Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [88]
I leave her staring into the fire, her hands newly tangled in the wool. Even my mother is not alone, for we are all strung together in our longing.
When I reach the Great House it is late, but I do not climb the stairs to my tiny chamber, and go instead to the tower. As I pass the library, a feeble light shows beneath the door, a sign that my master remains restless within. I glide past his door without a sound until I reach the painter’s chamber, which I enter without knocking, surprised at my own boldness. He is reading in bed and looks up when I enter, his eyes anxious in the half-light of the candle beside him. I lock the door and move across the room without a word, and he closes the book and moves over in his bed. I lie down next to him, place my head upon his chest, and close my eyes to all that I have seen and heard. The painter strokes my hair for a moment, then leans over and extinguishes the candle, and before I know it sleep has taken me.
I wake in the light of predawn, still fully clothed, my back aching from the rigors of my corset. The painter sleeps and I take care not to disturb him as I rise. I need to undress, to release my body from its cage of whalebone stays and cotton ties, even if only for a few minutes, so I steal out of the room and return to the privacy of my bedchamber. Once there I quickly remove everything and slip beneath the bedclothes, shivering in the morning cold. I close my eyes and once again fall into sleep, but though my bed is empty I am not alone.
She comes to me in my dreams, and this time she is no longer troubled but strangely calm. She stands in the cave entrance, her white dress billowing in the wind, and there is an air of poignant resignation about her, as if the worst has happened and been overcome. I call to her from down below and slowly her eyes swivel round to find me. I try to scramble up the crevasse but my hands and feet cannot find their hold, and when I look again she has disappeared from view. I stand there searching the cave openings, desperate for one last glimpse of her, and after a moment she reappears atop the ridge in the same spot where the boy jumped to his death. This time Long Boy is at her side, nearly a head taller than herself, but clutching her hand boyishly like the man-child he is. I raise my arm to wave at them but this time she does not respond, does not even look in my direction. They stand there together for several moments, and then she turns and leads him away from the cliff edge, away forever from my view. I turn and look along the creekbed to the spot where Long Boy landed and his carcass is still there, facedown upon the banks, but I know that it is empty for his soul has flown.
And then I look upon my hands, and they are not my own but hers: large and strong and scratched and bloody from the fall that claimed her. I stare at them, wonder whether she has bequeathed them to me, and if so, what purpose they will serve. And in the next instant they are gone, for suddenly I am wide awake, looking out upon the cold light of winter in my chamber.
It is only a matter of hours before news of Long Boy’s death spreads through the village, as do the details of the events which preceded it. A posse of men retrieve his body during the course of the morning, and by dusk he has been laid to rest alongside his mother in the graveyard, the boy infant in her arms. We all attend the burial, just as we had done not ten days earlier, but so much has happened in the interim that there is little to recall that earlier scene. My mother draws a few glances from the villagers, but by and large they keep their tongues and their wits about them. And when the burial is over, my master shuffles slowly across the frozen earth and clasps my mother’s hand in both of his, a gesture which surprises both of them. Only