to do…I…I remember when you first came into this world. How there was no waiting for you. No work, no pain, not like with Domenico. You seemed so eager to enter this world of ours. Such a happy child, expecting happy things. Did you know that? Did I ever tell you that?”
Gregor said nothing.
“I know you wonder why I did what I did, my child,” she said, now trembling mightily. “But I want to tell you I did it because…because I wanted the world that you seemed so eager to see to be a good one. So that each day when you awoke and bounded forward and opened your bedroom door, it opened on a better world for you. I wanted to give you that.”
Gregor stared at her, sword raised, feet apart.
Ofelia looked down at the threshold of the door. “I think I still can,” she whispered. “I think so. I’m coming in now.”
She took a deep breath and stepped inside the chamber.
Gregor did not move. He just kept watching her.
Orso, Sancia, and Berenice all exhaled, relieved.
“Thank God…” whispered Berenice.
He’s got control, Ofelia thought. He heard me. He’s fighting it.
“My love,” she said, still in a calm, gentle voice, “I am going to walk to you now. All right?”
Gregor watched her with his hollow, dead gaze.
“All right,” said Ofelia. “Here I come. One step at a time…”
She began slowly walking to him, pausing after each step to see if he’d spring, but he did not. She grew closer, and closer, studying his body—Where shall I put this knife? In his shoulder? In his heart?—until she was close enough to see the exhaustion in his face, the lines at his mouth, the scars on his body. How alive he seemed, but also so old, and so worn…
And then, suddenly, something changed in his eyes—something went cold, and strange, and distant, and she knew what he was going to do.
She stopped where she stood. “No!” she cried.
Gregor slowly took a step forward to her, shuddering and pained, like he was fighting the movement.
“Gregor, please!” Ofelia said.
Another step, this one smoother, faster.
“He’s active!” said the girl on the table.
“Ofelia,” said Berenice. “Ofelia, get out! Get out!”
Another step.
“I’m coming in!” said Berenice.
“No!” said Ofelia. “Stay back!” She watched him take another step, and another. “He’s mine. He has always been mine.”
He staggered closer. Her eye strayed to his hand, the knuckles white where he gripped his rapier.
She considered running away, fleeing down the stairs, running out into her gardens.
No, she thought. I abandoned you to this fate once. I will not do so again.
“Come, then,” she whispered to him. “Let me touch you once more, at least. Let me do that, one last time.”
Soon he was four feet away. Then three.
Then he was before her.
She reached up with her right hand and touched his cheek, staring into his eyes.
So haunted, and yet still so hungry—so eager for a better world, even after all these years.
“I love you,” she said.
He held her eyes for a moment. Then he twisted his shoulders forward, a clean, powerful movement, and the rapier smoothly slid into her chest, just below the rib cage.
“No!” screamed Orso.
“Stop!” cried Berenice, hovering at the threshold. “Stop, no, no!”
Ofelia coughed. Her legs grew weak. Slowly, she staggered back and knelt down to the floor, and he let her go, the blade sliding out as she fell.
He began to pull away from her. But as he did, she suddenly surged forward, desperately grasping the back of his head, and she pulled her face to his to plant a single kiss upon his brow.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She stabbed the tiny knife into his shoulder, the blade digging deep into his flesh. She released it and it stayed stuck, and he gagged