Feeling nostalgic, she sauntered over to the table that held the Book of Spirits. It had grown as tall as a baby, the pages at the bottom yellowed and mottled with age. Daring the monk’s glare, she caressed the spine and was approximating where in the stack her own name might reside when someone jostled her from behind. “I’m so sorry!” a voice exclaimed. What Meridia saw when she turned knocked all the breath out of her lungs.
She had dyed her red hair brown. Traded her outlandish garments for a simple dress. But the face, albeit older and wider, was the same. Grinning at her as if they were two girls cutting school to try on dresses at the bohemian quarters.
“Hannah!” gasped Meridia.
“I’ve come back,” her old friend said, laughing. “For good. My husband died last summer. The doctors said it was his kidney, he said it was my cooking. Now I’ve grown too old and fat for traveling. Do you know a place where I can stay?”
Meridia sized her up as if she were an apparition. “You’re really back?” she said, remembering the letter she had never opened. “In the flesh?”
“Pinch my cheek if you don’t believe me.”
“For good?”
“For good.”
“How do I know you won’t leave tomorrow? Or the next day?”
Hannah’s grin turned into a smile, tender and wistful at the same time. In that instant all the unspoken things surfaced between them.
“Because I don’t think my heart would take it if I leave you again.”
Perhaps Meridia started first, perhaps Hannah. Before they knew it, they were laughing and throwing their arms around each other. They were blocking traffic, tempting the dour monk to shove them aside, but they did not care. Boldly they walked arm in arm out of the plaza, hugging, kissing, setting off toward Monarch Street. That same afternoon they moved Hannah’s two suitcases from the hotel on Majestic Avenue into the house. This was when the rumor started. As far as the townspeople could see, Meridia was dragging those suitcases all by herself. They saw no other person with her.
ONE SATURDAY MORNING IN March, Meridia went to the post office to mail a letter. Noah had spent the night with Daniel, and at noon would meet her at the shop to have lunch nearby. At one, Hannah would wait for them at the bookshop café. Noah had said he needed a dictionary for school. That reminded her to stop by the tailor’s and order new trousers for him. He was growing so fast and was almost as tall as she was.
Meridia handed the letter to the clerk and paid for the stamp. Though she had not seen Malin since they parted last summer, they wrote to each other almost weekly. Baby Joshua was doing splendidly, and if Malin was to be believed, he was becoming handsomer with each letter. The young mother did not shy away from grilling Meridia about vitamins, the teething process, the efficacy of coconut versus eucalyptus oil, and what methods had worked to get Noah to eat. Malin also spelled out in detail every aspect of the baby’s development—his appetite, ailments, sleeping patterns, motions performed, bowel movements. Her incessant fretting aside, there was no denying the joy that filled her letters to the brim. He is everything I can hope for…In all my life I have never been happier…Malin had enclosed a picture of Joshua a few months back, and in it the child was smiling so much like Permony that Meridia thought time was playing a trick on her.
The worst they had feared did not happen. Ahab left town, vanished without a trace, and had not troubled them since. Maybe Malin did scare the living daylights out of him. Maybe he believed his child was dead. No matter the case, Malin decided it was best to stay away another year.
Having mailed her letter with time to spare, Meridia headed to the market square. It was a lovely morning, and the crowd and the noise, never too overwhelming on Saturdays, quickly immersed her in reminiscences. Here was where she had lost Ravenna and grown pale from the butcher’s cleaver. There she had eaten her first deep-fried potato cake with Hannah. Daniel had kissed her here, there, and there. For some time, she listened to the voices in her memory, some clear, some muddled, until one, sinewy with confidence, stood out above the rest. Eva’s. Before she could help it, Meridia was swept back into the time when she used to follow her on market days, basket swinging like a weapon and arms bared to the sun, bargaining her way with absolute mastery through these very same stalls. She remembered having been amazed by Eva’s skill, by how clever the woman was at getting what she wanted. Oh, how young she had been then, how trusting and impressionable! So much had changed that she could no longer recognize her old self.
