She paused to consider it, handing me a plate to dry. “These things happen. There are animals in the woods. It’s not the city.”
“I know.”
“Are you so concerned? You needn’t be. None of the wild animals around here are dangerous to us.”
“I’m not concerned about animals. I’m concerned about—humans.”
“Humans?”
“That there might be…bad people doing things to the dogs.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and picked up another plate to wash. “Oh, Ada. That’s not likely.”
“It’s possible.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “It’s possible. But why would you want to think about such things? It’s not good for your mind.”
“It could be Ray,” I blurted.
Her hands stilled.
I went on, the words spilling out. “He might have hurt those dogs. He hurt that horse. Mother, he hurt me.”
She didn’t look at me. She looked down at her hands. She said, “He hurt you? How?”
“At Biltmore. He found me and he tried…he wanted…” And I found I couldn’t say it. Not to her. It was too shameful, and I was too ashamed.
“Ada?”
The accusation hung in the air, incomplete, unbelievable.
“Enough,” she said, lowering her voice. “You want to accuse this boy of—of I don’t even know what. You have this fantasy that three missing dogs means something nefarious. I doubt it means anything at all. Honestly, Ada, this is appalling behavior.”
I whispered, “I’m sorry.”
Her face softened then. I saw it change. “You don’t need—oh, darling, I’m sorry too. I am. But you see, you must be mistaken.”
Tentatively, I said, “I don’t think I am.”
“But you must be,” she said again, squaring her shoulders, speaking quietly enough that we wouldn’t be overheard. “Here’s why. Because we all depend on that boy’s father, for our lives, for everything. We’re only here because he allows it. If Ray hurt you, if he’s done something wrong, then I will have to tell Victor. Victor will have to tell Silas. Silas will have to respond, and I think you know Ray won’t be the one he’ll punish. We will all suffer instead. Our family. Is that what you want? You want us out on the street with nowhere to go?”
“Of course not,” I said in a whisper, feeling the hot sting of tears under my lashes.
“So you were mistaken. Weren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She said, “I’m so sorry, Ada. Once upon a time, I was stronger than this.”
I was afraid to breathe, let alone to speak, so I simply continued to cry, clutching the dish in my hand as if it could give me some kind of solace. Her eyes were dry, but I could see her knuckles turn white as she clutched her own dish, her head bent and staring down into the sink in front of us.
“You’re old enough to hear it. I was ready to lose my whole world for your father,” she said quietly. “He wasn’t ready to lose his for me. He didn’t love his wife. Everyone knew that. Her parents offered him so much money to stay that he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t refuse. He didn’t love me enough. I worshipped him, but in the end, he was weak. And it didn’t matter how strong I was, if he wasn’t.”
“Victor was strong enough. He loved you enough. He was strong enough to run away with you.”
Grimly, she said, “By then, neither of us had all that much to lose.”
I watched her wipe away a tear, and I realized I would never see her quite the same way again.
“Now we have even less,” she said. “And I can’t lose what little we do have. I can’t.”
My powerful, beautiful mother, my songbird, my cello. She was only an ordinary woman, and one who felt herself at the mercy of the world. She was right. She wasn’t strong enough.
“No more of this,” she said, dunking the dish in her hand under the surface of the water. She swished it from side to side and scrubbed at it even though it was already clean, then handed it to me to dry and return to the cabinet.
And that was all.
***
That night, I lay awake, castigating myself for my error, over and over. Maybe if I’d gone about it differently. Maybe if I’d come right out and said it, told her about what he’d done to me in the barn months before and what he’d done to the horse and himself that day, maybe then she would have to take my side. If I’d done it right, maybe I could have made it all come out differently. Come out better.
But I knew that she was right. Ray was his father’s pride and his mother’s pet. There was no chance they would take a word against him seriously. I was the troublemaker, the upstart, the bastard girl. I’d botched the confession to my mother, and if I tried to bring it up again, I knew she wouldn’t listen. Now I was the girl who cried wolf, even though there really was a wolf, and I had every reason to think the wolf wasn’t yet done with me.
Those poor dogs. That poor horse. That horrid, whispering voice when he’d said I hope you know I’ll never let you leave, and later, If you tell them, I’ll kill you. I realized then how foolish I’d been to stay this long. It could be fatal to stay longer.
My mother had told me she couldn’t save me. If I wanted to escape—to live—I would have to save myself.
Rising silently, moving through the dark on practiced, careful feet, I fetched the valise my mother had bought me for ballet school. From my bureau, I took two plain dresses; from the kitchen, a half loaf of bread. I paused before I left, thinking of writing a note for her, telling her not to worry about me and that I’d left by choice, but I was too afraid. It would take time, and even if I left a note, there was no guarantee she’d see it. I heard creaks and snaps from the floorboards of the old house, and I didn’t know whether it was my imagination or someone rising in the night. It wasn’t worth the risk. If Ray found me trying to run, I knew he would hurt me, and I feared he would kill me. There was no coming back from that.
