I turned around. The voice belonged to a young man, a boy, really, barely older or taller than me. It was a surprisingly deep voice for such a body. It did not match the curling, unkempt hair, the anorak dripping on the carpet, certainly not the puzzled expression wrinkling the ruddy, blond-browed face.
“Hello,” I said in turn. “And who are you?”
It happened he was Mrs. Blott’s great-nephew.
“Mrs. Blott doesn’t have a great-nephew,” I told him.
“I regret to inform you, she does, as evidenced by my standing here.”
“I regret to inform you that even if you are who you claim to be, she doesn’t anymore,” I said. “Mrs. Blott is dead.”
At this the nephew’s jaw fell open, so that I could see into the abyss that was his moist and pinkish mouth. His face contorted, first falling slack, then wrinkling and contracting, finally settling on a perplexed, pursed sort of frown. His chin was trembling. Would he cry, I wondered? As a result of what I’d told him? I regretted my rash choice of words, and I decided that I’d better make amends.
“She’s upstairs, if you’d like to see her.”
My thinking was that I could guide this great-nephew to Mrs. Blott’s bedroom. Once there I would casually reach out and touch her hand, to find, in fact, that she was not dead after all, but simply sleeping. What a stupid, scared little girl I had been. I was sorry for the trouble.
I thought myself quite clever.
I said, “I can take you, if you’d like.”
“You can take me,” the nephew repeated, still stunned. “You can take me up the stairs. Have you called the police?”
“I’ve spoken with my father.”
“And he’s called them then, has he?”
“Well, I don’t know.”
He moved toward the telephone in the kitchen, in his dazed state almost tripping on a hand-woven rug.
“Stop!” I shouted, rather louder than intended. From upstairs, Marlowe heard me and came tapping down to join us, growling at the stranger. He was sluicing something in his mouth, and I was aware that he smelled very much like wet animal. I rooted my fingers in his coat. “Stop,” I said again, this time more restrained. “We don’t need to call the police. My father is on his way.”
“Your father is on his way,” the nephew repeated.
“You don’t have to keep mimicking me,” I said. “In fact, I’d rather that you didn’t.”
“Would you?” His brows raised. “And who are you?”
“Who am I?” The question offended me. “I’m . . .” I paused, suddenly aware that there was no easy way to explain who I was, my relationship to Mrs. Blott, what I was doing in her cottage in the dark on this very wet Tuesday, and why it was vital to not phone the police. I settled on my name. “I’m Maisie Cothay.”
“Ah.” The nephew nodded. He shrugged off his coat and draped it on a kitchen chair, coming closer to where I was standing. The immediate shock of his great-aunt’s death had begun to dissipate, leaving him still solemn, but now competent.
“You know me?”
“From the family she works for. She’s mentioned you.”
“She doesn’t work for us,” I scoffed. “And she never mentioned you.”
Speaking warily, his words seemingly rote, he told me that his mother was the daughter of Mrs. Blott’s estranged sister. He had visited her in Coeurs Crossing once when he was small, and then again for a longer stretch of time when he was older. Upon deciding to enroll at the university nearby, it had seemed prudent to avoid the cost of housing on its campus and move in with Mrs. Blott for his first term. He had now been living with her for several happy months and was just returning from a weekend-long trip to the city.
“Matthew Hareven,” he said, and he held out his hand. I shied away.
His forthrightness made me uncomfortable. He was the first person near my own age I had ever encountered, and I found it odd that Mrs. Blott had never brought him up. Surely it wouldn’t have been difficult for her to slip him into casual conversation, to let me know she had a nephew, to let me know that he was here. And why did he want to stay here with her anyway, so far from his fellow students? I was suspicious. I looked around for Marlowe, to find he’d disappeared back up the stairs.
“So,” said Matthew, “Maisie Cothay. What do you intend to do next?” He was looking at me drily. I sensed that he might be having me on, and said as much. “Not in the least,” said Matthew, face still drained of color, seeming infinitely more tired than he had in that first moment that we’d met. “If we aren’t going to call the police, I’m simply curious as to what you suggest we do next.”
I wondered if this was how all young men dealt with death. My instinct told me they did not, that he was different, or that perhaps he’d been prepared. He seemed on the verge of either tears or laughter. That pallor to his face, which I’d assumed was grief, could very well be malice. How would he react to find that Mrs. Blott was not dead, after all?
“We’ll go upstairs to see her,” I said, my plan of resurrection intact, “but first you will take off those wet shoes. We’ll not track mud through her house.”
Matthew slipped out of his squelchy brown boots and followed me up the stairs, which creaked under his weight.
When we arrived, the door to Mrs. Blott’s bedroom had been pushed fully open. Marlowe sat there at her feet, half covered in her blanket. He was making a sound with his mouth, a wet, sucking sound.
“Marlowe!” I said, and he lifted his head.
Matthew and I looked at him for what felt a long while. Finally Matthew took a slow, unsteady breath, and spoke.
“Your dog is chewing on my aunt.”
And he was. Her frail, blue-veined ankle was resting in Marlowe’s jaw. He had been sucking, nibbling, gnawing persistently the way he was wont to with a bone. There were tooth marks in her thin, old skin, and in some spots little smears of red. Her calf had turned the angry purple of clotted blood caught in raw meat.
“You bad boy! Get out of here this instant!” I shooed Marlowe away from the rocker and out of the room. He obeyed at once, barely whimpering as he abandoned what had been, to him, a spectacular treat.
It was clear now that I would be unable to attribute Mrs. Blott’s unresponsiveness to an unusually heavy sleep. People did not slumber soundly while canines feasted on their ankles. Ankles did not flop down at such inclines once dropped from canines’ jaws. Nor did living bodies smell quite so . . . sour.
My head felt light. I grasped for the bedpost to steady myself.
Matthew moved to comfort me, reaching out to rest a hand against my shoulder. I recoiled.
“Don’t!”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m sorry,” I cut in before he could speak. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just . . . I just prefer not to be touched.”
“Right then,” said Matthew, rubbing his eyes as if only just awakened.
At that moment, the doorbell, our savior, sounded noisily. It was Peter. I could see him through the window, standing at the kitchen door, not at all dressed for the weather in his good black shoes and a pair of khaki pants, clinging to his umbrella, which the rising wind swung wildly about.
I took a towel from the closet and went down to let Peter in. Abingdon the cat had gone to cower in a corner, and, not seeing Marlowe, I assumed that he had gone to do the same.
“As you should,” I said aloud. “Shame on you.”
When I opened the kitchen door, Peter frowned and took the towel from me, wiped the lenses of his glasses, and lifted his head to the ceiling, where the floorboards complained as Matthew headed toward the stairs.
“So, you’ve got her up again, have you?” Peter said. He wasn’t angry with me, merely disappointed. He looked at me as if this was inevitable: that I would rouse her, that I would disregard his explicit instructions—which, in fact, I might have had it not been for the dog. Still I generally listened to my father, and I wanted the credit that such frustrating obedience deserved.
“It’s her nephew, actually,” I said, pouting.
Peter nodded. “Ah, yes.”
“You mean she told you? You mean you knew that he was here?”
“Of course. Why did you think I had you call her before setting out?”
I shot out my breath in a huff. I was flummoxed and unsure of what to say.