And then suddenly she saw her—looking the way she had looked a decade ago. Wrapped in a brown coat trimmed with sable, Eva was again arguing with the butcher, her face smooth, her movement brisk, her bosomy figure threateningly planted before him. Before Meridia could make sense of the picture, Eva had dismissed the butcher, hitched up her skirt, and walked away with the best piece of meat in her basket.
Dazed yet unable to resist the spell, Meridia followed. The handsome brown coat billowed smartly while Eva dispersed her greetings. Whether she was human or phantom Meridia could not say, and so refrained from calling her name. At the edge of the square, Eva stopped near one of the benches. Meridia hastened. As she drew near, the shopping basket swung and the brown coat fluttered and Eva turned sharply to the right.
Meridia followed her down a long cedar-lined avenue. The farther she walked, the fewer people she saw, and before long she was completely solitary in her pursuit. Some time passed before she noticed that spring had lapsed into autumn. The sky was gray now, the sunlight cold, and the trees that a moment ago had been lush with leaves stood as bare as lampposts. There was no sound but the rustle of wind, and the houses on both sides of the street looked as if they had never been lived in. Quickening her pace, Meridia clung to the thought that she was merely seeing an illusion. When she reached the end of the long avenue, a thick swirling mist fell from the sky, not the blue or yellow or ivory that had haunted most of her life, but a cold green one. In an instant it blotted out trees and houses, everything but the brown coat billowing in front of her.
She kept up her chase. At times Eva sped up; at others, she slowed down till Meridia lagged no more than a few steps behind. Confined inside the mist, seeing nothing but the brown coat, Meridia did not know where she was, in which direction she was heading, or if she was going in an endless circle. Not once did Eva look back. Now and again, little laughs dropped from her lips, arctic inhuman sounds that added to the confusion in Meridia’s brain.
At last the brown coat came to a halt. The mist cleared, and a yellow sea of flowers spread before them. Marigolds. Climbing waist-high and tossing feverishly as though each were dancing. Their scent set Meridia’s lungs on fire, so sharp and sweet it nearly brought tears to her eyes. She looked up and found herself standing in front of 27 Orchard Road.
Smothering every inch of lawn, the marigolds made way for the mistress of the house. As Eva approached, the dancing flowers pulled her along like a sliding carpet, and when she reached the terrace where Elias’s chair still rocked to and fro, the front door magically opened to admit her. Eva went in without a look back, her arctic laugh piercing the still gray air. The path she cut remained among the flowers, daring Meridia to take it.
Meridia took it. As she walked, she remembered how the marigolds had usurped the land from the roses, gobbling them one by one until there was not a single stem left. She remembered the spot in the center of the lawn where Patina had writhed in pain, the same spot where her daughter’s tomb stood before Eva ordered it removed. And there on her wedding night, just beneath the window on the left corner of the house, she had skulked behind the roses and whispered good-bye to Ravenna…
When she entered the hallway, an unkempt and insolent maid came out from the kitchen and stopped her. The girl’s attitude quickly changed, however, when she learned who her visitor was.
“I’m—I’m so sorry, madam. I didn’t recognize you.”
“Where is your mistress?” Meridia’s tone was far from scolding,
yet it seemed to unsettle the maid even more.
“Madam’s unwell. She—she told me not to let anyone in.”
“Never mind that. I saw her come in just now. Did she go upstairs to her room?”
The maid gave an uncomprehending look. “Came in? Just—just now? But Madam hasn’t left her room since she got sick!”
“What do you mean? I just saw her—”
Meridia bit back her words. Eyes aflame with foreboding, she slipped past the maid and started up the stairs. The girl, looking terribly frightened, made no move to detain her. Meridia had not climbed two steps when a vile odor assaulted her nostrils. She lurched against the banister, gripping it with one hand while the other clutched her nose. Vomit, blood, sweat, excrement. A bell went off in her ear, triggering a thousand gruesome thoughts. Rapidly, she braced herself for the worst.
