Transcription

by Ike Hamill

  She caught a glimpse of Emily once, trailing behind one of the Longley girls. Emily looked neat as a pin and incredibly beautiful as she glided down the hall. In contrast, Sweet felt like a perspiring pig as she pushed dirty hair out of her face. Up on the stepladder, she dried her tears on her apron and pretended that they were only drops of sweat that happened to be leaking from her eyes.

  Of course, she was at her worst when she saw him. She had sweat and tears mingling on her face, dirty hair in her eyes, and a pan full of dust that she was carrying towards the stairs. He came up the main flight, wearing tweed, but looking cool and calm in the useless October heat.

  She almost dropped the pan. This was the very moment that she hoped would never come.

  Geoffrey Longley, the man of the house, barely spared her a glance. His eyes made contact with hers, he turned, and he walked away. Sweet was so shocked that she almost dropped the dustpan. It took her several seconds to collect herself, gulp down a breath, and continue on her way. When she got outside, it was all she could do to not burst into full sobs.

  Instead, she shook the pan in the door yard and waited for her heart to beat regularly again. As she climbed the stairs to resume sweeping, it felt like there was a chicken bone caught in her throat. No matter how hard she swallowed, the pain wouldn’t go away.

  Miraculously, she didn’t see Geoffrey Longley again until the midday bell.

  # # # # #

  She ate quickly, standing at the table near the twins. They had an inscrutable game that they played as they ate. Each one would pull a clothespin from her pocket, hold it up to her eye, and then hand it to the other. Sometimes, they giggled, and returned their clothespins to their own pockets, un-traded. Sweet watched the game for several minutes, but couldn’t figure out the objective or the rules.

  When she was through eating, she tracked down Miss Riley for her next assignment.

  The instructions were terse, spoken between mouthfuls of biscuit. “Bucket. Rag. Soap. Water. Windows.” Each word was punctuated with a gesture, showing her where to find the objective.

  Sweet got the idea. She glanced up at the second-story windows. She didn’t know how she would wash the outsides of the windows, but she had no doubt that those were part of the assignment. She would figure something out.

  She assumed that she was to start in the northeast corner again, and she headed up to work. She decided to tackle the outside first, since that would be the hardest. With the lower sash raised, she could sit on the sill and reach the outside of the upper sash. With her ladder, she then lowered both sashes only to discover that the lower sash was still blocked. There was no way to get to the outside of the lower sash. The best she could do was reach the bottom panes by closing the window halfway.

  Sweet puzzled over the problem for minutes, dreading the idea of asking for more instruction.

  She had a thought, and decided that there was only way to test the idea. She opened the window, brought a rag, and stepped out. She slid her toes to the edge of the sill and managed to close the window. With one hand hanging onto the upper sash, she washed the window properly and smiled at the result.

  The only problem was getting the window back open without dirtying the glass again. It was impossible. She managed to get it open with only minor smudges and crawled back through to the safety of the floor. When she turned around, she called the adventure a success. With the inside wiped down too, the window was crystal clear.

  Sweet moved on.

  Again, it was that third room with all its tall furniture that made life difficult. The window was hard to manipulate and the sash rattled downwards as she clung to the outside of the house. Once washed, the window opened a few inches and then jammed in the frame. It wouldn’t budge. Sweet looked down. Far below, the land sloped away from the house. A rock garden decorated the slope. It was too far to jump even if she would land on springy turf. The rocks would surely break her ankles.

  Sweet jerked on the window trying to open it. It only jammed harder. She dropped her rag and it slopped down onto the rocks below. That would be her brain soon, if she didn’t figure something out. Her head would crack on the rocks and her brain would slip out and leave a stain, like the wet rag.

  She could yell. It would be embarrassing, but someone would hear her. Her legs felt hot, and began to vibrate with the effort of holding her in place. Her fingers felt like they were about to cramp. When she saw the shape pass by the doorway of the room, her heart jumped with hope. There might be a way out of this.

