A Collection of Stories
A Tale's End

Three numbers glistened in the light of her lantern. There was no moon on that foggy, cloudy night, so no light other than her lantern and a distant street lamp allowed Helen to see where she was. Her lantern, however, was just bright enough to make out the house number written on her slip of paper. Helen compared it to the number in front of her. This was the place.

Helen lifted her lantern to spread the light further. She spotted a gate. She hung her lantern on the gate so she could replace her exit with ease later, and then she stuffed the piece of paper into her pocket, exchanging the paper for a knife. Helen slowly removed the knife from its sheath, a towel she had wrapped around it upon leaving her house. She slowly opened the gate, then stuffed the towel into the lock of the gate as to hush any clicks the gate might make upon her closing it. She did not want the woman who lived inside this house to know she was coming.

Helen tiptoed along the stone pathway leading to the house. She froze every time her foot found a dried leaf. She could make out a window and a door frame using the light of the streetlamp, but otherwise, the thick bushes shielded this house from the street light.

She bowed her head to avoid a low hanging branch just as she stepped out into the open yard before the house. The bushes and flowers were untidy compared to the ones by the street. It was possible that a neighbour took care of the bushes outside, kept the trimmed and out of the way, while the yard had been left to grow into a mess.

Helen tested the first step up onto the porch. It was sturdy enough. She took the next step, and then one more. No creaks. She sighed as she reached for the door handle. Helen kept the knife firm in her right hand as her left slowly twisted the handle.

“Come in,” a woman called. Helen’s heart stuttered. “Take a seat,” the woman said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come for me eventually.”

Helen scowled and forced open the door. She braced herself for a surprise attack, but instead, she only saw a woman sitting in a room to Helen’s right. A lamp had been lit just above her, and a candle was flickering, dying beside her on the table. Helen could see bags beneath the woman’s eyes. Her skin was pale, almost lifeless, and there were slivers of grey in her hair.

The woman smiled. “You must be Thomas’s wife.”

“Don’t you dare say his name!” Helen snapped and stomped her left foot forward.

The woman slowly nodded her head. “I understand your anger.”

“Shut up!” Helen thrust her knife forward. The woman was still out of her reach but it wouldn’t take much for Helen to rush forward and hurt her. “You don’t know anything. All these years that I’ve suffered without him. Do you know how hard it is to raise children alone!?”

The woman sighed. Ann was her name if Helen recalled correctly. She wasn’t certain what was pissing her off more. The fact that the woman was calm, or that the woman even seemed sad. “I know what you went through,” Ann sighed. “And I know why you are here.”

“I’m here to make you pay for what you did,” Helen promised.

Cold, almost grey eyes turned toward Helen. Helen found her body suddenly frozen. “I don’t regret killing your husband if that’s what you’re after. I’m not going to issue an apology for my actions.”

“You bitch.”

Ann snorted in amusement. She leaned back in her chair. “Please, call me anything you like, if it makes you feel better. It won’t make me fear you nor will it bring Thomas back. It also doesn’t change the fact that you had a murderer for a husband.”

“Tom was a good man, a great man!” Helen pressed forward, the tip of her knife only an inch away from Ann’s throat.

Ann kept her eyes on Helen’s face. “Thomas might have been a great husband, at least in your eyes. That’s fine with me. He may have also been a great father, but how am I to know that. Your children are to decide that part on their own. You have two, don’t you? A boy and a girl.”

“That’s an uncomfortable lot you know about my family,” Helen hissed. She flinched as Ann moved. She placed two hands on her knife and pointed it towards Ann in a silent threat. Ann noticed the tremble in Helen’s arms. She had the resolve to kill her, but perhaps not the stomach to. Ann turned her attention away from Helen and grasped the tea cup on the table, bringing the bitter drink to her lips. She sighed as it filled her with warmth. As she placed the cup back down, she noticed the candle beside her had gone out, and a trail of smoke was all that remained of the once vibrant flames.

“I did a lot of research on your family before I broke into your house,” Ann admitted. Her tone was still casual, as though they were discussing recipes. “I also happened to enter your house through the children’s window. I didn’t wake them. I came for revenge on a murderer, just like you are now.”

