After Alice Fell: A Novel

by Kim Taylor Blakemore

  My mother’s eyes so hollowed with death. I held her gaze. One slow blink of entreaty. I dreaded this day, no matter how often I prayed for it.

  “I can’t.”

  Her mouth spread into a grimace. Please . . . Pleading, her voice a tight wheeze. Pushing the pillow at me and please.

  I took the pillow. “Wait in the hall, Alice.”

  But she didn’t. She spied it all from the doorway.

  And after, the pillow still gripped tight in my hand, I turned to my sister. “There is no cruelty in mercy.”

  She stared at the pillow’s tassels. Such a cheerful spring green.

  “You must never say a word.”

  But mercy to one is cruelty to another.

  “I’m sorry.” My throat tightens against that shame of what I’ve done. You must never say a word. It is my fault. I am culpable for all of it.

  A thump to the door of my room makes me jump. “Not now.”

  Another thump, quieter, like a soft kick to the frame. The light from the hall glows under the door. Two feet in shadow. One foot then resting on the instep of the other. A toe lifting and tensing.

  “Auntie?”

  I cross to turn the key.

  Toby stares up at me. He’s carrying the magic lantern, held tight to his belly and chest. Both pockets of his trousers bulge with rectangle boxes that poke the fabric. “You missed dinner.”

  “I wasn’t hungry.”

  “I thought we could watch a show.”

  “Well. I see.” I glance down the hall to the parlor.

  “They’re playing cards,” he says. “Old Maid.” Then he shrugs.

  “That’s a terrible game.”

  “It’s for babies.” He lugs the lantern to the desk, pulling the slide boxes from his pockets and stacking them in readiness. He grabs the matchbox from the floor and hands it to me to light the oil. He turns the machine so the lens faces the wall, then digs through the mending for a petticoat to drape over the rocking chair. But the flicker of light is half on the cloth and half on the wall.

  “Here.” I move the petticoat to the wardrobe, closing the top of it in the door. I gesture to the rocker. “Now, you can take the seat of honor.”

  He closes the door, then clambers to the chair. He doesn’t rock but sits still with his hands in his lap and legs hanging loose. “I brought Old Mother Hubbard. And the one Alice had in the trunk. But not The Presidents because I know them all. Do you know them all?”

  “I do.” I tilt the top slide box to read it. The 7 Wonders of the World.

  “Do you know the vice presidents?” he asks.

  “Have you watched these?”

  He shakes his head. “Are they interesting? Because the presidents aren’t.”

  “There’s pyramids and great statues and marvelous magic gardens.” I can’t open the box one-handed. “Can you?”

  He pulls off the lid and reaches for the first slide, pinching just the edge. “Can I put it in?”

  I nod and take the box, resting it in my lap.

  He swings the hinge and slides the glass in place. The image, a bright wash of greens and browns and pinks, spills across the wallpaper. When I turn the lantern, the image flickers against my sleeve. A morass of flowers, the door to a building, open, a man shown from the back, in a tall hat and his hands clasped behind him. Just the shoulder and the arm of a woman clad in pink, the rest of her body outside the glass frame. There is a black “1” at the bottom of the image.

  “The Gardens of Babylon, I think.” I pick out the first card from the box and tilt it to read in the image’s light. But it isn’t right; it is written in pencil, the letters so faint I must bend close to make them out as I read aloud. “ONE: I saw her with him—”

  “That’s Papa,” Toby points. “By the barn.”

  I stare at the image on the wall. Lionel. In the shadows of the barn, the gray-and-white muzzle of Cathy’s dapple mare. Cathy’s hand outstretched. Cathy in pink with lace at the wrist. “It can’t be . . .”

  I return to the lines of text on the card, scanning the words.

  —and he said no not you I do not want you anymore you’ve ruined everything. And she said she wouldn’t leave and then he pushed her and said he’s chosen. Don’t come here anymore! He said. But she did come.

  Nothing on the card’s back.

  Toby picks at his lip. “Why did she paint him into the Blableeon Gardens?”

  “Babylon,” I mutter, then replace the card and pick out the next.

