Elizabeth
Queen Elizabeth opened her eyes. Two women stood on either side of her bed.
The first wore the wide-ruff, low brow, and deep scowl of sixteenth century Habsburg royalty. The second looked almost innocent, her face doughy, eyes wide, collar high and proper, curls peeking out like naughty children.
Somehow, she knew them.
“Hello Elizabeth,” she said to Countess Bathory. To Miss Borden, “Elizabeth.”
“Elizabeth,” they replied.
“Am I?”
“Of course,” said Lizzie Borden.
“Unavoidable,” said Countess Bathory. “I should know.”
“She made quite the effort at immorality.”
The Countess inclined her head. “You’ve become quite old. Impressive.”
“Why are you here?” the Queen asked.
Lizzie’s smile was a lizard’s shedding, shifting skins. “When I arrived, my first question was: why am I here?”
“I, however, was under no disillusion,” the Countess clucked. “I belong here.”
Lizzie nodded. “Because of all the torture and murder.”
“You did some murder yourself, mind.”
“I was acquitted.”
“They don’t remember that. They remember, Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother—”
“Step-mother. I hate that song.”
“Better than a nickname.”
“Bloody Countess.” Lizzie giggled like unoiled hinges.
Around them, millions of insect wings throbbed, their small bodies crashing into lights with an electric sizzle of demise. The Queen inhaled the caustic stench of rusted metal, boarded-up rooms, musty cupboards full of rotting food. This is not my home.
A distant scream raked against her ancestral memory, releasing images of cat-o-nine tails slick on pulpy backs. Smugness tugged at her lips. She resisted. “Why am I here?”
“Why am I here?” the Countess mimicked. “This is where we go. After.”
“I’m not like you! I haven’t killed anyone.” Her arms ached, like they always did after a whipping. No, not me.
“Neither did I.” Lizzie’s impish eyes were two beguiling wells. Eternal. Waiting.
“Nor I.” The Countess’ smile belonged to a stalking tiger. Her eyes, set deep in her skull, were unblinking. Her claw-like hands dug into the Queen’s flesh.
The Queen remembered Culloden, the horse’s flanks sticky beneath her, the heft of the broadsword, and the smack of bodies hitting ground, bones crushed beneath her.
“Why am I here?” Culloden was centuries before me. I’ve never held a whip.
Lizzie opened her mouth, releasing a chorus of voices: “Lizzie’s in a box! Na-na-na-na-now! Lizzie’s in a box!” She clamped her mouth shut, regarding the Queen with cherubic eyes. “I don’t like that song either.”
“Though it’s accurate,” the Countess noted.
“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of.” Lizzie giggled like the first Elizabeth, a tinkling, childlike sound. The Queen of Scots’ wrath echoed through her descendant’s temples.
Around them, the walls dampened, dripped. The tartan carpet wriggled, awakening with worms and centipedes.
The Queen’s mouth filled with cobwebs. She remembered dying: death by plague, a bayonet through her gut, and a pain in her chest like a giant had reached down to squeeze her to pieces. That last death, she knew, was her father’s. “I was beloved.” A beetle crawled out of her nose. She smelled the smoke from burning thatch rooves and flesh.
“By some. Reviled by others.” Lizzie kissed her mouth. She tasted like soot.
“Guilt by heredity.” The Countess’ face sagged and disintegrated.
“This is where the wicked go.” Lizzie’s eyes sunk into her skull.
Inside the Queen, the ancestors clamored, their memories like a rushing river sprinting west to the sea. The sun never sets on the British Empire. There is no true West, only a tightening rope.
The river ran dry leaving only her, Elizabeth, alone.
Bethany Tap's work has recently been published or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, ballast, The MacGuffin, Emerge Literary Journal, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Hyacinth Review, Flash Frontier, Yellow Arrow Journal, and Cosmic Daffodil Journal. She lives in Michigan with her wife and four kids.