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She had to let him go.
She'd dragged him back to her, that awful bloody morning, and he had folded her to his breast. Selfish, but she had lost everything else, she could not bear to lose him as well. Her only comfort now was his arms around her, and the desperate hope that he might still avoid the pit of Hell to which she was consigned. She'd dragged him back from one brink, and in so doing was now dragging him towards another, but the farther she sank the harder she clung, and he clung to her in return. She had nothing else, not even the promise of God's mercy. How could she let him go?
Already she felt herself entombed, her limbs increasingly heavy and unresponsive in daylight hours, her mind sluggish and cottony. If only she could wake up! Instead she reclined on the couch and dreamed of burial. What would it feel like, the crunch of her breastbone beneath the mercy-giving stake, when her soul at last escaped its prison to fly free? The scrape of a lid pulled aside, her resting place flooded with paralyzing radiance, the face of her beloved, haloed in sunlight, the implements of her deliverance in his hands. Or might he be her Orpheus, to take her by the hand and lead her out of this world of dread, raising her up to new life and life everlasting. But even in her fantasy there was no hope for them, and as she lay powerless he climbed into the tomb beside her and pulled the lid over them both.
She woke to the taste of his blood in her mouth, sweet and life-giving, and opened her eyes to find him there in truth as well, holding her hand. He had not left her side. He never would - he had made up his mind, and even she could not change it. The tenderness of his gaze crinkled into a hopeless smile when he saw her stir, and he helped her back to a sitting position. And perhaps his eyes lingered a bit too long on her lips, still anemically thin - he kissed them quickly, half daring anyone to prevent him.
She should have, she knew that. Who could say what poisons lingered there - despite her efforts she could still taste the rankness that had infected her, and still feel that presence slumbering in her mind, waiting, those hooks working their way into her heart, ready to pull her wheresoever He willed, at her Master's command. But she didn't stop him, because then he would have stopped, and even so brief a touch set her muffled senses ablaze.
She felt a smug satisfaction in it as well. This man belonged to her, and while she be not free at least that which possessed her must suffer the knowledge and proofs of that fact. His love, his care, his lips, his hands, were hers alone, by willing gift and legal right and solemn pledge. So much the better if each caress reminded the Monster that what He had failed to take by force and terror she enjoyed in fullness of devotion. Ah, but legal right was also fiduciary duty, and as he belonged to her and she belonged now to Another, she had to let him go.
She tried, oh how she tried. She had shut him out again, and the separation was killing them both, but she was not her own. He was handling it as well as he could, writing what he could no longer speak, keeping a lamp futily burning for her. He didn't understand why she would return on her own instigation to the darkness, having once been cruelly abandoned there. But the darkness was in her now, she could not escape it by standing in the light, she could only darken what was still bright. She could not save herself, and she could only save the rest of them by retreating to the dark and shutting the door.
It was the same with their lodgings here. The first night when she retired he had frowned where she couldn't see, but he followed her wordlessly to bed all the same. Why return to the site of their misery? It was not an unreasonable question. And to be sure she could have asked for a different room, none of them would have denied her anything, not now - but what difference would it make? Altered sheets would not make her less unclean. Her very flesh was defiled - what matter the linens?
But still he came when she called to him, even in the silence of her heart. When she woke in the night she clung to him, dreading to be alone with the Monster, afraid to touch him but more afraid to let go. He kissed her throat, her brow, her mouth, asserting his claim against God and Devil alike. It was not she who repulsed him, only those who had wronged her. But it was she who would wrong him in time, was wronging him even now, all because she could not bear to let him go.
