to a small silver frame on the mantel. 'It's all behind me--everything of importance, everything that's ever going to happen. Except one thing perhaps. At times I suspect senility might be a kind of blessing. Don't you agree? Though perhaps I won't think so when it finally comes. If it hasn't already. What good does mental alacrity do me? My eyes won't let me read anymore. I simply dream and wait...'
'I only hope when I'm your age--'
'You're a good girl, Katherine.' Charlotte interrupted her with a smile. 'Nurturing. Almost despite yourself.'
'The hell I am. I'm a cop.' A damp draft lapped against her, and she returned her attention to the gently swaying curtains. Wintry shadows seemed to drift around the casement, and naked vines veined the window glass. Outside, beneath a clustering tangle of ivy, gray stone crumbled. In summers past, she'd seen vacationers stop and blink up at this house in disbelief. The Victorian gloom seemed so out of place, so out of time. Little remained of the once impressive cloak of ivy. Now, the scant leaves curled brown, clogging the slumped gutters of the gabled roof, and dirt and grit hailed down to scratch at the windows with every gust of wind. In front of the worn porch, the front garden had gone, leaving only a smear of pocked earth. Kit's jeep looked so incongruous parked there. Chunks of fallen slate formed a spurious path around it.
'So intractable, even as a child when your parents brought you to visit. Yet you spend all your free time keeping an elderly invalid company?'
Beyond the grounds, mounded shadows on the beach humped toward flashes of gray. 'You know,' said Kit, 'that's because you happen to be the only interesting person in town.'
'And now you've taken in an injured cat?'
'Which I loathe.' Kit tugged the curtains shut and stepped back into the warmth from the fireplace.
'Whatever you say, my dear. So much resistance. You affect to hate my lovely darkness, and my little folktales, and you try so hard to be flippant. Don't you ever wonder what sort of life you'd have if ever you stopped denying the romance in your soul?'
'You never give up, do you?' Kit smiled at her. So frail in the antique wheelchair--how was it possible the old woman could radiate such strength? 'So how are you fixed for firewood?'
'All my needs are well met.' Charlotte smiled. 'As usual. Now, tell me again about this cat. Oh, forgive my manners. Would you care for a glass of sherry?'
Kit shuddered at the suggestion--a habitual joke between them--which always seemed to delight her hostess. 'Nothing to tell really.' She shrugged. 'It's probably dead by now, wedged behind the china cabinet most likely.' She paced through a wave of warmth in front of the fireplace, then back into the chill by the corner.
Charlotte clicked her tongue.
'I mean, here I knock myself out rescuing it,' continued Kit, 'get blood all over my best jacket, and the whole time it's like this lump, but the minute I get it home under the kitchen light and try to get a good look at the wounds--what a scene!'
'The poor creature was frightened.'
'Hell, I was frightened. For one thing, the damned cat is huge. I could've used a tranquilizer gun. And it's ugly as sin. You should have seen me chasing it while it's yowling its head off. Like one of those nature shows. First it's behind the refrigerator, next it's under the sink. Did you know that vet on Decatur Road moved away?'
'Everyone moves away.'
'Anyway, I finally got hold of this vet out by Deadhook, but by then I couldn't find the damn cat. Spent half the night moving furniture.'
'Perhaps it simply got out again?'
'I don't see how. I keep leaving food for it, but so far nothing's been touched. Just what I needed, right? I'll probably find it when I smell it. Speaking of moved furniture, how...I mean, this stool by the window...?'
Charlotte looked away too quickly. Her fingers went to her lips, then slipped away. 'Lately, I've been looking out.' At last, she folded her hands in her lap.
'Okay, but it's freezing by this window. Why...?' Then she noticed her friend's unfocused expression. Around the room, firelight glimmered from the antique frames that crowded among the volumes of collected folklore on the shelves and end tables. The immediate impression was that several generations of a family had been chronicled, all the men showing a strong clan resemblance, from adolescent to grandfather. One of the old photographs, tinted with unnatural hues, depicted a thin, unsmiling young man who posed proudly but awkwardly in an absurdly old- fashioned sailor suit. Across the room, the largest of the frames showed an older man, unsmiling still, in an officer's cap. This portrait stood guard beside a thick, leather-bound book, the gold embossed title of which remained just visible in the gloom:
'Yes, perhaps that's all it is.' Sudden tension flitted across her face. 'The time of year. Forgive me. I know you're not accustomed to seeing me like this.'
'Charlotte, I'm so sorry.'
'Perhaps I'm only getting even older--though it's difficult to imagine--entering some final dimming stage.'
'Never.'
'It comes for all of us. No matter how you overestimate me--and you know I adore that you do--sometimes I am just an old woman alone here. Mourning can become a sort of habit, a shield from life. I saw so many women, my contemporaries, retreat into propriety, removed from any real pain, from any passionate sense of loss.' Her voice rose sharply. 'I swore I'd never be reduced to such hypocrisy.' With a slow grip, she wheeled herself forward, then carefully folded back the fire screen and poked at the embers. She did this with reasonable efficiency, despite being barely strong enough to wield the poker. 'Forgive me, my dear friend, this wasn't a good time for you to come--I hate to have you witness my gloom. It's simply that...' Winded by the slight exertion, she let the poker clatter back into its place. 'I've seen something. No, I won't tell you what. Not yet. Not this evening when you must already suspect my mind to be going. No? Then perhaps you should. I sit here some nights, and I listen to the sea. I always told my Nathan that he built this house too close to the water.' She paused. 'Perhaps I knew even then that I would wind up like this...alone and listening for voices in the waves, hearing their words much too clearly. Forgive me. I know you hate it when I talk like this.'
'I just...'
'You're such a mass of contradictions, my dear. It's one of your most attractive qualities--a dreamer who tries to be a cynic, a skeptic in a landscape of ghosts. Are you familiar with the legend of the widow on the beach? It's one of my favorites. I always meant to do a book on it. You see, she waits for her husband's ship.'
'Charlotte, don't.'
'They say on stormy nights one can still see her, walking by the rocks near the lighthouse, her white tresses blowing behind her like a bridal veil. Can't you feel how close the dead are to us here?'
'Are you going to be all right tonight?' Kit watched flame spurt blue from the end of a log. 'I hate leaving you like this. You won't change your mind about letting me sleep here?'
'On quiet nights like this...'
'I want to be sure this door is kept locked. Do you understand? And I really don't like your sitting by that drafty window all night.'
The old woman seemed to surface from a great depth. 'What is all this, Katherine?'
'If you call me, I'll come over right away.'
'Of course. I've kept you far too long as it is. You told me you could only stop a moment.' 'Well, it's just that I'm working.' 'Old people become such gluttons for attention.' 'I'll come by later, if you want. Is there anything else you need, before I make my rounds? Are you sure? I hate to think of you all alone here at night.'
IX
Icy and urgent, a secret tide lifted through the room, swirling the murky desolation that clouded his sleep into a deeper tumult. It seemed he stumbled on a bank of frozen mud. Heavy with the fecund reek of the marsh, sour winds sprang from the water, wafting the sad stench of death around him. He stared down. A pinkish film spread thinly across the surface while men with hooks dragged things dripping from the depths. Gulls skimmed the turbid bay, and their reflections wheeled with squealing cries, their cruel wings curved like hooks...
