The Evening Spider by Arsenault Emily

Author:Arsenault, Emily [Arsenault, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-11-03T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 40

Northampton Lunatic Hospital

Northampton, Massachusetts

December 20, 1885

For a time, I did try to take your advice, Harry. I did try to put the murder and the trial out of my mind. I did a thorough cleaning of the house—of the sort one usually does only in spring—baked sweet breads and pies and knitted Martha three winter hats. And yet, the harder I worked, the thicker and more grotesque I felt my mask became.

Corpuscles. Corpuscles! I’d say to myself often as I toiled in the kitchen or at the needle. I tried not to do it in front of Matthew, but sometimes the word seemed to simply spit itself out of my mouth without my permission.

Corpuscles!

Pardon me, Frances?

Oh, fussy! Martha was so fussy today.

Perhaps I preferred the word to blood. Blood was a frightening word. Corpuscle felt relatively innocuous, perhaps, in its scientific way.

I was trying not to think of blood.

And yet I was. Increasingly, and always.

Blood in the kitchen. Blood in my best cake pan.

Was it easier to think of corpuscles in my best cake pan?

These were not the kinds of questions I could share with Matthew. With you. With Louise. With anyone.

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