Free Corben's Thirst: The Thirst Within Part 1.5 by Johi Jenkins

her?”
    Charlotte’s eyes darkened. “I did not strike her. I tried to hypnotize her… to convince her that she had not seen anything out of the ordinary. Yet this is what became of her. She must have been in great shock.”
    “Maybe your hypnosis does not work on her.”
    She glibly chuckled. “My hypnosis works perfectly on her.”
    Oh .
    At that moment many things became clear to me. “You have done this before.”
    “Yes.”
    “When you brought her to me, the night she conceived.”
    “Yes.”
    “And while she carried Alexandra, and afterwards—does she even remember?”
    My questions came out rather more sharply than I intended. But Charlotte didn’t even flinch.
    “I took great care of her, and paid her well,” she said. “But I had to make her forget. No one knows she carried our child. Not her, not even the servants. I had to do it to protect Alexandra.”
    To make someone forget she carried a child for nine months—how much did her brain suffer?
    “Will she recover?” I asked.
    “She will, I think. I hope. She has never reacted like this before,” Charlotte said, not sounding too worried.
    I wanted to ask her more; the details of her hypnosis. How did it work? How often did she have to do it? It pained me to think of Charlotte abusing Sara this way.
    Charlotte misunderstood my somber expression, and hugged me. “I am truly sorry about your mother.”
    I tried to forget about Sara, and I hugged my wife back. “Thank you. For trying to save her anyway.”
    She took a step back and picked up Sara as though she weighed nothing. “How is Alexandra?”
    “She sleeps. Gulya is with her.”
    “Good. I will deal with Sara.”
    And with that she left, taking Sara with her. The entire time Sara mumbled things I didn’t catch. Despite Charlotte’s reassurances I was nervous about the young maid’s condition.
    In the next few days the Great House prepared for my mother’s funeral. I tried to talk to Thierry, but he still wouldn’t see me. I wrote him letters that he didn’t answer. I wanted to know if he blamed me for his wife’s death, despite the fact that two years had gone by since the “accident”. But deep down, I just missed my big brother. I needed him. I wanted him to meet my daughter. But he never came.
    Sara had not recovered during this time, so I had to send a note to her family vaguely describing her condition and how she had changed “without explanation” and was unfit to take care of her mistress. I let them know we would provide adequate care until she recovered. They lived in Charlotte’s family’s neighborhood, within ten miles of Garfield Park. I offered them our carriage if they wanted to visit.
    But before I received a reply to my letter, my dear Charlotte killed Sara.
     
    ***
     
    “What the devil?”
    I started in shock as Charlotte came inside my study, an obviously dead Sara in her arms.
    “Hush, Corben,” she said shortly. “It was only a matter of time. You have seen her these two days. She has not been in her right mind.”
    Because you attempted to hypnotize her and it did not work. Because you have been doing it for a year and must have fried her brain. But I kept my opinion to myself. Instead, I said, “I thought you said she would recover?”
    “Alas, I have been proven wrong.”
    “What happened?”
    “She had no desire, or will, to do anything. She did not even clean herself. So I was attempting to undress her in order to bathe her—the mistress washing her maid, imagine that!—and she went into a frenzy. Again she accused me of being a demon, a monster…. I paid no attention to her, and tried to calm her down. But then she ran to Alexandra’s crib and took her.” Her eyes became cold and unforgiving. “She attempted to throw herself out the window. With Alexandra in her arms.”
    I recoiled at her words. I had to remind myself that I had just heard the baby’s cry in the past hour. Alexandra was fine.
    But Sara was dead.
    “And what