After Alice Fell(73)

“Saoirse.” I dig a heel into the floor to scoot forward, all the while coddling my arm. My hand is numb, but not the wrist. Not the break. I clamp my jaw, swallowing back a keen of pain. Scoot forward again. “Why?”

She shakes her head. “’Tis a cursed family, this one.” Stands and hobbles back, pulling the door shut with a click and clunk of the lock.

The water jug is full and sloshes over the top as I slide it close. I bend to it. Lick the drops, then lift it high and drink. It is laced with brandy or another liquor; Saoirse’s showing her guilt for betraying me. Apologizing with a sop of alcohol to ease my distress. That she caused.

A laugh balloons in my throat, distends it, and then pummels its way out. I should have known. It was careless.

The chamber pot clatters and wobbles like a top when I kick it. When I kick it again it careens off the wall and lands facedown and at the tip of a pair of shoes.

They are odd shoes. Women’s shoes in blue leather and buttons saffron orange. The tops along the shin curve out like wings. Skirts obscenely short, bare legs pale and showy. A tattoo creeps the left shin, from under the shoe’s tongue to the bone of the kneecap. Black-ink roses, petals picked and chewed by aphids. The right shin is flayed of skin and muscle, just bone and sinew and flecks of soil.

My breath rasps.

There’s a chattering noise, the click of teeth when a body’s too cold. Click click click. I won’t look up. If I do, I know it will be Alice’s face.





Chapter Twenty-Nine


All day I listen to Cathy’s and Lionel’s footsteps tracking paths through the house: parlor to study, study to dining room, dining room to front door. In again and up the stairs to stop at Toby’s door, their own, down to the kitchen, whispers rough and low as they pass my door. Once there was Saoirse. Her shadow flickered under the doorframe, the bell of her skirt swaying. Then the shadow petered out as she walked away.

I shift my hip; some loose paper crumples underneath as I move. And I’ve wet myself. No matter how I tore and yanked at all the underlayers I couldn’t get them off. Now I lie with piss drying along my thighs and soaked in my skirts.

My mouth is bone dry, my tongue sandpaper rough against the roof. My water jug is empty; I finished it in the night. Now it sits on the side table by a candle stub and a spot that once held a matchbox.

I push myself up with my elbow. Pain flares through my arm and across my shoulder. I grab at a bedpost and clamber upright. I blink to stave off the dizziness, and shudder with cold. My fingers throb as if on fire, though they are losing circulation, blue and white at the tips.

Think.

My brother has locked me in this room. Tomorrow he’ll realize his anger is out of bounds with whatever punishment this is, and he’ll let me out. No. Not anger. Rage. So much rage.

There’s a thud against the wall, just behind the wardrobe. One, or both of them, in Lionel’s office. I cross the room and bend to the keyhole. The hall is empty, the office door shut.

“Listen to me.” But my voice is parched and no more than a breath. I rest my forehead against the wood.

A squeak of a door. I squint again. Calico skirts, blue and peach. Cathy bounces the palm of her hand against her leg. When she approaches, the skirt’s swirls and flowers grow ever large and block my view completely. Then it’s her eye, obsidian and not blinking, staring through the keyhole at me. “Not now,” she says. Her gaze glides to the side then rolls back. With no other words, she stands and returns to Lionel’s study.

I crumple to the floor and jar my arm enough the pain knifes up the bones, and I gasp a breath.

The ties on the splint are too tight. I press my nailbeds, one by one, hoping for the blush of color that signifies blood is circulating. But the beds are white now. The tips numb.

My teeth are useless against the knots, not as easy to loosen as the velvet pouch with Lydia’s brooch. It’s an odd thing for Cathy to have in her possession, like a trophy. I can’t think Lionel would have proffered his dead wife’s jewelry as a wedding gift to the second wife. But there it was in her drawer. Perhaps she has Alice’s locket somewhere too.

I need the scissors. I crawl to the sewing basket, scrabble my hand through the mending—Toby’s short trousers with the rip on the pocket, Alice’s chemises too intricate for the rag bin—and clamp my hand on the scissor case.

The splint clatters to the floor as I cut the muslin straps, the wads of cotton rolling over my skirt to the floor. With my arm clasped to my stomach, I drop my head to my knees in relief.

Then I grip a chemise in my mouth, cut new strips, and wrangle new ties with my teeth. I stuff the cotton under my palm and watch the skin regain its color. A simple accomplishment. The white is speckled brown from old blood and red from new. I pull the stitch from my lip and fling it away. It lands on the rug stained black from ink.

“No. I won’t.” Lionel’s voice is loud in the hall. “It’s too much.”

“Then I will.” The office door shuts with a thud that makes the wall quiver, and Cathy’s words muffle. The sconce candles snuff out one by one. Her tread, then his up the stairs.

It’s pitch black now. I swallow and then lick salty sweat from my upper lip. A low moan claws from my gut up my throat. My body trembles as the panic stirs and hisses.

Shh. Shh.

I flash on the tintype of Lydia, the almost smile that crinkles her cheek. Lydia drowned in the pond. Out past the turn, where the shores pinch tight and the Sentinels stand guard.