now, after a grueling routine of shitty work, shitty-weird home life in a house where the shadow of a dead boy walked more solidly than the grown-ups, shitty headaches, shitty worry about a husband who couldn’t keep his dick out of other women, the golden offer just weirded Laine out. She didn’t trust it.
But Gavin seemed to mean it. He began eating properly-health food and raw vegetables. It should have been good. It would have been good. Had he not started talking in his sleep.
In the middle of the night, when the huge house ticked uneasily, Gavin’s whispering would wake her. She had to lean close to hear his words. “ Bird. Tris. Back. Dead. ” By the watery light coming through the window, she could see he was deep asleep as he spoke, yet his expression was adulating, hungry. “ Bird. Please. Bird. Dead. ” The words kept her awake long after he’d rolled over, snoring. Two people muttering to themselves in the house made her feel guiltily glad she hadn’t gotten pregnant; she didn’t want a child infected with this family’s madness. She stopped taking the fertility drugs, but didn’t tell Gavin.
Then, just a few days ago, Gavin had risen early. Laine had been so exhausted, having finally fallen asleep at four, that she hadn’t stirred. Mrs. Boye had slept uncharacteristically late too. They’d both been roused at seven by police knocking to bring “some very bad news.”
And now? The will was in probate, but Mr. Boye’s inheritance was hers. She would find a caregiver for Mrs. Boye and get the hell out of this quietly haunted house. Two nights ago she had been in the shower making plans for just that when Nicholas Close had visited.
Close was pale and odd-looking. Not unhandsome, but held together inside by wires stretched too tight. Laine had heard that his wife had died and that he’d been with Tristram when he was taken way back when. Close had said he wanted to talk about Gavin, and she’d had to clamp her mouth shut. She had wanted to yell: Tell me about the bird! What does it mean? What bird? But that would have signed her application into Bedlam, so she sent him on his way.
Now it was done. The last box was packed. She could go and put all this behind her.
Except she wanted to know.
Gavin’s brother had been murdered. His killer had suicided. A boy had gone missing a week or so ago. His killer had suicided. Gavin had suicided. What linked all this death? Nicholas Close.
She was leaving this awful city. Who cared if he thought her mad? She would go to see him.
A cross and down the road, the Myrtle Street shops were quiet. A car parked. A man entered the convenience store and emerged shortly after with two stuffed bags of groceries. The light in the computer repair shop went out. Two minutes later, a lanky man stepped out and locked the front door. He leaned and sidestepped to peer into Plow amp; Vine Health Foods, gave a short wave, then strode around to the side street where his Nissan was parked. He drove away.
Nicholas checked his watch. It was 5:34.
The lights inside the health food store went out.
He took a small step back, lowering himself a little behind the tangled shrubs.
A moment later, the door of Plow amp; Vine Health Foods opened and a tall, slender young woman stepped out. Rowena. She reached into her handbag for keys, dropped them, knelt to pick them up, and locked the door. Nicholas watched her test that the door was secure, then she checked her watch and hurried out from under the awning of the shops, away from his hiding spot. He watched her draw her long, knitted coat about herself as she strode away. He waited until she was far enough away that he would be just a shadowed stranger in the distance before stepping out from behind the lasiandra to follow.
Sedgely had her shop here. Quill had her shop here. But that didn’t automatically cast any tenant of the shop under suspicion, did it? Of course it did. Old Bretherton. Old Sedgely. Old Quill. The old woman walking in the woods with Garnock. Were they the same person? He’d come to think so. But was there any connection between them and the vital young woman hurrying ahead of him? Was there any similarity between friendly, clumsy Rowena who sold wheat germ and organic licorice with a lovely smile and the sinister, bent thing that had watched with glittering eyes from her nest between hanging dresses? No. But that didn’t mean they weren’t connected. Nicholas pursed his lips. He knew, foolishly, he wanted to exonerate Rowena because he found her attractive.
