Fearful Symmetries (33 page)

Micah was waiting in my trailer. We had an hour to get to the courthouse. I pulled the diner door shut. Cold metal tapped the back of my neck.

“Hello, Nell.”

“Hello, Grayman.”

“I’m disappointed in you, leaving me like that. I thought you loved me.” There was no right answer for that. “Turn around, slowly.”

I don’t think about that moment often, but when I do I almost think he might have been proud. He did train me, after all. I raised my hands and clasped them loosely behind my head, hearing his soft chuckle of approval. “Good girl.”

I drove my hair stick into his eye.

He hadn’t tracked me all that way for an apology.

I was glad of the rain as I put his wallet and gun in my purse. Moving on autopilot, I hefted him into a low wooden dumpster and rolled the trash bags down on top of him. I stood in the rain a moment longer, trembling. I’d never killed anyone before. A random thought came to me—that I wasn’t a machine after all, that I could actually feel something. And then another—that this wasn’t how I’d wanted to find out.

Trembling turned to shivers as the rain picked up. I remembered that someone could walk out the kitchen door at any time. I remembered that Micah was waiting.

I remembered my hair-stick was still in Grayman’s eye.

I washed it off and threw up in the same puddle. Wound my hair up again, and waited for the guilt that was bound to surface. But it didn’t. Surely Grayman hadn’t expected honour from a thief.

We made it to the courthouse in time. I was the only one surprised by my tears as I signed the register. Micah and I spent the night in the trailer. The next morning he loaded my few belongings in the truck and drove me down to the valley.

I probably shouldn’t accuse Davena of gall.

But I had nowhere else to go. I wanted to be with Micah. I wanted the peace I was sure awaited. And, at long last, I was grateful to be safe.

Ben said, “I knew Micah was sweet on someone,” and shook my hand politely. His wife Josie didn’t say anything as she followed suit. I felt a little gap of missing fingers on her right hand. She broke the following silence by offering me a cup of coffee.

“Thank you, I’d love one.”

I’d never seen a real wood stove, much less basked in its warmth. Never been in a real country kitchen that smelled of meat pie and gravy. Never been inside a house with three storeys and a stained glass window under the front peak. And I’d never had coffee before—all my caffeine had come from a soda can—but after the first taste I understood how people became addicted. Josie smiled at my obvious enjoyment.

My nerves settled after that day. Neither Ben nor Josie scolded Micah for bringing home an outsider, at least not in my hearing, and I thought that unless I proved unfaithful, they’d give me the benefit of the doubt.

Although that first evening I heard Ben ask her, “How long until she can join The Risen?”

“I’ll have her ready in about a year.”

Thinking they were talking about taking me into their church, I backed away from the door. I was rocky on the subject of religion; my mother’s bible had been stolen property. Josie would talk to me about it in her own time, I thought. It would be rude of me to ask first, like asking how she’d lost her fingers.

I expected that one day Micah and I would have a home of our own. Meanwhile, Ben and Josie used half of theirs and left the other for us.

We didn’t use much of it except the bedroom.

That first winter was the best time for me. Not minding the cold seemed to earn me some respect from the neighbours, and the snow was beautiful. When Ben and Micah took the neighbour’s dogs out bow-hunting, I helped cut and wrap the meat they brought home. I smiled for a whole day when Josie said I was a good worker.

She had a thing for jigsaw puzzles. There was usually one scattered on the end of the dining room table. She said, “I love that
crunch
when the last piece goes in.” She didn’t seem to mind me helping with them, or the careful questions I sometimes asked. She was a woman of many talents, among them painting wonderfully detailed landscapes. When I asked if she’d ever wanted a career, she said, “I thought about being an artist once.”

“And, what . . . it just didn’t happen?”

“I met Ben, and Micah came along. They came first.”

“Did you ever regret giving up your chance?”

“Not really. You never know when there might be another. And anyway, you’re supposed to make sacrifices for your family, aren’t you?”

She did that every day, I thought. She worked for them constantly. “Yes, they have a pretty comfortable life here.”

