The car had nearly reached the end of the drive by then, that point at which the private pathway of Bennington’s road connected with the public one. In front of us, I watched as one car passed by, and then another, each one half-hidden, it seemed, by the darkness. I closed my eyes, held my breath. But I knew that even if we somehow managed not to crash into another car, there was still the problem of the road—which stretched immediately to the left and right, but not directly ahead. Instead, there was a flimsy barricade and beyond that—I swallowed nervously—our self-christened End of the Universe. My gaze quickly took in the sugar maples beyond the railing, standing in sinister formation.
I turned then. Twisting around, peering back at the darkness behind us, knowing that I would not be able to see anything—that I would not be able to see her, even though I could feel her still, watching. I thought of her words, of her insistence that I not get into the automobile, and I felt my stomach lurch—though whether from the movement of the car or the realization of something greater, something darker, I was never entirely certain.
And then Tom shouted, telling me to jump, so that my shaking hands reached for the cold handle. There was nothing then. Only the strange sensation of my body being lifted into the air, weightless and suspended. Afterward, there was blood and fire, broken bones and bruises, but I did not feel any of it. Only the snow underneath my face, the cold, biting pain of it against my cheek.
And Lucy.
Somewhere in the distance, looking at me—her eyes wide, watching—alive.
It was the last thing that I remembered from that night.
AUNT MAUDE ARRIVED in the days afterward. I was never sure how many had passed before she swept in, her stern, frowning face serving as a source of comfort, a return to normalcy in the swirling chaos that had surrounded me ever since I had woken. I had scarcely been left alone during that time, so it seemed there was always someone beside me, in the room, outside the room, peering in. And yet, not one of them ever spoke to me, with me—only around me, at me, instructions and directions, orders, but no information, nothing that told me what had happened, how it had happened, and perhaps most important, why.
“Maude,” I whispered, my lips parched and cracked.
She moved quickly beside me, though she did not take my hand. “Quiet, dear,” she said.
I closed my eyes at the sound of her voice, at her familiar accent, so similar to my own. Her face, though decidedly feminine, still held something of my father, her brother, in it as well, such that I felt her reassurance wash over me, blanket me. My body sagged, and for the first time in days, I felt the adrenaline begin to seep from my pores, so that all at once I felt comforted, and I felt pain, the bruises and cuts I had ignored, that I had refused to feel, creeping upon me so that they could no longer be denied. I felt wetness against my cheeks and realized that I had begun to cry.
“Lucy,” I whispered. “Where is Lucy?” But I was uncertain whether she could understand my words, distorted as they were by my increasing sobs. “You have to speak with her, to ask her about what happened.”
“There, there,” Maude whispered, lowering herself into the seat beside me. She still did not move to touch me, though in that moment I wished that she would. “You’re overwrought, Alice, confused. But everything will be all right, my dear. I will take care of it, you have my word.”
A week later, I was out of the hospital and on my way back to England. No one spoke of Tom, of his funeral, of an invitation I knew would not come. Only once was Lucy mentioned, when the police, bullied and cowed by Maude, were permitted to ask a few questions, under her direct supervision. My answers were short, clipped. They raised their eyebrows when I asked about Lucy Mason, about whether they had spoken to her—but then a sharp look from Maude silenced any further questions. “She’s confused, Officers, you must excuse her.” She turned to me and smiled. “You’re confused, Alice, dear.”
At first, I had frowned at her words, but soon I had begun to wonder whether perhaps she was right. That night already seemed distant, the details lost to me, so the only thing remaining was the conviction that Lucy was somehow the key to it all, the answer to the question that I could not quite figure out. I searched my memory but could find nothing more definitive than the injured feelings of a girl that had been abandoned by her best friend, or the look she had given me that night as I had walked away, had crawled into the car, choosing another over her, severing whatever bond it was that had connected us. I pushed the image from my mind.
Perhaps Maude was right.
“You’re confused, Alice,” she whispered again, the crinkles around her eyes deepening. “Your grief is causing you to imagine things. But you must not allow it to—you must put them out of your mind.” She attempted a smile. “Do not worry, my dear. I will take care of everything.”
I had nodded dully, still lost in a cocoon of my own grief. If Aunt Maude said that Lucy did not hold the answers, then I would trust her, completely. I thought back to when my parents had died, how lost in grief I had been, how the shadows had stolen across my vision and I had howled for her to make them go away. And she had. She had fixed me, just as she had promised, if not completely, at least the best she could, gluing and taping back the pieces of me that had fallen apart in the aftermath of my parents’ death. And so now, now I would trust her again, to put me back together, just like the old nursery rhyme, to make things right. I found comfort in the thought, in the ability to let it go—my anger, my hatred, my conviction. There was a peace in letting it slip between my fingers, no longer a mass that I was forced to grasp, to cling to, with all my might. After all, Tom was gone, nothing else mattered. Not Lucy, not what had happened to her in those days afterward, her side of the room empty and still, not even the strange words that my aunt had spoken.
And so, I did not ask her what they meant.
IN THE QUIET, I could feel it again—the anger, just like that night—beginning to grow. I was tired of the elusive answers, of the bits of information that Lucy fed me only when it suited her. I still did not know why she was in Tangier, not really, or how long she planned to stay. I did not even know how she spent her days, only the stories she told me each night. I could feel my face start to flush, feel my hands start to tremble. I willed myself to remain calm, to instead focus on my mint tea, which had grown cold and thick, but I found I couldn’t concentrate. I was tired of the pretense and I could not continue, even if she could. I felt my emotions begin to well, begin to creep inside, to the hollow of my bones, the accusation sitting on the edge of my tongue.
The truth was that nothing had felt right since the night of the accident. And between us, between Lucy and me, things had started to sour long before then, so that the time since we had been close was so long ago now that I struggled to remember. There were moments when I would catch pieces of it, glimmering in the distance, when I could feel that same pull toward her, strong and insistent—but then there was something else there as well, something hard and unyielding, so that I still did not entirely trust her, felt that I could never trust her, after everything that had happened, not even if I had wanted to.
I knew, of course, that she was not responsible for what happened, not in the sense that I had first suspected, that dark, cold night when I had turned around in the car, eyes blazing, certain she was the one. In my mind, I made her into something profane, something monstrous—one of my shadows that lurked in the darkness, waiting, always waiting, to lay hold of me. The truth was much more simple. The truth was that, had it not been for her, I would not have made that telephone call, would not have crawled inside his automobile the night of the blizzard. If it had not been for her jealousy, her strangeness, it would never have happened. That was the truth, or at least part of it. It was the real reason why I had stopped and stuttered at her presence the morning she had arrived in Tangier, for in her I would always be reminded of him, of what had happened, of what she had made happen.