After Alice Fell(60)

“Yes, Amos. Quite well.”

But if one were to paint a picture, it would be titled Invalid. I don’t want it; I am restless, and last night’s dreams—for Cathy assures me she did not come down from her room—circle and bite and cower away when I look.

I pull the shawl she’s brought me, but it’s caught under my hip. I drop the fabric. Even were I to get it loose, it would take a half hour to fling it over my useless arm.

“So tell me, nurse, how tight or not shall I make this?” Cathy had come early, when the light was still but a glimmer of violet and the loons made their morning plaintive calls. “And I’ve brought this for your sling. Much more fashionable.”

Certainly. If one were fond of peacocks and fairies, both of which had been printed on the silk. She’s gone to town and promises to bring back something even nicer.

Now I drop my head to the back of the chair and follow the lines of the porch ceiling. There’s an old spider’s web that flutters between two of the boards and the fried paper and pulp of an abandoned yellow-jacket nest in the corner. Yet the long table is covered in a damask cloth, and breakfast was served on porcelain.

Maybe it’s true. Maybe Alice chose to jump from the roof. But then why would Kitty be so adamant? And Harriet Clough? I shift my slipper against the wood and recall the hiss of her starched skirts. Brawders House was as paradoxical as this house, with the fine front vestibule and fancy flowered gardens, and yet the paint on the lock plate of Alice’s cell scraped by her fingernails. Maybe it’s true. Maybe there’s only so long someone can abide a place like that before all hope is squelched. If she jumped. Just as she told me she would.

If I could just see the notebooks.

“Auntie.” Toby clomps up the porch stairs and runs his palm on the railing before stopping in front of me. He closes an eye and assesses me. Then he moves closer and stares directly into my left eye, so I see only the gold flecks in the blue sea of his. He lifts his eyebrow. “I can see your soul.”

“Can you?”

He pushes the chair arm so it rocks, and twists to watch the men in the yard. “We’re having a bonfire.”

There’s a squeal of wood yanked from the building below, then the clap of it to the others. The boards that will be saved. Just the posts and rafters remain. Amos climbs a ladder to what’s left of the roof and straddles a beam.

Everyone busy or away. I take a bite of cheese, then swipe a crumble from my skirt. Everyone busy.

“Toby, take the molasses bread to the men.”

“I want to have an archery lesson.”

“Yes.”

Amos’s boot swings in time with his hammer.

“I’m going to lie down. Take the bread to the men, all right? I want the house quiet.”

“But—”

“Take the bread.” I stop him with a soft hand to the arm. “Tomorrow. I promise.”

The house is curiously still. The curtains in the parlor and dining room are closed against the swampy heat and glare, cloaking them in a russet light. The furniture and curios feel as if they are encased as a fly in amber. A gash of light from the transom over the door brightens the hall.

My slippers are quiet on the parquet, too loud when I hit a loose square. I traipse the hall, peek into Lionel’s office. Dust particles hang in the air, too lazy to fall. There’s a half-finished cup of coffee on the corner of the desk. The milk has curdled. My hands tremble. I ball them into fists to stop it. Keep my fingers curled around the splint.

I touch the knob of the cabinet to the left of his desk, the one with the complaints and the notebook that wasn’t his to take. Still locked. Each of the drawers locked tight. The desk drawers as well.

There’s a loud pop. I freeze and wait. Just the house settling.

I kneel, run my hand under the middle drawer, then drop to my haunches when I find nothing. No key tucked away.

If only I’d been as good with a hairpin and followed Lionel’s lessons when we were young. I’d thought it dishonest. Raised my nose and marched inside. The good little girl.

My eye stops on the shelf across, on Lydia’s photograph tucked near the back. Easy to miss if walking by but directly in the line of sight if sitting at the desk. Lionel rarely talks of her. As if to say her name brought too much pain.

I slip to the kitchen. Find a knife, a thin fillet knife. I clutch the handle, then hide the blade in the folds of my skirts as I leave the room.

But it doesn’t help with any of the locks. It’s too wide for the lock itself and too thick to slip in the space between cabinet and drawer. I stride from the room, down the hall to the parlor, to Cathy’s tall secretary. The shelves are full of curios. They sit behind the paned glass doors, and the knife turns the lock without much effort. I don’t know what I’m looking for. I lift up a vase painted ruby and gold, tip it to see the contents, find it empty save a single gold clasp to a necklace. A bluebird of happiness has a place of honor on the middle shelf, and on the lower a tintype of her mother and father in their Sunday finest, him in proud sideburns and her with round glasses and the hand on her lap blurred because she moved it too soon. I’ve never met them; they trailed their other daughter to the Ohio Valley sometime past. If Cathy receives letters, she does not share the news.

I push the door shut and turn the latch. There is but a single drawer to the desk, though it is wide and deep. I curl my fingers to the handle and give a good pull. The drawer squeals as it opens, the sound like a banshee shriek in the still of the room. I push my thigh against the front to stop it from dropping out.