stamp in the upper right corner, and the ground shifts beneath her. Her lips tremble. She knows she should say something, do something, but she cannot feel her limbs. Her breathing is rapid, and yet there’s no air in the room.

“Are you all right? You look sick,” Grace says.

“The photographer who made this picture. Did you know him?” Jo whispers hoarsely, and not able to contain her own private agony, she drops the photographs on the floor. They scatter on the carpet like dead butterflies. The room starts to spin.

“I didn’t. Sally didn’t like to talk about it.” Grace’s face contorts into a terrible grimace as she sniffs and wipes away her tears. Her eyes search Jo’s face. “Did you know him?”

Jo shakes her head. She can’t talk. She can’t think. The room is oppressively small, a prison cell. It’s cold and full of rot. There is no light in here. Only shadows and death and filth. So much filth. There is a movement in the corner closest to them. A shape emerges.

What are you going to do, Jo?

Jo considers Sally’s question. But mostly she thinks of her life with August and how she’s been so caught up in protecting her own secrets she’s missed everything else. How could she not know her husband had a dark side? How could she not know what he was doing?

“We should go. We’re done here,” Jo says. Her voice is weak. She’s barely holding herself together. As she says it, her vowels sharpen, and her consonants get rough. She sounds like the miller’s daughter. She sounds like someone she promised herself she would never be again.

Outside, a bolt of lightning pierces the gloom. The rain beats against the window, a loud, threatening thrum.

“Jo,” Grace says. “I still want to leave. I cannot stay in this city, with my family. I hate their pointless cruelty. All they bring is destruction. Will you help me escape?” Her voice is low, practically a whisper, as if Grace is afraid the dead girl on the bed is eavesdropping. “You’ve escaped once, haven’t you?”

Sally sits up in her bed and laughs, a loud and unnatural sound that hangs for a long time in the stiff air.

Godless

Had she really escaped?

The question swirls in Jo’s mind as she stands in front of the well. If she truly escaped, why does she keep coming back to this place? This courtyard. This odd dimension between the worlds. Some part of her—a damaged and ugly part—wants to relive her life from before. The memories of that life are still alive, hidden deep and strung together on a string—tangled and half rotten. They terrify her. And yet, every time she sees the well, she willingly dives into its waters. She cannot change her past, can she? But she can confront her deepest, darkest secrets.

She can repent. But only with the help of opium. Sleep evades her without the drug. Whiskey doesn’t help. Dreams won’t come. Jo tried, after Sally, to stop using the drug again, but the cravings were strong and the pain in the joints was incapacitating, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to be present for Grace. Not like that—a shaking, sweating, incoherent mess. With the laudanum constantly on her mind. The courtyard. The well. She can’t escape them. She can’t escape herself.

She definitely can’t escape opium.