Page 54 of A Killing Cold

It was a kind of frenzy, a kind of ecstasy. Holy words wound their way through it, but it was pure punishment. It was like something had been set on fire in Beth’s soul and decades of being a demure and submissive wife became nothing but kindling for her rage.

I hadn’t eaten more than the smallest portion of food, had hardly had any water to drink in that sweltering attic, and when she brought her fist into my stomach I folded over, fell to the ground. It didn’t stop her. The fire was still raging inside of Beth Scott. Her foot lashed out. Again and again as I curled over on myself, twisting to try to get out of her way. Her hard-soled shoes connected with my stomach, my back, clipped my temple, and then all of a sudden Pastor Frey and Joseph were there, pulling her away.

Enough. That’s enough for now.

They left me there on the floor, curled around my middle. There was a sharp, strange pain somewhere deep inside me.

The bleeding started a few hours later.

Beth returned in the evening, carrying a tray of food. I think she may have felt guilty, or maybe she only wanted to spit more venom at me. I remember the rattle of the doorknob. The way my skirt clung to my thighs as I forced myself upright, swaying and lightheaded.

The laugh that bubbled out of me when she screamed.

The tray dropped. She fled. And she didn’t close the door behind her.

As soon as I heard the front door slam, I hurried downstairs, lifting my sodden skirts, to find the house empty. I peeled the fabric from my wet skin and threw the dress in the fireplace. I washed my legs with cold water and dressed in fresh clothing. The bleeding was still coming, and I thought I might be dying, but I wasn’t going to die there.

I packed a bag. Clothing. What little money I had. The treasures hidden in the back of my closet—a silver dollar, a pink shell, a tiny crystal dolphin.

Joseph Scott’s hunting knife.

I was on my way to the door when Joseph came home.

I begged him to help me. I begged him to let me go, take me away from there, dosomething.

He hadn’t seen the blood upstairs; I wasn’t making any sense. Give him that much grace, at least. Allow him the fear of a man whose world is collapsing, whose wife has babbled a tale that is half confession and half accusation; remember that his daughter is a liar and a thief, that her teeth have left scars on his wrist before, that she is a wicked child. And yet. The cut at my hairline, the bruise I could already feel on my cheek, the tender way I moved, bent inward as if to protect myself (too late for that). He saw enough. He should have known.

He should have helped.

I think he said,I’m sorry. I think he said,I can’t let you go.I know that he stood in the doorway. I know that he reached for me, that he grabbed my arm, that he was going to take me back to that place.

The only other thing I remember clearly is the panic—blind fear that gave way swiftly to rage.

Elemental anger crashed through me and over me and drove me against the back of my own skull because there was no room for anything but fury.

I remember, too, the sensation of the knife punching through skin, though I don’t remember how it got to be in my hand. I remember it scraping across bone. I hit his sternum with that one. I must have been aiming for his heart. Three times I raised the knife and three times I swung it wildly, and I swear, I swear he didn’t even try to stop me.

The thing that’s clearest in my memory, though, is the sounds after. His cry of pain and shock. The thump as he fell, scrabbling backward away from me. The clatter of the knife falling from my numb fingers.

I remember that I ran.

25

Joseph used to tell stories—Noah and Daniel and David, now and then the Brothers Grimm. I loved the rhythm of the storytelling. The music of it. I could sit for hours and listen. That rhythm infects my words even now, as brutal and unlovely as they are.Once upon a time, there was a girl locked away in a tower, I think.

“Shit,” Connor says. He’s pale-faced. He sinks into the chair near me. “That’swhat happened? That’s what this photo is from?”

I feel oddly focused on my own extremities. The feeling of my fingers against each other, the flex of my toes. The sensation of my teeth in my mouth, each individually defined. It’s like I am being separated into my component parts, the sense of the whole of me dissolving.

Connor stares at me. “You said your parents are still alive. So Joseph…”

I shrug. “It turns out that a sixteen-year-old girl with serious blood loss isn’t terrifically strong. I did some damage. He needed a lot of stitches, lost a lot of blood, nothing worse. But I thought I’d killed him. I ran. Didn’t get far. I was lucky. The cop who found me believed me. He took me to the hospital. They took photos. And he offered my parents and the Freys a… a deal.”

As in, the report got filed, but it didn’t go farther than that. The Freys and the Scotts were spared legal scrutiny, and so was I. I went to live with Joseph’s sister, a woman who didn’t love me but provided what I needed—a safe place, an education, time to heal.

And no one ever spoke of it again. That was the agreement, and it’s held this long.

Connor listens to me explain all this with rapt attention. When I’m done, he rubs a hand over his face.

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