Chapter Nine
NINE
The next morning, I open the front door to find a middle-aged man standing at the gate. He has an arm missing, the empty shirtsleeve pinned to his chest. His face is hard and gnarled with knots of pink scar tissue that reach all the way to his hairline. He watches me as I step outside, the ground already warm beneath my feet. The crowd today is small, only a handful of people. But it will get bigger. Already it has the feel of something building. Pressure, like a storm. Incense sticks burn in the gaps between paving slabs. Someone is carrying a placard which reads GIVE THE DEAD THY TONGUE . The mood is somber, pale faces rubbing tired eyes. A woman in a flowered sundress lets her dog urinate against the gatepost. The dark stain spreads onto the pavement, steam rising into the air.
“What are you all doing here?” I ask them. “What do you want?”
The man with the placard watches me approach. His voice is very deep and has no inflection, his lips barely moving.
“We’re here to see the girl. Bring her out so she can speak with us.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Is it true?” Another voice on my right. I turn toward it. It’s the woman with the pissing dog. She looks me up and down, assessing me. “What they’re saying about her.”
“Depends what they’re saying, I suppose.”
“That she’s got powers,” the man with the placard says.
“You’ll need to be more specific,” I reply calmly.
“I’ve got a limp.” That’s another man, older and slightly twisted at the hip as if by polio. He leans on a stick. “I’m not able to work. Can she help me do you think? She’s been telling me to come here and she’ll heal me.”
“I lost my wife in the crash.” That’s the man with one arm and scarred face. His eyes are a sketch of misery. “After the funeral her jewelry went missing and I think my son has took it and sold it. Will you give her this? I need to know what to do!”
He’s holding something out to me but I don’t reach for it. I don’t want it. I think of all those psychometry tokens lying in the kitchen drawer with a feeling of such profound sadness I think I might start crying and never stop.
“This is madness,” I tell them, staring around at them all. “Please, go home. She’s a young girl, just a teenager. She’s not special, she’s just sick.”
The woman with the dog narrows her gaze. She has beady eyes that gleam like sunlight on metal.
“Aren’t you that reporter?”
“I’m not, no.”
“You come here with him, though?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” That’s the man with the walking stick.
All their faces are looking at me expectantly, round and blank as moons. I swallow.
“I’m here to assess Alice.”
“She’s here for the same reasons we are,” the woman says. The dog is panting, unfurling a long, pink tongue. She jerks the lead. “To see if all that they’re saying is true.”
I can’t meet her eye because she’s right, isn’t she? That is why I’m here, with my photograph and my expectations and my fragile, beautiful hope. I told Oscar it was research and told Sam it was a learning experience, something to shore up my qualification—but underneath it all I’m just like these people, needing answers. I suddenly feel exactly as Oscar told me I would. Unprepared and overwhelmed.
Lisa opens the door for me. She casts a single disparaging look over the small crowd before ushering me inside.
“They’ve been out there since six o’clock,” she says, bitterly. “One of them reckons Alice is sending him messages in his sleep. He’s cut off bits of his hair and put them in an envelope.”
She opens the little paper package to reveal twists of wiry, black hair. I flinch away, revolted.
“I dread opening these things when I find them on the doorstep, now. What will they send her next? Where does it stop? I don’t know how much of this I can take, Mina. It’s like living in a goldfish bowl. I’ve got to fight these weirdos just to get to the corner shop.”
I attempt a sympathetic smile. Unmoved, she fixes me with her cool gray eyes.
“Honestly, Mina, what’s happening to her? What if it’s serious? What if there’s something wrong with my little girl?”
Her voice cracks and her hand covers her mouth. I put an arm around her narrow shoulders, feeling her bony shoulders shudder as she stifles a sob. She hides her face against me, presumably so the younger children don’t hear. I speak quietly when I say, “Lisa, whatever it is, I’ll find out. I promise you. That’s why I’m here.”
“I know, I know.” She sniffs loudly, taking a couple of long, deep inhales until her throat crackles. “I’m sorry. It’s all this horrible business—the heat wave and Alice and now the phone’s gone down and they’re talking about power failures all over the country. I’m just so tired.”
Sam appears in the kitchen doorway. His hair is damp as if he has just showered, a cup of coffee in his hand.
“They’ll have to go inside soon. Legally, I mean. It’s just been on the news.”
“What has?”
“Curfew. They just announced it on the radio. We’ve all got to stay indoors between noon and four. Hottest hours of the day, apparently. The next few days, temperatures are going to soar, according to the weather.”
Lisa and I exchange a wide-eyed glance as Sam continues, “If they stay out there all day they’ll either be arrested or hospitalized with heatstroke. Either way, they’ll be out of your hair.”
I don’t find the thought comforting. It makes me think of all those desperate people going to ground, waiting for dark to emerge again and collect in the shadows of the evening.