Page 54 of As Many Souls as Stars
It was a luxurious spread: red wine, quince jelly, cheeses and sliced meats to start, as well as a gold tureen of hazelnut soup. In their blue china bowls, the soup formed a thin skin as it cooled, wrinkling at its edges like old paper. Thomas’s nose wrinkled as he took his first spoonful.
‘You don’t like it?’ Esther asked him. She had dried off as best she could, but her hair was still hanging limp, and when she’d changed her dress, she’d noticed that the water had made it quite transparent. The embarrassment had been overwhelming. Now that she was confronted by him sitting opposite her, she felt a sort of fear, too; fear of some sort of retaliation for the crime of revealing her body to him—or worse, some sort of reward.
Richter’s warnings rang in her mind, also, as clearly as the bell Thomas used to call the servers over when his wine glass was empty. In his eyes, Esther saw only a resigned discomfort, rather than the virulent hatred Richter had implied. But she knew better than to take that for granted. Deceitfulness was a family trait.
‘Not particularly,’ Thomas replied, in reference to the soup.
‘Then why did you have it made?’
‘I always do. It was Lily’s favourite.’
‘Oh.’ Esther took another spoonful, warm and thick as blood. ‘I see.’
She didn’t remember much of Thomas’s wife, having only met her a few times before her death. Esther recalled that she had been quite lovely. She’d had large eyes, but everything else was tiny—a waist like a needle’s eye. She’d been shy too, quiet, trying to sink into the wallpaper at events. But it had always been an imperative for Esther to try to make her laugh. Esther remembered Lily’s extraordinary laugh most of all, high and clear and sweet as music. When she did laugh, you always had to smile back at her. Even Thomas would smile back at her; that was why he had married her. It had been a love match, everyone had known that. He’d loved her so much that he hadn’t left his house since she’d passed.
And Esther had killed her.
She ate another spoonful of soup.
‘We were going to name him Christopher,’ Thomas said. ‘Our son.’
‘I am so sorry.’
‘As am I.’
They didn’t speak again until the main course. It was roast quail, a bird for each of them: honey-glazed legs folded demurely against each other, comically tiny in contrast to their bulging bodies. The meat was tender and savoury, the accompanying carrots swimming in butter. Esther found it difficult to swallow.
Thomas took a sip of wine. ‘Do you believe in the soul, Esther?’
She paused. ‘The soul?’
‘Yes. All creatures who think, who feel, have souls. Religion, of course, would have that the soul releases itself after the body’s death,and disappears into the aether; but the teachings of many occultists would hold that it is recoverable, that it can linger even once the body is gone.’
Esther took a slow, careful bite of her quail. ‘A fascinating idea.’
‘Isn’t it? I find it brings me much comfort. That the body is only a vessel, and that souls can be removed and returned.’
‘Or swapped,’ Esther said.
‘Oh?’
‘Well—it is only logical.’ Uncomfortable in her high-backed chair, she rolled her shoulders. ‘If one can remove a soul, or return it, surely it could also be replaced.’
Thomas’s lips pulled into a tiny smile.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘How insightful.’
They stared at each other across the table. Esther felt the distinct sensation that, for the first time, someone else’s perception of her entirely matched her own: in Thomas’s eyes, she saw the anger, the regret, the burden of every death she had witnessed, every person who had left her. Their shared responsibility, this Harding legacy. Their inheritance, through no fault of their own. In some ways, it was as much Thomas’s curse as hers.We are family. The Harding bloodline: that is all that matters.
‘When our forefathers sought power,’ Thomas said, ‘however many generations ago that was—that power came conditionally. They made a deal with the darkness, and that deal came with a price. Our ancestors accepted that some must suffer, for the good of the rest. So, whenever a First Daughter comes…’
He didn’t finish the thought. Esther didn’t prompt him to do so.
Thomas drained his glass. He stood up from the table.
‘Come with me,’ Thomas said, taking one of the candlesticks from the table.
Esther didn’t move.
