Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [63]
I stare into the fire, see the gray cat leap within its flames, taunting me.
“Truly he is a demon of an animal,” I continue. “And holds my mother somewhat hostage to his whims. But he is no familiar, and my mother is no witch!”
“It is not me you must convince,” Mary says placatingly. She lays a hand on my arm.
“What motive could she possibly have?” I say, thinking aloud.
Mary shakes her head. “None. But there were very few who knew of her condition. And your mother was one of them.” She looks at me and I see that she is right. “And too, she would know how to accomplish such a thing,” adds Mary.
“She is no surgeon!” I say sharply.
“I am only repeating what others have said,” she says emphatically.
“Besides, she is growing older by the day,” I continue. “And her health is poor. She would not be capable of moving the body.”
Mary looks at me for a long moment, and her face is grimly set.
“Not without the devil’s help,” she says finally.
* * *
I see at once how quickly fate can alter the course of things. Mary is right: in the absence of any real evidence, my mother is as likely a suspect as anyone. It does not help that she is close-lipped and keeps to herself. Her silence will only serve to fuel their speculation. As I make my way toward her cottage I curse the cat for ever falling in her path. That he should be the principal source of her undoing seems ludicrous.
When I enter the cottage, I find her bent over the boy, applying a poultice to his forehead. She straightens and I see at once that though he sleeps, his face is once again flushed with fever.
“He is worse,” I say. She nods, and puts a finger to her lips.
“It happened in the night,” she says. “After I returned.” She purses her lips and turns back to him. Her reference to last night’s events hovers between us like a cloud of flies.
“I am sorry for last night,” I say finally. “It was not meant for anyone to know.”
“What you do with others is your own affair,” she says curtly. “But the dead are sacred. And should be treated thus.” She squeezes out the poultice in a wooden bowl. The smell of dried goldenrod rises and wafts across the room. Watching her, I do not know which angers her more: seeing me embrace the painter, or allowing him to look upon Dora’s corpse.
“I did not think it would do any harm,” I say, referring to the latter. “I did not think that she would object,” I add. My mother turns to me with a look of incredulity.
“How could you know this?” she demands.
There is little point to this discussion. When I meet her anger I am catapulted back in time. I stand before her, five years old, and the sins of my childhood lay heaped in front of me, so large a pile that I am dwarfed by my own misdemeanors. She makes me feel this now: that last night’s misdeeds tower over me to such an extent that I could spend a lifetime in atonement and still fail to account for them. I watch her move about the room in solitary determination. As a child I thought that her anger was due to the very fact of my existence—that somehow she never forgave my bastard birth. But now it occurs to me that my worst sin is not that I was born, but that I do not share her celibate soul.
She rises again from the boy, leaving the poultice upon his forehead, and moves to the table where she takes up a knife and begins chopping herbs. Suddenly I remember the business of the magistrate. “There is something else,” I say. She stops and looks at me. “The magistrate has arrived and is conducting interviews. He believes there is some sorcery involved.” She looks at me, her face a mask, and I continue. “He has compiled a list of suspects, and your name is on it.” She blinks, then lowers her head and resumes chopping.
“They will think what they will,” she says grimly.
“You cannot ignore them,” I say. She continues chopping, disregards me just as she will them. I move closer to the table, reach out to halt her hand.
“It is dangerous to do so,” I say emphatically. She looks at me.
“Neither can I stop them,” she replies.
Chapter Fifteen
Twilight falls as I return,