Ahead, her coltish long legs took her across Myrtle Street and up toward the corner of Madeglass. She was moving fast, so Nicholas picked up his pace. At the end of Madeglass Street was a busier road that led under the railway line. At the corner, a small huddle of people waited at a bus shelter. Rowena slowed her pace as she moved to the end of the queue.
Nicholas slowed and stopped behind a power pole fifty meters away. He leaned against the hard wood and the faint tang of creosote rose through the chill air. The sun was gone now, and the first sparkles of stars were appearing in the purple sky. He watched Rowena. She was chatting with a middle-aged woman in the queue ahead of her. Both women laughed. Rowena’s teeth were white in the gloom. The headlights of a bus appeared in the railway underpass, its windows glowing warm yellow. A moment later it let out an elephantine sigh and stopped to take on passengers. Rowena got on board. Nicholas watched her pick her way down the aisle to a seat halfway back. The bus rumbled and soon was gone.
Nicholas drove his hands further into his pockets. He was relieved. Had Rowena gone to the woods, he’d have had no doubt that she was party to the web of murders. But she’d gone home in a bus, nattering with the other passengers.
He felt the cold wind of night grab at his hair. He turned and walked slowly home to Bymar Street.
“… A nd then the princess realized he was the kindest, gentlest and best of the animals, and she loved him most of all…”
Bryan’s voice flowed down the hall like warm water, soothing and calm. Suzette could picture Quincy’s eyes rolling and straining to focus as she fought to stay awake and hear the rest of her favorite story. Bryan had been so good, keeping Quincy occupied all day and well away from her sick brother.
Suzette was in Nelson’s room. It was dark. He lay on the bed, his chest barely rising and falling. The doctor had suggested it was some kind of chest infection and, after conducting all manner of tests for meningitis, pneumonia, and bird flu, had let him go home. Bryan had argued that he needed to be in the hospital, and Suzette loved him for it. “Trust me,” she said. He did, and she loved him for that too.
She finished writing Nelson’s full name on a candle that was so purple it was almost black. Already waiting on a tray was a small puppet, a roughly human-shaped thing of white cotton and smelling strongly of sage, garlic, and lavender. She’d sewn the puppet closed with Nelson’s hair.
How dare she? thought Suzette. How dare she attack my child? But a part of her cautioned to be quiet, to be grateful. Quill’s done so much worse.
She listened. Silence from the far end of the house. Story time was done; Quincy was asleep.
Time to start.
She lit the candle.
Chapter 19
H annah was so angry she could spew. Miriam, who was two years older and in seventh grade and supposed to be more adult about things, had thrown the most dangerous kind of fit when she caught Hannah using her lip gloss. Jeez, come on! Miriam knew Mum wouldn’t let Hannah buy her own lip gloss! But catching her, Miriam hadn’t yelled and spacked out; she’d gone silent. This meant one of two things: either she’d march straight to Mum and reveal some secret she’d crossed her heart not to tell, or she’d Get Even Later.
As Hannah shuffled along alone, she understood very clearly that Miriam had chosen the latter.
They’d walked off toward school together, Miriam all sweetness and light and miss-you-Mum. But out of sight of home, she had turned on Hannah, fast and harsh as those peregrine falcons you see on TV documentaries, diving like lightning on field mice and ripping their guts out. “Just wait, you little bitch,” she’d hissed, and then had given Hannah eighteen-carat, diamond-studded, first-class silent treatment the whole two kilometers to school.
Once there, Hannah quickly forgot her older sister’s fury and the day ambled along nicely to its final (and Hannah’s favorite) lesson: Arts and Crafts. Hannah loved spooning thick acrylic paint onto a brush and sliding it over pristine white paper, making something out of nothing. Mrs. Tho said Hannah’s paintings were magnificent and told her to keep in mind that the school fete was coming up, where she might be able to exhibit some of her work. The
