by Lisa Alber
Malcolm had first caught sight of the boy as he’d strolled back and forth outside the shop. He was obvious enough the way he slouched with a mobile over his ear, pretending to have an intense conversation while snatching glimpses of Malcolm’s wares in the windows. “At first, I assumed he was a spy for a rival shop owner a few villages over,” Malcolm said with a put-upon sigh. “It’s amazing the lengths people will go to in an effort to mimic a good thing. I get it often enough.”
“Then our victim entered the shop?”
Malcolm perked up at the word our, as if he were an honorary member of the investigating team. Danny nodded encouragement.
“He did indeed come into the shop. On Sunday. I had to light a second scented candle because he smelled ripe as curdled milk. But I always give a man a chance, so I called out to him to take his time browsing. He wasn’t a bad-looking lad. In fact, a good-looking young fella.” He nodded as if satisfied, even pleased, with his opinion on the matter. “Give him a few years and he’d have cut a fine specimen for the women. But still, I could have sworn he was trying to make me out for a shakedown, as they say.”
Danny wondered who the “they” were who said “shakedown.” Malcolm went on to describe how Lost Boy had pawed merchandise far too rich for him. “Needless to say, I shooed him out,” Malcolm said. “It’s not good for business, having grubs like that in the store.”
The boy’s visit had occurred on Sunday afternoon. Benjy’s report stated that the boy was attacked on Tuesday evening. Two days. And two days was more than enough time for a person’s life to derail. Sometimes all it took was a blink of a moment, the moment you looked away.
“And your shop assistant? It’s still Seamus’s lad, eh?” Danny said. “I’d like to ask him a few questions.”
“Brendan snuck off for lunch even though I’d asked him to start on the inventorying.” Malcolm heaved one of his smiles up at the ceiling. “Best done if I do it myself as usual.”
“He’s working tomorrow?” Danny said.
“If you could call it that, but, yes, he’ll be here.”
A necklace with a pendant like tree branches caught Danny’s attention. The artist had carved in texture that suggested tree bark. The graceful design forked into stylized tines. The work was quite nice, Danny decided.
Years ago he might have bought such a necklace for Ellen. He turned away from the display without examining its wares or his guilt further.
TEN
THE KITTENS WERE NOTICEABLY fatter in twenty-four hours. They couldn’t get enough of the warm kitten formula that Ellen fed them through a plastic glove with pinpricks in two of the fingertips. The poor mites were still so fragile, though, mewling like their little hearts would give out when she picked them up. She kept them in a dark and quiet corner of her closet, off limits to the children unless she was present. She still hadn’t washed them, not wanting them to catch a chill.
She smiled to herself, enjoying a nostalgic fit of sadness as she remembered her first days breastfeeding Beth, who’d been as ravenous as these two. Plus, later there’d been the constant vigilance, the endless laundry—but she’d loved it all. The kittens weren’t far different there either. They had already fallen into a regular feeding cycle, and she already had a pile of soiled towels. As she nudged the dribbling plastic fingers toward their seeking mouths, she thought about kitty litter. So nice to ponder something as innocuous as litter boxes.
She settled herself against the closet wall with legs poking into the bedroom. She had never noticed the mustiness inside the closet or the bedraggled state of her wardrobe. Fallen hems, frayed cuffs, and stains everywhere. She’d been living like this for too long; long before Danny had moved out. It took a fresh perspective from the floor of a closet to bring home to her how far she’d let herself fall since Beth’s death. That was three years ago, and perhaps three years was sufficient for the serious grieving.
Tears welled and dripped onto her cheeks. She didn’t notice the chronic leaking anymore. With careful maneuvering and much patience, Ellen managed to only lose half the milk to the towels this time. So long as the kittens got enough sustenance to fall back to sleep, she was satisfied.
