After Alice Fell(2)

Metal wheels squeal and chitter behind me, loud and then silent. I stumble forward, my chest tight, hand grasping for the solid wall. The brick is chipped and scratched from too much use.

Mr. Stoakes’s footsteps are heavy on the stone behind me, following with enough distance to keep out of my thoughts. The light is dull, just a slit of sun through high casement windows, heating the narrow glass and sheeting the interior with layers of dust.

“Don’t follow me.” I grab at my skirts and gather them.

He reaches for my elbow. “Best I help.”

I twist and claw away from his grip. “Don’t follow me.”

My sister lies on a bed of ice. Our brother, Lionel, waits in the garden. He’s met with Dr. Mayhew but refuses this task. They’ve left me to attend Alice, and now I am lost in a jigsaw of halls and occasional gaslit lamps bolted to the wall. Steam pipes run the length, banging and knocking.

“Mrs. Abbott?” The attendant’s voice slips around corners and then is gone.

I follow the pipes through a door to a tunnel of red brick and a low, heavy arch, lamps spaced twenty paces apart, and then another door to a hall with squared walls and rippled paint and metal-latticed windows. A dance of signs, black iron, white letters, arrows every which way. Utility. Store C. Store D. Room A13. Utility B. Morgue.

I turn my back to that one, though I know if I follow that arrow, I’ll be on familiar ground. I’ll be back with Alice and can start again, trace my steps to the stairwell and up to the side door in the cheerful visitors’ lobby. It’s just a matter of steps, then, to the double doors and wide porch. Certainly, Lionel will be waiting. He’ll hand me up to the hansom cab; I’ll take out my handkerchief and wipe my forehead. “It’s so very hot,” I’ll say and watch the jonquils lining the long drive doze and dance in the sun.

But I don’t want to go back to Alice. I can’t. I can’t see her body on ice.

Utility. Store C. Store D.

My chest tightens. I press against the wall, hand to stomach, breath pulled through the nose. I scrape my fingers to the brick. I am lost here with Alice.

She is meant to be alive. How can I tell her now how sorry I am?

My knees give way. A door bangs, and there’s Mr. Stoakes, lumbering over. He passes the doors. Store C. Store D. Room A13.

With a squat and hmph, he’s on his haunches. He blinks, rapid fire, and tightens his lips into a smile. “We can’t have this, Mrs. Abbott.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.” I flatten my free hand to the wall. Let out a bark of a laugh. My heart slows. “I’m not like this, really. It’s the shock. It shouldn’t bother me; I was a nurse—”

“I’ll help you up now.” As he stands, he keeps a hold on my elbow, light like a comfort. “There we are. Let’s find your brother.”

“There you are.” Lionel looks up from his watch, thumbing the case shut and sliding it into his vest pocket. He leans against the white railing in the one streak of sunlight, his hair bright copper, much like mine, darker than Alice’s. The sun reflects in his glasses as he turns to me. His coat is as blue as the sky behind him, as if he had been set by a painter upon this porch, the coat and bright-sheened vest provided from a costume closet. A Languorous Day, the painting might be called. No one the wiser for the setting. No matter the confection of porticos and porches, vine-weaved lattice and wide sunny lawns, nothing masks the purpose. It is an asylum, and until last night, my sister was an inmate within its walls.

Lionel nods to Stoakes, then crosses to me and lays his hands on my shoulders before pulling me to him in a strong grip.

My ear presses against the pouch of tobacco in his coat pocket. He rubs the back of my neck, lays his cheek on my head, and his breath warms my scalp for only a moment before he steps away.

I smell like death. It’s why he moved away. The decomposing skin, the rot of liver and belly, the stench of gases, the sweet mildew and musk of it threads my black widow’s weeds and hair. Alice wraps around me like a shroud.

“My God,” I say. “What have we done?”

“Not now.” He glances behind, to Stoakes, his eyes apologizing. Then he strides down the stairs to the pebble walkway, just one glance over his shoulder to make certain I’m following him. “Come along, Marion. The cab is waiting.”

He leans forward to talk to the driver. The horses are edgy; the cab rolls back, then forward.

I take his hand and clamber to my seat, folding my skirts round my thighs and settling into the cracked leather. The driver in his faded coat turns his head halfway to hear us. His hat is dark rimmed with sweat and matted with horsehair.

“Move on.” Lionel rests his hands atop each other, snaking his gloves between his palms.

The carriage sways and starts forward.

“We’re all that’s left now.”

Lionel stares at a rip in the fabric, right near his shoulder. It’s been poorly mended. “Don’t be silly. There’s Cathy. Toby.”

“Your family,” I say. “Not mine.”

We slow for the gatekeeper. He chucks his crutch under his arm and uses the gate for balance, his left trouser leg loose below the knee, swinging with the motion. Where? I want to ask. Antietam, Fredericksburg, a nameless creek in Virginia muddled with late-spring runoff: I might have held his hand. Or lied and said there would be ether when there was none.