  TWO: We’re going for a row, Let’s go in the boat, Liddie. And Lydia said—I’m not feeling well. But the fresh air is good, Cathy said, and, Alice mind the babe, you can do that, can’t you, Alice? He’s napping, anyways. He wasn’t, he was on my lap and we were watching the Dragons fly on the water and the red leaves and Lydia said—I have a sore stomach. But I think she was with child. She smelled different but she got up and said she’d walk because they often did in the woods.

  I run my finger over the edges of glass, until I find the last card.

  SEVEN: He tied the rope around her chest and said don’t let go of that end, Alice, it’s dark.

  “Auntie.”

  “Not now, Toby.”

  “Change the slide.”

  “Not . . .”

  Alice, it’s dark. We both pulled and pulled with the rope around a tree trunk to hoist her because of the grasses. Her skirts were terrible heavy with water and—

  The light is blank, too bright. Toby has pulled out the slide and grabs for the box in my lap.

  “No. Toby, no.”

  “I want the next—”

  “No.”

  But he has the box and holds it over his head. His mouth curves down and he glares.

  “Put the box down.”

  “No.” He tucks it under his arm, thin chest heaving. “I want to see the next.”

  My hand sweats; I can barely hold the card. It slips away, flutters to the floor. “Give those to me.”

  He steps back, knocking over the mending basket. I watch his eyes glide to the door. He tenses and bolts. I grab his arm, jerking him back hard enough he can’t keep hold of the box. It thunks to the rug, the lid springing open, the slides rolling from the case. Six slides.

  His free hand claps against his pocket. He makes a high wheezing noise, and I feel the trembling all the way to his bones. I’ve petrified him.

  “I don’t want to see The 7 Wonders.” My voice is rock rough. I let his arm go, caress it, then kneel to pick up the box, to gather the slides. One has cracked in two. I find the card I’d crushed and dropped. Push it into the box, then grab it up. “I want to see Old Mother Hubbard. Can we see those?”

  How wary he is. He knows I’m hiding something. I set the box to the end of the bed, just long enough to push myself up with my good arm. Then I move it to the mantel. Set the box next to Benjamin’s photograph, out of reach. I pat the top. “Another time for this.”

  “Why can’t I see those? Maybe Alice painted me on a slide too.”

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Because I do.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well.” I shrug. “You should.” I hesitate at the Old Mother Hubbard box. “Have you seen these?”

  He gives a sharp nod and I release a long breath. No surprises.

  “Old Mother Hubbard, then.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  How pretty the paintings. Alice has replaced the original slides with a new set of her own design. Her hand so light, the images swirling with movement and color. The faces so detailed she must have used the smallest of mink brushes.

  Look at the paisleys on Cathy’s dress. She wears a pretty shawl, lemon yellow and patterned with ferns. Her smile is curved and curls around her ears. Lydia’s hand rests on her belly. It is flat; it is with child. Alice mind the babe. And Alice holds Toby in her arms. In the background, the tree leaves squint and blink and reflect on the surface of
the pond.

  Slide by slide, I watch. Once, then again. Seven slides, numbers plain and neat on the bottom. Number six is split in two. Six cards. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7.

  THREE: It was hot the sun was very high up. They went toward the Narrows and they shouldn’t have. No one should go in the Narrows, and they did.

  The perspective is from on high, as if Alice were perched in a tree. I yank the desk chair over, clamber close to stare at the slide.

  It’s our little rowboat. The Mariner. Alice has painted the overhang of rock that looks like a gargoyle. All along the stony banks of the Narrows, creatures point with fingers sharp as sharded glass to the little boat and the two women. One dark head. One light. Crinoline skirts as wide as the boat. Lydia’s arm hitched forward, elbow resting on the lip of the boat. Cathy seated behind. The oars have been pulled in. Rest neat on either side of the shell. Cathy’s arms are outstretched, something taut between her fists.

  I replace the slide with the fourth. I don’t need the missing card. Not with this image.

  No boat. One woman. Arms floating wide, facedown in the water, her head covered in a cheerful hood—lemon yellow and patterned with ferns—tied with three tight knots at the neck.

  FIVE: Then Cathy came back and walked right past me and said nothing.

