The Unforgiven (31 page)

Returning to her car, Evy looked in every direction,
but the road was pitch black, and utterly silent. Satisfied, she lifted the trunk door and gazed in at the bulky zippered garment bag which filled the trunk. It was funny. She had looked at that garment bag, hanging in the hall closet, for years and never imagined how useful it would turn out to be. She bent over the trunk and reached into it. She heaved the bag out onto the ground. She glanced over in the direction of the embankment by the stream where the old root cellar was. It was a good thing she had remembered. It was too dark to see anything, but she could picture it in her mind’s eyes. It was a long way to go. With a sigh, Evy decided that she had better begin.

Slowly, she began to drag the bag along the ground through the whispering grasses, jerking and tugging at it when it got snagged on a small stone or a root.
It will take a lot of mothballs before we can ever use this bag again.
She moved a little faster now, accustomed to the weight.
Good thing I’m strong,
she thought. Two years of lifting her grandmother had hardened her muscles. Just a little bit farther.

She reached the embankment and began to drag the bag down it. Just as she was nearing the door of the root cellar, her foot landed on a mossy rock. She slipped, gave out a tiny shriek, and let go of her bundle. The bag tumbled down the embankment, landing with one edge of it in the rushing stream. Evy caught herself and regained her balance, then she flashed her light down the rocky slope and felt her way carefully down to retrieve the bag.

Grunting and straining, she pulled it back up the hill and halted outside the heavy wooden door. With
one hand she grasped the iron ring that served as a handle, then forced her weight up against it.

The door to the root cellar flew open. Inside, the damp air was redolent of earth and apples. Evy pulled her bundle inside and shone her flashlight into the corners of the dark, long-deserted cellar.

“Perfect,” she breathed. It saved her the trouble of digging a hole. And worrying that a good rain might uncover it sometime. No one would ever bother looking back here. Even if they did, they would still place the blame on the late Maggie Fraser.

She knelt down and placed the flashlight beside the bag. Then, taking in a deep breath and holding it, she gently drew down the zipper. Released by the open zipper, the flaps of the plastic garment bag gaped apart, exposing the putrid, decomposing remains of William Emmett.

22

“Having trouble with that?”

Maggie shook her head stubbornly, refusing help. With renewed concentration she tried to force her trembling fingers to finish buttoning her blouse.

The nurse, Mrs. Grey, a cheerful, bland-faced woman, brushed Maggie’s fingers away like gnats and completed the job quickly and expertly. “You’re going to be a little shaky,” she assured Maggie.

“I’m fine,” Maggie insisted. “I’m ready to go.” For the twentieth time that morning she looked out the window of her room for any sign of Evy. Then she sighed and turned back to find the nurse unfolding a wheelchair in the narrow corridor between the foot of the bed and the wall.

“I don’t want that,” said Maggie.

Mrs. Grey ignored her. “This is for when you leave,” she said pleasantly. “Just to the front door.” Then she padded out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Where is Evy?
Maggie thought impatiently. She regretted having entrusted the girl to come for her. Now she felt constrained to wait.
I could have called the taxi and been home by now. In the time I’ve been waiting I
could have packed.
Home. How silly that sounded now.

She had been awake since dawn, occasionally taking a fitful nap, but mostly waiting for the moment of her release. It was a gray morning like this, less than a month ago, when she had sat, waiting for another release. The neighbor, Mrs. Bellotti, had come for her at the prison, fed her that night with her family, and had taken her down to the basement where she had stored the few possessions she had salvaged for Maggie after her mother’s house was auctioned. Mrs. Bellotti had been kind, but anxious about keeping an ex-con in her house. After the first night, Maggie had gone to a hotel for a few days while she got ready to travel. To come here. A feeling of gloom settled over her when she considered the failure of her brief stay on the island. It was all she had counted on in that last year of prison. Emmett had offered a new life to her, and she had managed, in a few short weeks, to ruin it. Emmett. She wondered for the hundredth time when he was going to reappear. God—what would he think of his little attempt at rehabilitation. Well, there was no point in thinking about that now.

