Chapter 4: The wrong wedding vows

But I was about to wed the same man that took Elizabeth to the alter and Mom was comfortably sitting through the ceremony. 

He slid it onto my finger. It was so tight it cut into the skin. I couldn't pull it off. Not when everyone was watching me.

"With this ring, I thee wed," he said, his grey eyes locked on mine. "To be yours, Elizabeth.”

"Mrs. Bronzebank," he called me, intimate enough that the first row heard and cheered. 

But the name triggered a dull ache behind my eyes. Just pressure, like a memory trying to force it's way through my head. 

"Perfect," someone shouted from the pew.

Elizabeth was always perfect. I was not.

I remembered tightening this corset for her myself. Now it was tightened to my fit. I could barely breathe. 

Over two hundred people were staring. In the front row, my mother dabbed her cheeks. No tears. She did the same thing when she walked into the interrogation room to ask for the ring.

From the dress to the floral designs and the crowd, everything looked like Elizabeth's wedding which took place a month before her death. The exact wedding I attended as her chief bridesmaid. One month before she was found in cold blood, and every finger pointed at me.

If I said I wasn't Elizabeth right here, they would not call a doctor. They would lock me in the back room. And Marshall would be the one holding the door.

My ankles wobbled and I was going to fall if I didn't hold onto something. I reached for Marshall's hand and used his arm to steady myself.

"What do you think you're doing?" I whispered, so only he could hear, my jaw tight. "You must be crazy if you think I'm going through with this."

His forehead wrinkled in a frown. He looked sincerely confused.

"Liz... you wanted this," he said, his voice lowered. "You forgot to take your pills again, didn't you? I brought some. They're in the car."

He said it like he knew her routine. Like Lizzie was sick. I would know if my sister was sick. 

"You fainted," he whispered. "Everyone is waiting. Say your vows. Then I can take you out of here."

“I'm perfectly fine,” I protested, shook off his hands but I wobbled again and had to latched onto his nearest hand for support. The way he kept calling me Elizabeth, with overwhelming certainty, made my stomach twist painfully.  

The priest cleared his throat. "Shall we continue?"

Tuning out his voice, I turned my face a little, toward the polished lectern on the altar. I needed to be sure I wasn't the crazy one.

But the face staring back at me in the glass wasn't mine. It was heart-shaped with a mole under the left eye that only showed without makeup.

Lizzie's face. 

The pieces came together slowly. Her dress. Her husband. Her wedding. Her body.

It was me inside her. One month before she was found dead.

Does that mean I will be the one to die this time?

"Lizzie, this wasn't the help I wanted," I thought, biting my lower lip.

I should tell them. But if I did that now, I was already a murder suspect in my own life. Here, in the past, in her body, I might face a worse fate.

I pulled my gaze back to Marshall. If I get through this ceremony, I can find a way out before anyone knows.

"Miss Elizabeth..." the priest prompted.

The crowd began to murmur. My mother shifted in her seat. Marshall's gaze didn't waver. He was searching my face, frowning slightly, like he could feel the soul inside didn't match the woman he knew.

If he kept looking at me like that, he would know.

"I will play the part until I'm out of here," I told myself.

"I, Elizabeth Rivers, take you, Marshall Bronzebank..." I started.

My voice shook the moment I heard her breathy voice and Marshall's eyes narrowed.

I gripped the lace of the dress. His hand found my waist under the lace, holding me up so I wouldn't fall from the heels.

"Say the last line,"he murmured, so only I could hear. "Then I can take you out of here.”