I circled the house slowly in the cold air, all the way back around to the garden. Nothing. As I stood pondering, the silver tabby appeared out of nowhere, curling himself round my ankles in a long, serpentine stretch. I bent to rub the top of his head, but he shot away into the long weeds, gone.
When I straightened, I saw on the cobblestones at my feet a little gray sparrow, its head twisted at a terrible angle. Squeamish, Jane had often called me, and I could not have honestly disagreed. I bent to look closely. The bird blinked its black eye, horribly, and the silver tabby reappeared at the edge of the grass. What could I do? I left the bird to its bloody fate, reminding myself it was, after all, too late.
On my way around to the front of the house, another possibility occurred to me. A plausible one. I cut back through the yard again, pushing between the hedges to the yellow boarding house. I could smell bacon, coffee, on the wet air. I stepped up onto the whitewashed verandah and rapped at the door. It was opened shortly by a plump, redfaced woman in a stained apron. A blast of oven-warmed air and breakfast table chatter and clinking dishes wafted out behind her.
Morning, she said cheerfully, wiping her palms on her apron. Afraid we’re full up just now.
Then, before I could set her straight, a funny look crossed her face. I saw her glance down at my bare ankles and I recalled I had hardly bothered to dress, much less wash or comb.
Forgive me, I said. I’m just from over the way. I gestured to the house behind me, and the woman’s eyes glanced there but she said nothing.
This will sound strange, I began awkwardly, but do you know, has there been anyone out in the garden at night, between the two houses? A guest of yours, I mean.
The woman blinked at me.
A child, perhaps? I said. A little—
The woman turned abruptly and called over her shoulder. Mister, can you come out a moment here.
A man, about the same age as the woman, and with the same ruddy complexion, appeared at her shoulder. A husband or brother, he could have been either.
What is it, Missus, he began. Then, seeing me, he said, Oh … hello, then.
Good morning, I said. I’m not sure; perhaps I could speak to the owners, or the caretakers, or what have you, or perhaps you are—
You can speak to me, the man said, not rudely.
He’s wondering, the woman said, has there been a child … in the garden … at night. She seemed to be weighing her words oddly.
A child?
I told him we’ve got no child here.
There’s James, said the man.
That’s right, too, said the woman. I forgot about him. She looked at me. There’s James. Quiet one, he is. Hardly know he’s even here.
Is it James you’re looking for? asked the man.
No—
Well, that’s all we’ve got. There’s no other children. Isn’t that right, Missus.
Yes, it is.
Just the boy, the man said.
James, the woman confirmed, nodding. There’s just James.
I noticed the clattering of dishes, the hum of voices, had fallen silent in the room beyond. The man Baxter appeared at the door. I was pleased to see him and told him so.
I’ve got it, he said to the couple.
They exchanged a glance and, nodding at me solemnly, disappeared back inside the house.
I began to ask how the job search was progressing, then stopped myself. It would hardly have been tactful. At that moment, James appeared beneath his father’s arm.
Quietly, Baxter said to the boy, I told you—
But, I wanted to ask, the boy said.
Ask what? I said.
James, the father cautioned, taking the boy by the arm. Go back inside.
Could she come here sometime? James said to me.
What? I said. Who?
She waves me over, but Papa won’t let me.
James!
Who? I demanded, laying a restraining hand on Baxter’s arm as he pulled the boy inside.
James stepped back a little, frightened by my tone.
The little girl, he said.
What little girl?
Up there, he said, pointing. In your window.
3
I would not wish to suggest she pursued me, the child. But I found I could not cease to think of her all the rest of that day and into the evening. I did not go out and, though I rapped at Flossie’s door many times, she did not answer. Flossie’s absence left a dark, cavernous void which seemed to make room for the child. I struggled to focus on my work, my employer’s correspondence and the book of grammar, trusting my efforts to weary me so that I could sleep the terrible hours away.
But, too, some part of me longed to see her again in the garden below me; and my gaze would drift down, through the trees, and I would catch myself staring, waiting, waiting. She seemed to be there always, just out of sight. Not only in the garden; everywhere. She was outside my window in the hours after nightfall, walking the lane, lingering outside the kitchen door in a groan of weathered boards, in the faintest scratching. I would yank the door open only to find the silver tabby perched there, staring out into the garden, moon-eyed, solemn as a sphinx. Waiting also.
She was everywhere, moving with me through the house, in the stairwell, the front hall, on the landing. In every dark room just before I turned on the light, and just after I turned it out. Up the blackened stairwell ahead of me, only the tender white soles of her little feet flashing in the darkness.
I felt I must get out of the house or go mad. I took my overcoat and made my slow way across town, down to the bay, retracing the route I’d walked with Flossie. She’d told me she went there often. I did not really expect I would find her there, but I did not know where else she might be.
I stood on the boardwalk where we’d stood. The water of the bay rippled with filaments of light. The sand was stained and damp; the tide, on its way out, seemed to push off from the shore, gently, like a girl striking out into calm water. Out in the bay, islands floated darkly. On the smallest of these, a house stood, cragging up from the rocks, itself angular, mineral, black against the bright water. Boats moved just above the line of the water, hovering, a trick of the light. The beach stretched out, glinting broadly, empty in both directions.
