I must have acted out of shock.
I had a bizarre vision of a girl who looked just like me, picnicking with terrible manners.
The last I spoke aloud as I reached the study door and pushed it open with my shoulder: “I’m very, very sorry, and prepared for any punishment you’ve . . .”
My eyes took in the window, cracked open, a bit of breeze rustling the pages of a manuscript. The dirty dinner plate, its contents now congealing. The tea gone cold. Peter’s binocular contraption zipped into its canvas case, abandoned in his armchair. Peter, himself, nowhere to be found.
“Hello?” I raised my voice so that it echoed through the hallway, into the dark kitchen, the library. I moved through the house, flipping switches to fill sitting rooms with light, one after another. All were empty.
The car was gone from the driveway, and I realized he must still be at Mrs. Blott’s house, handling whatever it was that one handled after natural death had occurred. Perhaps he was needed for paperwork, had decided to sit with the body, might have been asked by the nephew to stay. My breath caught a bit at the thought of the two of them together, tending to the joint that had once held the limb now buried by the oak tree. Did they cover Mrs. Blott in her favorite quilt, the blue one with the little white knit flowers? I hoped that they had. Maybe even now Matthew and Peter were digging as Marlowe had dug, forcing their full weight behind their shovels, flicking raindrops from their cheeks, preparing a new home in the ground for what remained of Mrs. Blott. I knew that when I reached the cottage the true loss of her would hit me; the fist of my sore heart would unfurl and stretch its fingers into the empty spaces her passing had left.
I went to our telephone and picked up the receiver, but could not bring myself to dial the number for the cottage. Mrs. Blott could not answer, Peter would surely be confused, and I had no desire to make awkward conversation with Matthew. Still, how could I not be there? I called for Marlowe, retrieved my jacket and a flashlight, grabbed a pastry from the kitchen, and set out.
WE TOOK THE main road, which was well paved and lit sparingly by flickering streetlamps. Through the murmur of a softened rain, I listened for the rumble of a car, a bicycle’s sputter, some fellow traveler on the road. Nothing passed us.
The only other life I sensed on our half-hour walk was the forest, dark and whispering beside me. It had always been there beckoning, a regular temptation, but where before the wonder had been one of possibilities—shimmering futures like fish to be caught—the sport had changed so that I was the one being baited. The memory of the shadow self I’d seen was a hook in my heart, the lure lax but set to tighten any moment. The thought that I might suddenly be reeled in without notice frightened me. Even more difficult to parse was the notion that I wanted, even needed, this bond with the forest. I had left some vital part of myself, barely discovered, in the touch of the shadow wood’s tree bark, in the depths of my shadow self’s eyes. I worried that my feet would redirect me, my subconscious would send me back into the wild before I’d had the chance to talk things through with Peter, or say goodbye to Mrs. Blott. I was relieved to finally reach her cottage, bright and cozy, smoke puffing from its stone-piled chimney with every appearance of normalcy, even if I knew she did not wait for me inside.
I’d left my key when I set out that afternoon, and was thus reduced to knocking like a stranger, covering my fist with my jacket so as not to disturb the wooden door. I scolded myself for forgetting my gloves, which could have allowed me a more meaningful farewell, a stroke of Mrs. Blott’s cheek, a clasp of her hand. Perhaps I could find a pair inside.
The wind picked up, pushing off my hood. What could Matthew and Peter be doing? Cold and wet, suddenly quite tired, I pounded again.
“Coming!” came Matthew’s muffled voice, along with a squeak I imagined to be a chair across the floor. He opened the door and squinted. “Maisie?” he said.
Matthew’s hair was mussed. One cheek was pink, engraved with the pattern of whatever had been pressed against it. He smelled like plain soap and rosemary. He blinked.
“What’s the matter?” he asked me, stifling a yawn.
“Have you been sleeping?” I noted the disdain in my voice, but did not try to check it. How could he go to bed a few short hours after finding his aunt lifeless, leave my bumbling father on his own to settle her affairs?
“Stand back and let me in,” I said, “it’s cold out here, and I need to see Peter at once.”
“What?” Matthew cracked his neck, stretching, still sloughing off sleep. I stepped past him into the kitchen. The table held a cup of tea, a ragged notepad, an open textbook with the pages he’d used as a pillow bent down at their corners.
“He’s upstairs, yes? With the body? Or have you sent him off into the village?”
“What?” Matthew frowned at me, his nose wrinkled, his hair almost golden in the light of the dying kitchen fire.
“My father. The body,” I said slowly. “Mrs. Blott? Your great-aunt? Her leg is gone, but you still have the rest of her. Or did you clean her up, and bury her, and find time for a nap in these three hours I’ve been gone?”
“What?”
“Oh, don’t be useless.” I started up the stairs, calling out, “Peter?”
“Maisie,” said Matthew.
I paused. The second floor was quiet and dark. When I looked back, I saw that Matthew’s face had resolved into a serious expression. I felt a chill incongruous with the toasty cottage, Marlowe sprawled comfortably by the door, the familiar hydrangea pattern of the quilted cotton curtains.
“Maisie,” said Matthew, his voice low, “it hasn’t been three hours since you left—it’s been three days.”
The Silver Necklace
Emma, 1817
When Emma Blakely was born, the first thing her mother noticed was the birthmark: a palm-sized patch on the baby’s cheek, the angry pink of a fading burn. The accoucheur assured her it was common in infants, though likely a sign that the girl would be wild. Cecilia Blakely was most displeased. Cecilia liked smooth-skinned, quiet children who kept, most days, to the nursery, children who could be paraded in front of her guests and made to perform the songs the governess had taught them in sweet, reedy sopranos; children to be applauded and praised. Children like Emma’s older sisters. She did not want a child who would embarrass her through poor performance, poor behavior, or poor looks.
Because the mark was not a danger to the child, the doctors Cecilia consulted all advised she leave it be; any attempt to surgically correct it would result in a scar cruder than the original marking. They said it was merely a sign Cecilia had eaten too many strawberries during pregnancy. The girl would never be a beauty, but she still might have a fine life, develop other skills deemed admirable by a husband.
EMMA LEARNED OF her own ugliness at an early age. Her favorite doll had smooth ivory skin, the rouge marks round on the apple of each cheek.
“Like me,” Emma said proudly to her eldest sister, holding up the little figure with its helmet of curls and soft cloth body. She pressed the doll’s cool china cheek to her own.
“Not like you,” the sister scoffed. “More like Grandmother, or Mother. Your mark is too large, and much too bright. You’re ugly.”