After Alice Fell(41)

“Miss Clough. She’s the third-floor matron. But she swears it wasn’t her. She’s a good one, Miss Clough.”

“I want to see her.” I grab her arm and pull her close. “You take me to see her.”

“They won’t let you in.”

“You get me in to see this Miss Clough, then.”

“You’re hurting me, Mrs. Abbott.” Her eyes go wide, as if she’s spotted something just beyond us on the street. “Please, Mrs. Abbott. It’s my morning off, I need to get back before they know.”

“Did someone kill my sister?” I flash to Alice’s hand in mine, so lifeless, the nails ragged and worn. “Help me. Please.”

I loosen my grip. Kitty rubs her wrist and pulls at the cuff of her shirt. Then she steps back and digs into her handbag. “Here.” She shoves a package at me, solid edges like a book, wrapped in brown paper and twine. “This was Alice’s. I kept them for her. I have to go.”

“This Miss Clough—”

“It’ll have to be at night. When there’s just the small staff. I’ll send you word.” She reaches to me, then stops. “Oh!” Then she jerks away and jogs farther down the alley to the river. She slows, looking back to me. “We both need solace, Mrs. Abbott. I think we both do.”

I step out of the alley. The light is a sullen yellow. The wind gusts and pummels my bonnet against my cheek. I grip the parcel tight and wait for the passing of a milk van. The mule’s ribs poke its skin and mud-cracked hair. I cross the street, lifting my skirts to avoid the dirt and oil and horse dung. I don’t know where I’m going.

Someone killed my sister.





Chapter Seventeen


The Phoenix Hotel lobby is cool. No one pays attention to me. The bench I sit on is curved, tufted with green velvet much used and sheened. The desk clerk has pulled over a small table, has gone to the trouble of bringing me a spritzer of soda water, and I nod at him and take a sip. The spritzer is flat. I pretend it isn’t. I pretend instead I am just a woman sitting in a hotel lobby because the weather threatens rain and thunderstorms. I am the widow people give wide berth or too much sympathy. I watch the comings and goings of the people up the stairs, boots and button-up shoes, carpetbags and leather carrying cases. The bell ringing for the bellhop. The room keys jangled and delivered. Comings and goings.

I’ve set the package on the table. The twine is knotted twice. It won’t unknot, so I pull the string to the edge and shrug it off to the seat. A book. Thin, the cover a cheap, blue cotton. The pages crinkle along their edges, as if left in the rain.

Open the book. The words won’t bite.

I flip quickly. There’s no rhyme or reason to the lines of words and the spattering of sketches. Nothing dated. Alice’s handwriting is precise, as it always is—she worked hard at it all those years ago when I taught her. Nothing misspelled, and she was proud of that, studied the word lists I gave her from my old textbooks. My learning of sums and the French Revolution, embroidery and beginning French, passed on to her in the corner of her room we’d turned into a study.

She’s come again. I can’t look at her teeth. They’re big as the windows. Marion would call her Mary Mule.

“Oh, Alice.” I run my thumb along the paper and the indent of the pencil marks.

Kitty’s eyes are green glass. Sometimes I want to shatter them. On and on there’s always hope. When?

A sketch, then, in pencil. A view of the trees from the women’s porch. I recognize the smokestack poking above the leaves. She’s drawn in creatures hanging and grinning from branches. Knob kneed. Long nailed. Some with hair aflame.

Today ice. Toes still numb. Lemon cake.

Another sketch: A widow with a veil so long it pools at her feet. She holds a single lily and stands over a grave small enough for a babe.

A page torn out. The ragged edges traced with curlicues. It is Kitty in profile, clear cheeked and smiling. She is almost pretty, and somehow Alice has caught the light from the window.

I will be a good girl.

Box. Mrs. B said not so long this time, but she was wrong. 1,786 seconds. I counted. Sent complaint to Dr. M.

My breath stops at the image on the next page: A girl on a chair, thick leathers. Ankles to chair legs, wrists to the arms. Chest belted tight. Head trapped inside a square box, a lock on the side. A cat lying on top with its paws slung over the edge and its eyes staring direct into mine.

My hand quivers as I hold it to my mouth. The leather straps. The bruises.

“What did they do to you?”

Kitty angry at me. Why can’t you behave.

He watches. Everywhere. He’s everywhere. His eyes are like marbles. Mrs. B says I’m a tall taler.

Lemon cake. Mrs. B showing off. Ladies sing like cats but terribly righteous. Smell like verbena and shoe polish.

An empty page.

Another picture. A cat. Or not a cat. Parts of a cat and none make a whole. Whiskers in a line as if they’d been plucked and set to a table. A haunch of fur and then muscle, then the bones of the foot, each claw separately drawn. One ear mangled. Along the edge: HARPER R.I.P.

Kitty agrees. We’ll be better and then we can meet in real life and have creams and cakes.

Not wanted.

Beatrice is dead. She was strapped under the ice and they all laughed when she had a fit.