“Shut up!” Helen swung her knife with each syllable. She didn’t dare to cut Ann just yet, only to warn her that it was coming. Then Ann felt a sharp sting on her cheek. Helen had managed to break skin. Ann watched Helen’s eyes widen. She took a few steps back, shock and fear flickering across her features as she recognized what she’d done.

Ann took a napkin from the table and wiped her cheek. “Helen, you and I both know that making me suffer will not ease your own pain.”

“Yeah?” Helen scoffed. “Well, killing you will stop you from coming after my family again, and it’ll prevent you from hurting someone else!”

Ann glanced at Helen’s shaking hands. She took in a sharp breath then spoke, “You’re not leaving here without killing me, is that it?”

Helen nodded once and took a small step forward. “I don’t believe your regards about my husband. Fact is, you’re the only murderer here. You broke into my house, slit my husband’s throat while we slept, and left without making a single sound. The police never found you. They gave up after only a year, so I took matters into my own hands. I’ll bring justice to your actions. Do you. . . Do you have any idea how awful it is waking up in a pool of your husband’s blood!?”

“I imagine it was awful,” Ann spoke, a knowing look in her eyes. “It filled you with so much grief that for the past 18 years all you could do was wallow in depression and drag those close to you down with you. You got obsessed with replaceing the killer. Anything to distract you from the pain you felt. I bet you were drunk all the time, living off others, your kids included, and making their lives miserable as well.”

“Fuck you! You don’t know anything!” Helen’s blood boiled at Ann’s confident tone. She wasn’t guessing, no, she really did know how Helen felt.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Ann linked her fingers and rested them across her stomach. “Do you want to know how I understand your pain?”

Helen gulped. She tucked her arms in close to her body, knife still in shaky hands. “How?”

“Because your husband sentenced the woman I love to die.” Ann stood up, her voice growing louder with anger. “He’s the reason she’s no longer with me! He’s the reason she never got to see her kids grow up and never got to hold her grandkids. It took me thirty years to track down your husband. Another five to get close to him. In all the time, I treated my children like dirt. So, for the past 20 years or so I’ve been trying to make it up to them. I knew you’d hunt me down, or at the very least, my actions would come back to haunt me. I wanted to make amends with my children before my time came.”

Ann huffed and gripped her skirt with iron fists. She shifted it around as she sat back down.

Helen released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her voice was soft. “You. . . spent 35 years hunting down my husband?”

“Yes.” Ann took another sip from her tea. “You’re fortunate that it only took 18 years to replace me. Now, after you kill me, please, go be with your children before it’s too late. Live the life I neglected. Let your family know that you love them.”

Helen raised her knife again. “You might be trying to guilt me, but… it’s not working! I’m still going to kill you.”

“I know. Go ahead and do so.” Ann closed her eyes and relaxed in her chair.

Slowly, Ann’s awareness of the room faded. She comforted herself with her thoughts. I’ve been on this earth for 90 years, away from my love for nearly 50. I have lived much longer than I should have. Impacted more lives than I should have ever touched. It is my time. She shall get her revenge against me and that’ll be it. This bloodshed shall end here alongside me.

Helen raised her arm. She hesitated, taking a moment to swallow past the lump in her throat. The woman in front of her looked like death already. Her chest was still, her eyes closed, and her body lax. For a brief second, Helen felt hesitance grip her. Could she really do it? Could Helen really take someone else’s life?

Ann kept her eyes shut as she slowly grinned. “Do it. Else your children will suffer more.”

Rage sparked in Helen’s chest and she used her whole body to plunge the knife through Ann’s stomach. The wind left Ann’s lungs in a swift cough. She gasped, the pain too much to ignore. Helen cried as she cut across Ann’s throat, unable to leave the woman suffering.

Ann smiled and thought, We’re not that different, Helen and me. It was likely that she had no one to turn to for help, like myself. Her husband had many enemies, and the police would have told her that they’d never discover who killed him. She tracked me down on her own, just as I tracked down her husband. Now, we may hopefully all rest in peace.

Helen was unable to watch the life fade from Ann’s eyes. Her hands were still shaking as she released the blade. It clattered against the ground. The sound shattered the shock Helen felt.

