But Cathy isn’t disappointed. She grits her teeth against the cold, feeling a swell of fear and excitement surge up through her chest. Like something out of a fairy tale, there is a house out there, deep in the woods.
“Mum?” Danny is shaking her arm, trying to get her attention. “I think I heard your phone just go. Sounds like you’ve got a message. You want me to go get it?”
It takes her a moment to answer. She isn’t thinking clearly.
“Grab your brother. I just need to check something and I’ll be right in.”
Danny turns to go inside with Scout close behind, trotting on his sturdy little legs. Cathy waits until the door closes before walking around the corner to the spot just below Scout’s bedroom window. Inside, his little night light is already on, casting a soft peach glow through the curtains. It’s just enough light to see by, and as Cathy bends down to peer at the frozen ground her thoughts are gathering speed, accelerating. The buried truck, Mrs. Scott, that weather vane in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it means nothing, maybe it’s just wishful thinking. God, she needs a drink.
Could be that Danny’s right about the winter in Idless, she thinks.All this snow and darkness doesn’t put anyone in their right mind.Still, she lingers long enough to look for tracks in the dirt, maybe evidence that someone was here who shouldn’t have been. A discarded cigarettebutt, a thumb smudged on the glass. Anything. But there is only that ghost of a boot print on the sill and she turns away, planning to open up the bottle of wine in the fridge and not move off the sofa till it’s drunk, but Danny is blocking the doorway. He holds her phone out to her, his face pale and spooked.
“What is it? Jesus, Danny, what is it?”
36
The little window in the bathroom can only be reached by climbing into the pink shell-shaped sink beneath it. I struggle to fit inside, afraid it will crack under my weight or tear away from the wall. This window is not boarded like the rest. The sash is old and stiff, and I have to hit the frame with the sides of my fists to shift it. It slides open grudgingly, centimeter by centimeter, scattering flakes of paint onto the sill like confetti. I lean out the gap as far as my head and shoulders will reach, tasting the air, bright and crisp. It is brittle and shocking and wonderful, the clarity of it, so surprising I am almost moved to tears. I can see the trees and the humped shapes of bushes, draped with snow. I can hear the silvery, wistful song of a robin somewhere close by.
“Did you do it? Hazel? Did you get it open?” Maria sounds urgent, almost panicky. She reaches up and grabs the back of my T-shirt, tugging it to get my attention.
I turn to look at her. “You sure you can fit through this?”
“Don’t know, never tried. But I reckon so. You might have to shove me. Here, come down.”
I clamber down, reluctant to leave the fresh air behind. It’s thefirst time I’ve felt a cold breeze on my skin in days. I turn to Maria, intending to tell her that this is a bad idea, too liable to end in injury or worse, but the look on her face drains the words out of me. Something about her has changed. She appears lighter somehow, more confident. Like a weight has shifted. I wonder if seeing her reflection has opened some fault line inside her, an earthquake that has shaken her to the core.
As if reading my mind, she gives me a small, shy smile, her eyes gleaming and lucid. “Iwantto do this, Hazel. Please. I’ve seen many women come through those doors and leave with their minds knocked out of them. If I don’t at least try to help, then I’m as bad as my brother, aren’t I? I’m, uh… What’s the word for it?”
“Culpable,” I tell her, shaking my head, “but you’re not, Maria, you’re just a kid, none of this is your fault.”
Maria takes my hand in her uninjured one. Her fingers are thin, and I can feel the bones beneath her cold skin as she squeezes. She is tiny, birdlike. So easily hurt.
“But I did nothing to stop it, did I? I’ve let him do all these terrible things, over and over. You know who they were, these women? I do. I’ll know their names forever. Diana and Lydia and Margot and Zoe. I’ll never forget them, even if I live to be a hundred years old. So maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m notcul-pebble, but I couldn’t save them. I didn’t even try.”
She drops my hand and scrambles up onto the sink before I can say anything. She has removed the long petticoat she has been wearing these last few days and stands now in a pair of baggy leggings, too big for her, worn at the knees. She draws her thick socks up her shins, tucks her jumper into the sagging waistband.
This had been Maria’s idea, and while it’s not a bad one, I have a dreadful feeling about it. A high anxiety, dividing and multiplyinglike cells in a petri dish. What if she falls climbing out the window? The shed roof where the generator is housed is directly below, and Maria has assured me she will drop safely on top of it, but I’m still worried. Her hand is useless, she has very little strength. She might not weigh much, but if the shed roof is old and rotten, she’ll go right through. It’s too easy to picture her with a twisted ankle or knocked unconscious, lying out there helpless in the snow.
“Maria—” I begin, but she is already sliding her feet through the narrow window. I hold her steady as she wriggles through the gap, past her calves, past her thighs. Up to her hips. “This box, are you sure it’s still out there?”
She grins. “Won’t know if you don’t let me go look, will we?”
Maria had described Andrew’s lockbox as being full of the serving-knees he’d taken from the dead women. If he’s killed Scout, Maria had reasoned, there will be a serving-knee in there for him too. We just need to dig it up.
“When you find it, come straight back.” I grab hold of her torso as she tilts upward. “It’s getting dark soon.”
“Okay! Yikes, it’s cold!”
She’s grinning. It’s an adventure for her, of course. Her first time outside in years—nearly a decade, by my reckoning. I hold on to her as she slithers through, shoulders, head. Then I’m balancing precariously on the sink and grabbing the sill with one hand while I hold hers with the other, leaning out and lowering her down.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Let go!”
I hesitate. I wonder if this is how motherhood feels, precarious, unknowing.You’ll question every decision and you’ll always think you got it wrong, Cathy had told me once, and then I’m letting go and there is a moment of silence in which my breath is suspended in my lungs and a feeling like pain but not quite, not physical, only like my heartis being tugged, and then she’s landing, sprawled and laughing a few feet beneath me. The snow has broken her fall a little, and she presses her hands deep into it, leaving imprints like soft dough. “It’s so cold! And wet!”
“Hurry! You need to keep moving. Stay warm!”
Overhead the stars are coming out, the sky darkening to a deep plum. Soon the giant moon will rise above the treetops, hardening the crust of snow and turning the landscape silver. I watch as Maria springs to her feet and slowly approaches the edge of the shed roof, peering over it.