“What for?” Zach asked. Hannah shrugged one shoulder and dived.
Dimity saw them sitting side by side on the rock jetty like they’d known each other for years. She watched from the kitchen window, and felt something tickling in her stomach. Something that made her clasp her hands there, to hold it; made her shift from foot to foot and turn from time to time, to pace the floor. What were they saying? She wondered about this. The boy had so many questions, all the time, and when she answered them it only made more come. He was insatiable, like that. A hole into which all her stories could pour, and never fill it up. Here’s a robber coming through, coming through, coming through, she sang softly, watching them still. She’d started making a charm for Hannah. Pushing pins through small corks, and working them gradually, painstakingly through the neck of a glass bottle. Something to keep her safe, to put on her hearth or over her door. In case there really was a curse on her, or on the farm-that had been her initial thought. Now she thought: to close her mouth as well. To not let this curious boy pull words from her like he pulled them from Dimity. Here’s a robber coming through, my fair lady. Hannah knew things, bad things. Secrets she must never tell. Because in the end, Dimity could not do everything herself; she had to ask for help sometimes. Young hands and arms, full of the strength that age had stolen.
When she saw him walk along the beach with the girl, she was happy at first. They seemed to match, in spite of the difference in height and the color of their souls. Hannah’s had always been red, but the young man’s was more blue and green and gray. Shifting, not quite knowing what to be. But soon after she felt happy, she felt anxious, then afraid. He stole away my wedding ring, wedding ring, wedding ring… For a second, she almost wished Valentina would come back again. Somebody to hear her thoughts, even if help was beyond her. Valentina had never been a helper; could never muster sympathy. Her heart was a thing of wood and stone, hard minerals. Dimity thought about what she had said to Zach, earlier, when suddenly words and feelings had built up an unbearable pressure inside her. What she had said, and had mercifully not said, even though for a moment the truth had hovered on her lips. The truth could be divided, and given in halves, or smaller fractions. The way saying the sky is not green is not the same as saying that the sky is blue. True, but not the same.
Dimity rubbed the ring finger of her left hand; rubbed it at its base, and thought she felt a callus; hard skin in a ridge between finger and palm. She stole away my wedding ring, my fair lady. Dimity hummed the tune, mumbled the words, did not notice that he had become she. She watched Hannah stand and dive back into the sea; watched the young man do the same. He was a follower, that one. Not sure where he was going, and happy to take direction, as a result. If she was careful, she could lead him where she wanted, and where he thought he wanted. But she must be careful. Have a care, Mitzy. Don’t make things harder on yourself. Valentina’s words, from long ago. Loaded with scorn and menace. Better not to talk to him at all, however much she liked the words in her mouth: Charles, and love, and devotion. Other words ran alongside them, refusing to stay silent. Celeste. Élodie. Delphine. Whore. Better not to talk at all, then, but it made her sad to imagine Zach never coming again. To think of him outside, knocking, bringing pictures of her that sang like joyful songs in her head when she saw them. Windows to a time she loved, a time she lived; windows so clear and crystalline bright. But have a care, have a care. The pair of them swam out of sight beneath the cliff and she turned from the window, went up the stairs without thought, and stood outside the door to the right. The closed door. She put her hand to the wood the way she’d done so many times before.
Then came the rush of hope, of fear. She thought she heard something move, inside. Several times now, since Zach Gilchrist had started to visit. Since the hearth charm had fallen down and left the house wide-open for a while. Holding her breath, she put her ear to the door, pressing her head close to it, spreading the old flesh of her cheek. Her hand rose up, went to the doorknob, and closed around it. She could open it, and go in. She thought she knew what she would see, but she wasn’t sure, not completely sure. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to see. There were knots in the wooden door, and a face within them. She thought it was Valentina’s, but it could have been Hannah’s; wide eyes, open mouth. Saying, Dimity, what have you done? What have you done? The things Hannah knew; the things she saw that night. Hannah’s heart had been beating so hard that Dimity had heard it clearly, clattering against her ribs, and she’d been shocked to see such fear, such horror, twisting the girl’s face and making her body shake. Swallowing, Dimity uncurled her hand from the doorknob and stepped back.
At the farmhouse, Hannah disappeared into what might have been a laundry room-there were heaps of clothes and cloth, spewing from several baskets around the floor; ranks of empty soap boxes. She came out with a lurid beach towel, striped and multicolored; Zach took it and rubbed it over his hair. The rest of him had dried on the walk up the valley from the beach, but his boxers were sodden and cold, clinging and clammy against his skin. He fidgeted them surreptitiously beneath his jeans, but Hannah saw, and smiled.
“Got a problem down there?” she said.
“Bit of sand, bit of seaweed. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Coffee?”
“Is it safe to drink?”
“Yes, I think so.” Hannah eyed him haughtily. “The boiling water kills the germs.” She went through to the kitchen, stepping deftly, automatically, around the piles of debris in the hallway. The piles had clearly been there a long time. The gray-and-white collie, which had appeared at the edge of the yard and followed them in, slunk into its bed and watched them wistfully as they passed.
“Seriously, though… the yard is so tidy…” Zach looked around the kitchen and raised his hands at the chaos. “How do you ever find anything in here?”
“The yard’s important, that’s why it’s tidy. And I find that the stuff I need rises to the surface in here, eventually.” She cast her eyes around the room, as if really seeing it for once. The corners of her mouth twitched and turned down. “My mum was very house-proud. She’d be horrified, if she saw this. Especially her kitchen. It used to be the kind of kitchen where you’d come in from school and there’d be a tray of fresh scones cooling on the table.” Zach said nothing. “But… Toby was messy. I was appalled, when he first took me back to his room at college. In himself he was clean, tidy-a bit too tidy, almost. But his room looked like a bomb had gone off. It smelled of moldy bread and old socks. I had to throw the window open and lean out for air; grip of passion or no grip of passion. When he died… when he died it seemed a fitting homage, of a kind. The mess. Like I could let him have it his way, since he’d gone and left me.” She shrugged sadly. “But to be honest, once it gets past a certain point, cleaning ceases to be an option. You don’t even see the mess anymore.”
“I could help you, if you like? I mean, if you wanted to have a clear-out, one day.”
“One day?” She shook her head. “It’d take a month.”
“Well,” said Zach, then couldn’t think what to add. Hannah picked up two mugs and ostentatiously washed one under the hot tap. She gave Zach an arch look, and he tried not to notice that there was no washing-up liquid, and that the sponge she used to wash it was stained and bedraggled. But Hannah paused and looked at it, discarded it, and used her fingers to finish the job.