the wall and squeezing the trigger a few times.
Click click click
. There was no ammunition for it.
“What about the body?” Rosalie asked. “Did you see who it was?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if it was someone coming along the road toward the manor, maybe one of us knew him.” We were all motionless save for Ellie, who still rooted through the contents of the car. She’d already put the newspaper on the floor so that it could dry out, in the hope of being able to read at least some of it. We’d made out the date: one week ago. The television had stopped showing pictures two weeks ago. There was a week of history in there, if only we could save it.
“He was frozen stiff,” I said. “We didn’t get a good look… and anyway, who’d be coming here? And why? Maybe it was a good job—”
Ellie gasped. There was a tearing sound as she peeled apart more pages of the photo wallet and gasped again, this time struggling to draw in a breath afterward.
“Ellie?”
She did not answer. The others had turned to her, but she seemed not to notice. She saw nothing, other than the photographs in her hand. She stared at them for an endless few seconds, eyes moist yet unreadable in the glittering firelight. Then she scraped the chair back across the polished floor, crumpled the photo’s into her back pocket and walked quickly from the room.
I followed, glancing at the others to indicate that they should stay where they were. None of them argued. Ellie was already halfway up the long staircase by the time I entered the hallway, but it was not until the final stair that she stopped, turned and answered my soft calling.
“My husband,” she said, “Jack. I haven’t seen him for two years.” A tear ran icily down her cheek. “We never really made it, you know?” She looked at the wall beside her, as though she could stare straight through and discern logic and truth in the blanked-out landscape beyond. “He was coming here. For me. To find me.”
There was nothing I could say. Ellie seemed to forget I was there and she mumbled the next few words to herself. Then she turned and disappeared from view along the upstairs corridor, shadow dancing in the light of disturbed candles.
Back in the living room I told the others that Ellie was all right, she had gone to bed, she was tired and cold and as human as the rest of us. I did not let on about her dead husband. I figured it was really none of their business. Charley glared at me with bloodshot eyes, and I was sure she’d figured it out. Brand flicked bits of carrot from his soup into the fire and watched them sizzle to nothing.
We went to bed soon after. Alone in my room I sat at the window for a long time, huddled in clothes and blankets, staring out at the moonlit brightness of the snow drifts and the fat flakes still falling. I tried to imagine Ellie’s estranged husband struggling to steer the car through deepening snow, the radiator clogging in the drift the car had buried its nose in, splitting, gushing boiling water and steaming instantly into an icy trap. Sitting there, perhaps not knowing just how near he was, thinking of his wife and how much he needed to see her. And I tried to imagine what desperate events must have driven him to do such a thing, though I did not think too hard.
A door opened and closed quietly, footsteps, another door slipped open to allow a guest entry. I wondered who was sharing a bed tonight.
I saw Jayne, naked and beautiful in the snow, bearing no sign of the illness that had killed her. She beckoned me, drawing me nearer, and at last a door was opening for me as well, a shape coming into the room, white material floating around its hips, or perhaps they were limbs, membranous and thin…
My eyes snapped open and I sat up on the bed. I was still dressed from the night before. Dawn streamed in the window and my candle had burnt down to nothing.
Ellie stood next to the bed. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. I
Click click click
. There was no ammunition for it.
“What about the body?” Rosalie asked. “Did you see who it was?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if it was someone coming along the road toward the manor, maybe one of us knew him.” We were all motionless save for Ellie, who still rooted through the contents of the car. She’d already put the newspaper on the floor so that it could dry out, in the hope of being able to read at least some of it. We’d made out the date: one week ago. The television had stopped showing pictures two weeks ago. There was a week of history in there, if only we could save it.
“He was frozen stiff,” I said. “We didn’t get a good look… and anyway, who’d be coming here? And why? Maybe it was a good job—”
Ellie gasped. There was a tearing sound as she peeled apart more pages of the photo wallet and gasped again, this time struggling to draw in a breath afterward.
“Ellie?”
She did not answer. The others had turned to her, but she seemed not to notice. She saw nothing, other than the photographs in her hand. She stared at them for an endless few seconds, eyes moist yet unreadable in the glittering firelight. Then she scraped the chair back across the polished floor, crumpled the photo’s into her back pocket and walked quickly from the room.
I followed, glancing at the others to indicate that they should stay where they were. None of them argued. Ellie was already halfway up the long staircase by the time I entered the hallway, but it was not until the final stair that she stopped, turned and answered my soft calling.
“My husband,” she said, “Jack. I haven’t seen him for two years.” A tear ran icily down her cheek. “We never really made it, you know?” She looked at the wall beside her, as though she could stare straight through and discern logic and truth in the blanked-out landscape beyond. “He was coming here. For me. To find me.”
There was nothing I could say. Ellie seemed to forget I was there and she mumbled the next few words to herself. Then she turned and disappeared from view along the upstairs corridor, shadow dancing in the light of disturbed candles.
Back in the living room I told the others that Ellie was all right, she had gone to bed, she was tired and cold and as human as the rest of us. I did not let on about her dead husband. I figured it was really none of their business. Charley glared at me with bloodshot eyes, and I was sure she’d figured it out. Brand flicked bits of carrot from his soup into the fire and watched them sizzle to nothing.
We went to bed soon after. Alone in my room I sat at the window for a long time, huddled in clothes and blankets, staring out at the moonlit brightness of the snow drifts and the fat flakes still falling. I tried to imagine Ellie’s estranged husband struggling to steer the car through deepening snow, the radiator clogging in the drift the car had buried its nose in, splitting, gushing boiling water and steaming instantly into an icy trap. Sitting there, perhaps not knowing just how near he was, thinking of his wife and how much he needed to see her. And I tried to imagine what desperate events must have driven him to do such a thing, though I did not think too hard.
A door opened and closed quietly, footsteps, another door slipped open to allow a guest entry. I wondered who was sharing a bed tonight.
I saw Jayne, naked and beautiful in the snow, bearing no sign of the illness that had killed her. She beckoned me, drawing me nearer, and at last a door was opening for me as well, a shape coming into the room, white material floating around its hips, or perhaps they were limbs, membranous and thin…
My eyes snapped open and I sat up on the bed. I was still dressed from the night before. Dawn streamed in the window and my candle had burnt down to nothing.
Ellie stood next to the bed. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. I
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