Страница 25 из 71
Maura looked down at the bed, and felt a cold whisper up her spine. My sister slept here.
“Oh, well. Take it or leave it.”
“I don’t know…”
Miss Clausen gave a grunt. “Seems to me you don’t have much of a choice.”
Maura stood on the front porch and watched the taillights of Britta Clausen’s pickup truck disappear into the dark curtain of trees. She lingered a moment in the gathering darkness, listening to the crickets, to the rustle of leaves. She heard creaking behind her, and turned to see the porch swing was moving, as though nudged by a ghostly hand. With a shudder, she stepped back into the house and was about to lock the door when she suddenly went very still. Felt, once again, that whisper of a chill against her neck.
There were four locks on the door.
She stared at two chains, a sliding latch, and a dead bolt. The brass plates were still bright, the screws untarnished. New locks. She slid all the bolts home, inserted the chains into their slots. The metal felt icy against her fingers.
She went into the kitchen and flipped on the lights. Saw tired linoleum on the floor, a small dining table with chipped Formica. In the corner, a Frigidaire growled. But it was the back door she focused on. It had three locks, brass plates gleaming. She felt her heart starting to thump faster as she fastened the locks. Then she turned and was startled to see yet another bolted door in the kitchen. Where did that one lead?
She slid open the bolt and opened the door. She saw narrow wooden stairs leading down into darkness. Cool air rose from below, and she smelled damp earth. The back of her neck was prickling.
The cellar. Why would anyone want to lock the door to the cellar?
She closed the door, slid the bolt shut. That’s when she realized this lock was different; it was rusted, old.
Now she felt the need to check that all the windows were bolted as well. A
Only when she was satisfied that the windows were all secure in the rest of the house did she finally begin exploring the bedroom. Standing before the open closet, she gazed at the clothes inside. Sliding the hangers across the pole, she eyed each garment, noting they were precisely her size. She pulled a dress from its hanger-a black knit, with the clean, simple lines that she herself favored. She imagined A
Maura unbuttoned her blouse, removed her slacks. She stepped into the black dress, and as she pulled up the zipper, she felt the fabric close over her curves like a second skin. She turned to face the mirror. This is what A
She paused, her right side to the mirror, staring at a strand of hair that clung to the fabric. She plucked it off and held it up to the light. It was black like hers, but longer. A dead woman’s hair.
The ringing telephone made her jerk around. She went to the nightstand and paused, heart pounding, as the phone rang a second time, a third, each jangle unbearably loud in that silent house. Before it could ring a fourth time she picked up the receiver.
“Hello? Hello?”
There was a click, and then the dial tone.
Wrong number, she thought. That’s all it is.
Outside, the wind was picking up, and even through the closed window she heard the groan of swaying trees. But inside the house, it was so silent she could hear her own heartbeat. Is this what your nights were like? she wondered. In this house, surrounded by dark woods?
That night, before she climbed into bed, she locked the bedroom door, then propped a chair against it as well. She felt a little sheepish doing so. There was nothing to be afraid of, yet she felt more threatened here than in Boston, where the predators were human and far more dangerous than any animal that might lurk among these woods.
A
She could feel that fear, still lingering in this house with its barricaded doors.
She bolted awake to the sound of screeching. Lay gasping for breath, heart thudding. Only an owl, no reason to panic. She was in the woods, for god’s sake; of course she’d hear animals. Her sheets were soaked in sweat. She had locked the window before going to bed, and the room now felt stifling, airless. I can’t breathe, she thought.
She rose and slid open the window. Stood taking in deep breaths of fresh air as she stared out at the trees, their leaves silvered by moonlight. Nothing moved; the woods had once again gone silent.
She returned to bed and this time slept soundly until dawn.
Daylight changed everything. She heard birdsong, and looking out her window, saw two deer cross the yard and bound off into the woods, white tails flashing. With sunlight streaming into the room, the chair she’d propped up against the door last night now struck her as irrational. I won’t be telling anyone about this, she thought, as she pulled it aside.
In the kitchen she made coffee from a bag of ground French roast she found in the freezer. A
She carried her coffee mug outside to the front porch and stood sipping from it as she surveyed the yard where sunlight dappled the little garden patch. Everything is so green, she marveled. The grass, the trees, the light itself. In the high canopy of branches, birds sang. I can see now why she might want to live here. Why she would want to wake up every morning to the smell of the woods.
Suddenly the birds rose flapping from the trees, startled by a new sound: the low rumble of machinery. Though Maura could not see the bulldozer, she could certainly hear it through the woods, sounding a
She went down the steps and circled around to the side of the house, trying to see the bulldozer through the trees, but the woods were too thick, and she could not catch even a glimpse of it. But looking down, she did spot animal tracks, and remembered the two deer she had seen through her bedroom window that morning. She followed them along the side of the house, noticing other evidence of their visit in the chewed leaves of the hostas planted against the foundation, and marveled at how bold those deer had been, grazing right up against the wall. She continued toward the back, and came to a halt at another set of tracks. These were not from deer. She stood very still for a moment. Her heart began to thud, and her hands went clammy around the mug. Slowly, her gaze followed the tracks toward a soft patch of dirt beneath one of the windows.
A boot’s imprints were pressed into the soil where someone had stood, peering into the house.