The stairs stretched without end, an eerie and unwelcome impersonation of Monarch Street. Meridia was halfway up when the house plunged into decay. The varnish on the banister peeled, the wooden steps splintered, the carpet tore, and chunks of plaster dropped from the ceiling like snowflakes. The large window on the landing cracked, broken through by ravenous thorns, and from every pore of the walls oozed slimy brown mold that spread quickly over the floors. There was dirt and grime everywhere, a wintry darkness fast descending upon the house. Hand on her nose, Meridia picked her steps carefully, convinced her next would send the stairs tumbling to the ground.
After an interminable time, she reached the landing and swayed down the corridor. Her stomach heaved, and it took all her strength to beat back nausea. A vision of her younger self swam before her. It was her first morning as a bride in this house, and she was walking down this same hallway to obey Eva’s summons. That day Eva had taken away her wedding gifts and told her clearly the position she was to occupy in the house. And now, more than a decade later, she had been summoned once again.
What did Eva want?
Meridia entered the bedroom to the sound of moaning. Added to the sweat and excrement was the smell of rotting flesh, of a body unwashed and festering sores. The room was smaller and shabbier than she remembered. The walls were covered in torn wallpaper, the furniture battered, and the rug gaping with holes. Only the grime and mold had yet to enter. Meridia waited until her nausea passed and then stepped toward the bed.
Eva’s spine had collapsed onto itself. Under the thin blanket, she curled sideways like a helpless infant. Spit and moan gurgled from her lips, while tears streamed nonstop down her skeletal face. Her two hands, withered like grass, peeked out from the top of the blanket, painfully closing and opening against her chest. She stared with a pleading intensity at the wall and did not realize that she was no longer alone in the room.
Meridia came up from behind and lifted the blanket. Instantly a viler odor struck her—she let the blanket drop again. Eva was lying in her own filth. There was no telling when she had last been bathed or changed.
Retreating in shock, Meridia tried to recall what she had heard of Eva in the past year. Little crossed her mind, for the woman had become a forbidden subject between her and Daniel, and Malin had not been in contact with her mother since she left. Leah once told her in passing that Daniel had been sending Eva a monthly allowance after her shop closed, but refused to see her in person. Clearly he had no idea how ill his mother was. Had he known, Meridia was hard-pressed to imagine him so callous. The maid must be keeping things quiet—holding Eva prisoner while pinching the money.
Meridia was about to call the girl for a reckoning when something stronger than anger checked her: the memory of all the treacherous things Eva had committed over the years. She owed the woman nothing. She could walk out of this room and leave that deformed figure to its fate. Surely, after everything Eva had done to her, after everything Eva had done to Noah and Patina and Permony and Elias, she had the right to walk away from this house without telling anyone what she had seen. Her action would be justified, her conscience clear and blameless. No one who had a passing acquaintance with their history would think of holding her responsible.
And yet she could not do it. The sound of Eva’s moan clawed into her heart and voided her desire to leave. Shivering on that bed, filthy and broken, was not a tormentor punished for her crime, but a human being in pain. There was nothing to do but help. Meridia walked around the bed and revealed herself.
For a moment Eva received her in stunned silence. And then like an animal bracing for attack, she curled her body tighter and let out an earsplitting cry. Spit flew from her lips, her head jerked from side to side, and her tiny eyes glinted with the sharpness of obsidian. Meridia at first could not understand her, for Eva’s tongue, which up till then had served as her most formidable weapon, had knotted up like tangled vine. And then suddenly, clear as a whiplash, the words hit her with all their venom.
“Leave me alone, you devil! Get away from me! Get out! Get out!”
Meridia tried to calm her without success. The horror in Eva’s eyes had hardened into hatred. She screamed and screamed with all the strength she had left, her harsh, inarticulate cries bellowing like curses. The stench of vomit, blood, sweat, and excrement thickened like a shield around her. Meridia stepped back. The maid, hearing the commotion, dashed terrified into the room.