She wished she could tell him that he could not restore her to life by loving her corpse. She was too deep into the darkness for these distractions of a moment to drive it back fully. But he was making an effort to make the prison of her body a pleasing habitation and she could at least do likewise. So she returned his kisses deeply and desperately, nuzzled into his embrace, their bodies seeking the closeness their minds were denied. Until her lips accidentally brushed his throat and he stiffened - she could smell the terror on him, taste it (surely her teeth had not yet become so sharp?), hear it in the desperate pounding of his heart as all his being urged him to flee from her... she moved to pull away, but the hand that had been stroking her hair now kept her pressed against him with unwonted forcefulness. It both thrilled and frightened her. She had married a man of infinite gentleness - what was he becoming on her behalf? And yet his defiance, his anger, was intoxicating. She wanted him, and why should she not, he was hers - but was the urgency pounding through her the desire of a wife... or of a wolf? She could no longer tell the difference.
Either way he would not let her go, so after moment she resumed her gentle nibbles down his neck, rewarded with tiny moans that might have been sobs, until she reached the safety of his collar bone. Now his hand was on her breast, his thumb just as involuntarily tracing the spot that must someday soon receive a far sharper point than the one at his loins now desperately seeking hers. He found his target and drew her to him and she lay back and tried to give herself over to sensation, all the while imagining each rhythmic thrust of him the strike of hammer against stake. Waiting for the blow that would shatter her. But the release that came was not the release of death, and too soon the darkness crowded back in, even as they lay panting in each other's arms.
She watched him as he drifted gently into sleep, free for a brief moment from both the dreams that still tormented him and the waking nightmare their life had become. He was the color of moonlight now, and she knew she was the one who had so marked him. Not that he seemed to care or even notice - he avoided mirrors even as she sought them out, more afraid of what they didn't show than of what they did. But it made him a light to her, a bright glow within the gathering gloom. Perhaps it was his soul she could see shining through, still white and spotless - and still knit to her blackening one. She had to let him go.
She wondered if it would be kinder simply to take him now and spare him the suffering that was to come. She knew he would not be turned or stayed from his course once he had made up his mind, and she would sooner bear the guilt of a murderer than have him bear the guilt of a suicide. Finding him cold and bloodless would surely steel the resolve of the others whom she had so foolishly made love her. Mr Morris was on guard in the hallway even now, and he, at least, could be trusted not to hesitate when need or duty called. Tomorrow might yet find them both at peace at last.
Instead she rested her head on his breast and listened to his heart beat. Steady and certain. Soothingly regular, like the clack of keys or the chug of trains. Predictable, knowable, human - a blinking lighthouse in the sea of wonders in which she found herself adrift. Marking out the time through the tedious hours till morning.
The coming dawn would lift the weights from her mind, briefly loose the restraints on her tongue. Then at last might she weep, or scream, or confess the secret longings of her heart. But she wouldn't. Duty bound her just as securely as the Monster that possessed her and the monster she was becoming with each passing night. Each second of freedom was too precious - she dare not squander them on mere self-indulgence. What profit her these moments of lucidity if their Enemy escaped them? Dead though she be and damned, at least let her end not be in vain, and all their suffering come to nothing.
But she had a duty to her husband as well. The gulf between them stretched ever wider and soon would be unbridgeable, and still she owed him her last goodbye. Each time she surrendered herself to the hypnosis the fear gripped her that this time she would not return and she would have missed her chance. She had to let him go, while she still could.
And he had a duty as well, and needed to be free to pursue it. She had dragged him back from it once already, unable to bear the thought of losing him. But now she knew that she was already lost, and he was the one unable to bear this truth. If it came to a choice, he would choose her, and doom them both. And this she could not allow. Where she was going he must not follow. But he was all she had left. How - how could she let him go?
She had to. She knew this. She had to she had to, before she killed him and worse, before he destroyed himself for her, while she still had enough of herself, her mind, her will, her soul, to do such a thing. She had to and she would, she would, she would. She would find the way.
She lay nestled close against him, held safe and warm in his sleeping arms, breathing in the scent of him, the taste of him lingering on her lips, the gentle rise of his chest, the quiet rhythm of his heart. This man who belonged to her. She had to let him go.
But not tonight.