‘I don’t smell anything.’
‘We do,’ snapped Spite. ‘But some wine should fix that.’
‘All right, I’ll drink some, then.’
They set out, gathering again at the end of the passage beneath the kitchen floor, where it opened out into two further tunnels. The one on the left led under the entranceway and ended up under the stables, in a room shin deep in mud soaked with horse piss, while the one on the right ran the length of the main chamber. At the junction of these passages there was a chute that reached up to behind the larder. There were no handholds and the only means of ascending this shaft was to wedge oneself against the walls, with knees drawn up. It was difficult and left scrapes and bruises, but it was the only way into the kitchen.
Envy went first, since it had turned out that she was the strongest of the three and so could reach down and help the others up. The walls had become greasy with constant use, making the climb still more treacherous, but at last she reached the ledge that marked the sliding panel at the back wall of the larder, and slid it open so that she could pull herself up and then into the room. She had to huddle since she was beneath a shelf stocked with jars. Reaching down, she let her right arm dangle. Moments later she felt Spite grasp hold of it and then use it to climb up the chute. Each yank shot pain through Envy’s shoulder. Spite’s harsh breathing drew closer, and then her sister was clambering through the trap. As she squeezed past Envy, she whispered, ‘The oven.’
Envy grunted to acknowledge that she heard, and then reached down once more.
Malice’s hands were cold. Skin and the meat beneath it slipped strangely until Envy could feel every bone, closing like talons around her arm. The stench of her sister rose up and she gagged, fighting to keep the contents of her stomach from rising into her mouth.
She felt Spite take hold of her ankles and begin dragging her out from under the shelf, and this helped Envy pull Malice after her. Moments later, all three rose to their feet in the darkness of the larder. That darkness proved no barrier to vision — one of Father’s gifts, Envy assumed.
Spite crept to the door and pressed her ear against it. She released the latch and pulled the door open.
They walked out into the kitchen.
‘Let’s sit close to the oven to warm up,’ Envy said. ‘Spite, find us a jug.’
Malice accompanied Envy to the oven. The fires beneath it had just been fed, to keep the oven hot until the midday meal needed preparing. Envy suspected that this day would see no such meal; still, the habit had been adhered to and so the heat emanating from the metal door and its brick flanks was fierce and welcoming.
‘I can’t feel it,’ said Malice, sitting down beside her.
‘Do you feel cold?’
Malice shook her head. Strands of hair drifted down to the floor. ‘I don’t feel anything.’
Spite reappeared with a heavy earthenware jug. She came up to them, and a moment before reaching them she took the jug’s handle in both hands and swung it against Malice’s head.
Clay and bone shattered, spilling wine and blood out over Malice’s body and the floor, and both sisters. Where the liquids splashed against the oven door there was savage hissing, and then smoke. Spite dropped the handle. ‘Help me lift her!’
Envy took up a wrist and an ankle.
One side of Malice’s head was flattened, although mostly near the top. Her ear was pushed in, surrounded by torn skin and cracked bones that made a pattern like the petals of a flower around that bloodied ear. The eye on that side stared up at the ceiling, leaking bloody tears. She made a moaning sound as she was lifted from the floor, but the other eye looked directly at Envy.
‘Wait!’ snapped Spite, setting Malice’s foot down and reaching for the oven handle. She cursed as she pulled down the door and Envy smelled scorched flesh. ‘That smarts,’ she said, gasping as she retrieved Malice’s right ankle. ‘Turn her round — head first into the oven.’
Envy could not pull her gaze from Malice’s lone, staring eye. ‘She’ll kick.’
‘So what. We can break the legs if we have to.’
Together, with Malice between them, they forced their sister into the oven, and this effort at last swept from Envy that terrible staring eye. The inside of the oven was lined with clay, and loud sizzling sounds accompanied every touch of skin, blood and hair against the rounded sides. Malice struggled, pulling at her arms, but the effort was weak. They got the upper half of their sister’s body into the oven and began pushing the rest in. The legs did not kick. They were limp and heavy, the toes curling upward.