Chapter 25
The moment I see Maria for the very first time, I think she must be sick.
She is tiny and birdlike, almost skeletal.
Her thin frame swims in layers of oversized clothing; pink lace petticoat beneath a man’s flannel shirt, a mismatched pair of thick woolen hiking socks rolled up to her shins.
On top of this she wears a navy-blue fisherman’s jumper at least three sizes too big.
It hangs off her, giving the impression of a little girl playing dress-up.
“Hello, Maria,” I croak, reaching out a hand toward her as I emerge slowly from the fetid air of the cellar. “You can put that down. I’m not going to hurt you.”
Maria looks at me with wide, limpid eyes the color of a winter sea. She is holding the screwdriver out in front of her, thin arms trembling with the effort. I take a step toward her and her lip curls like a feral dog.
“Show me your hands.”
I lift both hands and hold them out to her so she can see they are empty.
You’re not going to hurt me, are you? she’d asked me, and perhaps I hadn’t sounded convincing enough or perhaps she’s been burned by these circumstances before and isn’t taking any chances.
Either way, I don’t blame her. I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile, moving close enough to gently push the screwdriver away.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can trust me.”
As soon as I say the words, I realize I actually mean them.
Maybe it’s her visible vulnerability—bony and malnourished, so slight a strong gust of wind could carry her away—or maybe it’s because she let me out of the basement in spite of the danger it puts her in.
What I do know is that something about her inspires some deeply buried maternal instinct in me.
I kneel in front of her, so that we are eye-to-eye.
I know I must smell bad, because she wrinkles her nose as I get closer.
I reach up and pull the wool hat slowly from her head, revealing a pale, shaved scalp, covered in nicks and scratches.
Dark flecks of regrowth sprinkle it like black pepper.
It makes her look like a victim of some great plague or famine, a woodcut from the dark ages.
“Thank you, Maria.” I’m almost teary with gratitude. “Getting that padlock off was a great idea. Now I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask for your help again.”
I point down the hallway toward the front door. I’m no expert but I can see that it is good and strong—robust is the word that springs into my mind—and is reinforced with a type of metal. Steel, probably.
“I’m not getting out that way, am I, Maria?”
She shakes her head solemnly. “Andrew had it made specially. He said you couldn’t even drive a car through it.”
“I see. Are all the windows boarded up? Every single one?”
A slow nod.
“Do you have a phone here?”
Another shake of the head. Her eyes are very round, staring with such intensity I can feel the weight of her gaze drilling into me. My spirit sinks a little.
“What about my bag? I’ve got a mobile inside. Do you know where it is?”
She simply looks at me, her mouth hung slightly ajar.
I can see a row of small teeth, gnarled with plaque.
A little pink tongue lying on the floor of her mouth.
I put my hands gently on her shoulders and squeeze.
Not hard. Just enough to sharpen her focus.
She doesn’t say anything, just lifts her index finger and points toward the ceiling.
“Upstairs? My bag is upstairs?”
She gives me a small nod. I stand up, but it’s too fast. The room tilts, like a ship rocking on the ocean. My head feels sick and woozy, my vision tunnels. I immediately lean against the wall, pressing my face to that horrible fleur-de-lis wallpaper hard enough to imprint it onto my cheek.
“Hazel?” Maria’s voice is coming from very far away. Her cold hand slips into mine. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I just need a minute.”
I’m out of the basement, but I’m still trapped. I can’t run, but maybe I can get out of here and hide. Figure things out. There has to be a way out of this fucking house.
On the heels of that thought, another. Andrew, telling me there were over a hundred miles of forest between the farmhouse and the nearest road.
Even if he is exaggerating the distance (and I suspect he is, a little), it’s still a long, long way to town.
If I don’t drop dead of hunger first, I wouldn’t make it there until tomorrow, or even the day after.
There’s snow on the way, and I don’t have any shoes.
Getting out of the house isn’t going to help me, I realize.
I wish I could think straight. I’m so hungry, I just want to eat.
It’s barely a need anymore, it’s a compulsion, sharp and clamorous as a fire alarm.
“Hazel?” She tugs at my hand, whispering with some urgency. “Do you want me to show you where I keep the bread and jam?”
Maria takes me upstairs and makes me the best-tasting sandwich I’ve ever eaten in my life.