  My breath stops. Cathy holds her skirts. They are wet, as are her sleeves. She is in motion, tramping the slope from the boathouse. But it is her eyes that make me clutch my breath. Death sits in them.

  SIX: Lionel came home and ran straight down to the pond calling Liddie! Liddie! He made me give Toby to Saoirse and he got an oar from the boathouse and a rope and he said, follow me. Liddie he called! It was getting dark. We found her by the steep rock in the Narrows. Lionel pushed the oar in to see if she would grab it but she was dead.

  I hold the left half of the slide in front of the light. The top of her head, the fabric hood snagged in a tangle of roots.

  On the right half, Lionel scrambles down the slope to the water.

  SEVEN: He tied the rope around her chest and said don’t let go of that end, Alice, it’s dark. We both pulled and pulled with the rope around a tree trunk to hoist her because of the grasses. Her skirts were terrible heavy with water and muck. And he laid her down. Liddie! he said & he stared at me. & then pulled at the hood but the knots were terrible tight. I caught it in my teeth and ripped it. Her head bounced and swiveled I thought she would say something but she was dead. Liddie! he cried. CATHY, I yelled. IT WAS CATHY.

  I can’t look again. Lydia’s eyes, pale blue like Toby’s, are filled with surprise. Forever filled with surprise.

  And betrayal.

  Instead, I turn the card over. I saw.

  The lantern’s lamp sputters; I’ve burnt all the oil from the pan.

  One by one I replace the slides, the cards. Close the box. The 7 Wonders of the World.

  It’s just a story. One of the many delusions Alice so fervently believed to be true.

  And even if it was true . . . even if she told, who would listen? Look at the complaints that moulder in Lionel’s drawer.

  The little boat sits on the sea now, just a dot near the horizon line. It’s a dream. I know it’s a dream. The boat is blue and white, the horizon deep red, the water glassy smooth. A picnic by the sea, long bristle grass bent to the sand, a lift of rock full sunned, warm on one side, the other slick with shadow.

  “Alice is dead,” I say, but Lionel doesn’t hear me. He’s far down the curve of pebbles, his trousers rolled and one suspender loose against his thigh. He picks up stones, turns them in his hand before arcing them to the water and watching the punctures to the sea skin before bending for another rock. His hair is too long and very red; he pushes it from his forehead and keeps his hand up to scan the small cove.

  A flight of laughter from the far end, in the dark shade of an overhanging rock, two girls small as dolls who swish their hips as they exit to the light. They move like porcelain figurines, eyes painted bright black, lips brushed deep pink, heads swiveling to look to him and then to each other.

  Alice sits on a flat outcrop, hands crossed on her stomach, skirts gathered to her knees. The sun catches the fine blond hair on her shins. She scratches her calf, then settles back down with her head on my thigh. She watches Lionel slice the water with another rock.

  Her hand reaches for the slate and chalk we’ve brought in place of paper and ink. She marks it and turns the board to me.

  He’s in love with Cathy.

  She looks up at me, green eyes flecked with gray. Sometimes the gray darkens and shifts with the light and mood. Her chest lifts and jostles with a laugh.

  The wind lifts the brim of my bonnet. Ruffles Alice’s skirts and Lionel’s hair. The water curls and buckles, sharp edged and annoyed.

  “He can’t marry her. He’s marrying Lydia. It’s already settled.”

  Alice rubs the side of her hand to the board, then jabs her chalk to it. You don’t see. You don’t listen. She bends her knees and cradles the board to her stomach. Then she pulls a strand of her hair, rolls it around her fingers. She shrugs and points to the board again. I saw.

  “A hoo!” Lionel calls from the other end of the cove. He stands on a log weathered gray from salt and waves. Such long arms. Wide hands. Still the smile of a boy shifting under the mask of a man.

  There’s another peal and giggle from the little dolls at the other end of the cove. The wind waffles, blowing their skirts this way and that.

  I button my shawl. “It’s getting cold.”

  “Are you all ready yet? I’d like to get back to my lecture. I haven’t finished it.”

  My shoulders and neck go stiff. Benjamin has ambled over the hillock. I don’t remember him coming, but there he is, and Alice’s board clatters to the rock as she sits up. Her legs are pimply with goosebumps. She gives a great shiver and pushes her skirts down.

