The things that happened next: tea was made, cake was cut and Alice was appropriate: she tucked in her ditch-round chin, widened her heavy-hooded eyes, gasped like a canyon when required. ‘How do you know?’
I could see Lizzie fanning herself with her hand. ‘Father and Mrs Borden are very sick tonight, very sick. And the other day, I felt dreadful. We’re always so sick lately. I just have this feeling . . .’
‘You should alert the police,’ Alice had said, cupped her hand over heart.
‘I’m beginning to think Father has many enemies.’
Under kerosene light, Alice Russell heard prophecies of doomed Borden life. Lizzie told her, ‘I’ve noticed strangers around the street. Haven’t you?’
Alice shook her head.
‘After Mrs Borden’s necklaces were stolen in broad daylight last year, strange men have been lurking about. I think whoever robbed us knows there’s money inside Father’s bedroom. The other day I saw a man standing under the gaslight up by the church and at the beginning of spring there was a man just outside our house!’
‘My goodness! What does your father say?’
‘I’ve not told anyone, especially Father; I don’t want to frighten him. Poor old soul.’
‘And Emma?’
‘Emma’s not paying attention enough.’
Alice then reached out and took Lizzie’s hand.
‘You’ve not noticed anyone at all? Not even the tall young man with a slouched cap?’
‘No. No one. But it sounds like you’ve got good details of those lurkers to tell the police.’
Lizzie fumbled with her teacup. She let cake crumbs fall into her lap. Alice tried to reassure her that everything would be alright, but paranoia stuck.
‘I really do think this explains why we’ve been so sick lately. Even Bridget is sick.’
‘Who do you think would do such a thing?’
Lizzie shook her head.
I could not begin to fathom what Lizzie’s premonition meant. Sometimes Lizzie just knew things. Alice pulled her hand away from me, shuddered from the memory of it all. ‘I’m sorry, Emma. It’s a lot to tell you.’
It was what I needed to hear. ‘If it doesn’t bother you too much, I would like to hear more about what she said.’
Alice furrowed brows. ‘I’m not sure I can remember. We kept talking but it seems like a fog. Lizzie went home not long after that.’
I thought of Lizzie returning home, whether she had looked to the moon and called out for me, whether her voice bounced off attic windows, carried from one house after the other after the next. Did she hear owls echo in trees, or choruses of crickets throbbing against night heat? Did she hear a creek follow gravity and empty itself into the river? And when she got home, did she do anything to help stop the sickness?
My body ached. ‘Alice, let’s try to get rid of this smell.’
I opened the bedroom windows and let a breeze filter through.
‘I think we need to do more. Will you help me clean the house?’ I said.
Alice exhaled, stood still. ‘I think I should go home and collect some belongings to bring back here. Why don’t you get Bridget to do it?’
My back tightened. There would be no more of Bridget doing anything; I thought of the way she had backed away from me earlier that afternoon, the disgust I had seen in her eyes as I reached out to touch her arm.
‘Miss Emma.’ Bridget’s voice deep and anxious.
‘Was I ever mean to you? Don’t pull away.’
Bridget had said nothing. I wanted to ask her if she was alright, if she needed a rest from all the questioning. Instead I asked, ‘Are you able to prepare supper for extra guests tonight?’
The stairs made a cracking sound and Bridget snapped her head towards the back of the house. I touched her arm again and she flinched, brushed my hand away.
‘I asked those police if I could leave for good and they told me yes,’ she said.
‘But I need you to stay and help me fix up the house.’
Bridget took a breath. ‘I won’t.’
‘That’s ridiculous. This is where you live.’
She took a step up the stairs, paused, and took another then another. ‘I heard her this mornin’,’ Bridget said.
‘Who?’
‘Lizzie.’ Bridget hung her head.
My heart thundered. ‘Tell me what my sister said.’
‘She laughed as I let your father in.’
‘Lizzie’s always laughing at something. It’s how she is.’
‘No, miss. She was laughin’ like a jackal as I opened the door. No one else was here.’
I took a step up to Bridget, tried to close in on her. ‘This doesn’t mean you have to leave. You’ll stay here.’
‘This house is no good, Miss Emma. It’s all sick and horror. Ya shouldn’t stay either.’ Bridget pulled her shoulders tight together. ‘And I heard that noise again.’
‘What noise?’
‘That awful chockin’. Like with the pigeons.’ Bridget shook her head and left me on the stairs. What on earth had she heard?
Bridget packed her bag and left Second Street without saying goodbye to Lizzie. I wanted to drag Bridget back to the house, the way I had been dragged back. Why should she get to leave?
Alice Russell promised to return after seven. It was up to me to clean the bloodied remains. I went downstairs, fetched a water pail and scrubbing brush from the basement, boiled water, poured the water into the pail, added soap. Every moment dragged. When the water had cooled slightly, I made my way to the sitting room. At the closed door that linked kitchen to sitting room, I took a breath, held on to my side where there was a dull ache of dissension. I took another breath, opened the door. The room was emptied of bodies. The sofa was in front of me and I noticed it had been moved slightly from the wall and a crevasse formed the outline of maleness. I did not want to go into the room. Why couldn’t I be more like my sister? She had moved around the house with ease all afternoon. I willed myself to step in, noticed a metallic smell: of heat and of too many voices. I dry-retched. There was a bloodstain on the sofa where Father’s head had come undone. The stain had begun to overtake the room, unapologetic, as if it had always been there, and I felt like drowning. Why wasn’t anyone there to save me? Lizzie made a small laugh echo upstairs, the way she always laughs, made my body ricochet against the sound. I looked at the bloodstain, took a step closer.
I counted the times I had overheard someone mention the state of Father’s face, its new shape, or the way the back of Abby’s head was opened and released: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. I touched the back of my head, felt along the bone that joined the neck. How long does it take the body to realise it is no longer breathing?
Another step.
Outside: the faint sounds of police patrolling the perimeter of the house. My dress suddenly felt too big, my hands and feet too small. There was so much work to be done. I wished I would disappear. I took a step closer to the sofa.