She was a murderer. Guilty. She had to leave before someone found her.

Helen snatched the knife from the ground. She spared a glance at Ann to make certain she was dead. Of course, Helen knew no one could survive what she’d done to the woman, but there was a nagging voice in Helen’s mind, one that constantly repeated, ‘What if?’

She used her skirt to open the door. Not that it mattered, her shoes trailed blood outside anyway. Luckily Helen had thought ahead and used her husband’s old shoes, the ones she kept for years as she planned and planned Ann’s death. Still, this wasn’t exactly how she thought the night would go and it only built up more anxiety in Helen’s chest.

She rushed outside. Stopped. Focused her ears to hear over the sound of her heart beating for anyone approaching on the street.

It was clear. Helen slowly shut the house door. She crept down the steps, one by one, willing her feet to keep moving even though she wanted to break down and cry.

Helen reached the fence. She removed the cloth from the gate and let it swing shut. Helen flinched at the click and suddenly went still. She held her breath, waiting for someone to investigate the noise. No one came. She wrapped the knife in the cloth and unhooked the lamp from the fence. Helen made certain the fence was shut before she shuffled down the street.

Her heartbeat wouldn’t escape her hearing until she got home. Even then, as she leaned against the wall and sunk to the ground, her heartbeat was all she could hear.

With each passing second, her heartbeat was slowly replaced with the ticking of the clock in her hallway. Helen stared at the familiar beige wallpaper of her hallway, allowing it to ground her back in reality.

She was home. She had completed her task. Ann was dead. Helen got her revenge.

Helen forced the arthritis in her knees to cooperate with her as she climbed to her feet. Helen used her shoulder to steady herself against the wall, careful not to touch anything with her hands for fear of blood stains. Her children would certainly notice red smudges on the walls, as well as any policemen should they track the deed back to her.

She took small steps to the bathroom. Helen placed the lantern on the bathroom floor. She dropped the knife and the cloth into the bathroom sink. Helen took a larger towel off the rack and draped it on the floor. Then she discarded her clothes onto the towel. She wasn’t certain how much blood had gotten onto her clothes, but she wasn’t willing to take any chances. Helen stepped into her shower and turned on the water, jumping a little at the cool temperature. She stood there, numb, watching as the water turn copper from the blood on her skin.

The water seemed to drain her of her adrenalin. She lowered herself to the bottom of the shower and sat for a long time. Helen drifted in and out of consciousness while the water continued to roll over her body. Once Helen eventually left the shower, she felt twice as heavy as before. She wrapped herself in a fresh towel and dragged her feet to her room.

She dressed in a nightgown. Then she moved some wood into the fireplace in her bedroom. She went back to the bathroom to get her clothes. She carefully folded up the towel that was beneath her clothes then tied the corners together. Helen placed the ball of fabric into her fireplace, struck a match, and set her clothes on fire. After the fire lowered, she took a cloth from the kitchen, soaked it in the kitchen sink and used it to free her house from blood stains. She cleaned the doorknobs, the floors, the knife, and the bathroom sink. Even the shower just for good measure.

She rinsed the cloth as best as she could then hung it near the simmering coals in her room. She had done the same with the towel she’d brought as the knife’s sheath. Helen would burn both cloths tomorrow once they were dry.

Helen sighed and climbed into her bed. Her muscles twitched and her joints ached. Her heartbeat was steady now that she could relax.

Ann’s words echoed throughout Helen’s mind without mercy. She couldn’t get comfortable in bed that night. Even after how exhausted she felt. Helen closed her eyes and another echo of Ann’s voice would rip them back open.

She managed to doze just as the sky was beginning to brighten. Once the sun penetrated her room, Helen was wide awake again. She groaned and sat up, tossing the cloths into the coals as she left to make her morning tea.

Ann’s words, lifeless eyes and last breath would haunt Helen until the end of her days. However, now that she had gotten her revenge, all that remained was the cold sting of guilt. It felt slightly better than her burning anger, and perhaps it would be easier for her to ignore. Yes, it was time for her to let go of the past, to let Thomas become a happy memory. Helen decided to visit her son and daughter the next moment they were available.