I put out the cigarette and walked into the kitchen, wary of Luke’s silence. I stepped into the hallway to look for him. Finally I found him in his study, stuffing something in an envelope. “I’ll be back, okay?”
“Okay,” I said. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d leave me today of all days. If he knew what I planned, maybe he’d abandon me. He’d betrayed me before, never cruelly, but then I’d never plotted to kill him before. And Malique had cautioned me not to trust him.
He didn’t even look at me as he passed me in the doorway. An unsettling feeling was forming in my stomach. Perhaps it was an aneurysm that would do me in while he was gone, leaving my innards bleeding out into my body.
I went back upstairs, carefully. Avoided windows. Checked the safety of the headboard and sat on the puffy duvet. I stared at my purse. Suddenly I had a strange desire to think of all my former selves: tragic Juliet, hopeful Nora, and wise Sandra. I felt an overwhelming sense of love for each of them, as if they were my own, flawed children.
I heard the door open and shut rather abruptly, then I heard footsteps that I knew to be Luke’s. They were always the same, those footsteps. He stood in the doorway and I looked up at him. His eyes looked sunken and tired, a dark, dull blue that I hadn’t seen in all my years of gazing into them. In that moment, I could see how much pain he was in and how much he loved me. He held something in his arms. It was in a box.
“Here.” He placed it in my hands.
I opened it to find the familiar leather book with the goat symbol—Althacazur. Luke had kept it for me all these years.
“It’s your power.” He kissed my neck.
I stared down at the box with the book. Why was he giving this to me now? He’d given me more pieces of my story, and now the grimoire. Did he think that I could stop the curse? And if I didn’t succeed, I would have all this information about Phillip Angier and the grimoire. If I failed, this would help me the next time. Was he helping me?
As we sat there next to each other, I was aware of everything about Luke: the blond hairs on his arms, the cut of his jeans, his breath. I reached over and pulled him toward me. If this was literally going to be my deathbed, then I was going out the way I wanted to. Nora and Sandra hadn’t had the gift of that knowledge. I grabbed his face, probably more roughly than I’d ever done. There was such an appreciation, a finality to every kiss, every touch, like I was carving him with my own hands and I needed to remember the location of every muscle, every line, each hair and contour.
As my hands reached to slide his T-shirt over his head and then to unbutton his jeans, it wasn’t just me; I felt Juliet, Nora, and Sandra—their desire and their disappointment. It was as if I had the energy, the emotions, and the senses of three different women within me—all of us focused on this one man. I remembered trying to make caramel sauce and ruining three batches because I’d scraped the sides of the pan. You had to let the ingredients sit together for a time, undisturbed. So that’s what I did. I let each woman inside of me take her time—knowing it might be the last time we’d be together with him. I think he knew it, too—hell, he knew everything.
Although there were many incarnations of me, there was—and only has been—one of him. As I ran my hands over the curve of his back, I felt the familiar thin layer of sweat that always began to form before he came.
After, he held me in his arms. He took my hand and put it against his left rib. His voice was soft, and he held my hand there. “When you do it. You have to plunge upward. It’s very important that it be upward. Do you hear me?”
I felt my insides swell. My breath left me. Tears welled in my eyes.
He took my chin with his hand. “Look at me.” His voice was so soft, so patient. I recalled all of the versions of him: standing in the dining room, his hand on Juliet’s shoulder; on the boat assuring Nora that Clint would never find her; and cradling a bleeding Sandra in his arms.
“I can’t do it.”
“You have to do it.” He met my eyes. “I need you to do it.”
I shook my head violently and sat up. “But I love you too much.”
“Then you have to do it. I can’t take this anymore, Red. You know I can’t. This thing was all wrong. I think we made something beautiful out of it, but you might not come back as you again. This one was good, but it’s done. You don’t need me anymore.”
I thought of the Hanover Collection. He’d gathered everything together under one roof for Roger and me. Proof of life. Our lives. His too.
“You need to do it now,” he said. His fingers entwined with mine. “I can tell you don’t have long.”
I turned my head to look at him.
“I can’t watch you die again.”
I got up and opened my bag, finding the knife buried at the bottom of my purse, lurking innocently behind my iPhone. I held it in my hands. It was heavy, and I could smell the sweetness of the leather case. I sat on the edge of the bed.
“Take it out of the case, Helen.” The use of my name jolted me. “You know that you have to do this.”
“What will happen to you?”
“I don’t know… and isn’t that great, in a way? Maybe I’ll be free again—we’ll both be free.”
“I can’t accept that uncertain fate for you. If I die, at least I know what will happen in this curse. That script is already written. We just act it out again. I’ll see you again.”
He pulled me toward him and kissed me. His hand held my head for a moment. “Helen, you didn’t need me in this life, but I can’t take this anymore. Please, Helen.”
I took the knife out of the case. The red blood had dulled to something that looked like a Cabernet stain. I looked at the spot on his chest that he’d shown me.
“I love you.” He smiled. “All of you.”
With that, I began to sob, rather violently. “I love you, too.”
“You have to hurry.” He took my hand and put it exactly where it needed to go, even correcting the angle, never taking his eyes off me. I think he pushed my hand. I’d like to think he did. It’s hard to accept that I did that of my own free will, plunged the knife into his chest. Like the pulling that Juliet felt when she went into the Seine, I thought I’d felt a tug on my wrist, right where he’d held it. Or perhaps I’d only imagined it and it had been my hand after all.
The entire room began to swirl. I wasn’t sure if it was me or the room. Then the doors blew open and I heard windows begin to shatter one at a time, the sound coming closer.
At first, there was blood, lots of it. Oddly, Luke looked calm and peaceful, his torso slick with blood. I held him until he began to change. His skin became rigid like a smooth stone. I saw the bits of him hardening and for a moment, I could see that this was what he really looked like; this was the period of waiting for him when he was in limbo, his features now rubbed out like he was carved in marble. As I touched him, he began to disintegrate. I kept touching him, willing it to stop, until Luke’s body was nothing but a pile of light gray ash. And then that dust began to morph, turning finer and finer until it was nothing but the particles that you sometimes catch swirling in sunlight. After several moments of watching, I looked down at the bedsheets.