The Winter People (20 page)

But this was a new game we were playing. And I was not yet sure of the rules.

The minutes passed by. I stayed still as a stone, listening.

At last, I heard the squeak of hinges as the closet door opened, the sound of the plate being dragged into the closet. It took all of my will not to open the door and try to catch a glimpse of her. How I longed to set eyes on her again, to prove to myself that she was real!

There was silence for a moment. This was soon followed by the sound of glass smashing. I hurried back into the room just in time to see the closet door slam. The plate had been thrown, its contents strewn across the floor. The glass of milk was shattered.

“I’m so sorry, Gertie,” I said, my hand pressed against the door. “But we can try again. We’ll find something you like. I’ll bake molasses cookies. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

One weak knock.

I sat back down on the floor amid the collection of rejected food. Spilled milk soaked my dress.

“I’m just so happy you’re here. You are here, aren’t you?”

One knock.

I laid my hand against the closet door, stroking the wood.

“And you’ll stay? You’ll stay as long as you can?”

One knock.

I knew what Martin would say if I told him—what anyone in his right mind would say—but I didn’t care. I didn’t care if I was going mad, or if all of this was a figment of my imagination.

My Gertie was back. Nothing else mattered.

January 25, 1908

After finishing his chores in the barn, Martin spent the morning hunting in the woods, following the large tracks that seemed to go in circles, taunting him. The hoofprints were a good four inches long—it was a big animal. He never caught sight of the buck. He could almost smell him, though—a deep musky scent carried in the wind. Still, the buck remained out of reach. The whole time he was in the woods, he worried over Sara, and her new belief that Gertie was hiding in the closet. Midday, he went back to the barn to saddle the horse. He glanced at the house, his eyes settling on their bedroom window. He considered checking on Sara, but no, surely she was sleeping. He mustn’t disturb her. He mounted the horse and rode into town to see Lucius.

It was nearly three miles to town, but the day was pleasant, and the snow on the roads had been rolled and packed down, making it easy going for the horse. The road was narrow, with woods on either side, chickadees and squirrels calling out from within the branches. A carriage passed, the driver waving. Martin waved back, unsure who the man was—he was wrapped up in a hat and scarf, and Martin didn’t recognize him. He passed the Turners’ place, the Flints’, Lester Jewett’s blacksmith shop. He came to the town green, where the gazebo was piled high with snow. He stayed to the left, continuing down Main Street. On the left, across from the green, was the West Hall Inn, run by Carl Gonyea and his wife, Sally. There was a
bar downstairs that some of the men in town frequented nightly. It had been a long time since Martin had had the money for that.

Past the inn was Jameson’s Tack and Feed. Beside it, Cora Jameson’s seamstress shop with an old dress dummy in the window, stabbed full of pins.
ALTERATIONS
, said the sign.
CUSTOM TAILORING
. There was a velvet dress with lace trim and tiny mother-of-pearl buttons hanging, the armless sleeves seeming to reach for something just out of grasp. Cora’s shop was seldom open, as the poor woman suffered from “ailments.” Everyone knew that her only ailment was her taste for whiskey.

Across from the tack-and-feed shop was the general store. William Fleury came out, with his son Jack behind him. Both men had their arms full: rolls of tarpaper, boxes of nails.

“Afternoon, Martin,” William called. Martin got off the horse.

“Hello, William, Jack. Looks like you’ve got a building project.”

William nodded. “Wind took one of those old oaks down last night, crushed the corner of the barn.”

“Too bad,” Martin said. “I’ll come by later, see if I can lend a hand.”

William shook his head. “No need. The Bemis boys have offered. We’ll have it fixed up in no time. How’s Sara?” William’s eyes were full of concern.

What were people in town saying? Martin could imagine the chain of events: Reverend Ayers telling his wife, Mary, about Sara spitting in his face, Mary telling the ladies in her sewing circle; after that, word would spread like the chatter of grackles.

“She’s well, thank you,” Martin said. “Quite well.” He pictured her last night, on the floor in front of the closet.

It’s our Gertie. She’s come back to us
.

He bit the inside of his cheek, pushed the image away.

William nodded. “Good to see you, Martin,” he said. “You take care, now.” William and Jack loaded up their wagon, and Martin walked down the street, leading the horse.

“Martin!” a woman’s voice called. He turned to see Amelia just coming out of the inn. She was wrapped in a fur coat, her cheeks pink and bright, her eyes sparkling.

“Uncle Martin,” she said, kissing his cheek lightly. “I was having lunch with some ladies at the inn and saw you ride by. How is Aunt Sara?”

“Better,” he said. “She offered to make me breakfast this morning.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” Amelia said. “I shall pay her a visit soon. Today or tomorrow. Maybe I’ll take her out for a bit. Bring her to my house for tea. What do you think?”

Martin nodded. “I think she’d like that very much. It would do her good to get out of the house. I’ll tell her you’ll come by.”

“Yes! Let’s make it tomorrow. Tell her I’ll come tomorrow. I’ll bring her to my house for a luncheon.”

Martin nodded, cringing a little. Luncheon was something the wealthy ladies in town did. Ladies with fancy hats and lace handkerchiefs who didn’t have cows to milk, bread to bake.

“We’ll expect you tomorrow, then,” he said, giving her a little bow. She turned and went back down to the inn to rejoin her friends.

Lucius practiced out of an office in his home on Main Street. It was a freshly painted white house with black shutters; a shoveled brick walkway led to the front door, where a sign hung:
LUCIUS SHEA, M.D
. Martin entered, hung his coat on the rack, and peeked into the front parlor, which had been converted into Lucius’s office. The door was open, and Lucius was at the desk, writing. No patient in the room, no one waiting on the chairs in the hall.