  The sun slips behind the dunes, tipping the sky peach, and the boat rolls over the horizon.

  I grip my collar with one hand and gesture for Lionel to come back. I call to him. But he’s not listening, has his hands clasped behind his head and stares at the water.

  “Lionel! Come back.”

  With a twist he turns his torso to acknowledge he’s heard, then points to the empty stretch of sea. “They went in the boat. They went away in the boat.”

  The earth has settled on Alice’s grave, a little more each day. As if it is pulling her deeper into the ground. In another month the leaves will cover it, and a month after that the snow will fall and settle on the gravestone like a wreath. Now there is no stone, no leaves. Just the dried stalks of flowers and the arrow Toby left. I move to the head of the grave, toeing aside twigs and cicada shells, then shove the arrow to the earth, the quill feathers pointing skyward. Something to mark the spot until the stone is cut.

  “I see, Alice. I hear. But I don’t know what to do.” It is certain that should I bring the slides and cards to the constable, he will return them to Lionel who will inform Mayhew—or worse, the public asylum—of my own troubling behavior. A madwoman believing a madwoman. I need a witness.

  Saoirse tsks and grimaces as she replaces the cotton ties on my splint with clean strips. She leans over the kitchen table, her palm under my fingers, pressing each of my nails and waiting for the blood to bloom underneath.

  “You should have been a nurse,” I say.

  She lifts her shoulder and pinches my thumb. “Not a week here without some sort of scrape or bruise to look after.” She sits back. “It looks well.”

  “Thank you.”

  The door to the main house is open, as is the door to the garden. But it gives no succor. The air is heavy damp, and nothing stirs it from its sleep.

  “May I trust you?” I murmur.

  I don’t know if she heard. She winds the cotton and puts it to the cabinet shelf, then leans her hands to the white wood counter before grabbing up a towel to wipe it down.

  “Saoirse, please.”

 
She folds the towel and lays her hand on it. “I heard you.”

  “I think Cathy killed Lydia.”

  Her sigh is long; she stares out at the yard. “You know what you’re accusing?”

  “I do. Alice saw.”

  “Child—” Her voice is sharp. She shuts the door to the house, then stamps to the outer door and shuts it too.

  “Why do you think she was put in that place? You know her. She’s not violent, she’s never once . . . She didn’t try to kill Toby. She tried to save him. That’s what I think. And maybe it was all in her mind, that he was in danger. Or maybe not.” I spread my hand to her. “Maybe not. She saw what she shouldn’t, and Cathy must have paid someone to, to . . .” A sick dread claws up my stomach. I stand. The chair tilts and falls against the wall. “All that money in the ledger. She wrote Buttons. Once a month from the first week Alice was committed. Cathy paid someone to kill her. Because Alice knew the truth. She saw her murder Lydia.”

  “Do you listen to yourself, child? Do you but listen?”

  “I’ll prove it. And the constable will listen to you. If you tell him.” I reach across the table to her. “Saoirse. All you need to do is watch.”

  She opens her mouth to say something, but instead swallows and picks up the calico cloth for the sling and folds it around my arm. She is careful with the knot, and her touch lingers on the back of my neck. “You never left things be, did you?”

  I weave my hand to hers. “Tomorrow night. After Toby’s asleep. Make her favorite dessert.”

  “What will I be looking for?”

  “Her guilt, Saoirse. Her guilt.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Cathy is suspicious. She watches me over her wineglass, the ruby red of the liquid sparkling from the oil lamp. She has pulled her feet up on the settee, her skirts (Oh, Cathy, but pineapples and oranges are such a marvelous pattern; I would never think to pair them!) splayed all around so she looks like a barrel of fruit on the steps of the general store.

  Lionel finishes hanging a sheet to the wall. As he moves close to the convex mirror, I see his eyes in the reflection wander to me and then to Cathy. Wary there will be a fight. Does he know what Cathy did? Or is the tale she tells, of desperately trying to save Lydia, what he believes? What makes him able to sleep through a night? This woman committed my sister to keep her from telling the truth. And had her killed before Alice could tell the truth to me.