I descended the splintering boardwalk and onto the beach, the sand beneath my shoes still tight with the retreating weight of the sea. There was no sign of the strange group we’d encountered the other day. Perhaps they were not of the wharf, after all. And no sign of the tentacle either, though I paced the spot where I thought it had been, crunching blue mussel shells beneath my shoes.
Needing a destination, I turned in the direction of the pier where, there in the distance, I could see the silhouette of someone standing on the rocks. Flossie, perhaps, or even just a fisherman, with a rod and reel, staring patiently out at the water. I walked quickly, in spite of the drag of the sand, and soon I was out of breath and weary. I had been walking some time, yet, looking up, it seemed I’d grown no closer to the figure there on the rocks, and I increased my pace, huffing now, the sun on the water blinding, wondering why it was that the closer we came to a thing, always, the farther away it seemed. Gulls circled inland and cried, diving at pipers racing in the foamy wake. I stopped and squinted up my eyes, shading them from the white light fracturing up off the water. The figure was still there and I realized, looking behind, that I’d covered a good deal of distance. I walked on. The figure, at last, grew larger. I slowed, and slowed, and finally stopped, dismayed.
It was no figure at all, no fisherman, certainly not Flossie, but a broken piling, laced in creamy barnacles, casting out over the water. The green tide lapped against it.
I was winded; my legs trembled from the exertion, reminding me that I was not strong, still. I stopped at a big rock and, brushing the sand from it, sat a moment to rest, my palms against my knees. I looked up and down the shore. The day was bright.
I picked up a stick and scratched my name into t
he sand. I sat staring at it a long while.
Then I rose and made my slow way back up, toward home.
That night I opened the door of my room to find the child there, as I knew I finally must, standing unnaturally still in the window, her back to me, her long white nightdress hanging slack to her tiny feet, bare and terrible.
I paused, my hand still on the latch, the metal cold. The air stank of rotted cherries. The child did not move. She seemed to be staring at something out the window. It was that same dormered building she faced. I noticed the furniture I had rearranged in my room had been put back in place, all of it, oriented to that one view, that building, and in that upper dormer window, the light, on and off, on and off, filling the room with an eerie, staccato pulse. My throat was tight; my heart pounded. I could not move. Could not speak. I felt my eye sockets grow hot, dry. As I stood, snow began to fall, big, billowing flakes, there, in the black room.
Molly? I finally said.
The child stood unmoving a long, dreadful moment. Then, just a little, she lifted the fingers of one white hand. She turned her palm upward, watching as the snowflakes settled there. She seemed about to turn. A curdling scream rent the air as the door blew shut in my face.
I gasped into wakefulness, the scream still ringing in the darkness. I fumbled the room into light and waited, propped frozen on my elbows against the pillow, alert to any small sound, a movement, a shifting outside my door, beneath my bed.
The knock sounded so abruptly I started up, grabbing my trousers from the floor. I pulled them on hastily, hesitated only a moment before unlocking my door and opening it.
The empty landing was dark.
I stepped across and opened the adjacent door. Nothing there, either. Then, just as I was closing the door, I glimpsed a small light shining from behind the cornbroom against the wall. I crossed the room, my feet loud against the worn boards, and I set the broom aside. A small knothole was punched through the floor. I crouched and peered through it, unsure at first what I was seeing. Someone there, below, in the dark stairwell outside the apartment door. I got down on hands and knees on the dirty floor and put my eye closer. A flash of blue as something moved out of my range and then back again—a figure. A woman.
Flossie.
She knocked again, louder.
I rose and hastened down the groaning stairs to the apartment door and opened it.
Flossie stood looking pale and frightened in her Chinese dressing gown and I took her arm, guided her firmly out. I shut the door softly behind me.
What are you doing? she said in the darkness.
The skin of her arm was so silky, I at first thought I was touching the fabric of her gown. When I realized it was warm flesh beneath my palm, a thrill ran through me and I quickly snatched my hand away.
What is it? she said. What’s wrong?
This way, I said, leading her back down the dark stairs.
On the landing, she stopped abruptly and turned back to look at me. I realized I had somehow taken hold of her arm again, was gripping it tightly. I tried to press her forward, but she would not move from the landing. It was so dark there, so oppressive, that just for an instant, I shrank back. Her arm felt waxen in my palm. I stepped quickly past her, stubbing my toe on the footstool she’d abandoned there, and took her by the sleeve, all but dragging her down the rest of the way to the foyer. A patch of streetlight shone through the window and I pulled her into it. Behind us, her apartment door stood open, the room blazing with light. I pulled her toward it.
What is it? I said finally. Has something happened?
Didn’t you hear it?
What?
That scream, she said.
My blood chilled.
My god, she said, it was terrible. I can’t even describe … don’t tell me you didn’t hear it.
