The Shape of Night(60)
Neither will I.
“When she passed on, I don’t remember any questions being raised about how she died,” says Mrs. Dickens. “The one thing I do remember is that she’d been dead for a few days when her nephew found her.” She grimaces. “That must have been an awful sight.”
“Her nephew is Arthur Sherbrooke,” I tell Maeve. “He still owns Brodie’s Watch.”
“And he hasn’t been able to get rid of it,” says Mrs. Dickens. “It’s a beautiful piece of land, but the house has always had a bad reputation. The fact his aunt’s body was lying there for days, decomposing. Then Jessie’s accident. When his aunt died, the house itself was already falling apart. I’m sure he’s hoping that after all these renovations, he’ll finally find a buyer to take it off his hands.”
“Maybe he should have just burned it down,” says Maeve.
“Some people in town have suggested that, but Brodie’s Watch has historical significance. It would be a shame to think of a house with such a pedigree going up in flames.”
I imagine those grand rooms consumed by fire, the turret lit up like a torch as a hundred and fifty years of history are reduced to ashes. When a house is destroyed, what happens to the spirits who linger? What would happen to the captain?
“Brodie’s Watch deserves to be loved,” I say. “It deserves to be cared for. If I could afford it, I would buy it myself.”
Maeve shakes her head. “You don’t want to own that house, Ava. You don’t know enough about its history.”
“Then I’ll ask someone who might know. The man who owns it, Arthur Sherbrooke.”
* * *
—
Brodie’s Watch stands dark and silent in the fading twilight. I step out of my car and pause in the driveway, looking up at windows that stare back at me like glassy black eyes. I think of the first time I saw Brodie’s Watch and the chill I felt, as if the house was warning me away. I feel no such chill now. Instead I see my home, welcoming me back. I see the place that’s sheltered and comforted me these past weeks. I know I should be disturbed by what happened to those who lived here before me. The house of dead women, Maeve calls it, and she advises me to pack up and leave. That’s what Charlotte Nielson did, yet she ended up dead anyway, at the hands of a flesh-and-blood killer who squeezed the life from her and tossed her body into the sea.
Maybe if she’d stayed in Brodie’s Watch, she’d still be alive.
I step inside and breathe in the familiar scents of home. “Captain Brodie?” I call out. I don’t expect an answer, and I hear only silence, yet I feel his presence all around me, in the shadows, in the air I breathe. I think of the words he once whispered: Under my roof, no harm will come to you. Did he whisper those same words to Aurora Sherbrooke and Margaret Gordon, Violet Theriault and Eugenia Hollander?
In the kitchen, I feed Hannibal and take a pot of leftover fish chowder out of the refrigerator. As the chowder heats on the stove, I sit down to check my email. Along with a note from Simon, who adores the latest three chapters of The Captain’s Table (hooray), there are emails from Amazon (new titles you may be interested in) and Williams Sonoma (get cooking with our latest new kitchenware). I scroll down and stop at an email that makes me go still.
It’s from Lucy. I don’t open it, but I can’t avoid seeing what is written in the subject line: I miss you. Call me. Such innocuous words, but they are like a shout of accusation. I only have to close my eyes and once again I hear the pop of champagne corks. The shouts of Happy New Year! The screech of Nick’s car pulling away from the curb.
And I remember the aftermath. The long days of sitting with Lucy in Nick’s hospital room, watching his comatose body shrivel and fold into itself like a fetus. I remember the appalling sense of relief I felt on the day he died. I am the only one alive with the secret now, a secret that I keep caged and hidden, but it is always there, feeding on me like a cancer.
I close the laptop and shove it away. Just as I’ve pushed Lucy away, because I cannot bear to face her.
And so I sit alone in this house on the hill. If I were to collapse tonight, the way Aurora Sherbrooke did, who would find me? I look down at Hannibal, who’s already cleaned his plate and is now licking his paws, and I wonder how long it would take before he’d start feasting on my flesh. Not that I would blame him. A cat’s gotta do what a cat’s gotta do, and eating is what Hannibal excels at.
The seafood stew is bubbling on the stove, but I’ve lost my appetite. I turn off the burner and reach for a bottle of Zinfandel. Tonight I need liquid comfort, this bottle is already uncorked, and I crave the bite of tannins and alcohol on my tongue. I pour a generous serving into a glass, and as I lift it to my lips, I catch sight of the recycling bin in the corner.
It is overflowing with empty wine bottles.
I set down my glass. My craving is still as powerful, but those bottles tell a sad story of a woman who lives alone with her cat, who buys wine by the case and drinks herself into oblivion every night, just to fall asleep. I have been trying to drown my guilt, but booze is just a temporary fix that destroys your liver and poisons your brain. It’s made me question what is real and what is fantasy. Does my perfect lover really exist, or is he nothing more than a drunkard’s delusion?