“Hello, brother,” Martin called.

Lucius looked up, smiled. “Martin! Come on in!”

It was a simple room with a glass-doored cabinet full of supplies: medicines, cotton, jars and bottles, forceps, clamps, wooden tongue depressors. An examination table made of dark wood took up the center of the room. There were shelves full of medical books and more bottles and jars; below these were rows of drawers. On the right side of the room was the large maple desk Lucius worked at. His hair was rumpled, and his eyes were red.

“You look tired,” Martin said, sitting down.

“Long night. Bessie Ellison finally had her baby. Breech birth. Damn difficult. They’re both fine now, though.”

“You should get some rest.”

Lucius nodded. “How’s Sara?” he asked.

Martin looked down at his hands, fingers knit together tightly. “I’m worried, Lucius,” he said. “Very worried.”

“Tell me,” Lucius said, leaning forward, so that his elbows rested on the desk.

“Last night, I woke up and found her out of bed. She was sitting on the floor in front of the closet. She said …” He paused, rubbed his face with his palms. “She said Gertie was in the closet.”

Lucius took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “And what did you do?”

“I told her to go back to bed.”

Lucius was quiet a moment. He stroked his neatly trimmed mustache. “Have you thought any more about the state hospital?”

“She’s been through this before. When Charles died. And she came back around.”

“I know,” Lucius said. “And we’re going to hope that she does again. But we need to make a plan for what we’ll do if she doesn’t come around. If she falls deeper into these morbid fantasies. It’s possible that she will get worse, Martin. And it’s possible that, if she loses touch with reality completely, she may become dangerous.” Lucius stood, went to the wooden drawers, and pulled one open. “I’m going to give you some pills. I want you to grind one up each night and put it in her tea. It’ll help her sleep, still her dreams. I’ll stop by to see her soon. In the meantime, if she gets worse, you come get me.”

Martin nodded.

“I mean it, Martin. Don’t think you can do this on your own. Don’t think you have to.”

M
artin arrived home to find Sara working in the kitchen. There was stew simmering, biscuits just out of the oven, and the smell of something sweet—Sara had baked molasses cookies.

“It’s nice to see you up,” he told her, kissing her cheek. “Supper looks wonderful.”

To see her up and cooking—cheeks pink and a little smile on her face—seemed nothing short of miraculous. He wished Lucius were here to see it.

He’d been so worried about her last night. He was sure, in those dark moments, that Sara had slipped away from him completely.

But there
had
been something in that closet, hadn’t there? Something scrabbling, trying to get out.

Mice. A squirrel, maybe.

But hadn’t he seen the doorknob turn?

A trick of the light
, he told himself.

He pushed it all out of his mind. It didn’t matter. Sara was back now. Well again. Everything was going to be all right.

“I ran into Amelia in town. She’s going to come by tomorrow. She wants to take you to her house for lunch.”

“Lovely,” Sara said. “That’s just lovely.”

Martin sat down at the table, put a napkin on his lap, and watched as Sara served him, ladling stew into a bowl, then bringing the biscuits and butter to the table.

There was something odd about Sara’s movements: they were quick and jerky, almost puppetlike. She seemed terribly excited, the way she got at holidays. She sat down and began picking at a biscuit, just pulling off flakes of it onto her plate.

“Tell me what our Gertie looked like,” Sara said, eyes glimmering in the lamplight.

His skin prickled. “You know what she looked like,” he said.

“I don’t mean
before
. I mean when you found her at the bottom of the well.”

They had not let her see Gertie’s body, knowing that she was too fragile, that it would break her into a thousand pieces, never to be put back together again.

“I want to see my little girl!” Sara had cried, but Martin remembered the way she’d clung to Baby Charles, and shook his head.

“No, Sara,” he’d told her, voice as firm as he could make it. “It’s best if you don’t.”

“But I need to see her one more time! For God’s sake, Martin, you must understand,” Sara had begged.

“Sara,” Lucius had said, taking her hand firmly in his own. “We want you to remember Gertie the way she was. Not like this. You need to trust us. It’s for the best.”

Now Martin kept his eyes down on his bowl of stew, as if the image were trapped there. “She looked peaceful. Like Lucius said.”

Martin took another spoonful of stew and swallowed.

“Did she have any … injuries?”

Martin looked up into Sara’s eyes. “Of course she was injured, Sara. She fell fifty feet down a well.”

He shut his eyes, pictured Gertie down there, turned on her side, as if she’d just fallen asleep.

Sara nodded, her head bobbing too fast. “But Lucius examined her, didn’t he? Did he find anything … unusual? Injuries that might not have occurred in the fall?”

Martin looked at her for a long time. “What is it you’re asking, Sara?”

She took in a sharp breath, held her head high. “I believe it is possible that Gertie did not fall down that well.”

“But, Sara, how do you explain—”

“I believe she may have been murdered.”

Martin dropped his spoon, and it clattered to the floor.

“You cannot be serious,” he said, once he’d regained his composure.

“Quite serious, Martin.”

“And on what basis …”

Sara smiled calmly. “Gertie told me,” she said.

All the air left his chest, and the room suddenly got dim. Sara seemed far away and small. There she was, across the old pine table from him, an untouched bowl of stew before her. The oil lamp flickered at the center of the table; the fire in the old cast-iron cookstove crackled. The window above the kitchen sink was frost-covered, the night outside blacker than black. He couldn’t even see a trace of stars.

Sara’s face, pale as the moon, seemed to get smaller still. He reached out for her, his fingertips brushing the edge of the table.

It was as if he were falling, tumbling, spinning, down, down, all the way to the bottom of the well.

Visitors from the Other Side The Secret Diary of Sara Harrison Shea