But you’re not, she points out.
Not yet, I reply, not if I can help it.
Then I feel hands gripping my arms, pulling me out of the grave I’ve dug for myself. “I’ve got you,” Edith says, holding me to her as I sob. For Laurel. For me. For both our Chloes. For Edith’s lost baby.
Edith pats my back. “It’s okay,” she says. “We’ll get her back.” She wipes my face with the sleeve of her pajamas and helps me to my feet. She leads me by the hand into the woods. It’s only when we’ve been walking a few minutes that I think about that “her.” According to Dr. Bennett’s notes, Edith’s baby was a boy. So, who, I wonder, is she talking about?
AS WE WALK up the hill I try to make a plan. Should I run or should I go to Schuyler Bennett and try to convince her that I’m really Daphne Marist? If could get my ID and Laurel’s will and the photo of Peter from the tower, maybe that would convince her. On the other hand, if I show up at Schuyler Bennett’s house covered in mud and with a delusional woman, Sky will call the police. She has no reason to protect me. I lied to her about who I was and took advantage of her trust and hospitality. Also, I’m technically an escaped mental patient. But hers is the only house for miles. Where else can we go? What I need is to find a car so I can get someplace where I can prove my identity.
I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t notice at first that we’re no longer climbing upward. We’ve been walking on a level path for some time, along the ridge Sky Bennett’s house sits on but not toward the house itself. Given her obsession about the tower, I had assumed that’s where Edith was leading us.
Before I can ask where we’re going, we arrive at some kind of garden shed. A rather decorative one, with a pointed eave, gingerbread trim, and faded green paint. A storybook cottage in the enchanted woods. Maybe I really have gone crazy. When Edith opens the door, will we find the witch from Hansel and Gretel or a family of dwarves?
What’s inside is nearly as surprising. A cot covered with a faded flowered quilt and embroidered throw pillows, an armchair, a table made in a rustic bent-twig style. There’s even an old-fashioned lantern, which Edith lights with a box of kitchen matches. A china teapot and two teacups are set out on the table as if for a tea party, but there’s clearly no way of heating water. There are books everywhere. I pick one up and see it’s a children’s book of fairy tales.
This is some kind of playhouse, clearly, perhaps Sky’s when she was little. But it’s in too good shape for it to have been disused since Sky’s childhood. Perhaps Billie’s grandchildren use it when they visit, or Sky has preserved it as a writing room. “What is this place?” I ask Edith.
She lies down on the padded bench, cushioning her head with an embroidered pillow, and sighs. “Home.” Then she closes her eyes. Within minutes she’s snoring.
I stand there, not sure what to do. Go to Sky’s house and try to steal a car? But instead I sink down into the armchair. As I sit I feel the edge of the file folders I stuffed in my pants rub against my back. I pull them out and lay them on the broad, flat arm of the chair on top of an illustrated collection of Norse myths. I can see by the light filtering in through the cottage’s one window that it will be daylight soon. I should be trying to get as far away from Crantham as I can. Once they discover that Edith and I have escaped, the woods will be filled with searchers. How hard could it be to find this place?
But as I look around I notice the pictures on the wall. I’d assumed they were fairy-tale prints to match the books, but I see now that they’re reproductions of paintings and sculptures, temples and cathedrals. All the art that Edith studied in Art History 101 at Vassar and then some, so many that they’ve been layered on top of one another. Clearly Edith has spent considerable time here. It must be at least relatively safe.
Still, I want to run, to get as far away from this place as I can. But running blindly into the woods is not a plan. I need to get to the tower to get Laurel’s will and Peter’s photo to prove there’s a conspiracy going on. I need my own ID to prove that I’m Daphne Marist. But I can’t just leave Edith here. I’ll have to wait until the morning and then go to the tower. In the meantime it might be useful to know more about Edith. I pick up her file and begin reading.
Edith’s Journal, October 3, 1971
Being friends with Libby is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Better even than Cal. I mean, that was romantic, sure, but Libby has shown me this whole other world I didn’t even know existed. A world of art and culture and ideas.
I was surprised at first that Libby didn’t want to marry Clive. “Marriage is so bourgeois,” she said. “I’m going to travel. See the world. Live life. How else can I become a writer? We could travel together. You can paint and I’ll write.”
That wasn’t at all like the plan I’d made of getting my teaching certificate and settling down in Richmond with Cal. “I don’t think my parents would give me the money to do that,” I said.
“I’ve got money,” Libby said. “My mother left me loads. Enough for both of us to start out and then we can get jobs—waitressing or modeling. You’ve got a face like
