Maplecroft (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” I said, apologizing almost by reflex. “I didn’t mean to imply . . . it’s only that you’ve been so insistent, and I don’t understand. You were so strange the other day, when I found you here and the tea was cold . . .”

It was easy to ramble and sound as if I fretted in earnest, when I stuck so close to the truth.

“It was only cold tea,” she promised, but she kept her distance still. “Nothing more. I was distracted.”

“I called your name, and you didn’t hear me. Over and over I called it . . . and you were standing there, beside that stupid door,” I spit out, directing my sorrow and anger at the cellar and its contents. It was either that or I must point it toward myself.

“It’s only a
door
,” she breathed, abashed and innocent once more. “And you won’t let me past it, so I wonder, that’s all. I want to see what you don’t want to show me. I want you to trust me.”

“It’s nothing to do with trust,” I assured her, though as I spoke the words I knew they were wrong. It did come down to trust, didn’t it? I couldn’t trust her to visit without snooping for keys, trying to circumvent me.

“Then
why
?” she pleaded, leaning against the counter and half sitting upon it.

“Can’t I have a single secret? Just one?”

“But why do you
need
one?”

“I’ll make you a deal,” I said. “One small bargain between
lovers—people do it all the time; they ask that one thing be off-limits.”

Quickly, as if she’d been waiting for such a moment, she snapped, “And in such a bargain, you wouldn’t choose your parents?”

I was honestly stunned. What little discussion we’d entertained with regard to their deaths, it’d all come down to the easiest lie—they were killed by my half brother, or so I professed to believe. And she professed to believe that I was telling the truth.

Were we both lying? To ourselves, and each other at the same time?

“Is that . . . ,” I began to ask, and then adjusted my approach. “Do I hear doubt in your voice? Or accusation?”

“Given the circumstances, you might as well conflate the two.”

“All right then, I’ll answer your question: No, I would not place my parents’ death off-limits in any bargain between us. We’ve already had that conversation, and whatever else you’d like to hear, I’d be happy to share.” I’d lied that lie enough. It had almost become the truth, or a fiction vastly better than the truth—because my half brother had vanished, and there was no proving anything with regard to his involvement. Or lack thereof.

Wherever he was, whatever he was doing . . . he sure as hell didn’t care what I said about him.

“Then why the cellar?”

“If I told you that, we couldn’t call it part of the bargain, could we? Now what would you like to place off-limits? What subject must I avoid at all costs, that you can withhold explanation until the day we die?”

She frowned. Puzzled, I think. She was thinking, considering, trying to figure out something she hadn’t shared
already. For the most part, she was an open book. If she had any secrets at all, she hid them well—behind a wall of information, chattered without apparent restraint, delivered at the slightest hint of permission or interest.

“I’ll think of something,” she decided.

“But you agree to the bargain? Leave me the cellar, and you’ll stop hunting for keys?”

“I’ll leave you the cellar. And stop looking for keys,” she vowed.

I want to believe her. Desperately, painfully, with all my heart. But that’s only what I want, and not what I
think.

A
PRIL
22, 1894

I have the key.

Do I regret my trickery? Not at all. How can I regret the measures I’ve taken to protect and assist my beloved? I
know
she needs help. Whatever she’s hiding down there, it’s more than she can manage alone. I am confident of this. I am at peace with this. And I will do what needs to be done.

Now that I’ve begun, I must follow through to the end, mustn’t I?

She might see it as a great betrayal. I don’t know. For all her silly talk of “bargains” and promises, there’s no good reason to believe that she doesn’t secretly want me to push onward toward the truth. Some people can’t bear to answer some questions, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want anyone to know the answers. I’m not sure what mechanism this is, or what drive; I don’t know
why some people just can’t say what they mean, say what they want, and be done with it.

But I am here to help!

She needs me more than she knows. Whatever she’s engaged in, or fighting against, or keeping so secret, she can’t keep it that way all by herself. That might be the root of it all—she knows it’s too big for her to handle alone, and Emma is no help at all, no matter what she says about the old woman’s books and notes and letters.