  The person backed up, to confirm what they had seen.

  Of course, it was him. Geoffrey.

  Her hope evaporated and turned to fear.

  He entered the room and crossed to the window slowly, as if he had seen a hummingbird and didn’t want to spook it. He leaned down to the window opening and spoke.

  “You look like you need help,” he said.

  “Yes,” Sweet said. Her heart begged to change the answer, but her brain wouldn’t comply. It kept thinking about that rag and how it slopped down on the rocks.

  Geoffrey looped his fingers under the window and jerked it upwards. She almost fell anyway. Not ready for the sudden movement, the sash pinched her gripping fingers and she nearly lost her balance. She regained it and he grabbed her arm. He helped her inside and she took a deep breath.

  “You don’t need to clean the outsides,” Geoffrey said. “That unfortunate boy uses the ladder and cleans them from below in November and April.”

  “Oh,” Sweet said. She lowered her eyes to the floor. She hoped that if she didn’t engage with him, he would simply go away. There were no rocks to fall to now. There was no escape from Geoffrey until he released her.

  He didn’t say anything for a while.

  “I haven’t seen you lately. How long has it been?”

  It had been three-hundred and forty-two days. Sweet knew the answer, but she didn’t volunteer it.

  “I like you in this,” he said. His soft fingers reached out and fondled the collar of her shirt.

  Sweet didn’t raise her eyes. She didn’t reply. She hid inside herself, hoping that he would lose interest and go away. She knew from experience that fighting, and slapping, and screaming didn’t help. Maybe playing possum was the right answer. The tug at her collar and the sound of his fingers on the fabric were maddening. She didn’t know how long her sanity would maintain under the assault.

  Geoffrey let her collar drop. He turned for the door. Her heart began to beat again, and she allowed herself to take in air as he moved, step by step, towards the door. His hand found the door and swung it shut.

  Her heart stopped, and then fluttered back to life, beating at a pace too fast to sustain.

  Geoffrey turned to her again with the door at his back. She was trapped in the room with the tall wardrobes and canopied bed. She was trapped with a monster. She locked eyes with him and willed him to keep his distance. There was a weight to his gaze. She couldn’t hold it. When she lowered her eyes, she heard someone’s footsteps march down the hall. The next thing she heard was the click of the door handle, as he turned the knob again.

  “I’ll come find you this afternoon,” he said.

  He left her there.

  She finished the rest of the windows with a burning ball of fire in her stomach. After dumping the bucket in the dooryard, she retrieved the rag from the rocks and gave it with the rest to the twins. One of them stuck out her tongue at Sweet and she nearly burst into fresh tears. The mountains were still in the same place on the horizon but they looked much farther away.

  Sweet found Miss Riley in the kitchen having a cup of tea with Mrs. Jackson.

  Sweet folded her hands and waited for more instruction.

  “Did you really try to wash the outside of the windows?”

  Sweet nodded.

  Miss Riley and Mrs. Jackson both laughed at her.

  Sweet blushed.

  “You’ll have to clean yourself up for your next job,” Miss Riley said. �
��Wash your hands carefully first. You will strip each bed, fold the sheets, flip the mattress, and then make the bed again. If you’re careful, you won’t rumple my creases. I’ll be through to check on your work.”

  Sweet knew something about making up those giant beds. It wasn’t a task that one undertook alone—not if the result was important. With a partner, she might be safe from Geoffrey. She seized on the idea.

  “Miss Riley? If one of the twins might help me, I would be able to do a much neater job at making up the beds,” Sweet said.

  Miss Riley turned to Mrs. Jackson.

  “Don’t think you can tell my girls what to do,” Mrs. Jackson said.

  Miss Riley nodded. “That’s right. You will find a way to do it on your own. And don’t climb around like a spider on the outside of the house when you do it.”

  Sweet turned and left while they laughed at her again.