She changed the damp towel that lined the kittens’ box with a fresh one and made her way down the hall toward the kitchen. She tossed a pile of towels and children’s underwear into the washing machine. The children would be home from school in an hour, dropped off by one of her neighbors. Ellen browsed the cupboards for an afternoon treat for the three of them. She pulled down pancake mix. Yes, pancakes with Nutella on top. Odd kind of snack, but why not? They’d love it. And so would she, never mind her so-called flabby hips.
Just like that, what little energy she had dissipated. She leaned against the counter. For the past day, she’d used kitten care as a pathetic attempt to avoid looking at herself too closely. She’d have one last say. Somehow.
Resolved but not exactly revived, Ellen forced herself back to the task at hand only to hear an engine idling at the front of the house. Danny?
Ellen trotted into the living room and twitched the curtains for a peek outside. The fog had returned, grey enough to leach the bloom out of a rose. No, the engine rumble didn’t sound like Danny’s Peugeot. This engine sounded troubled in other ways, and it edged along her lane at too slow a pace, fog or not. Ellen doubled back to the laundry alcove, peering along a set of utility shelves. With Danny’s old hurling stick in hand, she returned to the living room. Visions of Petey’s Grey Man cavorted through her imagination, lurking about on the lane, perhaps in league with the squatters hiding out in the stone folly.
The car had moved on past her house to loiter in front of Mr. Travis’s pasture next door. She opened the door and squinted at faint brake lights that faded when the engine grumbled to a stop. The fog’s chill penetrated her bones. Footsteps brushed through the grass, loud against the stultifying silence.
“Young Travis, that you?” she called. “How’s your father? I hope his back isn’t out again.”
The footsteps paused, then quickened. She caught a glimpse of a figure heading up the hill along the drystone wall. Ellen surprised herself by breaking into a run toward the parked car. She could at least memorize the plate number. Her troubles with Danny didn’t touch on the children. He’d get the owner’s name and particulars without questioning her paranoia. Strangers did not loiter within shouting distance of the Ahern children. This was a given.
The car gave her pause: a late-model Volvo. She approached with bat high, more puzzled than suspicious now. She was sure she’d seen this car before. She stopped, listening to the shush within the dark. She eased up to the passenger-side window and glanced into the car’s interior. Nice leather interior. Takeaway cartons and—
“Jaysus!” she squealed.
A head appeared in the backseat window. With heartbeat rocketing all around her body, Ellen stumbled backwards and fell into a sprint toward the house. The car door opened and light footsteps followed her. Unfortunately, Ellen was out of shape. She stopped and whirled around, waving the hurling bat in every direction.
“Stand back! Don’t come any closer!”
Before Ellen stood a skinny lass somewhere in her twenties, with a mass of tangled curls enveloping her face. Other than a little undernourished and in need of a shower, the girl didn’t appear endangered or dangerous. She’d jumped out of the bat’s trajectory and now circled around Ellen as if she were the one who needed to take care, not Ellen.
Ellen pointed the bat at the girl and spoke with ragged voice. “Hold your hands in the air. Please. And stand still. Give me a second here.”
The girl kept her gaze aimed at the bat while Ellen got her breathing and nerves under control. Now she recognized the vehicle. For two days it had been hugging an embankment about a quarter mile down the lane. Not that she gave a flying shite about that, because the whole thing beggared the question of why this girl and her companion had been cruising her lane in the first place.
&n
bsp; “Those wouldn’t happen to be your sleeping bags up in the cottage, would they?” she said.
The girl nodded. Her mouth opened and closed while her hands jerked into a graceful dance.
“Are you deaf?” Ellen said.
With a huff of frustration, the girl shook her head.
“Okay then, how about this. Are you here for the matchmaking festival but don’t have a hotel? That’s a nice chariot you have. I’m guessing that you’re not used to sleeping rough.”
The girl nodded and stared at the ground.
“Right then.” Ellen lowered the bat. “You can relax your guard. I’m not going to pummel you. Bloody Christ, strays everywhere, aren’t there?”
The girl stepped forward, her expression intent. She had sharp features softened by large brown eyes that grabbed at Ellen with their expressiveness. The girl reached out a hand, oh so slowly, as if to calm an agitated dog.