To hell with books and notes and letters.

Sometimes you need a hand instead.

Something
just dawned on me: Emma must think the doctor might prove helpful to Lizbeth, with this weird undertaking she hides beneath the house. Seabury, that’s his name. Seems like a nice old gentleman, and he’s kind enough to Lizbeth—which I appreciate, given how the rest of this wretched little town will have nothing to do with her.

He is kind, then. But he is not close.

I
am close. And I will be the partner that she wants. The partner she
needs
.

Soon I’ll know the truth for myself. Tonight, when everyone’s asleep. I didn’t have time this past evening, for a dose of Mrs. Winslow’s sleeping draught didn’t maintain quite enough hold over Lizbeth.

I’ve
not found evidence that Lizbeth is prone to drinking such draughts, to the point of developing a tolerance for them—though of course Emma keeps some around in the drawers beside her bed. She also keeps a great, heavy handgun, but I assume that’s for protection. One thing my lover has confessed easily enough,
without wheedling, bribing, or bargains is this: After her trial, there were threats by the score and she chose to arm the household. The threats were not against Emma, no, but Emma lives here, too—and she’s as dependent as a toddling child, I swear. No great surprise she keeps painkillers, sleeping draughts, and weapons, but I can’t imagine that most days she has the strength to lift any of them unassisted.

So Lizbeth has access to such things. Some nights, I’m sure she’s indulged in something stronger and more fortifying than anything she may pull from her dead father’s liquor cabinet; otherwise, how can she sleep at all? The world has left her high-strung, wound tight. It’s left her defensive, a one-woman fortress with an axe by the door. I’ve seen the axe. Or I’ve seen
an
axe, here and there around the house. A defensive measure, I’m certain—if a grisly one.

I don’t care; I sleep just fine knowing it’s here, and knowing she’s here, and that she knows how to wield it. I don’t believe she ever wielded it against her parents, but I admit, sometimes it gives me a strange tingle to see it, or touch it. Just in case I’m wrong.

So
in summary, Lizbeth might well be prone to downing soothing syrups like Mrs. Winslow’s on occasion. Maybe she helps herself to Emma’s. Maybe she keeps a stash of her own, hidden away. Regardless, I know she takes them—because the drops I administered should’ve produced a longer result.

Maybe that’s what’s in the cellar?

Some people take great shame in confessing that their bodies need chemicals. She doesn’t seem the sort, but she
does
keep secrets—so how can I say? How can I know?

Well, I can go take a look. That’s how.

I
checked all the obvious places where a woman might stash a key: all the drawers, cabinets, ledges, tables, and bookcases. (My God, Emma keeps some strange books. At least, I assume they’re Emma’s. She’s the one with the fondness for biology journals, but how some of these things are related to biology, I’m not sure . . . The connection seems tenuous at best.) I checked under beds and under sinks, beneath flowerpots and inside the dead father’s leftover shrine to distilled spirits. I wonder if they’ve restocked it since his death. Some of the bottles look old. None of them look like they’ve been lately opened. The wool felt that lines the shelves has gone light with a coating of dust.

I’m answering my own question, I think.

But I
did
find the key.

That’s what I mean to say. I must quit talking around myself. I spend too much time talking around myself, and what I really mean—and to think, I only just complained about people who do that. Physician, heal thyself.

God, I’ve been so distracted lately. Not the kind of distracted that ought to worry Lizbeth (but does, or so it appears), but distracted enough to lose my train of thought. Especially when I stand in the kitchen. Especially when I stand near the door.

And I have a key to that door.

Whatever’s down there
can’t
be doing this to me. Whatever’s down there is likely only some peculiar embarrassment that would mortify no one but her, and certainly wouldn’t bother me. For that matter, even if she
did
hack up her parents, I’m not strictly certain it would put me off. I know her and love her well enough these days to believe that she does only what needs to be done, out of love for her beloved problem of a sister. Or me, if I flatter myself—and I might as well.

