Jean glanced up to see Blanche passing by and paused at the plot of land he was working. Rake poised, he took in her simple, shabby appearance: black tendrils curling beneath a bleached bonnet, angular arms protruding from outgrown cuffs. From one wrist dangled a basket of fruit and on her lips was a peaceful smile. In the evening light she appeared almost fey, and he wondered what thoughts made her smile.
He dropped his rake and went to the fence: she favored him with a glance, but whether she really saw him in the dimness he could not tell.
Later Jean found a gold locket in the dust, faintly glimmering, engraved BEA. He looked where she had gone, thinking of the shanty far into the woods.
Blanche entered the house, untying her frayed bonnet as she entered the kitchen. On the table lay a fine ebony comb, exquisite in weight and craftsmanship.
Her eyes filled with astonishment as she beheld the luxury. She picked it up and turned it over, examining it. Then she flew down the little corridor, glancing in each room. "Stepmother!" she called. "Stepmother, where are you?" There was a wondering lilt to her voice.
Muriel was nowhere to be found. There was not a sound in the place, and Blanche thought herself alone. She went to her room and removed the pins from her hair. It fell around her shoulders in a satiny mass.
Her fingers trembled as she lifted the comb to her scalp and pulled downward.
Jean knocked at the shanty door several times before entering. His heart pounded insistently: Blanche had not answered him, nor was her ban sidhe of a stepmother nearby. He lifted the locket from his pocket and made to drop it on the kitchen table, intending to leave without further action, but a sigh from the other room beckoned him.
He moved down the dim corridor to a small room lit with the last lights of day. It was small and bare: his eyes were drawn instantly to a figure slumped against the wall, head forward, face concealed in a tangled mass of black hair.
Jean went to her and tipped her pale face backward: rivulets of crimson coursed from her scalp. He found the ebony comb lodged in her mass, its deadly tines pricking her tender head. As quickly as he could he removed the comb and thrust it from them, then bathed her scalp with cool water and brushed her hair with her old horsehair brush. Before he left her, he fastened Beatrice's locket around her throat.
When Muriel looked in on Blanche much later that evening, she found her sleeping peacefully, and she looked on her untroubled face with displeasure.
Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--