Maggie reached down and grabbed her pocketbook, which was slumped beside the bed. She found the ferryboat schedule and checked her watch. There were still two more boats before noon. Maggie glanced worriedly out at the rain. There was a constant drizzle, but it was light. Surely the boats were running. They couldn’t stop running every time there was a little shower. Once again she got up and walked to the window.

She had not really expected to see anything, so she
started when she spotted Evy, poised by her car, just across the street from the hospital.

The girl was hatless in the rain, her white hands clutching a paper bag to her narrow chest. She was looking out for traffic before she crossed, her expression at once intent and somehow distracted. The wind ruffled the spiky ends of her hair, which stood straight up from her head, making her appear absurd and wild-looking.

Maggie frowned, shaking her head at the sight of her. An unlikely friend. For a moment she thought of the good-natured Mrs. Bellotti with a pang. Just then, Evy looked up. Her eyes met Maggie’s. Maggie flinched, forcing a jagged smile. Evy just stared at her, then her eyes fell back to the road. She quickly crossed the street.

In the time it took Maggie to slip on her shoes and retrieve her coat from the closet, Evy appeared in the doorway of the room.

“You ready to go?” Evy asked.

“I’ve been ready for hours,” Maggie admitted.

“I had things to do,” the girl replied defensively.

“Oh, that’s all right. I’m just anxious to get going,” Maggie soothed her. “I’ve got to ride in that,” she added, jerking her head in the direction of the wheelchair.

“I’m used to those,” Evy observed. She bent over and expertly pressed on the joints of the chair, testing its readiness. Then she stood up and produced the paper bag that she had been holding under her arm.

“I brought you these. I thought you might want to wear them today.”

Maggie emptied the bag on the bed and frowned as she held up the black sweater and mantilla.

“For the service,” Evy explained. “I figured you might want to wear something black.”

“Oh.” Maggie sat down heavily on the side of the bed. “The service.”

Evy picked up the sweater and held it by the shoulders, displaying it for her. “They’re having some prayers at the church first, and then they’re going on up to the cemetery where Jess’s brother is buried.”

I can’t bear it,
a voice in the back of Maggie’s head whispered. “I was thinking that I might not want to go after all. I still have to pack, and I’d like to get a boat this morning.”

The girl stared incredulously at her. “You said you’d go,” she said.

“I said I’d think about it. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I can manage it, with the day that lies ahead of me. I’m not feeling that strong, and I still have to travel, and find a place to stay…”

Evy hurled the sweater at the bed, where it clung to the blanket and hung haphazardly over the side. “That’s just great.”

“I’m sorry, Evy. You can still go. You don’t even need to drop me. I could get the island taxi.”

“Don’t you have any feelings?” the girl cried out.

Maggie looked up at her. “Of course I do.”

“You don’t even care enough to go to say good-bye to him.”

Maggie pressed her hand over her eyes. “I don’t think I can stand it.”

“I don’t think I can stand it,” Evy mimicked.

“Don’t be cruel,” Maggie said.

“Cruel. What about Jess? He’s dead now. Do you think he’d be having this service if it wasn’t for you?”

Maggie dropped her hand and stared up at her. “What do you mean?” she whispered hoarsely.

“Nothing,” said the girl, lowering her eyes to hood the alarm which surfaced there.

“Yesterday you said you didn’t blame me for what happened to Jess. Now you’ve suddenly changed your tune. It was an accident. You know that. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Okay. Forget it. I’m sorry,” the girl mumbled.

“Why would I hurt him? I loved him. Doesn’t anybody realize that?” Maggie argued shrilly.

“Seems like if you loved him so much you’d take the time to attend his service,” Evy muttered.

Maggie stared dully in front of her for a few moments. It was true, she thought. It was the last thing she could ever do for him. She had taken his love, even when she knew she shouldn’t. And she had lied to him. Even though she knew he had trusted her. She pictured again his gentle, honest eyes, shining for her. She had been a coward from the beginning. But she could not change what she had done. The least she could do was be there at the end.

Slowly, she reached over and picked up the sweater. She pushed her hand into one sleeve, then the other, and pulled it on over her head, straightening it out over her blouse. She pinned the black, lacy veil to her red hair. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go.”

