After Alice Fell(77)

Cathy killed Lydia.

But if I say a word—

I must be calm. Regain my right self.

I tap my thumb to the wood of the splint, then pull the sling off, letting my arm free and working my fingers, trying to touch my thumb to the others. Over and over through the stiffness until I am able to pinch it to the middle finger without the room thinning into white and my stomach revolting.

One button at a time. Each piece of clothing removed and folded to the mending basket. There is enough water in the jug for a quick wipe with a rag. I shrug on a chemise, then Alice’s stays and Alice’s plaid skirt because my own mourning dress is too large. Her bodice sports tight sleeves, for she never was one for pufferies and fancies. Not when the forest called.

Brush the hair and pin it.

Shuffle up the papers and set them to the desk.

Make the bed.

Cover the piss pot with a pillow casing.

Push the windows full up to gain fresh air. I press my nose to the wood shutters and breathe in. Horses, hay. Ash. Tobacco smoke. Not Lionel’s. Outside, the cicadas saw, their song a rough throb. It weaves with other voices. I turn my ear to the words. Cathy. Amos.

Nothing intelligible, just one voice hooked over another, coming from down near the weeping willow. Words traveling on smoke. Words that snare and stop, jab and raise.

Then, “What about the boy?” Amos is directly below my window.

“What about him?”

“You don’t lay a finger on him. He’s an innocent boy.”

“What do you take me for?”

“What you are.”

“You’ll get what you want.” Cathy’s voice like a knife. “Burn the factory. That’s the only thing you’ll get paid for.”

“I’ll get more than that,” he says. “You didn’t pay me enough for the other.”

Everything slows. My heart. My movements. The other. Alice. I peek through the gap in the shutters, try to find the figures in the small slice of yard that is visible. It is just dusk, the shadows long, the air murky. Nothing in view but the gravel path. Then Cathy, striding to the house, mouth in a thin line. Amos stepping to follow, then distracted, smacking the air and then his forearm. Quashing a mosquito. He lifts his hand. Stares at his palm. Then wipes it to his trouser leg.

My breath is shallow. An image flips into place. Another man, smacking a mosquito to his arm and staring at his palm. Straddling the peak of the asylum roof, eating his lunch in the sun as we carted Alice’s body away.

The kitchen door bangs. I jump away from the window.

“Cathy.” I clear my throat, afraid she hasn’t heard me as she passes. “Cathy.”

“What?”

“Where’s Toby?”

“I—he’s in the yard. Target practice. He’s—shut up.”

Ice slides under my skin. “You can’t keep me in here. I know what you did.”

“Who do you think will save you? Kitty Swain?” She kicks the door and tramps down the hall. Then she stops. “I have news for you.” Her voice echoes in the hall. “Your Kitty Swain is dead. She hung herself from a clothesline pole. Poor dim girl.”

Saoirse’s brought me a candle and a match. It is only a nub of candle, and I’m hopeful it means this is all temporary, that I’ll only need the few hours of wax and wick proffered. It has been three full days and now tips to the fourth. Lionel has walked to the door each night, but said nothing. Tonight he stumbles, throwing his hand to the wall to stop from falling over. He breathes through his mouth, quick gasps, and knocks his forehead to the wallpaper.

“Marion,” he whispers.

He freezes, then slants his head to look back down the hall. He straightens, losing his balance, then teetering back and swinging out a leg to catch himself.

“Lionel?”

“Shh.” He wobbles forward, blocking the view from the keyhole. But then there is the scrape of a key, and he slips around the door. He is overcareful as he shuts it, his hand on the knob, his eyes boring into the door before he clicks it shut and falls back against the wall. He picks at the cuff of his suit, and now there’s a hole and four errant threads. One more and the entire thing will unravel. “It stinks in here.”

“You knew what she did,” I say to him, my voice quiet, not wanting to give Cathy cause to come down the hall.

He puts his hand over my mouth and squeezes his arm tight around me so I cannot move away. His breath is sour, hot against my cheek. “Be quiet.”

I wrench and twist, but his grasp tightens, pinning my arms. He digs his fingers into the hollow of my cheeks. “You shouldn’t have come back, Marion.”

I bite into his palm, clamping down until he loosens his grip.

“God damn it.” He closes his eyes and wags his head, then sucks on his palm. In the candlelight, his eye sockets are dark black.

“You knew.”

“No. I didn’t . . . Lydia knew about Cathy. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘Men are like that.’” He gulps a breath and slides down the wall. “I didn’t want—there was another child coming. I had to tell Cathy no. No. It was too much. She wanted too much. I promise you, I didn’t know she meant it. She laughed when she said, ‘I’ll kill her, then. You’ll be free.’ Then one day she came to the factory and said, ‘It’s done.’” His mouth pulls into a strange grimace. “She doesn’t like to lose. She won’t lose. And it’s all out of control; I don’t know where to stop it.”