After Alice Fell(42)

Mrs. B says STOP MAKING THINGS UP. I made it up in my head, she says, and that I’m too bad a girl and she said, “You tried to murder that little boy.”

LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE LIE

Beatrice Beecham lies under the earth, one too many soaks in the water. Say a prayer for the dead and drownd and tell her visitors she died of the plague.

LIE

I know the truth. It’s scratched on my eyes and I won’t ever ever stop seeing any of it. I was there. I saw. He laughs and hums as we freeze and drown. Our calm time.

I am very cold. He watches me—says I am worth nothing but the dollars he’s been given.

I think soon I’ll die

Complaint to Constable. Kitty to take.

BOXthedemonsfoundthewayinscratchscratchscratch Dr. M says the 3rd FLOOR & Kitty cries that’s the end then

Where is my trunk it was here it’s not here?

Tomorrow. It is murder

I want to go home

Nothing after. Blank page to blank page until the last. And another handwriting, not neat. Kitty’s.

Alice Louise Snow. R.I.P.

She was my friend.

I close the book. But the image of Alice in the chair, head locked into a square box, is burnt in my vision, and no matter if I close my eyes or stare at the brass doors across the lobby, I see it. See her.

“She was afraid of the dark,” I whisper.

A man laughs in the bar, his head tilted back, mouth open, big teeth. He slaps his stomach and then the bar top.

“She was afraid of the dark.”

“Mind if I steal this?” I look up at a man in brown twill. He picks up the facing chair and swings it toward a group of young men across the way.

I don’t answer, but pull on my gloves and bonnet, pick up the book, then grip the table and force myself to stand, to walk to the lobby.

The police station jangles with voices. People mill around to wait out the summer storm. I have to bend close to the desk officer to be heard. He cocks his ear toward me and rolls a pencil back and forth on the desk.

“I wish to see the constable.”

“He’s not here. He’s engaged elsewhere.” He twists the pencil a different direction and rolls it under his palm.

“Then I will wait.”

“He won’t be in until very late tomorrow. He’s gone to Keene.”

There’s a boom of thunder. Laughter bubbles and bursts. The pencil is shifted again, ready to be rolled. The man looks past me to the next in line.

I grit my teeth and slap my hand to his. “I want to make a complaint.”

Snow & Son Brassworks is silent. No hum and whir, no windows rattling and molds thumping and the constant outflow of candlesticks and chandeliers. Bullets and belt buckles.

My parasol is for sun, not the rain now bloating the clouds.

I shake the lock. Stare down the street for any sign of Lionel. Any sign the business has a life at all. Any chance I can ride out the weather here and return home with him.

But there’s no Lionel. I cup my hand to the glass to peer inside. Machinery and wood boxes stacked haphazardly between casting machines. The belts hang loose from the ceiling. My eyes track the stairs to Lionel’s glassed-in office. The door is ajar but the room is dark.

A shout from the woolen mill startles me. All around, workers cross from the woolen mills to the depot. Hand carts piled high with packed parcels.

The sky tints green yellow, and a gust picks up the cotton dust from a delivery door. It swirls and eddies and coats my vest and skirts. Then the door is pulled shut, as are the others along the street.

“No stage going out this afternoon. That sky’s waiting to take a punch.” The liveryman rests his elbows on the wood counter, narrows an eye, and peers past my shoulder. “You’ll need to wait for the seven-thirty coach. It might be held up in Concord. Can’t be certain about that.”

The ties of my bonnet flap as a gust blows through the building. I grab the brim. Behind me, the horses shift and stamp in their stalls.

“I won’t take the horses out in this,” he says.

“No, of course not.”

“You might wish to take a room for the night.”

But I don’t have money enough for a hotel.

He tugs at his mustard coat, then reaches for the shutter and closes me out.

The rain comes heavy now, sheets that turn to steam against the brick and stone. I stop under an awning. The water pours from the corners, spattering the dirt and churning it to mud.

School Street. Houses tucked behind gardens. The rain pounds the flowers and tumbles over the black iron railings. There’s a hiss of light. I jump at the immediate crack of thunder and leapfrog across the street, skirts lifted, shoes and boots soaked enough that it doesn’t matter if I avoid the puddles or wade right through them. Another flash and crack. I take my handkerchief from my shirtwaist to wipe my face, though it is as sodden as the rest of me, then rap on the dark-blue door of a familiar plain cottage.

Mr. Hargreaves answers, looking out at me in surprise.

“Mrs. Abbott.”

“I’m afraid I am adrift.”

“We are delighted you changed your mind.” Mr. Hargreaves shifts forward on the settee and offers me a cup and saucer of tea. He smiles, and tips his head. “Ada is quite beside herself.”

I look at Ada—or what I can make out of her between the peacock-feather vase and the multiple busts of Caesar and Shakespeare and Bacon on a litter of stands in the front parlor. She is slim shouldered and quiet, currently feeding seeds to a pair of goldfinches in an ornate wicker cage. She sits on a stool between the birdcage and an upright piano. The rest of the furniture is laden with student workbooks and tomes of various natures.