by Amy Cross
***
An hour later, having walked Alice home and explained everything to her parents, Ephram returned to his store and checked on his grandmother, finding her sleeping in bed. The window was still open, and the old woman had turned onto her side, as if she'd been staring out at the darkness when she fell asleep. Taking care not to make too much noise, Ephram pulled the window shut and slid the bolt across before taking the tray and heading downstairs.
He spent a few minutes cleaning up the dead rat, marveling at the size of the damn thing as he held its corpse up. Once he'd disposed of the creature, he finished locking the store and then he poured himself a glass of whiskey and went out into the yard. His chickens were where he left them, sitting around in the coop, and he felt that he could almost sense their frustration. He knew that having the chickens out and letting them wander through the store was crazy, but it had been something that kept him happy, and besides their little claws had provided a constant noise that had helped him forget how empty his home had become.
As he stepped closer to the coop, he saw that a plump rat was gnawing on the metal fastener that kept the door shut.
“Get out of here!” he shouted, slamming his hand down and just missing the rat by an inch or two as it scurried away.
Turning to chase after it, he felt his tired bones start to pull him back, and finally he realized that he was far too tired to go running around the yard with a broom handle.
“To you,” he muttered, raising his glass of whiskey to the chickens before sitting on the little stool he kept outside. He took a sip of his drink, and then he did the same thing he did every night: he sang songs from his childhood, hoping to calm his anxious chickens.
V
The Le Compte family had, it seemed, been on Thaxos forever. At least that was how things seemed from the documents that Kate had unearthed so far, which suggested a lineage extending far back into the mists of time. In fact, it was even starting to look as though the island had been completely uninhabited until the Le Compte family arrived almost a thousand years ago.
And all of it had escaped the conventional history books. Until now, at least.
It was early and Kate had already been at work for several hours. She'd barely slept the night before, her mind filled with thoughts about Edgar and Didi's destructive relationship, and finally she had dozed for a short period before getting up at 7am, ready to face her first full day of work at the archive. In truth, Kate always loved the start of a new project, and this was no exception; she could already sense that the Le Compte family had a fascinating history, and it was clear that this history had for the most part gone untold for centuries. She had always dreamed of uncovering a major narrative that had previously eluded the world's history books, but the idea had seemed fragile and foolish; now, sitting cross-legged on the floor of Edgar's vast archive room, she finally felt that she was onto something.
Of most interest was the story of Edgar's grandfather, also named Edgar but more commonly known by the locals by his nickname: the Impaler. The previous Edgar had been an absolute tyrant, and it was clear that he had treated the whole island as his personal property. The townsfolk had by all accounts lived in fear of his actions, and with good reason: in his diary, the old man had recorded graphic details of his every activity, including the torture he'd meted out to any girl who dared cross the threshold and enter the mansion. Kate shuddered at the thought of such pain and suffering occurring in the same building where she was now working, and she was thankful that her nature was logical rather than superstitious.
Even the most rational mind, she told herself, would be tempted to imagine ghosts in such a place.
The history of the family was deeply intertwined with the history of the island itself, and Kate was quickly becoming aware that the study of one would necessitate the study of the other. This didn't bother her one bit, since it merely meant that there was more of a connection that she had previously realized between the work she was doing for Edgar and her plans to study the island and its mysterious stones. She knew there was a danger that she might be getting ahead of herself, but every so often she caught herself daydreaming about the possibility that she might be on the verge of a career-changing discovery. A whole family, a whole history, was waiting to be uncovered.
Lost in thought, she worked all morning and then completely forgot about lunch.