“When did,” Crawford began, but his voice came out too shrill; he swallowed, and then in a more normal tone he said, “when did you … sleep with her?”
“Long before you married her,” Shelley assured him. “Actually it was shortly after her birth—her birth from me, that is. I met her on the street, and I made myself believe that it … that what I had cut out of myself had been nothing more than a stone—I do suffer from bladder stones.”
Shelley twitched at the mainsail sheet, and the boat leaned as it skated out across the face of the lake. “I made myself believe,” he went on, “that this woman who had sought me out couldn’t have anything to do with that bloody lump, that diseased rib, that I had flung into the street a couple of months before. But of course they were one and the same … though it was very difficult for her to maintain a human form back then. Even now she has to relapse into something else … rocky or reptilian … after any length of time.” The wind shifted, and he smoothly let the shift become a change to a fresh tack. “It was my first sexual experience.”
“And have you … had her, since?” It made Crawford’s teeth hurt to ask.
“No. It was—no offense, but it was too horrible to want to repeat. She was too nearly me, after all those years of living inside me, and it was like masturbation—having sex with the dark side of myself.”
“Too horrible?” Crawford’s hands had clenched. “Can you swim?”
“No, I can’t—and you’d harm her, very likely kill her, if you drowned me. We’re twins, remember, and very closely linked. But I didn’t seek you out this evening in order to insult her. Do you—”
“You’re the second—no, third!—person who has thought I’m married to her,” Crawford interrupted. “Why do you think that?”
Shelley glanced over at him quizzically. “Well, because she’s let me know, for one thing. And you’re missing your wedding-ring finger, which is generally a sign of being married to one of these—as a matter of fact, wedding bands were originally a symbolic protection against succubae, the idea being that that finger was thus banded with metal to the body. And you’ve got a different look from all the people who are just prey for these things—a practiced observer can always recognize a member of the family.”
The shore had so receded behind them that Crawford, looking back, couldn’t make out the dock anymore, and Shelley let the sail spill the wind; within moments the boat had rocked to a stop and was drifting. Crawford thought he caught a hint of light and movement in the sky, but when he looked up there was nothing to see except the dark clouds.
Shelley looked up too, a little nervously. “Wild lamiae? We ought to be protected from them, at least, now that she’s here—though one almost drowned me on this lake a couple of months ago.” A minute went by in silence, and he relaxed.
“So,” Shelley went on, “you did marry her. They can’t initiate it, there has to have been a token of invitation on your part. I wonder why you can’t remember it. Did you … I don’t know, speak marriage vows to a rock, put a wedding ring on a winged lizard …” He grinned. “… have sex with a statue in a church?”
Crawford’s stomach had gone cold. “Christ!” he whispered. “Yes, I did!”
Shelley’s eyebrows were halfway to his hairline. “Really? A statue in a church? I don’t mean to seem vulgarly curious, but—”
“No, no, I put a wedding ring on the finger of a statue. In Warnham, a month ago. And when I went back, late at night, to get it, the—later I decided it was a dream—the statue’s hand was closed, so I couldn’t get the ring off.”
“That was it,” said Shelley flatly. “That was her. And it wasn’t as … random an action, I’ll wager, as you imagine; just like the loss of your finger, hmm? She was there, she was directing things. She needed a vehicle aboard which to follow me to Europe, so she maneuvered you into volunteering to be one.”
“Did she kill my wife? The woman I married the next day, who … who was killed on our wedding night, while I slept?”
Shelley bared his teeth in a snarl of sympathy. “Christ, did that happen? Yes, it has to have been her. She’s … a jealous god.” He tugged at his hair. “There was a girl I was interested in in Scotland, in 1811, shortly after I cut my sister out of myself; Mary Jones the girl’s name was. My sister killed her—tore her to pieces. The authorities said it must have been done with big sheep shears, and they picked the biggest, stupidest citizen as the culprit, but anyone could see that no human being with anything less than a, a cannon could have so destroyed the girl’s body.”
“Right, exactly,” Crawford said in a clipped whisper, “that’s what happened to Julia. But you know something? I’m … not sorry. Damn me for saying it, but I’m not sorry. I mean, I wish Julia were still alive, that is, I wish I’d never met her—I wish I had known I was marrying her, the … the cold woman, your sister, so that I could simply have avoided Julia. Is that horrible of me?”
“Profoundly, yes.” Shelley shifted around, draping an arm over the tiller bar. “But I’m glad to hear that you feel that way—it means you’ll probably cooperate with the plan I have in mind. You see, I have a wife and children—and, on top of that, I’m about to get a divorce and re-marry; and my half sister, your wife, will kill all of these people if she can, just as she killed your Julia. But she can’t cross water, especially salt water, by herself—she’s got to ride across with a human to whom she’s closely related: by blood, as in my case, or by marriage, as in yours. Now, she married you in order to chase me across the channel—”
“That’s a lie,” Crawford said.
Shelley gave him a pitying look. “Very well, it’s a lie. In any case, wouldn’t you like to make sure that when I return to England she stays here with you, and doesn’t ride back across the channel with me?”
“She wouldn’t,” said Crawford, his voice louder and belligerent. “You’re just flattering yourself. Go ahead, go back to England—she won’t follow you.”
“You’re probably right,” said Shelley soothingly. “I’m sure you are. But why don’t you help me make it certain, by just cooperating with me on a couple of … procedures. Nothing complicated, I got my wife to do them just before I left England in May. I just want you to—”
“I don’t have to physically bind her to me—and I won’t insult her, and shame myself, by trying.”
Shelley stared at him, and though it was too dark to see clearly, his expression seemed to be one of bewilderment. “Very well. Right. Then let’s put it this way—how would you like to learn, learn from her brother, remember, what sorts of behavior you should avoid, if you want to keep her? What she likes, what she hates?”
“I don’t need this.” Crawford stood up, rocking the boat. “And I know how to swim.”
He dove over the side.
The lake water was cold, and seemed to clear his head of the feverish complacency that had been surrounding him like a warm fog; now there was just panic. I should climb right back aboard, he thought, and find out how to keep her from following him … and then do the opposite. How can I want to keep her? My God, she killed Julia! And now somehow you—
His head broke the surface of the water and he was breathing the evening air, and he forgot all about going back to the boat. The prospect of swimming several hundred yards while wearing boots and a coat didn’t seem daunting, and he turned toward the shore they’d embarked from and began crawling through the water with a steady, ponderous stroke. Behind him Shelley was calling to him, but he didn’t bother to listen.