There was only one thing I needed to do before leaving. I dashed across the grass toward the barn, shoving open the huge door and not, as I’d been warned a thousand times to do, sliding it shut behind me. I wanted to throw open the doors of every stall, sending our whole crew of mares, foals, and stallions sprinting out into the night, but the thought of my mother stopped me. If all the horses were gone, it would be too obvious what I’d done. Silas’s wrath would come down on her. Instead, I walked directly to the stall of the mare I’d seen Ray attack. I could free one horse, at least. I could even ride to freedom on her back, if she let me.
I crouched down to open the door, but I hadn’t foreseen her eagerness to break free, and I’d no sooner undone the latch than she charged the door, knocking me back. I fell to the ground, my head striking the floorboards with a thud, and then the horse was on me. I rolled, almost by instinct, hoping to shield my head. Hooves were all around, like thunder in my ears. I could only curl myself as small as I could and pray for luck. It was all over in a few moments. I had a distant awareness of retreating hoof beats, and on some level, that pleased me, but I was afraid to move and afraid to open my eyes. My body was frozen in shock, the blood so cold in my veins that I couldn’t tell at first whether I’d been injured. Had I ruined my chance at escape?
As best I could, I stretched my body out to test its state, and a searing pain in my hand woke me from my trance. I held the hand out to look at it. It was clear that the outer two fingers had been caught under the horse’s hoof, broken and possibly crushed, down to the first joint of each. At least it was my hand and not my foot, I told myself. I could still walk. And I didn’t have time to indulge the pain. I had to get moving. So I sprinted north through the back field, skirting the edge of the neighbors’ land. I rejoined the road on the other side of town, where there was no one to ask questions.
Where could I go? Not back to my grandparents’ house, which was an
unknown distance in an unknown direction. I doubted they would welcome me, child of an unknown lecher and a known cheat with whom they had explicitly cut all ties. I knew almost nothing else of the world, only stories, nothing real. I only knew one place to go, unsuited as it was, and so I went there. It took much longer to go on foot, but at least I had two strong legs under me this time.
I walked with my aching hand raised to keep it from filling with blood, a solitary young woman on a long road, one hand in the air as if she had the answer to a question.
Chapter Eight
Janesville, 1905
Half past one o’clock
“If I could, I’d show you what that looked like,” she says and twists her hands so the cuffs rattle against the wood of the chair.
“If I wanted to, I’m sure I could picture it,” he remarks dryly. She doesn’t need to remind him that her hands are trapped. But the sound prompts him to circle behind her and examine her hands again. “Which hand was it?” he asks.
“The right.”
He kneels behind her so he can see clearly and leans in as close as he dares. The cut on her wrist stands out, although it seems less severe than he first thought. The fingers on both hands look straight and unblemished.
“This hand doesn’t look like it’s ever been broken.”
“It was a long time ago, officer,” she says.
He retrieves his chair and sits down across from her again. He leaves plenty of room between them, but he wants to be on her level. He wants to look at her; not up, not down, just at. Into those blue-and-brown fairy eyes.
“What year did you say?”
“I didn’t say, I don’t think. But it was 1895. Ten years ago.”
“And you were how old?”
“Fourteen. I was born in the summer. When were you born, officer?”
“Winter,” he says.
“And how old are you?”
“I’m not making conversation when I ask you these things,” he says, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I’m trying to get the facts. What few facts there are in this story of yours.”
“And what’s your opinion?” She cocks her head.
“Of your story?”
“Yes.”
“I think it’s not true.”
“Well, it is true,” she says, sounding insulted.
“I think your story isn’t true, and I think you’re a murderer, and I think if someone put a knife in your hand, you’d stab me without a moment’s pause.”
Her breath catches in her throat. He hears it, clear as anything. He knows what it means: weakness. So he presses.
He says, “You’ve stabbed someone, but you didn’t like it.”
She doesn’t say anything at first. When she speaks, her voice is soft and hesitant. “It’s not a thing a person can like.”
“Some people do,” he says, trying to sound sympathetic.
“Those people are monsters,” she says. “I’m not.”
“I know you’re not.” He’ll flatter her, if that’s what she wants. “You’re sensitive and smart and you’ve had terrible things done to you, so I don’t blame you for striking back.”
She eyes him, this time out of the all-blue eye, and says, “Oh, officer. Don’t be obvious.”
His optimism disappears. He stands up and turns his back so she can’t see his face. It isn’t fair. He has all the power and none of it. The ceiling seems lower than it did an hour before, the room smaller, though he knows that’s not possible. So much is riding on this night. He can’t afford to lose control.
She breaks into his reverie, saying, “Now I want to ask you a question. When you didn’t answer the telephone. Is it because you’re not a police officer?”
“What?”
“Well, you could be an impostor. Maybe that’s why you brought me here instead of taking me to the authorities in Waterloo. People do it, you know. They pretend.”
