“You’re lying to me.” He began to raise his voice again and I froze on the spot.
“I’m not, I swear. I’m just as much in the dark as you are.”
“You’re funny,” he said, his voice calming again. It was closer now. “I’ve examined the contents of your purse. I believe them to be real.” A second later he was on me again. He pressed his cheek against mine, bringing his left hand up and running it through my hair until he eventually grabbed hold of it. My face pinned, he brought his lips to my ear, dropping his voice to a harsh whisper. “Ask me why.”
“Why?” I spat out, surprised by the sudden strength in my voice.
He pulled away from me roughly, sending my head back against the stone, and moved once again into the darkness. The return to silence as he contemplated his answer was even more unnerving than the sound of his voice and I took another step sideways hoping to find release.
“I received a letter some months ago,” he began, and I could hear his steps pacing back and forth nearby. “It was from Elinor. She wrote to tell me that she was calling our engagement off.” He laughed as though he could hardly believe she would have the impertinence. “She believed that she loved another and could not bring herself to marry me. I know you’ve seen my house, Tom. Jefferson told me all about your outbursts at the doorstep so you know what I was able to offer her. But it seemed she would rather scurry about with that dirty Hopkin bastard than live the life that I would provide. Now tell me, Thomas, does that make sense to you? No, I didn’t think so, either. So I did what any aggrieved man in my position would do and I rode right over to her house to put her back into her place.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“DON’T SPEAK!” he screamed, and I could hear his pace pick up. I braced myself, expecting to be hit but no blow came and his voice returned to normal as he began to talk again. “When I got to her house her father, none the wiser about her letter, just let me walk right in and up to her room. She was preparing herself to go and meet him. I couldn’t stand it, seeing her dressed like a whore for another man, that stupid necklace hanging down to her tits inviting everyone to look at her. It filled me with rage.
“I didn’t kill her. I know that’s what you’re thinking. I could have. I wanted to. But I didn’t.” His tone was calm, almost pleading, as though he genuinely wanted me to believe that he was the wronged party, somehow. “I tried to reason with her at first, but you know what women are like. She became hysterical, telling me to leave. Me! So I grabbed her. I took hold of her wrists and I threw her onto the bed. She tried to get up. She even slapped me, but the rage had taken me over. If she wasn’t going to be mine then she wasn’t going to be anyone else’s, either.”
“So, you did kill her?”
“That’s the thing,” he said, rushing close to my face again and putting his hands around my throat. “She had such a small little neck, not like yours, and I held it so tightly that I was able to lock my fingers together as I gripped it. She wanted to scream, I know she did, but no sound would come. All she could do was gasp for air. I don’t remember her ever looking so pretty.”
He eased his grip on my throat, holding me now by just one hand, and he dropped his head to my shoulder, almost nestling into me as he chuckled softly. I felt sick feeling him against me.
“You’re crazy,” I said, and he shot upright, bringing his second hand to my throat once more and holding me hard against the wall.
“Do you know what’s crazy, Thomas?” he spat through clenched teeth. “What’s crazy is that as I pinned that harlot down, as she clasped at my hands to get me off, that stupid necklace she always wore started glowing. Can you believe that? Bright red it went, as though someone was shining a light right through it, and just as quickly as I noticed it, she was gone. Vanished. Now that’s crazy, wouldn’t you say?”
He released his grip and moved back into the darkness as I dragged as much air as I could into my lungs. The sound of his pacing started again and I took my chance to keep moving around the edge of the room.
“If you knew all along that I had nothing to do with her going missing then why have you spent all this time hounding me?”
“Are you a superstitious man, Thomas?” he asked, and his footsteps came to a stop again. “Something like that will make you question everything you ever thought to be real. But who could I tell? Who would believe me? Despite the terrible way she treated me and the awful things she forced me to do in that room, I still loved her. Isn’t that something? I loved her even though she’s a witch.”
“A witch?” I wasn’t expecting that one.
“Jack pretended not to know anything of her whereabouts, of course, but I knew they were in it together. Out to get me.”
“You’re completely mad,” I said.
“No, Thomas,” he laughed. “They were mad for thinking they could fool me. The next day I saw him leaving the village, probably on his way to her, so I followed behind him, out of sight. When we reached the top of the hill, I set upon him and we fought. When he reached out to hit me, I grabbed hold of his wrist and could see that just like the necklace, his ring had begun to shine. I tried to prise it from his finger, and I’m pretty sure I broke a few in the process, but he would not give in. The coward turned and ran instead. Of course, I gave chase, but when I rounded the corner he was gone. Vanished, just like Elinor. Then, just a few days later, you show up out of nowhere wearing the exact same ring. Quite the coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“Maybe people just don’t want to be around you,” I said snarkily. I was quickly losing patience with his paranoid tales of witchcraft and conspiracies. “What’s your point, Arthur?”
I wondered if he had been like this before Elinor disappeared or if the sight of her vanishing in front of his eyes sent him crazy. Whatever happened to her, she’d had a lucky escape, that was certain.
“You didn’t hide it well, did you?” he said, changing the topic. “It was almost like you wanted me to find it, to find you out. Was the truth getting too much to bear, Tom? Knowing that you took Elinor away from me?”
“What? Have you lost your mind? I didn’t take her anywhere. She was already gone when I got here.”
“SO THEN WHY DO YOU HAVE THE RING?” he screamed at me, rushing again towards my face. I cowered back as he grabbed my hair and banged my head against the stone wall causing me to cry out.
“How is your father?” he asked, his face inches from mine.
“Dead,” I spat out. I had no energy left to play dumb and I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking that I was shocked that he’d worked it out.
“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” he said, and even through the darkness, I could tell he was smiling. “And that whore, is she your mother?”
“I’ve never met Elinor,” I said, exhausted from going over it again. “I already told you this.”