  She didn’t make much progress on the first bed when she heard the door close behind her. Sweet turned and saw Geoffrey’s back. He turned a key in the lock and then slipped it in his pocket. This time, she really was trapped in there with him. The bedroom was now a locked door at the end of the hall. They would have no interruption.

  “Do you need help with that bed?” Geoffrey asked.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  He approached slowly, as if she were made of ash, and any air current would topple her.

  Sweet didn’t move slowly. She dropped the sheet and bolted for the window. She would take her chances with the rocks. She barely got it halfway open before he pinned her arms to her sides from behind. Those soft fingers were cruel and surprisingly strong, but she already knew that.

  “You’ve already cleaned the windows,” he said. His face was so close that she could smell his breath. “Now it’s time to look after the bed.”

  CHAPTER 29: CABIN

  “WAIT! WAIT!” DANIELLE SAID.

  Bo opened his eyes again. The man was still in the same spot on the ground. The trigger remained a fraction of a millimeter from firing. He dared another look behind himself and saw the shapes of Chloe and Danielle in a tussle.

  “Bo!” Chloe yelled. “Shoot him.”

  Bo nearly did. His brain decided on the action, but his finger wouldn’t execute.

  “Shoot him. Shoot James,” Chloe said.

  He couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. Did she think that James was the man outside? When the closet door opened, and candlelight spilled out from the small space, Bo understood. He looked back through the window and saw the man in the same position on the lawn. He relaxed his finger and the trigger slipped back out, away from the brink.

  Danielle held Chloe back while James emerged from the closet. He held a stack of paper in front of him.

  “It will work,” James said. “I think it will work.”

  Chloe relaxed in Danielle’s arms as she realized that James didn’t yet appear to be a murderous lunatic. Bo thumbed the safety on the shotgun.

  “Red, you’re dead,” Bo whispered. He looked at the man in the lawn again. He was perfectly still. He had probably lost a lot of blood and was in shock. Who knew how long he would survive if they left him out there in the lawn, unattended.

  Bo exhaled a deep sigh.

  BOOM!

  The front door exploded into splinters that scattered into the living room.

  Someone kicked open the remnants of the door. Bo whipped back around in time to see the man from the lawn spring to his feet and run at him. He had time to click the safety off and then the man crashed through the window, shoving the shotgun up and away. Bo felt neither fear nor panic. He was simply shocked. Time slowed down, but his hands moved like they were coated in molasses. He couldn’t bring the shotgun back down to point at the man. Instead, it was knocked from his hands.

  The other man—the one who had kicked his way into the living room—raised his own gun and fired again.

  CHAPTER 30: STORY

  HIS SOFT FINGERS DUG into her flesh as he spun her around, putting her back to the bed.

  “I’ll scream,” she said. “Someone will hear.”

  He reached inside his jacket and withdrew a long knife in a leather scabbard. He slid it from the sheath and let her witness its keen edge. A knife like that had no utility other than killing. It was designed for nothing else.

  “You screamed last time,” he said. “I enjoyed it.”

  Sweet backed up until she felt the bed pressing against her legs. She had run out of room to maneuver. Her hand went to her side. She had screamed last time, and he had cut her for it. She had no desire to relive either of those memories, but here they were, rushing towards her at an incredible speed.

  Geoffrey stepped on the sheet she had dropped. The expensive threads of the sheet nearly shined, and the doubled-over fabric was as slippery as ice. Geoffrey’s foot went out from under him. His sly smile turn to panic as his body flipped in an effort to catch himself.

  Before Sweet could understand the mechanics of what was happening, Geoffrey was on the ground. Or, he was hovering just over the ground, holding himself up with one arm. He didn’t move.

  Geoffrey made a strange sound, like he was trying to lift a heavy weight. He sucked in air between his teeth.

  Sweet took a step to the side. She expected his hand to shoot out and grab her ankle, but it didn’t. Her foot hit something. She looked down and saw that she was standing on the key to the door. It had flown from his pocket during his fall and landed in her possession. She bent and picked it up. That’s when she saw more of the story.

