Fifty Words for Rain(96)

Nori bent down to kiss her on both cheeks. “Good night, sweet girl.”

After Charlotte had gone, Nori was acutely aware of her proximity to Noah. She had never been alone with him before.

He smiled shyly at her. “Do you . . . maybe want to sit?”

Part of her did. “No, thank you. I should be going.”

“I’m teaching Charlotte Mozart’s twelve variations,” he said.

“Yes, I know.”

She turned to leave. She didn’t want to be rude, but she knew better than to start down this road.

“You’re a musician, aren’t you?”

Nori froze in her tracks. She turned back around to look into his bright face. “What?”

Noah grinned. “You aren’t new to any of this. I can tell. And you don’t just look at the music I give the girls, you read it. I hear you humming the melody.”

She shrugged, flushing. “I dabbled. Years ago.”

“Lady Alice says—”

Alice. Of course she couldn’t stop herself from meddling.

“I really have to go,” she said, because this conversation only led one place. And she wasn’t going to talk about her brother with this boy. Not ever.

She left before he’d had a chance to drop his smile.



* * *





Nori woke in the night to the sound of a bloodcurdling scream. It was like a banshee.

She shot up and threw a robe over her nakedness. She ran down the hall to Alice’s bedroom, but Charlotte had gotten there first.

She was clutching her stuffed animal to her chest and her eyes were the size of dinner plates. With a horrible sinking feeling, Nori realized that Alice hadn’t been the one who had screamed.

It was Charlotte.

And when Nori saw why, a scream rose in her own throat and froze there in horror.

Alice was on the floor, half tangled in the sheets. It was clear that she had tried to stand but had become caught and fallen.

Her white nightgown was stained, terribly stained, with bloody water. And there, lying in the mess of sheets, was something . . . solid.

Nori snatched up Charlotte and shoved the little girl’s face into her chest. But it was too late. She had already seen.

“Bess!” Nori cried. “Noah! Someone, please! Help, please!”

Alice raised her head off the floor. Her skin was green. There were tears streaming down her lovely face.

“It’s too late,” she whispered. “It’s too late. He’s already gone.”



* * *





Nobody knew why. The doctor said that it was rare this late, but that it happened, and there were no answers.

“He never breathed,” he said, as if that was supposed to bring comfort.

Alice was a ghost, pale and silent. She slept in Nori’s bed because she couldn’t bear to be in her own room. She stayed there all day, for weeks, until the October leaves started to fall.

Nori knew the bleak, endless despair that she was caught in. There were no words.

All she could do was sit by the bed and wait for Alice to be ready.

George came as soon as the news reached him, but ultimately, there was nothing he could say. They buried the half-formed body of Alice’s son in the garden, underneath an ancient oak tree, in a small ceremony presided over by a local priest. Alice refused to attend.

George took the girls back to London with him afterwards, leaving Alice in the care of Bess and Nori. Charlotte had worn the same shell-shocked look on her face since that night, and Matilda’s screaming for her mother could be heard even as the car pulled away.

Surprisingly, Noah had refused to leave.

“I’ll stay with Lady Alice,” he said simply. “And with you.”

Nori did not have the energy to ask what use a music teacher, and a second-rate one at that, would be in a situation like this. It was all she could do to keep her beloved friend from starving to death.

Bess brought hot water and soap to the side of the bed every day, and sometimes between the two of them they could coax Alice to sit up so that they could wash her and change her into a fresh nightgown.

Nori cooked all of Alice’s favorite dishes in a vain attempt to get her to eat more than a few bites.

Noah was mostly useless, but he’d stand in the doorway and sing in a low, clear voice. Absurdly, Nori felt better having him here, though she’d never admit it.

Bess pulled her aside one morning. “She can’t go on like this,” she said simply. “It’s been months.”

Nori hesitated. “We can’t force her.”

Bess blinked at her. She was a tan, sturdy girl with freckles and wild strawberry-blonde hair.

“I can’t, certainly,” Bess corrected her. “But begging your pardon, miss, she listens to you.”

Nori felt the pit of her stomach fall out. She groaned. She had been here before, on the other side of the door. Mired in darkness. Now it was her turn to pull someone back to the light.

“I’ll tell her to get up,” she said.

Bess nodded and gestured to the closed bedroom door. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Nori took a deep breath and opened the door to the bedroom. The shutters were drawn, and it was so dark that she almost stumbled.

She crept to the bed slowly.