by Ricky Fry
He returned to his place beside her on the leather sofa and put a hand on her knee. “We’ll find another nanny. I promise.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “They all run away.”
“Then we’ll find another. David Hirschbach—you remember his lovely wife Evelyn—told me about an agency that recruits French nannies from Europe. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Nora could learn to speak French.”
“You promise?” She tried to imagine how jealous the other women would be of a French nanny.
“Anything for you.”
Whatever tiny sliver of hope she might have felt soon vanished when the baby began to cry again. Her husband disappeared and she sat alone, wallowing in her terrible fortune. Mr. Hardaway had just returned and was pouring himself another glass when there was a peculiar knock on the front door.
“It’s late,” he said. “Who could it be?”
The old grandfather clock in the corner of his study sprung to life as if on cue. It was exactly midnight.
An old woman, face wrinkled and grooved, waited on the front porch. Despite the worn features of her face, she stood completely straight, her broad shoulders filling the space beyond the doorway. A thin wisp of gray hair protruded from the embroidered scarf tied tightly beneath her chin. In her hands, she clutched a scratched and faded leather bag, not at all dissimilar to the bag that weaselly little huckster Mr. Thornewood had carried. Nancy wondered what the old woman might be selling at such a late hour.
“Yes?” said Mr. Hardaway. “Can we help you with something?”
The old woman’s eyes sparkled a bright blue. “I’ve heard you’re in need of a nanny.” She spoke in a peculiar accent. The words bounced and drew out in long syllables as though she might be singing a song.
“Well,” he said, “we are considering possible candidates, though I’m afraid at this hour I’ll have to ask you to return at a more suitable time.”
Nancy wasn’t interested in waiting, and she knew as well as her husband that there were no other candidates. Besides, what harm could an old woman possibly be? “I apologize for my husband. Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee? It must be chilly in the night air.”
The old woman smiled back at her, eyes still shimmering bright blue as she crossed the threshold and followed them both into Mr. Hardaway’s study. “What a lovely home you have.”
If she only knew, Nancy thought. Of course, she would say nothing of the curse. Perhaps the old woman would prove more resistant to nightmares. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m afraid I didn’t get your name.”
“Iryna,” said the old woman.
“Oh, how lovely.” She sent Mr. Hardaway to fetch them each a cup of coffee. “Is that French?”
“Ukrainian.”
“I see.” She couldn’t recall ever meeting a Ukrainian, and wondered if they had a reputation for making good nannies. “Forgive me, I couldn’t place your accent.”
The old woman was still smiling. “That’s quite alright, dear. In truth, I was raised in Newfoundland, where my family has been settled for some time. My grandmother spoke Ukrainian in the home, while I spoke English in school with the rest of the children. It’s understandable you would find my accent difficult to place.”
She couldn’t have said what it was, but there was something about the old woman that put her at ease. “Do you have experience with children?”
“Oh, yes,” said Iryna. “I’ve been caring for children since my mother and father died. I was the oldest of seven, you see. It was only natural that I became a nanny, a capacity in which I have forty-six years of professional experience. I’m happy to provide references upon request.”
It seemed too good to be true, that Iryna would arrive on their doorstep in her greatest moment of need. Mr. Hardaway had just returned with the coffee when the old woman asked if she might see the baby.
“I’m afraid she’s sleeping,” he said. “If you’d be so kind as to leave your contact details, we’ll be in touch should we desire your services.”
Nancy hoped the woman wouldn’t be put off by her husband’s cold reception, but Iryna only continued smiling as she added sugar to her coffee and stirred.
“Of course,” said the woman. “You’re quite right. Let sleeping babes sleep.”
They were together in bed, and would have been side-by-side were it not for the large expanse of empty mattress between them. Mr. Hardaway sent the last of his nightly emails while Nancy examined the résumé left behind by the old woman.
“It’s quite complete,” she told her husband. “It says here she held her last position for ten years. I really do hope you’d consider inviting her back.”
“Don’t you think it’s odd?” Mr. Hardaway placed his wire-rimmed reading glasses on the nightstand.
“Odd?”
“Well, yes,” he said. “How many nannies go around knocking on doors at midnight?”
Nancy, who’d given up all hope of returning to her former life as the days and weeks with Baby Nora dragged on, couldn’t imagine there was anything odd about it. In fact, the woman’s sudden arrival had seemed to her like a wonderful stroke of luck. She was certain things would be different this time—that somehow the old woman would be the answer to all her hopeless prayers.
Her husband was less than convinced. “How did she even know we need a nanny?”
“Everyone in Boston knows we need a nanny, Byron. It’s all those women can flap their gums about. I swear, they take special pleasure in my suffering.”
“Well, I don’t like it. Something about her gave me the chills.”
Nancy had grown tired of her husband’s endless skepticism and paranoia. “Frankly, I don’t much care how you feel about the matter. You’re not the one stuck in this house day after day with nothing to do but go crazy. I’m calling her tomorrow.”
“Nancy—”
“Don’t do that!”
“What?”
