the image. Galya read the word “suffer” and searched her memory for its meaning in Russian. When she found it, she looked away.
She noticed another piece of furniture in the room, obscured behind the door she had entered through. An antique writing desk, its roller top open, a dozen or more small drawers arranged around a larger one, all looming over a leather mat like the walls of a castle. Drawers perfect for hiding a key.
Galya opened one after another, finding each empty save for a few scraps of paper. Finally, she pulled the handle of the larger drawer, but it did not move.
A certainty she knew to be foolish settled in her gut: the key she sought was in there. She pulled out the smaller drawers on each side of it, four in total, leaving gaps big enough for her hands. The wood felt cool and dry against her fingers as she reached in and ran them along the drawer’s flanks. She twisted her hand so that her fingertips squeezed through the narrow gap at the top, hoping she could reach inside to feel the drawer’s contents.
Something was there, something soft, like a velvet cloth. She pushed harder, the wood digging into her flesh, until her knuckles jammed in the small space. It hurt, but she ignored that sensation, concentrated on another. Something hard— no, several somethings—beneath the velvet, their presence barely perceptible to her touch.
Galya pulled her hands free, skin tearing from her knuckles, red beads appearing in the tiny channels the wood had cut. She sucked at them, tasted salty metal, and remembered the Lithuanian, his eyes wide, the bubbling in his throat.
Nausea came in a warm wave. She rode it out as she thought.
The kitchen. Find something to pry open the drawer.
She went as fast as her stinging soles would allow and found a knife, heavy stainless steel, an ivory hilt. The kind of knife Mama would have used to cut hard butter, passed on to her by her own grandmother.
Galya returned to the desk and slid the knife into the gap at the top of the drawer, close to the lock. She pushed up and back, but the desk rocked against the wall, its movement stealing most of her force. She braced it with her hip and tried again.
This time, all her strength was applied to the thin panel of wood. It bowed, but did not break. She crouched down, wedged herself against the desk, pushed up with her legs.
The wood cracked. Galya giggled. Pressure pulsed against her temples.
Once again, she pushed with all the power in her body, and the wood gave way, the drawer’s face splitting in two, leaving the lock clinging to a few splintered scraps. Galya breathed hard, her cheeks hot. She pulled the wood away and reached inside.
The velvet bag snagged on the splinters. She slipped her fingers inside the red circle and felt the hard things inside. She knew immediately they weren’t keys, or anything like keys, even before they spilled out onto the cracked leather desktop.
Her mind stumbled over the objects, trying to match them to some context from her experience. Jewels, she thought, creamy white pearls with jagged ends like plant roots.
Roots.
Not jewels.
Her stomach turned on itself. She pulled her hand away from the small hard things, scattering them across the leather. They formed a loose circle, arranging themselves prettily for her, a chorus line of enamel and blood flecks.
A row of teeth smiling up at her.
The dizziness might have dragged her to the floor if not for the faint sound of an engine outside.
40
BILLY CRAWFORD APPLIED the hand brake and removed the key from the ignition. The old Toyota Hiace van shuddered and rattled as the engine died. He sat silent, thinking about the day ahead.
If he got everything done that needed doing, he might have time to attend the late carol service at his church. He enjoyed the event every year, along with the Christmas morning service, and he would have been disappointed to miss them. But the girl had been delivered unto him unexpectedly, and who was he to question the Lord’s will? If he couldn’t attend church, then so be it. God would pardon his absence.
He climbed out of the van’s cabin and walked to the back gate, his boots crunching on the snow. It swung closed with a tired creak, and he refastened the padlock. He returned to the van, opened the sliding side door, and retrieved the drill bit and saw blades he’d purchased. The sack of ballast would wait until later.
Trudging to the back door, he sorted through his keys, his breath misting as he hummed “Silent Night” to himself. He remembered how, as a boy, he had seethed at the other children in assembly mocking the sacred tune. When they sang the line “sleep in heavenly peace,” they would whoop through the last word, making it
Once, his lip bled from biting it so hard, and he had to go to the school nurse. He sat in her room amid the smell of antiseptic and sweat, a wad of tissue pressed to his mouth, anger boiling in his gut.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
He did not answer.
“You’re breathing awful hard,” she said.
He spat blood on her dress. She stepped back, her mouth wide. Then she bent down and slapped him hard across the cheek. He walked home with a stiffness in his trousers, heat in places he’d never felt it before.
Thirty years ago, and he still felt the sting of her palm when he reached for himself in the night.
As he inserted the key in the dead bolt, he glanced up at the kitchen window.
He froze, his heart thudding against his breastbone.
Something was very wrong.
The net curtain no longer hung on the other side of the glass, the room beyond clearly visible.
“No,” he said aloud.
Stop, he thought. Don’t panic.
Forcing steadiness into his hand, he undid both locks and pushed the door open. From the threshold, he saw the upended chair, the shattered mug, the net curtain lying bunched on the floor.
Slowly, he stepped inside and lowered the pieces of hardware to the floor. He closed the door without a sound, sealing out the cold, locked it, put the keys in his pocket. He listened.
Silence. Not even the thing upstairs raised its voice.
He scanned the kitchen, saw the open drawers, cutlery and hoarded objects glittering within.
Odors on the still air caught his attention. Mold and damp, laced with girl scent. He moved to the hall, and knew the dining room had been opened by the stale smell that lingered there. The living room door stood ajar, and he wondered if it had been so when he left. He entered the room. His Bible where he’d left it, the couch undisturbed.
He turned to the writing desk, saw the opened drawers, the broken wood.
His treasures, scattered like rubbish on the leather.
He moistened his lips and left the room.
He climbed the stairs and stepped onto the landing. The closet door stood open. He saw the scattered towels, the fragments of wood, the plaster dust, and he understood.
Rage tore up from his belly, and he roared.
41
GALYA FLINCHED AS the sound reached her. She made herself small in the darkness and listened. His footsteps hard and slow on the uncarpeted stairs, then scuffling on the hall floor above her head.
The cellar’s damp cold crept beneath her skin, bleeding into her muscles, reminding them of their fatigue.
“I know you’re still in the house,” he called, his voice dulled by the closed door at the top of the cellar stairs.
