The Monster's Wife(17)

“It was a dark day, wasn’t it, eh, Toby?” Granny murmured the words, speaking, as usual, as if the dog knew what she meant. Her eyes were turned down, away from where Oona still cowered, fingers pressed under her eyes to hold the tears at bay. “Bad things happening in the kirk. Angry words. Everyone so fearful of this plague and nobody knows what’s the matter. Someone’s bound to be blamed, eh Toby? Unless they tell what they know.” She opened her arms, sweeping the dog down as if she was tired of his weight on her lap. “Go on now, Toby. Don’t cling so.”

He trotted out the door, ears back with the knowledge of having been chidden. Oona slunk after him. If she could have put her ears back, she would have. If she could have told Granny every word of the truth about May and the doctor and the stinking crates, she might have done that too. Instead, she must be a supplicant in her own house, a Prodigal Daughter come to beg forgiveness and lie through her teeth as she did so.

She knelt in front of Granny and took her hand and kissed its Bible-paper skin. “I had to go abroad in the world and think my own thoughts for a while. I went to the beach and skimmed stones.”

“Until the witching hour?”

Oona hung her head. “I’m ashamed by my manner of speaking in kirk.”

Granny’s hand slipped out of hers and coolly folded with the other in her lap. “You’ll go to Norquoy tomorrow and make an apology to Dod?”

“Yes, indeed I will.” She swallowed the aching lie in her throat, reminding herself that she’d get far worse if Granny knew the whole truth. She rose slowly, feeling suddenly cold, and went to her corner to undress, stepping over the sow that snored thunder on the rag rug. She heard the soft pad and wheezing yawn as Toby jumped up to take comfort on Granny’s lap once more.

The sky was the pink of chicks fresh hatched from the egg and promised a good deal less well. Oona rubbed her gritty eyes. All night long, one terrifying dream of death had merged with the next until she felt she couldn’t roll over without colliding against chill flesh.

Nerves jangling, she pushed Orpheus from the covers and grabbed up a bucket from the side of the hearth where the pile of peat was dwindling. Granny snored and Toby whimpered by the ashes of the fire, his eyebrows twitching after field mice. If only she dreamt of mice instead of corpses.

In the cool near-night, she crept to the damp byre. She threw down the bucket and unhooked the pitchfork from its place on the wall. Bending low, she let every angry or anxious thought inside her run down into her arms. The tines stabbed the pile of drying peat and every fear or face that had angered her was in the peat she ran through. Again and again, she nicked and jabbed, lifted and sliced until something heavy flew from her, leaving behind nothing but a tense, tingling thrill that she had secrets to keep, or perhaps to reveal.





14


In the birch tree bower, Oona smoked her throat dry, only sorry that it was too early in the day to drink cider. Granny’s silences were stubborn and enduring and Oona could no longer tolerate the heavy air of the croft.

The tree she lay in was a lifelong friend and a good place to lie upon while she unpicked the intertwined riddles of May and the dead girl. May did not want help and the dead girl was dead. It was difficult.

She knocked the clay pipe on the branch. Cold ash tumbled onto the ground moss like snow. Poking a straw into the small fire she’d made, she held it to the damp kindling in the bowl, tugged and drew and coughed. The answer came to her framed in blue smoke rings, growing clear all at once as things so often seemed to. She slipped down the worn branch and planted her feet on the ground somewhat shakily.

She had pondered and now she knew that for the dead girl as well as for May, she must go back and she must keep the whole affair her secret. However little she might want to walk through the hallways of the bird prison, the girl deserved her fate to be uncovered. And May, whether she knew it or not, required help.

Oona hadn’t considered the whole stratagem, or even decided it. It was simply there, real and firmly planted as the Mustard Seed that is Heaven and grows in the minds of the devout.

As the seed grew, it warmed her and braced her. When she walked into the big house, it would be simple. The doctor had requested her presence and she was obeying him, as girls were supposed to, coming to assist with his experiments; coming to watch him at work, paying only the subtlest attention to what lay beneath sheets, behind curtains, scrawled on papers on the floor.

There was no need to fear getting caught or punished. A person cannot be brought to book for being a helpful housemaid.

To tread the path, though, and hear the crunch of the gravel announcing her arrival, to stand outside a sash window, straightening her skirt, felt quite different to the Mustard Seed. For it was an imaginary Mustard Seed, a madcap plan, bold and unconsidered. As soon as she pushed the kitchen door open and slipped inside, her subterfuge would be real. She’d be lying to her friend as well as deceiving the doctor, just like some English spy in the stories she’d heard of the Reign of Terror.

Today the kitchen door was locked. There would be no sneaking in and tiptoeing up the haunted staircase. She’d just have to knock. Her fist was halfway to the door when she paused for a heartbeat. A panicky sweat popped up on the back of her neck. She didn’t know how to spy on people. She hadn’t even considered any of it. Through the door, she heard a key pant in the lock, the rasp of the handle turning. It was too late now. May’s pale face appeared, scraped-back hair under her cap making her look strangely childlike. She stood silently frowning for what seemed like a long time. Then she flung her arms round Oona’s neck and squeezed hard.