Intrigued, Ellen held her ground until she understood the girl’s intention. The girl lifted one of Ellen’s hands and pressed an index finger against her palm.
“Go on then,” Ellen said.
The girl wrote with her fingertip. After a shrug from Ellen, she repeated the gesture across Ellen’s palm, harder this time.
“Right,” Ellen said. “I understand. Is that a ‘k’?”
Exactly, the girl’s look seemed to say. She pressed on with the fingertip until Ellen understood. “Kittens?” she said.
The girl pointed to Ellen’s house.
“Ah, connection made then. Yes, the kittens are fine. I found them. But you have some explaining to do, young lady.”
A nod, cautious like, along with a squint that Ellen took to mean, Oh, about what?
“You and your friend about scared my son back into nappies, that’s what. That was you two walking down the lane a few days ago?”
Again, the cautious nod.
“The point is that my son thought your friend was Grey Man dragging you into his lair. Come along. I need to show him that there was nothing to fear. He’ll be home soon with my daughter.”
After another minute of palm-writing wait, car, and brother, Ellen understood that the girl preferred to wait in the car for her friend, who was actually her brother.
“I don’t think so. You need nutrients as much as those poor kittens. And don’t you want to check on them?” Ellen retraced her steps back to the Volvo with the girl following close behind. “We’ll leave your brother a note. You must have writing implements in here somewhere, am I right? What the devil is your name, anyhow?”
The girl burrowed into a knapsack tucked behind the passenger’s seat. She pulled out the necessary tools and with a flourish wrote, Gemma. Then, No one talks to me that way—except my brother.
“I don’t know what you mean. How else am I supposed to talk to you?”
Most people talk to me like I’m soft in the head. Like I might break any second.
Weariness sloshed over Ellen in tight waves. She must be an eejit for suggesting what she was about to suggest, but what could she do? Maybe she’d gather all the strays to her side in hopes she’d feel like less of one in her own life.
“See here,” she said, “if your brother passes muster and if the children like you, you can lay your sleeping bags out in my daughter Beth’s room. It’s not so unusual during the festival. I’ve done it before.”
And Danny hadn’t liked it then either. But it wasn’t like he had a say in whom she befriended. Especially now.
Gemma signaled what Ellen interpreted as an, Oh no, we couldn’t.
“Yes, you can.” On the car window, Ellen drew a broken heart in the condensation left by the fog. “Beth doesn’t live there anymore.”
ELEVEN
GEMMA TRIED TO IGNORE the glass-like feeling inside her bones. She knew this feeling well—like her anxiety might cause her to shatter any second. On a deep breath she reminded herself that she was the one who had saved the kittens in the first place. Nothing was going to happen to them, and nothing was going to happen to her. She was safe. Ellen was a nice person who meant her no harm. Dermot would return soon.
She sat at the kitchen table with a glass of milk, which Ellen ordered her to drink in a mom-like voice. Gemma obeyed with a troubling sense of déjà vu. This was too close to the childhood home that lurked within the fringes of her mind. Drinking her milk in a steamy kitchen with gauzy curtains over the windows. The memory from the Before time ought to comfort her, but it didn’t because it arrived fraught with loss and everything that lurked within the bottomless well.
Gemma’s thoughts wandered away as they often did when she was nervous. She wondered if the bar owner’s dog came from a shelter, but she thought not. She wouldn’t mind going back to that bar again; she’d bought a box of dog biscuits to help motivate herself in that direction. As she so often did, Gemma practiced being a normal person in her imagination. Her counselor had taught her this exercise, but Gemma wasn’t sure it worked. In fact, visualizing herself engaged in everyday activities as her best comfortable self was too daft for words.
Still, while Ellen cooked pancakes, Gemma imagined herself as a spontaneous person who hankered after a pint now and then. She imagined herself surveying the pub for an empty seat, not caring whether people looked at her, not caring about the proximity of so many bodies. She imagined herself with a voice that said “excuse me” as she maneuvered herself toward a stool and leaned over the bar and smiled at Alan. She imagined him returning the smile and herself holding his gaze long enough to notice that he was pleased to see her. “A Guinness, please,” Gemma said inside her head, and inside her head her voice sounded easy and fluid. Well-used. Sing-songy and sparkly.
