The Death of Mrs. Westaway(108)

And then Ezra’s face split into a terrifying grin, and he dropped the lighter, and ran.

Hal ran too.

She ran without seeing, barely knowing where she was going.

She ran, tripping over discarded bottles and mousetraps, hearing the crunch of small skeletons beneath her feet, and the splash of water. She fell, and she picked herself up, all the time hearing behind her Ezra’s triumphant panting breath, for he knew this cellar, this was his house, his domain, and she remembered him saying how he and Maud had played hide-and-seek down here as small children.

This was his home.

But he was half-blind, and Hal was not, and she had a head start, and now she could see the faint glimmer of moonlight coming through the crack of the garden door ahead of her, and she put on a burst of speed and prayed—prayed to gods she did not believe in, and to the powers she had decried all her life, prayed for deliverance.

And then the cold metal knob of the door was beneath her hand and she was trying to turn it, with fingers that slipped with blood, and she could hear his pounding feet and his panting breath coming closer, and closer . . .

And then the door gave, and she was out in the moonlight, running, and running, and running in the blessed light of the waxing moon, almost as clear as day.

Her feet were taking her downhill, and she was halfway there before she realized, with a terrified lurch, where she was heading. She glanced behind her, but it was too late, he was out, he had seen her. If she doubled back to the house he would catch her. There was nowhere else to go, and maybe . . . maybe, a little still voice inside of her said, maybe it had always been meant to lead back here. Back to where it had started, and ended. Back to the boathouse.

Ezra was almost halfway across the lawn, his footsteps great slithering gashes in the white snow, when Hal broke into the cover of the little copse and began the slow fight through the brambles, tearing at her hands. She had no thought in her head apart from putting as much distance as possible between herself and Ezra—but perhaps, if she could somehow circumnavigate the lake and get to the other side, she could make it to the road, flag down a passing car. . . .

She crashed out of the brambles, her legs torn and bleeding, and found herself in a patch of moonlight at the shore of the lake. Behind her she could hear Ezra beginning to forge his own path through the undergrowth, and he was making better time of it than she was. She had already pushed aside the worst of it—all he had to do was follow in her path.

“Hal,” he panted. “Hal, please.”

And there was something so desperate in his voice that a part of her almost wanted to say, It’s okay. I’ll stop. I give in. Oh God, she was so tired. . . .

In front of her the lake was a black slick, dotted here and there with patches of white. And as Ezra came plunging out of the undergrowth, Hal knew she had nowhere else to go.

“Hal,” he gasped. He looked half-destroyed, his face dark with drying blood, the wound above his eye still wet and raw. His clothes had been slashed by the brambles, his arms and legs streaked with cuts, and looking down at herself Hal might almost have laughed, had she not been so terrified and exhausted.

“Stop,” he said. He held out his arms. “Stop running. Please . . . please, just stop.”

She wanted to answer him. She wanted to scream at him, to berate him for what he had done to Maud, to Maggie, to Mrs. Warren. She wanted to cry for the hopes she had had for her father, and for what she had found.

But her throat was too raw. As he came towards her, step after slow, careful step, his arms held out like the promise of a grim embrace, she could only shake her head, the tears running silently from her eyes, down her cheeks, and hold herself, as she would never let him hold her.

“Hal, please,” he said again, and she stepped backwards, onto the frozen surface of the lake.

It cracked, but held, and she stepped again, seeing his face change in an instant, from cautious pleading to a kind of impotent, terrified rage.

“Please, don’t,” he managed. “It’s not safe.”

You are the danger, she wanted to say. I’d be safer out here, beneath the ice, with my mother, than ever I would be with you.

But she could only shake her head, and step backwards, and backwards, expecting each time she did to hear the snap of breaking ice, and feel the frigid waters of the lake envelop her.

Each time she did, the ice creaked and groaned, but it didn’t break.

“Hal, come back,” he cried. And then, almost laughing, “What are you going to do, for Christ’s sake? Stay out there all night? You’ll have to come back.”

And again she stepped back. She was almost to the island now. And from there it was just another short crossing to the far shore, and the boundary of the property.

“Hal!” he bellowed, and above her she saw the flurry of wings as the startled magpies woke and took flight, cawing and wheeling in alarm, sending little patters of snow falling all around them in the quiet of the woods. “Hal, get over here now.”

But she only shook her head for the third and final time—and then he stepped onto the ice.

It held. And Hal felt a wash of hot horror flood over her, and then a great coldness as he looked down at his feet, and then up at her, grinning at the realization of what this meant.

“Oh, you,” he said as he began to walk towards her. “Oh, you little—”

But he never finished.