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Go to her, he told them, and bring her home to us.
He showed them images he gathered from inside her own mind: narrow fingers, rapid upon the typewriter keys and then wound worriedly in her skirts; the thick brown hair which she brushed hurriedly and then tied up at the back of her head; the face in the mirror, brown eyes meeting their own gaze and then straying to the red mark on her forehead before turning away.
But they knew her already, before this, knew her from the moment she became one of them, his blood drying on her mouth and chin and throat, stiffening the white fabric of her nightgown. He had told them that he was going to take her (a considerate courtesy which he had not granted when he took Lucy, that hastily wedded bride of impulse, whose presence startled the rest of them like a high ocean wave which comes over your head before you can take a breath, and whose death was like that too, a strange pain without context, a loss whose contours could not be known or even imagined), and they stayed together while he did, hands clasped, quiet as if listening outside a shut door, waiting for the birth of a child. From across the many miles they felt her panic, her terror, her revulsion, her desperate longing to disgorge the blood forced down her throat. Did they love her already, then? They each might have answered differently, if anyone had thought to ask, but the truth, at its core, would for all have been yes.
And now this command. This is never the way it has been done before; they each have been introduced to one another under his watchful gaze, directing the ritual of the newly turned sister being welcomed into the household. Not this approach alone to one still half-human and mad with it, struggling against her fate like an animal in a trap.
Do you expect her to come willingly? Ecaterina asked, though they all had been wondering.
He was honest in response. I do not know. I will make her death easier, if she does, though she has done much already which warrants punishment. Take her forcibly, if you must; kill the man who travels with her in front of her eyes. But do not risk your own safety; they know what we are, and they know the tools to harm us.
Ileana spoke out loud; he could still hear, with his focus upon them as it was. “I think she’ll come. She knows who we are to her; she can feel it. And I think she is very lonely.”
Ecaterina’s voice was low and even. “She’ll also fear us; hate us, even.” She reached for Ileana’s hair, smiling. “You remember how you hated me, at first?”
Ileana laughed. “That was different! I’d spent weeks dying in a room with only you and him for company and you just kept bringing me apples as if you had no idea what a human needs to eat. She’s never met us before; she has no reason to hate us.”
Adriana stood, and went to gather her embroidery from the table across the room. “Of course she has reason to hate us. She doesn’t want to be what we are.”
Adria is right, he said, I have humiliated Mina, I have used my possession of her as punishment and subjugation, and she is desperately angry about that. I can feel her will weakening; I can feel the cracks in it. I can hypothesize the directions she may grow as a part of our family and I believe she will be a glorious sister to you one day. But I cannot predict how she will respond to you now.
No one needed to say that they would all prefer she come willingly. Forcing her could be done, and they’d get a meal out of it too, even if they had reason to kill the man; then they could bind her and leave her in his bed to await her death, and the horror of that would be no less than she deserved. But how beautiful it would be if she made her first entrance to the castle holding their hands, if she managed to turn from her campaign of resistance against him and begin the slow process of repentance for it at their invitation. They felt the hunger already, for closeness with her, the maddening awareness of her separation. And she must, they knew, feel it too, even if she did not yet know what it was that she was missing.
“Do you have her measurements?” Ecaterina asked him abruptly, still speaking out loud from habit, “I can’t get a clear sense from the memories you’ve shared with us.”
He was amused, despite the steady pitch of anger he had inhabited for the last several weeks. No, I do not have her measurements. When, pray tell, do you imagine I would have obtained those?
“You could have a general sense, at least; you’ve been close to her physically. And I thought you came to her when she was asleep?”
I’ll take care to bring a sewing tape with me the next time just for you, my love. But he relented. She’s a similar height and build to Ileana. And I expect she’s traveling with her own clothing.
“We’ll have to see if we have human food left,” Ileana told the others, “if she’s not being killed immediately.”
“She’ll be cold,” Adriana said softly, “coming in from the snow, with her body dying.”
See to her comfort minimally, or as you see fit, he told them, some discomfort on her part would be warranted. But I do not want her dying without me there.
“A bath if she comes willingly?” Ileana suggested, “But not if we have to restrain her.”
Ecaterina shook her head. “A bath either way. She washes that life off of her, leaves behind the clothes she wore. It will be better that way.”
They can tell he likes that idea. Good. But be mindful of yourselves, as I have said. She is canny, and bold, and she uses those skills as yet in resistance still to my will. If all you can do is tempt and threaten, leave it at that. I want her with you and away from the men with whom she conspires, but I will not risk any of you in the attempt.
“She couldn’t hurt us, surely,” Ileana said, “even if she’s angry, or resisting. How could she bear to harm her sisters?”
His silence in response unsettled all of them. What did he know, what did he see of this woman, this sister he asked them to welcome, which they did not? But all he did was admonish them again to take care, and then turn his attention away.
Outside the narrow window the wind howled and the snow fell with renewed intensity. There was silence for a moment, and finally Ecaterina spoke. “She’s trying to kill him, and that’s natural. She’s still reaching for a way out; all of us did it. And she may hate us, resent us as the figure of what she fears becoming, like Adria said. But she will feel our bond, even if she fights it.”
(Somewhere, out in the snow, the woman they discussed built a fire as her traveling companion prepared food she knew she could not eat. In their bags, the tools of the acts they had come to perform: crucifixes, holy wafers, wooden stakes. She was steeling her heart against pity, and against the fear of her own death. Her new sisters were right: she did feel her burgeoning bond with them, the longing for their closeness, the sense that her very self was torn in pieces by their absence, and the shame of that feeling tangled up like a knot in her chest, feeling as if it would stop her very heart.)