IT’S A POOR DOCTOR INDEED WHO KILLS HER PATIENT. A BRILLIANT ONE, THOUGH, WHO REVIVES THEM. It wasn’t hard to imagine who she meant. The Lady lowered a cherry into her mouth, sucking away the flesh from the stone. Miranda. Always, she meant Miranda. Smiling, laughing, to the Duke, she went on to flippantly add: IT’S FUNNY, ALL THE WAYS THINGS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL WHEN A PEASANT RULES.
Too bold by half, but she’s grown comfortable with him. A dreadful pity, then, that it was only his face, only his look. What reason had she to suspect that Miranda could become another?
Only a day later, she turned a fine, ornate door handle and entered her dining room to take supper in the dusk when there stood Michael Dimitrescu, her predecessor. This would have been a fine thing, had he not been dead for eight years. She’d eaten his heart herself, genuflecting before Miranda.
He was pale, his dress shirt and suit are stained crimson. Like cherry.
For a moment, the world tilted. She realized it was her, her head tilting and her throat humming with things she’s unsure to say. She couldn’t leave: this castle was hers now. She wouldn’t share. Not even with Dead Cousin Michael.
“Michael!” She trilled, nervousness making her voice more spirited. As if her next words might be : what a pleasant surprise ! Her hand gripped the door, prepared to slam it shut with her on either side, depending on how sudden Michael’s next movements were. This is wine. This is medication for her never-silent bones playing with her mind. It’s your rotten conscience, her inner voice said. Hardly, she retorted to herself. But her throat was sticky. Her mouth was swollen with the coppery, dense taste of heart in her mouth.
“How? How are you here?” She demanded, finding her voice. The notion that it was Miranda, shifted into his dead old shape, could not have occurred to her for all the money of the Dimitrescu estate.
