Look What You Made Me Do

Part X

Look what you just made me do

My treacherous maid was dying of fear. She would not eat. She could not sleep. She refused to work. She only left her room when necessary, only to scurry back in as soon as possible.

When the other maids tried to pry an explanation out of her, she would have panic attacks or collapse into a wailing heap of despair.

She was on the brink of madness and I was ready to put her out of her misery.

If only I could.

Two nights after the judge's funeral, I snuck into her room where she slept fitfully on her bed. In my hands I held a pearl necklace to choke her with. It was a gift from my mother and I remembered how the girl used to look at it with envy.

I stood there, necklace in hands, my victim before me but my hands shook and refused to obey me.

So I spared her that night. And the next night. And the next night. For ten nights my criminal lay helplessly at my mercy and I could not bring myself to exact my revenge.

On the tenth night, she awoke. For a long moment we looked at one another. She got up, slowly.

"I knew it was you," she said hoarsely. "If there was anyone who could come back from death to punish their wrongdoers, it would be you. Tell me, are you a ghost?"

I didn't answer.

"You must be. You haunt me, in my dreams, in every waking moment. I have no peace, only pain, only anguish. Give me relief--grant me forgiveness. Have mercy."

I laughed hollowly. "Mercy? Forgiveness? I am not capable of such things."

"Then let me redeem myself! Give me a chance at redemption, anything to end this nightmare!"

A wave of fury overtook me. "Redemption? You seek redemption? Can you atone for your sins? Come then, follow me."

Without looking back, I stormed out of her room.

She scurried behind me, almost bumping into me when I came to an abrupt stop inside the throne room.

"See here," I said gesticulating wildly. "See this throne which belonged to my Father and my Mother and to my brother after them! Look at the heads of these nobles who never once wavered in their loyalty! See where your greed has led them!

"Were we not kind to you? Good to you? You were raised alongside me, educated, fed, clothed! I befriended you! My parents cared for you! How did you repay us? With all these deaths?"

She fell to her knees, weeping and I turned away, lest her tears should soften my heart.

"You seek redemption? Well then, I will tell you the price. Remain here until morning and when the people of the land come with their petitions and the nobles sit to hear them, then speak the truth. Tell them of your sins and of the sins of your lover."

She only wept more. "I cannot. They will imprison me...I will not survive the dungeons."

My lip curled in disdain. "Do what you will. I have given you the price of atonement; the rest is in your hands."

If I could have, I would have killed her then, so furious was I with her cowardice. But though I had a knife hidden beneath my skirts, I could not bring my hand to strike against her.

So I swept out of the room. Indecisiveness would grip her heavily, I was sure, and she would not sleep this night.

How wrong I was. For in the morning, it turned out that she would never awaken again. Even the False King came out of his chambers when he heard the news, and he stood, pale and shaken at the horror before him. He fainted again, but standing a few feet away in my maid's disguise, I didn't even look.

No my eyes were firmly on the body hanging in the throne room, feet swaying gently in a wind that wasn't there.

She had chosen her own redemption then. She had given herself the punishment that I could not bring myself to give her.

Numbly, I volunteered to prepare her body for the funeral. I helped cut her down, I closed her bulging eyes, I washed her and dressed her in the nicest dress she had in her closet. It had been a gift from me.

I helped bury her in the dirt that would one day embrace us all. Only then did my tears come.

I cried for her sins and for her death and for all the wrong she had done to me and herself. I cried for my parents and my brother and all that I had lost. And I cried for the innocence I once had and the monster that I had become.