But I don’t think she did it. Sometimes she gently hints that it’s always
possible
she’s guilty after all, and that I should be more cautious about where I place my trust. But it’s nonsense. She’s only testing me.

Lizbeth
doesn’t know I found the key. She doesn’t know I have it, but she’ll notice it’s gone before long. How long? I don’t know. I don’t know how long it will take for her to notice I’ve replaced the proper key with another of similar size and shape. It depends entirely on how often she goes down to the cellar, or basement, or whatever awaits down there. The first time she tries, she’ll fail, and she’ll know. And we’ll have some terrible fight, unless I can satisfy my curiosity and return the correct key to its original position. That might prove trickier than my initial theft, or then again, maybe it won’t.

I might get lucky.

I
thought I’d have to seduce her out of the key, and I was right, after a fashion.

Emma wished to stay downstairs, for it’s become warm very suddenly—and probably not permanently, given the way seasons shift and startle around here. Next week, I’m sure it’ll be dastardly cold for another bad snap, and then come May, things will level out. That’s my prediction.

So Emma was downstairs, where it was cooler, still. Heat rises, and thank heaven for that simple fact of nature, because the bedrooms are all upstairs and that meant we’d have the whole floor to ourselves at last.

It took forever and yet another day to get Emma settled on the grand settee, enthroned like a queen in a fort of pillows, which must’ve been almost as warm as the stuffy room she
wished to escape—but what’s it to me? Let her smother herself with feathers, or sheets, or whatever else makes her happy. It makes me happy to have her out of the way.

After a protracted ritual of adjustments, she finally was comfortable enough for us to turn down the lights and draw tight the curtains, and all the while Lizbeth was a grouch about it—fussing about every little thing, checking all the locks on all the doors and windows, as if someone would try to come inside the moment her back was turned.

Nonsense, Lizbeth. Nobody cares but
you
.

But
with Emma settled, and now equipped with bells to ring in case of difficulty, we retreated to Lizbeth’s room. I had a guest suite, but I was sick of using it. I wasn’t here to camp at the end of a hall. I was here to see Lizbeth, and I would see every inch of her before my visit was up. She knew it, I knew it, and Emma likely knew it, too; but Lizbeth was so funny about Emma hearing any slight
peep
.

Honestly, that woman would sleep through a thunderstorm without so much as a flinch, if she ever sampled even a fraction of what she kept beside the bed. And the bottles there (and the labels upon them) were newer than those with the bourbon downstairs, so I knew they saw more circulation. Besides, the walls in this place are as thick as a tomb.

But propriety still means something to Lizbeth for some reason, and really, at this point I can’t imagine why. Let us throw open the windows and let the whole block hear how happy we are to touch one another. Who cares?

What are they going to do, talk about us? You’d think she’d be used to it by now.

Sometimes I fear I don’t understand her, not at all. But I will
fix that. I will let myself downstairs, and see what she has to hide from me.

We
undressed one another, and I thought we might take our time, since Emma was well out of shouting distance and we had all night; but Lizbeth was impatient, hungry. She almost tore my chemise, and with her head buried in my neck she told me not to worry, she’d buy me another. A dozen others. Anything, just hurry up and finish with these stupid clothes.

She pulled a pin out of her hair, and it came cascading down, all the way to her waist, and that was all she was wearing, standing in the moonlight that came filtered in through the curtains. Anyone who looked hard enough at the right angle from outside could’ve seen her. All the curves and lines of her, none of them concave except the hollow at her waist. The rest of her rounded and nicely muscled, almost like a dancer. Her arms were taut and all but swelled with strength, and her thighs were sharply cut.

She took my breath away.

Not just for being naked; that was distraction enough, and I welcomed it. But she’d forgotten to remove her jewelry. And around her neck she wore a heavy key.

The
key.

She remembered it at the last second before pouncing upon me, and with what was surely meant to appear a careless, casual gesture, she pulled the chain until it unfastened by force, and tossed it onto the bureau.

I made careful note of where it went, though not so careful that I think she noticed.