“Talk down to me. You’re always talking down to me. It’s easy for you—off traveling the world and doing God knows what while your wife stays home to play the good mother. It’s my decision as the woman of this house, and I’m going to invite her back to meet the baby.”
Mr. Hardaway sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Would you at least call to check her references?”
It was over. She had won. In truth, she was surprised he’d capitulated so easily. But she could be very insistent when she wanted something, and her husband was never the type to continue an argument before bed. “Of course,” she said.
“Good. I love you both, Nancy. I only want you and the baby to be happy.”
That night, as she drifted off to sleep with the steady hum of Mr. Hardaway snoring beside her, she was visited by a dream of her own. But it wasn’t the same nightmare which had befallen the others. Instead, she dreamed of boutiques and banquet halls and luncheons. She wore her finest attire. And the high society ladies, so quick to overlook the things they’d whispered in her absence, welcomed her back with gushing compliments and open arms.
EIGHT
He was nudged awake by his wife in the early hours of the morning. He could see she was not well. Beads of sweat gathered on her face and reflected the orange glow of the slowly dying fire in the hearth. The animal skins beneath her were wet.
“Fetch the midwife,” she said. “It’s time.”
He pulled a heavy cloak around his shoulders and set out into the cold night. It had been months since winter first arrived in the village. Still, the baby wasn’t due for six more weeks. As he trudged through thick snow to a small house on the far side of the village clearing, Bogdan was filled with worry for the baby’s health, and for the health of his beloved wife.
The windows of the house were dark. A heavy silence, the kind of silence which can only be found in the longest months of winter, had fallen over everything, save the ever-present sound of pine trees rubbing together at the edge of the forest. He took one last breath of the still night air and raise
d a fist to the door.
It was some time before he heard a commotion coming from inside. A lantern was lit—its light fell from the window and onto the snow.
“Who’s there?” It was the voice of Svyatoslav, whose wife’s tender and skillful hands had greeted nearly all of the children of the village. Even Bogdan, who was born destined for an early death, was coaxed from his mother’s womb by her loving touch.
“It’s me,” he said. “It’s Bogdan.”
The door creaked open on its hinges, and Svyatoslav ushered him in from the cold. “What’s happened, dear friend?”
“The baby—it’s coming.”
Svyatoslav rousted his wife from her sleep, and the house came alive with the busy gathering of things—herbs and linen and small glass vials of tinctures—before the three of them set off together into the snowy night.
They found her on the floor beside the bed. A patch of slick, crimson red had stained her nightgown where it rested between her legs.
“Help me,” said the midwife.
The men eased Yekaterina back onto the bed and Svyatoslav’s wife brought one of her tiny glass vials to the trembling woman’s lips.
“Drink,” she said. “It will ease the pain.”
An hour passed, then another. Svyatoslav fed logs into the fire as his wife busied herself with boiling linens and preparing herbs.
Bogdan paced before the hearth, his thoughts interrupted only by the sound of Yekaterina’s moans and screams. Once, when he was a boy, just twelve or thirteen, he’d helped his mother and the midwife tend to another woman in the village. They’d set him about to small tasks, gathering items they needed and tending to the fire. He’d stayed with them throughout the night, listening as they spoke among themselves in hushed whispers. In the morning, when the baby finally emerged, it was without breath. The poor mother, crying and sobbing, clutched her dead baby tightly in her arms and refused to let them take it away. There had been blood then, too.
“Come.” Svyatoslav placed a rough hand on his shoulder. “Let the women do their work.”
Bogdan followed him outside and they passed a pipe back and forth. The smoke was thick and harsh and burned his throat.
“She’s bleeding too much,” he said.
Svyatoslav loaded more of the dried herb into the pipe. “My wife is the best midwife on this side of the Carpathian Mountains. She’ll do what she can.”
He found little comfort in his friend’s words. As the first hint of dawn broke over the horizon, the most blessed man in the village asked God for one more favor.
He hoped it wasn’t too much to ask.
It was all a great mess of blood and sweat and terrible screams carrying up into the rafters of the house.
“You can do it,” said the midwife. “Just one more push.”
Yekaterina screamed wildly and squeezed his hand so tightly he thought she might break his bones.
Just when he thought she could push no further, the crown of a tiny head appeared between her legs. Svyatoslav’s wife, with her experienced hands, was there to receive it.
“Again,” she said. “Push again.”
Once more, she squeezed his hand and screamed. He’d seen a great deal of things in his short life, but none so terrifying as childbirth. Even the evil spirit, with its red eyes and deadly grip, was no match for the ferocity of nature.
And then, as if the final culmination of some great effort, the baby suddenly slid free. It made no sound, and Bogdan couldn’t be sure if it was alive or dead. The only thing he could be sure of, as the midwife cut the cord and spirited the baby away, was that his wife had lost a great deal of blood—too much blood for any one person to lose.
She managed a weak smile and clutched his hand with whatever remained of her strength. “Do you remember, my sweet husband, what I told you on the night of our wedding?”
