#powderedwitch

“I don’t believe THAT drivel for a second,” Nance said through her teeth. “You were made by some devil’s spawn just the same as I was made by you.” She felt the tears threatening again… “I’m haunted by what I could have been if you had never walked into the workhouse that day.” Good for one thing she thought. But could she ever have been truly good? She had always known what was right or believed she had. 

She had thought Mags and her were right when they sheltered girls and didn’t lock them in like Quigley had. But now, with Charlotte dead, Kitty dead, Lucy in debtors jail, Betsy dying of the pox and Violet… god knows where… was what Mags and her set out to do actually right? Or was it just the lesser of two evils? Or was it even lesser at all? That was what really haunted her, not that she would breathe a word of that confession to Quigley.

It was a shit turn of events. Being on the run from the law with Lydia fucking Quigley. Nancy for murder, Lydia for accomplice to the Spartans murders… She felt her belief in the difference between them slipping by the hour. She was losing the sense of how Isabella’s soft lips felt against her own by the minute. Losing the memory of the admiration in Isabella’s voice telling her she was “brave,” to kill. Nancy knew the truth. There was nothing brave in killing.

“Maybe I should turn myself in.” She was guilty after all. She winced and turned away as she thought of what Charlotte would think of her crime. Isaac was not innocent. But he hadn’t killed Charlotte. He hadn’t deserved to die. She continued to beat back tears as she tried to sort out whether traveling the road to the noose would be better than traveling the road with Lydia Quigley.