Evy patted the seat of the wheelchair, and Maggie shuffled over to it and sat down.

“We’ve probably missed most of the church service anyway,” Evy reassured her. “We can wait outside if you want and just follow them up to the cemetery.”

Maggie nodded numbly. Evy grasped the handles of the chair behind her and began to push.

Once, when he was very young, he had gone sledding with his cousin and some of the other older boys. He tramped along behind them, dragging his racing sled, proud to be included. But when the day’s fun was over and the blue winter twilight had started to descend, they scampered off and left him there, while he was taking one last run down the hill. He didn’t know how to get home. He stood at the foot of the hill in the growing darkness, calling out to them.

“Come back,” he was crying. And then, when he knew there was no one to hear him, “Mama,” in a small voice. Then louder, his nose running, his face bitten with the cold, “Mama.”

Like clear water breaking through a muddy dam, Jess’s consciousness returned. His eyes, already open, began to see again. He was lying on his side, his face ground into the dirt of the floor. He realized, to his surprise, that tears had trickled down his face, forming a tiny patch of mud which smeared his cheekbone. Jess lifted his aching head and looked around the cellar. Emmett’s pitiful corpse was gone. He remembered now.

She had come down the stairs to collect it. He could not tell how long ago it had been. He had loosened his
gag by constant chewing at it and was slurping up water from the washtub when he heard the door open. Quickly he had slid back down to the floor and feigned unconsciousness. She suspected he was awake and had kicked him in the side several times to see if he would respond. He had remained limp, eyelids closed. Suddenly he felt her fingers, like talons, in his hair. She jerked his head back, holding a fistful of his hair. His mouth fell open. He did not wince but kept his eyes closed. Then, muttering, she dropped him and had gone about her grisly business. With one eye open he watched her as, grunting and struggling, she had maneuvered Emmett’s body into some kind of large bag and begun dragging it to the steps, as if it were a sack of refuse. As she started up the stairs, clunking the bag along behind her, Jess felt his head start to spin and he lost consciousness.

Now he looked up toward the slim band of light, gray and phosphorescent, which hung steadily in the darkness above his head. Occasionally a dark shadow would move across it, and then it would return. It was the bottom of the door. Jess imagined that if he could put his face to that band, he would drink in a stream of cool, fresh air. The putrid smell of the cellar had ceased to nauseate him. He wore it now, like a hood. But the prospect of one clean breath of air was painfully tantalizing.

By now used to the darkness, Jess could see the many steps which led up to the door. It was the only way out, and it was not far away, yet it seemed as remote as another continent to him. But he knew that he
had to try to get out. His extremities were numb, with only an occasional tingle evidencing the remaining life in his hands and feet. He had had no food since she left him down there. She was going to let him die in his dungeon. He wondered if Maggie was still alive. He had to try. He could not just lie there and accept the fact that he was buried alive.

Jess’s eyes returned to the fillet of light. He could also see motes of light flickering through the door itself.
Old wood,
he thought.
Rotten.
A trace of hope stirred inside of him. It could be smashed, he reasoned, if it was battered with the hardest thing at hand. With a feeling of despair he realized that his head and shoulder were his only tools. Wearily, he slumped back to the earth, his head throbbing from the prospect. Then he lifted his aching head and looked again. He knew that he had to try it. It was better than dying.

With agonizing slowness he summoned all his remaining strength and began to wriggle across the floor to the foot of the stairs. Using his knee and shoulder to propel himself, Jess inched his way over the cold, damp earth. With every few inches he gained he paused, gasping for breath, the clumps of earth sticking to his dry, cracked lips and clogging his nostrils. His shirt had bunched up almost to his armpits, leaving his torso bare and scraped. The gravel in the floor gouged holes in his bony knees. He sucked in what air he could, then continued on. Finally, after an interminable journey, he reached the foot of the stairs.

Jess dropped his head heavily on the surface of the bottom step. The ragged, splintered surface of the wood
snagged him like thorns. He dreaded the prospect of dragging his body across the wooden planks, exposing every inch of his skin to the sharp slivers which would insinuate themselves below the surface to throb there. But the shaft of light that penetrated the rotten door drew him on.