Even in her wretched state she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He’d known, since the very moment they took him down from the tree still breathing, that it was her love that had saved him.
Heavy tears formed in his eyes and rolled in rivers of sadness down his face. “Please, I don’t want to lose you.”
“You can never lose me,” she said. “I’m yours forever.”
And then she was gone.
Somewhere in the room behind him, a baby cried.
“It’s a boy,” said the midwife. “A beautiful baby boy.”
It took most of the morning to cut a path through the deep snow. The frozen earth required more effort, and they’d resorted to pickaxes, he and Svyatoslav working together, to finish digging the grave.
When the hole was dug, his friend left him alone in the fading hour of twilight. The priest had offered to come and say some words, but he thought it was only right that he should be alone with her one last time. Her family had said their goodbyes that afternoon, as she lay wrapped in white linen in the house that had been their home.
She was beside him now, resting on a bed of snow. He wiped a tear from his eye, and in the last light of day he lowered her into the hole. There were no flowers. No songs. There was only the emptiness of a broken dream—something that was gone forever and would never return.
The sky had had grown dark by the time he finished replacing the earth. Above the place where her head rested, he planted a simple cross fashioned from two sticks. It was all that remained to mark her life—that and the son which he was left to raise alone.
“I promise,” he said to her, “he’ll be a good son, and the bravest of men.” It was what she would have wanted.
He stood in the cold for a long while, gathering the strength to leave her. It was only when he turned to head back that a strange movement in the forest caught his attention.
“What do you want?” The words left his mouth in a fit of rage. “Is it my life you so desire? For I would gladly offer it that she might live again.”
But the shadow said nothing. There were only those familiar red eyes, piercing deep into his soul through the darkness.
And then, for the second time in one day, he found himself completely alone.
NINE
Nancy sat at her husband’s desk and examined the old woman’s résumé. She was experienced, of that there was no doubt. Mr. Hardaway had insisted she check her references, but Nancy imagined there was no need. What harm could possibly come from such a kindly old woman? Her husband was simply being paranoid. It was one of his less desirable personality traits—a consequence of managing so much money.
She was about to dial the nanny from the desk phone when her cellphone rang. The screen lit up with a round picture of her husband. He’d have to wait. She pressed the ‘ignore’ button and had just gone back to the résumé when the phone rang again.
It was unlike Byron to call twice. Usually, it was she who rang him more than once when she needed something. He was always so busy with meetings.
“Yes?” She hoped whatever it was he would make it quick. She had plans to go shopping just as soon as the new nanny arrived.
“Listen carefully, Nancy.” Her husband's voice was breathless, as though he was in a great hurry. “We don’t have a lot of time. I need you to call Mr. Fellowes.”
It was a signal they’d rehearsed many times, laughing with each over scotch or gin and tonic in the study. Mr. Fellowes was the name they’d given to her husband’s shredder, and while she’d enjoyed the luxury of remaining ignorant to the specifics of her husband’s work, she knew without a doubt what he was asking. She was no longer in the mood for laughing.
“Mr. Fellowes?” She couldn’t believe it was actually happening. The day she’d always feared had finally come. “Are you sure?”
“Nancy—I love you.”
Before she could reply, there was the sound of men on the other end of the line. They were taking her husband into custody, and it would only be a short while before they descended on the house.
There was no time for imagining what the neighbors might think. S
he sprung to life, bolting up the stairs in a rush to retrieve a key from a dummy can of shaving cream in the master bathroom.
Inez was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. “Is everything okay, Mrs. Hardaway?”
“Men and women will arrive soon,” she said. She was surprised by the strength of her own resolve in such a stressful moment. “They’re agents, Inez—agents from the federal government.”
“Oh, dear.”
They’d never found the need to concern their housekeeper with the complexities of Mr. Hardaway’s business dealings, though it was clear from the expression on Inez’s face she understood exactly what Nancy meant. “Whatever happens, I need you to look after Nora.”
“Yes, ma’am. What should I do now?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “The same thing you always do.”
She sprinted to the study and threw herself down on the floor, her hand trembling as she unlocked the bottom drawer of a file cabinet. Inside, she found a small safe with an electronic keypad and entered the code. She’d argued with him about making it so easy for anyone to guess, but now, with the clock ticking, she was glad she only had to remember her birthday.
Outside, on the narrow street in front of the Hardaway’s townhouse, there were the sounds of vehicles screeching to a stop, doors opening and closing and the coordinated activities of half a dozen federal agents. Just enough time, she thought, to switch on Mr. Fellowes and shred whatever secrets her husband’s documents contained. At least he wasn’t stupid enough to keep them on the computer.
She fed the pages, one at a time, into the mouth of the machine and watched as line after line of account numbers were transformed into small pieces of confetti. If only the federal agents weren’t already knocking at the front door, she would have burned the cross-cut shreds of paper in the fireplace. But it was too late. She took a final breath and composed herself.
“Mrs. Hardaway?” The man at the front door wore a navy blue windbreaker with ‘AGENT’ printed on the chest in big gold letters.