“Clean her,” ordered Meridia sharply. “Go downstairs when you’re done. I have a few words to say to you.”
She walked to the door and noticed that with the maid’s entrance, the mold and grime had burst into the room, eating away walls and floor and ceiling. Feeling suddenly ill, Meridia ran along the corridor and climbed down the stairs as fast as she could. Eva’s screams snapped at her like bloodhounds. The house rolled and wobbled. The moldy steps were so slippery that she had to negotiate her way with caution. The throb of desolation was everywhere. There was no telling when the roof would descend to crush her.
Faint and nauseous, Meridia made it to the terrace. Her lungs were grateful for the gust of air, her heart somewhat lifted at the sight of sky. But even then the scent of the marigolds was no match for the stench of blood and excrement. Eva’s curses were still ringing in her ear. For the first time she noticed that her palms were covered in sweat.
She waited for twenty minutes before the maid joined her. By then Meridia knew just what to say.
“I can see you have been neglecting your duties. Stealing from your mistress. Letting her stew here in her own filth. Those days are over. From now on, you will have me to answer to.”
The maid, a girl hardly older than twenty, looked at her feet and trembled. Meridia did not relent.
“Abuse and malicious neglect. Premeditated intent to steal and harm. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t send you straight to jail! Have you any idea what they would do in there to a young girl like you? Slap balls of iron on your feet. Knock out your teeth. Rape you. And if the living didn’t get you, the dead certainly would. Do you know how many people have perished in anger behind those bars?”
And so for the next ten minutes, Meridia drove the fear of the spirits into the sobbing girl.
“Forgive me, madam! I will never do it again! I’ll return the money—all of it. I’ll do whatever you say, but please don’t send me to jail!”
Meridia did not trust her one bit. She resolved to talk to Daniel at once.
“Go up and see to her every need,” she said angrily. “Don’t think for one second that I’m not watching you.”
Limp with fear, the girl went back into the house and scrambled up the stairs. Meridia closed the door and stepped onto the lawn. As she made her way among the marigolds, an unpleasant recollection took hold of her. Scolding the maid, she had felt Eva speaking through her. Her words had seemed to fly straight out of Eva’s mouth, her pitiless glare a lesson plucked from Eva’s eyes. “There is too much of your mother in you,” she had said to Daniel. Now as the marigolds danced and the green mist lifted into the air, she wondered how much of Eva was in her, had been in her all along.
&
nbsp; WHEN SHE REACHED THE end of Orchard Road, spring suddenly returned with pink and golden splashes in the sky. The wintry gloom receded, and the trees were once again alive with leaves and blossoming fruit. Walking along the cedar-lined avenue, she took pleasure at the sight of children playing, dogs running, men laughing, women talking. The sounds they made drowned out the last of Eva’s curses. From Cinema Garden the wind carried the fragrance of jasmine and gardenia, so strongly aromatic it dispelled the stench of decay from her nose. Crossing the street, Meridia felt life pumping full swing in her blood; she felt alive and alert and vitally sensitive to the marvel of possibilities. She had come this far, she would go farther still. She was still young, not yet thirty, there was much yet for her to accomplish. From the thought followed a resolution. Never again would she despair or be lonely. She was Gabriel’s child, Ravenna’s daughter, and in her hand lay the power to shape life as she wished it.
Meridia swung into Willow Lane and found Noah and Daniel waiting outside the shop. Both in dark blue suits, yellow ties, patent-leather shoes. They turned to her at the same time, one pleased and the other withdrawn, their heads tilted in the same way.
“I’m starving, Mama,” said Noah. “Can we eat now?”
“Of course, angel,” said Meridia, tucking his shirt collar inside his suit. “But go in first and greet the girls. They’ll be angry if you don’t.”
The boy’s clairvoyant look rested on her, and without raising a brow or a question, he seemed to gauge her intention. He smiled mysteriously, almost with detachment, but it was enough to tell her that he approved. She watched him walk into the shop in a manner that made her proud.
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