Knocking roused Gemma from her mental exercise. A plate of pancakes sat at her elbow, and she had the sensation that Ellen’s voice had been in the background the whole while. “That must be your brother,” she said. “I’ll fetch him.”
Their voices murmured from the living room, and a few minutes later Ellen returned with Dermot. He clutched what Gemma liked to call his Sherlock Holmes cape around him and smiled with thinly disguised relief. The smile didn’t reach his eyes.
Dermot spoke with his hands. Well done. Your counselor will be thrilled you made a new friend.
Very funny. She has the kittens. I’ll visit them after we eat.
Dermot nodded like he usually did when it came to her obsession with animals. Gemma settled into her pancakes, more than content to let Ellen’s attentions veer toward Dermot. She didn’t let herself slide into Gemma World, though. She kept her ear tuned to their conversation. After Ellen’s initial chastising about the loitering, scaring her half to death when she’d found their sleeping bags, she asked Dermot the natural question: “Why were you cruising my lane?”
Dermot settled a paper napkin on his lap and spread an even coat of butter and Nutella on each pancake in his stack. Hairline wrinkles around his mouth deepened as his expression closed down.
Gemma nudged Dermot with her toe, and he flashed a quick, What? Settle down, with his hand.
Yes, why are we here? And don’t you dare say for the matchmaking festival. I heard what Merrit said in the pub—that you accused the matchmaker of killing Mam.
“It’s strange,” Dermot said in his fake ruminating voice. Gemma recognized it from all the times he’d manufactured ways to get Gemma out of the house they lived in together. Like the time he’d “just remembered” that he was supposed to pick up a package, but he was too busy with paperwork and could Gemma manage it on her own?
“Yes, strange,” Dermot said, “how you sometimes want to return to the past for no other reason than knowing the past might help you know yourself better.”
Gemma rolled her eyes.
“Oh?” Ellen said.
“Your matchmaker matched our mother is what it comes down to.”
“Ah,” Ellen said, not sounding impressed.
“We’d like to chat with him,” Dermot continued, “but of course I for
got about the festival. We arrived on Monday and had a lead on a room somewhere around here but got lost. And our car broke down, to make matters worse. Without transport or a hotel reservation, we’ve been walking everywhere and we’re none too civilized about now.”
Ellen plopped more batter onto the skillet as Dermot went on to explain in too much detail that he’d bought sleeping bags off the McClennan family a few lanes over—and did Ellen know them?—and that morning had finally found a man to tow the car. The spark plugs had needed replacing. They’d waited in the village until their car was fixed and returned to clean out the old cottage. All very innocent, really.
Ellen set a plate of pancakes in the oven. Gemma felt Ellen’s skepticism rising off her in waves. She signed toward Dermot. You need to tell her about me. Then she’ll understand.
Not everything is about you, he signed back. You aren’t supposed to be here, if you remember.
And confronting the matchmaker doesn’t make this trip about me too?
Dermot shook his head, but he couldn’t hide the acknowledgment that flashed then receded.
Ellen had turned to watch them. “And what’s all that? Secret conversations?”
“It’s automatic sometimes. I learned sign language along with Gemma.” Dermot poked at his pancakes with his fork. “She refused to learn unless I went with her.”
Get on with it, would you?
“You’re sure?” he said. At Gemma’s headshake, then switch to a nod, Dermot continued. “Gemma has given me permission to tell you about her—disorder—which makes dealing with strangers tough.”
Ellen turned toward Gemma as if seeing her with new eyes. Gemma’s body responded to the unwanted attention as it always did. Sweat beaded on her forehead. Her heart accelerated. She waved a hand in front of her face in the classic I’m-too-hot gesture and turned toward the wall, signaling for Dermot to continue.