He walks over to his desk and grabs the nameplate, which he turns around to face her. “Officer Virgil Holt.”
“I don’t doubt there is one. I just doubt you’re him.”
He bristles. “You’re not convinced by the gun?”
“The gun is a detail. Details can be misleading.”
“And the whole station?” He gestures at the room and its contents. A real desk, real walls, two real people. “Is the station a detail?”
“I never said it wouldn’t take some doing.”
He says nothing. Let her wonder, he tells himself.
In silence, he kneels at her feet to check the cuffs around her ankles. He wishes he had more than five pairs of cuffs. It’s not logical. If she knows how to escape from one pair, she knows how to escape, period. But still, six would be better. Or eight. Or ten. At least she can’t enchant him. If she could, she would have done it already. Wouldn’t she?
“It’s interesting,” she says, raising her chin. “I still don’t think you understand. Escapists use different equipment altogether. They’d have chains and not just the cuffs. Ropes too. A straitjacket. You think I’m Houdini?”
“Houdini is a genius,” says Holt. “And you’re only a murderer.”
“Murderer? Not murderess? You deny me the badge of my sex.”
He gets an idea and grabs the heavy, glittering fabric of her stage dress at the hem. He folds it back on itself, exposing her legs fully several inches above the knee.
“Heavens! So forward!” she says, as if to make light, but there is a brittle, tense note in her voice.
At that moment, he smells her, the true her, underneath the wet silk and salt. She smells like burnt orange peel, is it? Or lime? Or both? He’s tempted to lean closer but braces himself, reins himself in. He is a married man and an officer of the law.
“Which leg did you say you broke?”
“Did I say?” she asks. “It was the left.”
He inspects the left leg closely through the sheer stocking that veils it. An absolutely perfect leg. Pristine.
She goes on, “If a break heals cleanly, there’s nothing to see.”
His hands come up to her knee as if of their own accord, and he runs them both down the sides of her calf. It is warm and smooth. Oranges, she smells like oranges. He exhales and feels her body stiffen under his touch.
Her voice even more tense, she says, “You should know that, and I suspect you do.”
Suddenly he realizes what’s making her nervous. Him. He immediately lets the heavy beaded hem of her dress drop back into place, covering her legs, and settles back on his heels. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. Not that way. I am married.”
She shrugs her shoulders as much as she can, given her restraints. “That wouldn’t stop a lot of men.”
“It stops me.”
“Your wife is lucky she has you.”
“Your experience with marriage isn’t as good, it seems.”
“No. I’ve never been happily married. What’s your lovely wife’s name, Virgil?”
“Does it matter?”
“I’m telling you everything about me. I told you where I came from and the name I was born with. I told you everything that happened to me, even the worst things. I told you—” Her voice catches but she plunges ahead. “I told you what Ray did. Tried to do. Every detail of my life, no matter how small, is open to you. I think you can tell me your wife’s name.”
He swallows hard and says, “Her name is Iris.”
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t know what to say after that. He knows he’s given something up, but he doesn’t see how it could do her any good to know it. His wife’s name isn’t a pass code. It isn’t going to get her anywhere.
“Now, let’s discuss the night of the crime,” he says. “If you didn’t commit the murder, where were you? You cut the man in the box in half with a
n ax, you finished out the show, and then—what?”
She gapes at him.
He explains, “What came after is what I mean. Tell me that.”
In a voice of wonder, she says, “I don’t believe it. You were there.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I use a saw. Always. I only used an ax once, and that was last night, in Waterloo.”
He’s in trouble now. “Maybe I misspoke. Or misremembered. It was something sharp is all.”
“No. No, I don’t think so.” She leans forward in her seat as far as she can, visibly excited. Life comes back to her face, color to her cheeks. “You were in Waterloo, to see my show, and you were heading north from there the same as I was, and that’s what brought you to that restaurant. It’s all so clear.”
Her air of triumph is irritating. It shouldn’t matter that he was there, but he feels like it gives her some kind of power over him, to know that he’s seen her in her element. Even now, she seems less a prisoner than before.
“I didn’t go there to see your ridiculous show,” he spits.
“So why were you there?”
“Visiting a doctor.”
“Why? Because you were shot?”
Shock washes over him, through him. “How—how did you know that?”
“Lucky guess,” she says with a hint of a smile. “The stiffness I asked you about. It’s partly in your legs, but not entirely. You carry it in your whole body—it has something to do with your back. Lower back, I think. Like you’re protecting it. And you’re a police officer, so guns are your business.”
She’s gotten close enough to the truth on her own that he doesn’t see the point of hiding the rest of it. “And so it was.”
“Who shot you?”
“I interrupted a robbery at the bank. Three months back.” He doesn’t want to relive it. He tells the story as if it happened to someone else. “Got the man to lay down his weapon and the money. Didn’t see his accomplice, who shot me from behind. Twice.”
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