The Ring: Chapter 21

Part III: The Journal of Ellen French.

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We’re now on chapter 20 of 38. This is the latest novel of the Muldoon series (book 2). Chapter 20 ended with the discovery of a letter from E.French.

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Journal of Ellen French

1st August, 1893

Yesterday, the police came to search everything. Everything. No stone was left unturned, but they are evidently no closer to the truth. They suspect it was one of our animals that dealt the deadly blow. I am afraid I am none the wiser. I was… it was so strange. The entire ordeal does not feel as though it even happened. There is not a scent or a sensation that remains tangible. I feel as though I imagined it, but there she was.

They took Fontini’s trunk also. He couldn’t find the key—either that or he swallowed it. I would not put it past him. He has been quiet since Sophia’s death, and not in a mournful way. He is planning his next move. I hear him talking to himself in his tent at night. I don’t know what he is saying, but he frightens me. Tongues, but not in the way you hear the Christians do it. The ramblings of a madman. Roman looks on, his face betraying nothing. What goes through his mind? I wish he would speak to me. I cannot even begin to imagine what it’s like having to be tied to the flank of that monster every hour of every day.

The days since Sophia’s death have been long, and grey, and arduous to get through.

Everyone has kept themselves to themselves, as though they sense a traitor in their midst. Meals pass without words. We all want to say something, but nobody does.

I can say I didn’t murder Sophia until I am blue in the face, but they do not trust me. I am not one of them. Hugo insists that I shouldn’t worry about it, and that we can leave as soon as the investigation is over, but he humours me.

Muldoon asked me about Sophia. In truth, as much as I loathed the woman, I wished her no ill. Why would I love or befriend the woman who made my life even more of a misery than it was? Fontini’s favourite. I ought to have told him more of the truth. What have I to lose now? My hope for any sort of future has died with—oh what have I done?

Sophia was not my friend. She was my trapeze partner. She was also a viper. I did not know the last victims. I am ashamed to say that once you’ve seen two, three, four deaths, you find yourself looking away. I am ashamed to say that my main focus was that it didn’t become me.

I didn’t tell Muldoon about what I saw in the tent. How would he understand? I do not even know myself what I saw, really. I fancy that perhaps I saw my mother, and I was chased by death, then there was a beastly thing in the water, chasing me? Protecting me?

Then I saw them. All of them. All of them with their inhuman, sharp teeth and forked tongues.

They want me to join them. They want me to become like them. They want me to devour souls, just like they do. I will not. Hugo will not. Thomas will not.

I couldn’t tell Hugo what I saw, either. He fawns over me like a nursemaid, and I do not believe that he would listen. He shushes me and tells me that everything is going to be all right.

Everything is not going to be all right.

I drew the cards once more this morning, and it shattered my heart to see death smiling up at me. I understand now. James Lacey trusted me with his life and I wronged him. I am a murderess. The cards have been trying to tell me all along.

I am no better than the people who I surround myself with. Perhaps I don’t deserve to live, after all.

Would you like to know more about my writing process and some insight into the novel? You can join the Muldoon Book Club where I publish a bi-monthly newsletter with my own voice over so you can also listen at leisure. It’s never too late to join, and I always warn if there are spoilers. Here’s what’s already out from behind the scenes at the Muldoon Book Club:

Episode 1: Ominous openings.

Episode 2: Getting the ball rolling. Lacey’s first case.