  Somehow, on his way to the floor, Geoffrey had lost control of his knife. It had landed first, and he had landed on top of it. The blade was stuck through his hand.

  Sweet leaned down even farther to see the rest.

  With the blade stuck through his hand, it pointed straight up, right at Geoffrey’s throat. In fact, the tip of the knife had already made a tiny puncture in Geoffrey’s skin. The blood from his neck dripped down to mingle with the blood from his hand.

  His other hand was the only thing holding him off the blade. The wall blocked him from rolling away from the knife. His arm was already trembling with the effort of holding up his body.

  Sweet imagined the future. As soon as Geoffrey sank another quarter of an inch, the knife would cut his neck and he would begin to bleed. With his strength ebbing, nothing would remain to keep his body from collapsing on the point. Sweet would unlock the door, go out to the dooryard, and drop the key in the well. Then, when she returned upstairs, she would scream, having discovered the body of the man of the house. Nobody could accuse Sweet of overpowering the man. She would be exonerated by her frailty.

  The knife nicked his skin and Geoffrey found the strength to lift himself a tiny bit higher. His leg kicked in an effort to gain his freedom, but it found no purchase on the sheet. As a result, he slipped back down and the knife threatened to cut again. Geoffrey grunted with his labor.

  Sweet crouched there, looking at him. Geoffrey couldn’t meet her eyes. He was supplicated to her. She settled in to enjoy the drama. She had wished him dead so many times in the months and months since that night. Back in December, when she felt his seed growing inside of her. In February, when her body, wracked with cramps, had expelled the lump of flesh and all that blood.

  That unformed baby never grew large enough to take on his devious face. Sweet wanted a child eventually, but not like that. Still, she had mourned that fetus.

  A strange vision occurred to Sweet as she watched Geoffrey’s head dip again. He had once been a little baby, swaddled in white cotton, and pressed to his nurse’s breast. In a flash, she saw his childhood. Sweet saw how he’d been reared at arm’s length in a basinet, and pinched whenever he cried. He had been dressed in miniature versions of a man’s clothes, and scolded whenever he played and got his clothes dirty. He had been held underwater in the tub whenever he wet the bed or messed his pants.

  With absolute certainty, Sweet envisioned hi
s entire formative life. It was a series of tortuous events, designed to form him with minimal effort from all involved. He was humiliated, reduced, and then allowed to grow malignant.

  She saw the boy inside the man’s body.

  Sweet found empathy for him.

  The majority of her wanted to see him die. She stood up and looked at the key in her hand. There was no risk in letting him perish. Nobody would ever suspect her complicity. The risk would be to help him live. Then, she would potentially suffer his retribution. If he lived, he might even seek to attack her again in the future. There was no sense in granting him mercy.

  Even Geoffrey seemed resigned to his fate.

  He slipped a little lower and the dripping blood became a small trickle. Soon, it would be a flood.

  He was a terrible man, but that was no conscious decision. He had been formed by his circumstance.

  Sweet stepped to him, reached down, and put her hand on his neck. With the slightest pressure, she would hurry his death. With a lift, she would rescue him.

  She pictured him once more as a baby, and compared that to the memory of her own miscarriage.

  She imagined him being scrubbed in a tub of cold water after a childhood accident, and she remembered how her mother had made her wash herself after her menarche. He was not a monster. He was human. So was she.

  She felt the power of her compassion. More than her ability to snuff his life, her capacity to accept his human frailty was her true strength.

  Sweet grabbed him by the collar and lifted.

  CHAPTER 31: CABIN

  THE FLASH FROM THE gun nearly blinded Bo as he wrestled with the man who had crashed through the window. The man was bleeding from the glass. His skin was both sticky and slick.

  After missing with his first shot, the man who had busted through the front door ran towards Danielle and Chloe.