After Alice Fell(69)

I hold the left half of the slide in front of the light. The top of her head, the fabric hood snagged in a tangle of roots.

On the right half, Lionel scrambles down the slope to the water.

SEVEN: He tied the rope around her chest and said don’t let go of that end, Alice, it’s dark. We both pulled and pulled with the rope around a tree trunk to hoist her because of the grasses. Her skirts were terrible heavy with water and muck. And he laid her down. Liddie! he said & he stared at me. & then pulled at the hood but the knots were terrible tight. I caught it in my teeth and ripped it. Her head bounced and swiveled I thought she would say something but she was dead. Liddie! he cried. CATHY, I yelled. IT WAS CATHY.

I can’t look again. Lydia’s eyes, pale blue like Toby’s, are filled with surprise. Forever filled with surprise.

And betrayal.

Instead, I turn the card over. I saw.

The lantern’s lamp sputters; I’ve burnt all the oil from the pan.

One by one I replace the slides, the cards. Close the box. The 7 Wonders of the World.

It’s just a story. One of the many delusions Alice so fervently believed to be true.

And even if it was true . . . even if she told, who would listen? Look at the complaints that moulder in Lionel’s drawer.

The little boat sits on the sea now, just a dot near the horizon line. It’s a dream. I know it’s a dream. The boat is blue and white, the horizon deep red, the water glassy smooth. A picnic by the sea, long bristle grass bent to the sand, a lift of rock full sunned, warm on one side, the other slick with shadow.

“Alice is dead,” I say, but Lionel doesn’t hear me. He’s far down the curve of pebbles, his trousers rolled and one suspender loose against his thigh. He picks up stones, turns them in his hand before arcing them to the water and watching the punctures to the sea skin before bending for another rock. His hair is too long and very red; he pushes it from his forehead and keeps his hand up to scan the small cove.

A flight of laughter from the far end, in the dark shade of an overhanging rock, two girls small as dolls who swish their hips as they exit to the light. They move like porcelain figurines, eyes painted bright black, lips brushed deep pink, heads swiveling to look to him and then to each other.

Alice sits on a flat outcrop, hands crossed on her stomach, skirts gathered to her knees. The sun catches the fine blond hair on her shins. She scratches her calf, then settles back down with her head on my thigh. She watches Lionel slice the water with another rock.

Her hand reaches for the slate and chalk we’ve brought in place of paper and ink. She marks it and turns the board to me.

He’s in love with Cathy.

She looks up at me, green eyes flecked with gray. Sometimes the gray darkens and shifts with the light and mood. Her chest lifts and jostles with a laugh.

The wind lifts the brim of my bonnet. Ruffles Alice’s skirts and Lionel’s hair. The water curls and buckles, sharp edged and annoyed.

“He can’t marry her. He’s marrying Lydia. It’s already settled.”

Alice rubs the side of her hand to the board, then jabs her chalk to it. You don’t see. You don’t listen. She bends her knees and cradles the board to her stomach. Then she pulls a strand of her hair, rolls it around her fingers. She shrugs and points to the board again. I saw.

“A hoo!” Lionel calls from the other end of the cove. He stands on a log weathered gray from salt and waves. Such long arms. Wide hands. Still the smile of a boy shifting under the mask of a man.

There’s another peal and giggle from the little dolls at the other end of the cove. The wind waffles, blowing their skirts this way and that.

I button my shawl. “It’s getting cold.”

“Are you all ready yet? I’d like to get back to my lecture. I haven’t finished it.”

My shoulders and neck go stiff. Benjamin has ambled over the hillock. I don’t remember him coming, but there he is, and Alice’s board clatters to the rock as she sits up. Her legs are pimply with goosebumps. She gives a great shiver and pushes her skirts down.

The sun slips behind the dunes, tipping the sky peach, and the boat rolls over the horizon.

I grip my collar with one hand and gesture for Lionel to come back. I call to him. But he’s not listening, has his hands clasped behind his head and stares at the water.

“Lionel! Come back.”

With a twist he turns his torso to acknowledge he’s heard, then points to the empty stretch of sea. “They went in the boat. They went away in the boat.”

The earth has settled on Alice’s grave, a little more each day. As if it is pulling her deeper into the ground. In another month the leaves will cover it, and a month after that the snow will fall and settle on the gravestone like a wreath. Now there is no stone, no leaves. Just the dried stalks of flowers and the arrow Toby left. I move to the head of the grave, toeing aside twigs and cicada shells, then shove the arrow to the earth, the quill feathers pointing skyward. Something to mark the spot until the stone is cut.

“I see, Alice. I hear. But I don’t know what to do.” It is certain that should I bring the slides and cards to the constable, he will return them to Lionel who will inform Mayhew—or worse, the public asylum—of my own troubling behavior. A madwoman believing a madwoman. I need a witness.

Saoirse tsks and grimaces as she replaces the cotton ties on my splint with clean strips. She leans over the kitchen table, her palm under my fingers, pressing each of my nails and waiting for the blood to bloom underneath.