As I lick jam from my fingers and fold the sloppy white bread into my mouth, I roll my eyes and grunt with pleasure.
She watches me as I spoon jam into my mouth straight from the jar.
It dribbles down my chin and onto my T-shirt, which I lift to my lips so I can suck it out.
I can’t help it. I’m giddy, sugar high. I belch quietly and wipe my hands on my jeans.
“Sorry.” I grin. “I’ve lost all my manners.”
“‘Manners is what holds a society together.’” Maria is looking at me with her wide, serious eyes. Her cheekbones are hollowed out and deeply shadowed. It’s like looking at a skull.
“That’s a Jane Austen quote.”
“I have lots of those. A new one every day.”
I nod. She’d said something similar before, when we’d talked through the door.
It feels like eons ago now, sitting upstairs in this disintegrating house with the cold burrowing under our skin.
I reluctantly put the jam jar down and brush crumbs from my legs.
I know I need to tread carefully with Maria, and not just because of her shocking condition—half-starved and as jumpy as a rabbit—but because I have a feeling that she will be hard to dislodge from this house.
Like a stone embedded in the tread of a shoe.
“Is this your room?” I ask her.
It’s a redundant question, because from what I can see, it is one of the only habitable rooms in the house.
The others we’d passed on the way up here had all been empty and derelict, full of dust and grime and cracked plaster.
She nods, returning my smile with a shy one of her own.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a teenager’s bedroom, but I remember how my own was at Maria’s age—a dressing table crammed with makeup and mirrors and all my posters pinned on the walls.
Thinking of the Backstreet Boys taped to the back of my vanity mirror gives me a pang of homesickness.
There are no heartthrobs in Maria’s room.
Stranger still, there is no television and no computer, not even a stereo.
The windows are boarded, with only inch-wide gaps to let the light in.
It’s gloomy and dark, with that airless musty smell you get in old, abandoned houses.
It’s crammed with old furniture and textiles, a huge brass bed dominating the space, above which she has hung dozens and dozens of feathers.
Maria sits on it amid a pile of old stuffed toys with their fur worn and balding and limbs too loose, unraveling at the seams.
“Most of the house still needs work,” Maria tells me. “But this room is warm, and the roof don’t leak.”
“What about your brother? Where does he sleep?”
She looks at me blankly, as if I’ve asked a stupid question. “At his job. He said it’s easier that way, because driving tired is bad news for everyone. But soon he’s leaving his job and then he’ll be here all the time.”
“How soon?”
“Do you want me to show you my books?” She’s bored. She doesn’t want to talk about Andrew.
I press on. “How soon until he leaves his job, Maria?”
“Next week. Then he’ll always be here.”
Next week. Oh shit, I think. I cross to the window and peer through the boards.
There is an icy breeze, tantalizing and close, kissing the tips of my fingers.
Outside, paper-white birch and elm are luminescent in the gloom, circling the farmhouse like ghostly sentinels.
Farther back, among the stately oaks and pines, shadows deepen.
A fine, glittering snow is beginning to fall, seeming to hang in the air like sea spray. It will be dark soon.
“You can see for miles,” Maria tells me as I move to another of those long windows and peer through the gaps.
I can just make out the corner of a small building tacked onto the main house. I point toward it. “What’s in the shed out there?”
“Generator. You can hear it some nights. It hums like a bee. A bee came in through the roof last year and started building a nest. My brother had to smoke ’em all out!”
“A hive, not a nest. What time will he come back today?”
“Not till morning.” Maria looks at me sullenly.
It must be tough for her, I think. She just wants a friend, someone to talk to. I can’t imagine being her age, locked up and isolated.
I soften my voice as I reach out and touch the soft bristles on her head, lowering myself onto the bed. “Do you shave this yourself?”
She shakes her head, fingers tugging at the covers.
“Your brother does it? Why?”
“He said it’s better that way. Neater. Saves time on washing.”
“I’ll bet it gets cold in the winter, though, right?” I give her a smile, to show her I am joking. Sitting among all the stuffed toys with their glittering, glassy eyes, she looks like a little doll.
“Will you be my mother, Hazel?”
I stare at her in surprise. I hadn’t been expecting that, a question I feel all the way to the pit of my stomach. I’m hot and breathless, like I’m experiencing altitude sickness.
“What is it you think a mother does, Maria?”