I shook my head. Felt a slow sickening.
At first I thought it was someone outside, on the street, you know, but then it sounded as if it was …
What?
Coming from here. From inside the house.
She had heard it, too. It had been no dream.
Don’t look at me like that, she said. I heard it, I tell you. It sounded as if it were coming from right upstairs. I thought maybe you’d been, I don’t know, attacked or something. I’ve never been so frightened. I almost called the police.
I forced a laugh. It must have been someone outside, as you said. Or you were dreaming.
I wasn’t dreaming, she said, pulling her arm away. It wasn’t until then that I realized I’d been holding it again. How good it was to have her back.
I was standing in the middle of my bloody living room with the lights on. You can bet I wasn’t sleeping then. I heard it. You think this is a joke? I thought you’d been …
What?
She shook her head in frustration. I am calling the police.
What on earth for?
Someone might be in trouble.
In Providence?
Oh, for god’s sake! Not that again.
We’ve been standing here some time and haven’t heard a thing.
But before.
What will you tell them? “I heard screaming? Before? It’s gone now? Sorry to trouble you, constables?”
She looked over her shoulder, back at her apartment door, considering.
Whatever it was, I said, or whomever, it’s gone now. There’s nothing we can do. Then I remembered. Wait. Where have you been?
What do you mean?
All day today.
I’ve been here.
I knocked.
I didn’t hear you. I thought you were angry with me. That you didn’t want to see me. Because of that … scene, upstairs.
I thought you were angry with me.
She seemed to consider, and in that instant, something in her face changed. Then she said, in a different tone, and as if it had only now occurred to her, Why did you bring me down here?
What?
When I came upstairs. Why did you bring me down here? Why did you shoo me out like that?
I forced another laugh. I didn’t shoo you out.
You did.
Well, I thought something was wrong. I thought something had happened. Down here.
She stared at me a long moment in the light from the street lamp.
Arthor?
What?
Is she here?
The image of the child flashed before me.
Who?
Your wife? Is she here?
No, I said, relieved. No, I told you. We’re married, yes, but not together. We’re not together. In any way.
She kept looking at me, steadily. Were you working?
When?
Just now.
Yes.
Writing?
That’s correct.
But you didn’t hear the scream.
I had been working, I clarified, but I may have, what do you say, dozed off for a bit.
While you were working?
Do consider the hour.
She studied me again, a long time, and I repressed the urge to explain further. I did not want to make it sound as if I was lying.
After I’d seen her into her apartment, I checked the lock on the front door again, for no particular reason. Then I mounted the stairs. I was just past the landing when the hair on the back of my neck all stood on end. I turned.
There, below me, just a glimpse as it slipped across the darkened foyer, gone, with the quick movements of a child. I gripped the stair rail, my heart racing. This was no vision, no dream. I was wide awake.
I descended the stairs, still gripping the rail. The streetlight fell against the polished boards. The door between the potted palms stood slightly ajar. I hesitated, then pulled it open to find myself at the top of a narrow, dark stairwell. I felt around on the wall for a light switch, but there was nothing.
Sliding one of the heavy palms over, I propped the door open and stepped inside. I descended slowly, my hands against walls swollen
with damp, the concrete steps cold and crumbling beneath my bare feet. The air smelled of root cellars and earth and wet stone. I almost expected to hear water dripping. I inched my feet forward along the rough stairs, feeling for the edges, careful of my footing. Streetlight fell in faintly from the foyer above me but did not reach very far down the passageway. Surely there could not have been anything—anyone—down there. And yet.
My foot dislodged a chunk of masonry and it tumbled down the stairs with an echoing clatter. When it stopped, I could hear my own breathing. I pressed my palms against the walls to steady myself.
And then I became aware of something else: it was there with me, too, in the stairwell. That old malevolence, that darkness. What I had felt on the landing that first day, and outside my employer’s door. The thing, whatever it was, that was feeding on him. There, more powerful than I had ever felt it. As if I had come to the terrible, cold heart of something. And yet there was a dreadful sense, too, of nothingness. The sense that I could keep descending forever into an infinite darkness.
A scuttling across the floor at the bottom. I stopped. A quick, cold movement passed me up the stairs. My skin crawled. I turned to look behind me, but before I could do so I felt, very clearly, the press of two small hands—a child’s hands—firm between my shoulders. I froze.
And then they gave a savage push, and I was falling, tumbling forward, down and down, into black emptiness.
I came to in a heap at the bottom, though whether I’d actually lost consciousness, I could not say. All was blackness. I was blinded. I blinked and blinked but no sight came. The door to the foyer above me was shut fast. I felt stunned, battered, my palms and knees tender and stinging. I touched a hand to my temple and it came away wet. I wiped my hand on my trousers and slid my back up against the wall. I sat a moment. All was silent. My head throbbed.
I was alone.
And yet I could recall precisely the feel of those small hands on my back, touching me, there, between the shoulder blades. I could feel the place on my back still where I’d been shoved, as though the prints of those palms had been burned there.
The Broken Hours Page 13