“Well, making a life
is
a woman’s work, after all.” She said it as if I should’ve known without being told. I wondered if maybe I should.

I wondered about a lot that year. The town fascinated me. I admired what I thought were just the ways of an old country society—how people looked out for each other, and pulled together to get things done. I liked the way everyone knew your name, and how the mail driver honked going by.

But I also wondered why so many people were missing fingers, hands, even a couple of feet. I could understand a certain measure of clumsiness, but this seemed well above the norm. I couldn’t make myself ask anyone about it, though, not even Micah. I had a feeling that certain questions wouldn’t be well-tolerated.

I remember how surprised I was the one Sunday Elton Carlyle missed church, and how I didn’t know what to think the next week when he and his wife were in their usual pew. I whispered to Ben, “Davena said Elton’s tractor rolled over on him.”

“Yes, it did.”

“It must not have been as bad as I heard.”

“Oh, no, it was plenty bad.” And Elton’s wife was missing a thumb.

I didn’t even comment when Mrs. Mary Studevan had a severe heart attack in the post office one Monday, then showed up at that weekend’s bake sale. For the first time since I’d known her, she had all her fingers. But her husband was missing one of his.

I wondered about the small number of stones in the valley cemetery, and why the dates indicated all the dead were
old
. But when I said, “There aren’t many grave markers here, are there?” Micah looked genuinely puzzled.

He said, “Why would there be? We know where everybody is.”

A year to the day after I moved in, things went bad. Maybe I should have seen it coming—I knew secrets were dangerous, and curiosity even worse—but I wasn’t quite paranoid enough. Grayman would’ve said I’d lost my edge.

I wanted to see the attic. Before coming to the valley, I’d never been in a house
with
one, and wondered what it looked like. Such a silly thing. By then I was used to having the run of the house, and didn’t think anything of trying the door handle, until Josie said behind me, “It’s locked.” It was. “And why would you want to go snooping?”

“Snooping?” The chill in her voice set me back on my heels.

“Shoving your way into a place you have no business being.”

I couldn’t have been more amazed if she’d hit me. It was the first time she’d shown me any hostility, and there was no need of it—just telling me the attic was off-limits would have been enough. But apparently I’d crossed a line I hadn’t known about. Stung, I snapped, “Are you talking about the attic or the house?”

She blinked. “What?”

I avoided her for the rest of the day. For a few foolish moments I thought that everything had been fine until I’d tried the attic door, but no, it hadn’t been fine at all. She hadn’t forgotten I was an outsider; she just hadn’t seen me as a threat until I’d tried to go upstairs.

Ben came looking for me that evening. He said, “Josie tells me you tried to go into the attic.” I nodded. “Why?” His voice was as hard as hers.

I’d already thought of a reasonable lie. Curiosity didn’t seem like a good excuse. “I wanted to see the windows up close.”

He blinked. “What?”

“The stained glass windows. Micah said you made them yourself, and I always thought they were beautiful.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Well, I’m working on a new window out in the shed. Do you want to see it?”

I didn’t. “Yes, please.” All the time he was talking, I thought of his unexpected coldness, of Josie’s sudden about-face. The secrets in their attic were none of my business.

I stayed away from the door after that. They didn’t mention the incident again.

But while they weren’t mentioning it, I got my edge back.

Arthur Grayman was my mother’s boss. She’d been his lock-pick since before I was born. When she was shot and killed just after I turned eighteen, he was the first visitor to the funeral home.

My childhood wasn’t what you’d call normal, but it wasn’t bad, either. I remember bedtime stories and birthday presents, and the occasional trip to the beach. Mom taught me her craft instead of her favourite recipes. She left enough money to put me through college, if I’d thought to go, but I was young and adrift, and in need of the familiar even if it meant trouble. Grayman, knowing I was in need of a niche, offered me hers.

I never knew the name of the man he killed to keep me there.

He took me to one of his warehouses the day I joined his crew. His personal driver was already there, standing over a man stretched out on the floor, wrists and ankles tied to two posts. Grayman picked up a double-bladed axe and said, “I want you to see this, Eleanor. This man betrayed my trust.”

