I take $500 in notes from the shoebox and put them on the table under a porcelain saucer. That should be enough for Elise to get a dog and stock the pantry with groceries. I stop. I know nothing about how much one would need to pay for a dog. Should I leave out more money? I’ll discuss it with Sky tomorrow morning. I close the lid and look for a place to hide the box. This is not the kind of money I want lying around.
While cleaning I discovered several treasures which I put on the table. There is an album with old photos, yellowed from daylight and the passing of time. I pull up a chair and sit. In the sparse light of the two oil lamps, the photos look familiar. As if a hand from the past is stretching out to me.
A woman with a colossal bosom squeezed into a colonial style dress—resembling my dress—stands next to the cooking range. I stare at her and feel a cold draft on the back of my neck. I don’t believe in ghosts, I never have, but I turn around to make sure there’s nobody behind me.
The dress is identical to mine. And that’s not the only thing. The woman… it could be a photo of me. I’ve heard the expression of her blood curdled. Of course, my blood didn’t curdle, because I don’t have blood. The body has and I’m not the body. But if I had a body all to myself, this unpleasant piercing and tingling and the sudden lack of oxygen, that’s what I image bloodcurdling must feel like.
I shut the photo album with a slam. Sky and the others have to help me figure out how a photo of me shows up in a thirty-year-old photo album.
There is also a leather-bound notebook that Aunt Amanda clearly used as a diary. It’s a mighty thick volume and at three o’clock in the morning, I have no ambition to read the whole thing. I jump to the last entries. Aunt Amanda left the house to see a lawyer in Port Somers on December 18, 1993. I flip through the pages that follow, but there are no further entries.
I hesitate before I look for more information at the front. It feels like snooping around in someone else’s life. We don’t do that. We like people respecting our privacy and we’ll do the same for them. The name in the front is Amanda Seagar. My hands tremble when I look at the picture underneath the name. I jump up and pace the room. What does that mean? The woman in the photo looks like me just as in the other photos I found earlier. Amanda Seagar and I look alike?
Confused, I leave the books on the table so Sky and Elise can make sense of this. There is lots to take in and to understand. Tonight is not the time. I carry the box with the money into the bedroom and slide it under the bed as if touching it a moment longer leaves a dirty mark on me.
Longing for sleep I open the window and slip under the blanket. It doesn’t take long before exhaustion and the crisp night air carry me away.
Chapter Nine
Elise: 19 November 2015, Late Morning, Wright’s Homestead
I wake up and try to ignore my splitting headache. Even opening my eye just a tiny bit and being hit by the bright daylight, feels like someone is stabbing me in the eyeball. I turn my face away from the light and rub my temples. As soon as I do, the lumpy pillow isn’t as comfy anymore as it was when I fell into bed last night. I fluff it up and lean against it.
From this position, I have a good view of the backyard, the clearing and the line of trees in the distance. I inhale the fresh scent of pine drifting on the morning breeze through the half-open window. Birdsong fills the air. It wouldn’t surprise me if a deer stepped out from the tree line to graze on my clearing at its leisure. Still, even without the deer, I feel I’ve arrived in a Paradise Lost.
Is this what freedom feels like? No traffic noises disturb the blissful moment. The house is quiet… not like a spooky mausoleum, but like a place filled with contentment and modest comfort. I’m quietly hopeful. No Helen is shouting from downstairs for me to hurry. Nobody is putting any demands on me.
I should get up and take painkillers but getting out of bed is a surprisingly painful effort. I swear every single muscle in my body is complaining. You’d think I pushed my van all the way from Auckland down to Port Somers instead of driving. How does that make sense? I only cleaned this bedroom and fell into bed at eight-thirty last night.
My to-do-list jumps to mind, like a jack-in-the-box, unexpected and yet not a surprise at all, if that makes sense. The house needs a good scrubbing to become habitable and I need to buy provisions… and yes, a dog. The idea of getting a dog makes me jump out of the bed. I stretch and yawn and flex my sore shoulder muscles. Suddenly I can’t wait to get going. The housework can wait, the dog can’t.
My feet are fumbling for my slippers. Didn’t I drop them at the side of the bed when I went to sleep? I stretch some more and moan inwardly about my stiff shoulders as I step to the window and open it even wider. The sun is already high in the sky. It must be midmorning. I overslept, a luxury I’m not used to. A sudden wave of guilty feelings is washing through me until I turn away
