Emily took a breath. Becky sounded far less friendly than she had at the diner. “Well, I’m not sure. Tell me: How was your parents’ visit? Didn’t you tell me they were coming up from North Carolina for a bit?”
“That was a long time ago. They’ve come and gone.”
“Okay.”
“Are you at your office?”
“I am,” said Emily.
“You’re calling me from the law firm,” Becky said, unwilling to hide a small wave of incredulity.
“Why is that a problem? It’s not like our phones are bugged or you and I are about to share state secrets. It’s-”
“Fine. You’re in John Hardin’s office. I get it. My husband told me you called the other night. What do you want?”
“I’m honestly not sure. When you introduced yourself to me at the diner, you were very nice. But you also kept talking about them, and you called them the herbalists. And then you left when you saw Alexander Jackson coming into the diner. Clearly you knew who he was. I didn’t at the time, but I do now. He’s married to Ginger. What was it you wanted to tell me that day about them -about the herbalists? Can you tell me now?”
“Have you ever been inside John Hardin’s house?”
“Yes.”
“Did you notice the pictures?”
“Do you mean the paintings? No, I-”
“I meant the family photographs!”
“What about them?”
“He doesn’t age! Clary doesn’t age! At least it seems that way. It’s not… natural. It’s…”
“It’s what?”
“And where is your husband’s doctor? His psychiatrist?”
“You mean Valerian? Well, she’s at-”
“Valerian? You know who I mean. Michael Richmond. He sometimes skied with my husband. They were friends. We were friends. Where is he now?”
“Look, I know something is going on. That’s why I’m calling. I have a house with bones in the basement, Hewitt Dunmore is dead, Michael is-”
“He’s dead, too. My husband and I are sure of it.”
“You were telling me about the photos in John and Clary’s house. Can you-”
“Really, there’s nothing I have to tell you. I love Bethel and I love my family and I think it’s great that you’re here.”
“Becky, please,” Emily said. But she heard a click and the line went silent.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up, and there was Eve, the firm’s young paralegal, standing in her doorway and looking a little concerned.
“I’m fine,” she answered.
“You looked like you’d seen a ghost,” Eve said.
“Nope.”
“If you need something, you’ll ask?”
“Tell me something.”
“Sure.”
“Why is your name Eve?”
“I seem to be rather talentless when it comes to plants. I seem to have the opposite of a green thumb,” she said with absolute earnestness, and then she continued on her way down the corridor.
“I t’s for the best,” Valerian said to Emily later that afternoon, sitting across the desk from Emily in her office. John leaned against the wall, ever the sage, avuncular presence. “And it’s not for long.”
“I just don’t know,” Emily said. “I’m not sure Michael would have agreed.”
Valerian turned around and looked up at John. “Do they know anything more about Michael’s disappearance? The police, that is?”
He sighed wearily. “No. I haven’t heard a thing, I’m sorry to say. And while I like to believe he’s just-what did that South Carolina governor once do?-disappeared to be with some hypnotic young siren in South America, I think we can’t help but suspect the worst.” He shook his head, looking uncharacteristically morose. “We like to believe we’re exempt from that sort of violence here in the White Mountains. Apparently, we’re not.”
“I want to think about it some more,” Emily said finally. “I don’t want us to broach this subject with him just yet. Okay?”
“Absolutely,” Valerian said. “Let’s revisit the idea later this week. I’m seeing your husband tomorrow. Maybe we’ll have a better sense of what we should do after that.”
Y ou replace the empty battery in the drill with the charged one, grab four long screws, and drop into place another new step on those rickety back stairs behind the kitchen. It takes about a minute because you measured twice and cut once. You like that expression.
Inside this back stairway, you have found that you do not hear the birds. It feels as if there are more of them here than there were in West Chester. This is probably a delusion. There were plenty of birds in Pennsylvania. But the cheeps and coos and trills sometimes seem to surround you here when you walk between the house and the carriage barn or when you stroll down the long driveway to the mailbox on the road into Bethel. You do not hate the birds. You blame them-but you do not hate them. At least this is what you tell yourself, struggling to be reasonable. You wish you could talk to Michael about this distinction between blame and hate, but you can’t.
You have come to suspect that the women were involved in Michael’s disappearance, just as you have come to suspect that they were involved in Hewitt Dunmore’s death. But you can’t see why or how. You have the sense now that they are plotting something involving you, and that Emily is complicit. She seems to be seeing more of Valerian. There are phone conversations that end abruptly when you enter a room or descend the stairs to the first floor. Emily brought home some papers from work, and when you aimlessly wandered into the kitchen and saw her reading them, she thrust them into her briefcase.
This morning Ethan visited you soon after Emily and the girls had left for the day, and he told you in no uncertain terms that your suspicions were accurate: Emily is becoming one of them. People don’t tell you things, but you are aware that secrets are rising like distant thunderclouds. A new name for Emily and new names for your daughters. When were they planning on telling you? It is possible that Emily already is one of them. Just look at the plants that have appeared in your greenhouse. Her greenhouse. The girls’ greenhouse. Ethan tried to reassure you that all of the pain you are experiencing will stop once Ashley gets a playmate-your guilt, too, will melt away-but you told him you would rather live with the pain and the guilt and the debilitating sense of failure. He reminded you that it wasn’t a question of character. It was a question of strength. And he was stronger. The fact was, someday the two of you would do it together. It was inevitable. Think back to the evening when Molly Francoeur was over for dinner and a playdate. Or that night when you tiptoed up to the third floor with Tansy’s knife. You would do it, he told you. You would.
Meanwhile, outside the house the birds dart among the trees-the evergreens and the maples and the mountain ash alike-and savor their return to the north. Even the geese are back now. But at least they have the kindness to steer clear of your yard.
Y ou have three more steps to repair on this back stairway when you hear someone calling for you from the front hallway, a woman, and you believe it is Reseda’s sultry voice. So, you adjust the collar of your denim shirt, smooth your hair, and emerge into the kitchen.
“Well, Reseda, this is a surprise. Lovely to see you,” you say. You hadn’t realized how sunny it had become while you were working in the dark of that back staircase.
She stares at you in that slightly odd, inquisitive manner that had led you to presume initially that hers was a mind that tended to wander. You have since decided that nothing could be further from the truth. It’s almost as if she can read a person’s mind. But of course she can’t. No one can really do that.
“What home improvement am I interrupting this morning?” she asks. She is wearing a waist-length black leather jacket and jeans.