When he was done, the thing on the floor was nothing you’d recognize.

Grayman said, “Do you know what a blood price is, Eleanor?” I shook my head. “It’s a very old expression. It’s the cost of an extraordinary privilege. You can ask all kinds of favours, as long as you remember that you might have to pay for them in blood.” He leaned too close. “The greatest privilege you can claim now is my protection. In return I expect your loyalty.”

I looked at what was left of the man, and didn’t ask what he’d done. Grayman followed my gaze. “I think he was confused,” he said. “I believe the act of treachery comes from not knowing what you really want.” I nodded, not understanding at all. “Do
you
know what you want, Eleanor?”

“Yes.” To forget I’d ever seen this. To be anywhere Grayman wasn’t.

“What?’

“I want to die of old age.”

He patted me on the head, leaving the man’s blood in my hair, and walked away.

I did my best for him, knowing anything less would get me killed. Knowing there were things no one said out loud that you were just supposed to understand, and that not understanding could get you killed, too. I listened to him go on about how his crew were his children, and how family love was like no other, and wondered how my mother had stayed as sane as she had.

He gave good advice, though. The best he gave me was, “Read and get a job.” He thought people were less likely to be suspicious of someone who was well-spoken and legally employed. I got a library card and a job waiting tables at an upscale restaurant, and spent my evenings waiting for his call.

I couldn’t bank much of the money he gave me—no tax accountant would believe a waitress got those kinds of tips—but I could stash it, and did. Because Grayman had taught me something else—always know when to get out.

He’d been talking about break-and-enter at the time, but it was still a good lesson. He said it the morning I realized that someday he’d probably kill me anyway, for some imagined slight. That maybe the man on the floor hadn’t done anything at all.

I planned. I waited. I didn’t have to wait long.

Grayman had been following a woman named Brenda Keven for a month. She lunched with the ladies a couple of times a week, shopped a lot, drank a little too much. She had time on her hands. Grayman said the diamonds on them glittered like stars.

I don’t know if they glittered when she pulled the trigger. I don’t know who she shot first, or who the second bullet was meant for. I was too busy jumping through my window of opportunity.

Grayman kept a cheap apartment for when a job went bad. If we had to scatter we could meet back there and decide what to do next. But sometimes getting there took a while—he wouldn’t think anything of me disappearing for a few hours. I left my purse and cell phone in my apartment, hoping that when he finally came looking he’d think I was still around. He’d check the hospitals and the morgue, and, if I was lucky, decide I’d met with an accident somewhere. Or maybe he’d never realize I’d run.

But no, with Grayman you couldn’t count on luck. It was best to use the time until he figured it out putting miles behind me.

The small knapsack I’d stashed in the bus station locker held a change of clothes and an obscene amount of cash. There was just enough room left for my tool case.

There were a few things in the apartment I’d miss, but they would’ve been no good to me dead. I wished I could’ve taken the photo of Mom and me on the boardwalk on my eighteenth birthday. As the bus pulled out I wondered who she’d seen hacked to death.

I’ve seen enough hard deaths that shock doesn’t come easily to me. When the constable told me about Micah’s car crash, I just kept thinking I should have been more surprised. I didn’t even cry—Grayman had trained all the tears out of me.

I thought of him as I went up to bed. I set the alarm clock for dawn, and dreamed of Micah. But the next morning, unlocking the attic door, the only husband on my mind was Bluebeard. He told his wife not to go into the attic, but sharpened his knife behind her back, knowing that eventually he’d find a reason to use it. I worried about squeaky steps as I climbed. But Josie’s attic was surprisingly unscary, just an unfinished room with exposed ceiling beams and a rough floor. There were no cobwebs, no dust. The windows were clean. I stayed away from them.

There were a few pieces of furniture, a box of old china. A big trunk full of neatly folded clothes, smelling of mothballs. Nothing looked like anything that needed to be hidden. It was all familiar junk; I recognized everything. Even the four rough boxes behind the old bookcase didn’t surprise me at first glance.

The second glance set me on my heels.

I didn’t want to open the boxes, but reached for the nearest even as I decided not to. I needed to know who was inside.