CHAPTER TEN
At dawn, as always, Agnes comes to unlock the cellar door and the sound of the heavy bolt dropping wakes me. She's brought a washcloth, hot tea, aspirin. I watch her groggily from one eye. She helps me up from where I am lying, helps get my clothes back on. Pulls my slack arms through my sleeves as if I'm a child. With the cloth she wipes the froth of dried spittle from my face. I am holding her hand, trying to thank her, but my jaw is not, just yet, back to where it needs to be to allow me to speak. It takes me a long time to get to my feet, and all through the vertigo her hand strokes my shoulder. I lean on her. "Almost over," she says, "there now, almost over."
Afterward, at the table rubbing my swollen eyes, the whiplash of the de-acceleration hits. I'm nauseous and hungry both at once, carefully eating the bacon and eggs Rosalind's put before me. Yesterday evening I left an overturned tumbler with a little whiskey in it on the counter, cover for Rosalind in the hope that in all her four years here she has just considered me prone to the ordinary failings. But the look she gave me, setting down the plate, was the same shy sideways glance she always gives.
Everything's same as usual. The secret is safe. I go to the library to sit still in the warm quiet, reassimilate myself after the wildness and misery of the cellar. Through the window the sun breaks free from the light rain and the field of tall grass moves with a straw glitter, like an ocean. I listen to my own breathing hollow in my chest. When I close my eyes the light still glows through my lids, red-gold.
A knock, Agnes. More aspirin, I hope. I say something.
The door swings open and I blink. It's Seamus, tall in the doorway. My heart beats twice, fast.
"Mornin'," he says, briefly, looking around. Appraising.
I stare at him. It's an invasion. For some reason I put my hand up to shield my eyes, as though he were a bright light. He frowns at me, brow pulling down. "You're taken ill?"
"Only a headache," I say.
He nods, lowers his voice. "Sorry, then. Here. Look. I've found this, digging," he says. From his pocket he brings a stained little cotton sack, about the size of my palm. Dirt and leaves are clinging to it. It's bulging with something.
He coughs. "Was buried alongside a post." His gaze fixed at mine.
My head is pounding. I already know what it is and what will be inside. The problem is whether or not he's opened it.
"Where?"
"Side fence near by the arbor," he says. "Along where the grass won't grow."
There's a question in his voice, and I don't answer it. Instead I hold out my hand. He comes over, leans, gently places the brittle little bag into it. The top is, thank God, still sewn shut.
"Thank you," I say; drop it quickly on the table beside me where it breathes out a ring of dust onto the marble. He's still standing over me.
"If it's money in there," I manage, feebly, "I'll give you half as a finder's fee."
He looks down at me steadily. There's a pause before he replies, and his voice is soft when he does.
"If it's all the same to you, I doan believe I'd want anything that's in that bag." He pulls a face, a small wry smile, nods to me, and turns to the door. As he does, his shin knocks a corner of the low table to his side, and he glances down at it.
And that's that. It's almost as though he has been circling the walls of my hidden life, looking for a crack to winnow his way into. Here it is, laid out for him, a fine layer of dust on the marble squares. I sit and observe helplessly as he glides in: "Playing against yourself?" he asks. I nod. Of course I am. He nods in return. "I'd take the other side, if you'd like."
Probably it's because I need him agreeable, not thinking too much about the buried bag, the cellar, the tin spoon in his soup. Last night's full moon and my obvious misery this morning. Perhaps it's because I'm worn out, and falling through the canyon between worlds has left me vulnerable. Maybe I cannot admit that I just want his company. I don't ask myself. I listen to myself agree.
He takes his leave, door closing quietly behind him, but I wait some time anyhow to be safe. The room is filling with a dusty haze that only I can see, and it's coming from the table beside me. I grab the bag, wince, cut the uneven stitching. It breaks away under my knife. Inside the bag, matted with black mold and age, is hair. It's a straw-blonde like Rosalind's, same as most of the village's, but crackling with age, tied in a knot, bound with a red string. Some herbs, skeletons of leaves, a corroded iron nail. A rough crust lines the interior of the bag: rock salt. This, the salt, is why no grass grows at Harthome's perimeter; this little bag, and the hundreds like it, are why I can only leave home by the front gate. Our stone walls, the chestnut-pole fenceline- Harthome's real boundary is built by these little packets of hair. The villagers buried them. For centuries. The older ones still do, in the middle of the night. I can't stop them.
I get up creakily to put it out on the sill so I don't have to smell it. Agnes will burn it later, outside. It's old enough to barely sting when I touch it, not much worse than a nettle, but I can't be anywhere near while it's burning unless I want to burn, too.
The sun's out in full and the birds are rioting in the hedges. Through the window a reflected glint of light shines up at me from the glowing panes of the greenhouse. He must have washed them. The light dances across my face; I can almost feel it, a little burst of warmth. I lean against the sill and let the light cover me until my legs start to sag. In the chair, my eyes close on their own.
An hour later I wake gasping from a wild dream of running- chasing and being chased becoming the same thing, the same thing- and bring myself back to bed. I curl up in a ball under the quilt and put my hands over my eyes and when I wake the sun is setting on the treeline and a cold cup of whiskey tea is sitting on the nightstand.
.
It's evening. Another knock on the door. I didn't believe he would come- through the wall I heard the kitchen door bang shut after dinner. Thought I heard, faintly, his boots on the back porch. But here's the knock, and I answer.
His face has the politely neutral expression of a guest, which he drops as soon as he's admitted. I pour us both brandy. Then, against the red of the late fire, he draws up the old ottoman to face me across the marble table. In silhouette, elbows on knees, chin in hand, he carelessly wins our games of chess.
I could, if I wanted, depict every part of this: his knobby wrist, his blocky white-scarred hand delicate with the pieces. Our easy conversation. The smell of brandy, earth, woodsmoke. Or the way the clock chimes eight and then somehow chimes nine just a little while later and he is already standing up to leave, too soon.
I'm perplexed by his victories. He's laughing as I stare at the board, retracing the trail of my mistakes.
"Don't beat yourself over it. I've played for years. There's not much else to do, aboard ship."
I look up. "When did you start sailing?"
"Oh," he says, suddenly looking blank. As though I've accidentally touched something raw. "When? Oh. I was- thirteen years old, I think I was."
"Just thirteen?" I ask, incredulous. A child.
"It was the only option," he says, grinning, reaching down to shake my hand goodnight.