Page 63 of The Shape of Night

“What about him?”

“He understands me. He makes me feel I belong here.”

“What else does he make you feel?”

I turn away, my face on fire. She doesn’t press the question and silence hangs between us for a painfully long time, long enough for her to gather that my secret is too embarrassing to share with anyone.

“Whatever he offers you, it comes with a price,” she warns.

“I’m not afraid of him. And the women who lived here before me, they must not have been afraid, either. They could have chosen to leave, but they didn’t. They stayed in this house.”

“They also died in this house.”

“Only after years of living here.”

“Is that how you see your future? As a prisoner of Brodie’s Watch? Growing old here, dying here?”

“We all have to die somewhere.”

She takes me by the shoulders and forces me to look her in the eyes. “Ava, do youhearyourself?”

I’m so startled by her touch that for a moment I don’t speak. Only now do I process what I’ve just said.We all have to die somewhere.Is that really what I want, to turn my back on the world of the living?

“I don’t know what power this entity has over you,” says Maeve, “but you need to step back and think about what happened to the women who came before you. Four of themdiedhere.”

“Five,” I say softly.

“I’m not counting the woman who was found floating in the bay.”

“I’m not counting Charlotte, either. There was also a girl, fifteen years old. I told you about her. A group of teenagers broke in on a Halloween night. One of the girls climbed up to the widow’s walk, where she fell.”

Maeve shakes her head. “I looked, but it didn’t come up in my search of the newspaper archives.”

“My carpenter told me about it. He grew up here, and he remembers it.”

“Then we need to talk to him.”

“I’m not sure we should.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a suspect. In the murder of Charlotte Nielson.”

Maeve lets out a startled breath. She turns and stares at the house, which seems to be at the center of this maelstrom. Yet I myself feel no fear because I can still hear his words whispered in the darkness:Under my roof, no harm will come to you.

“If your carpenter remembers it,” says Maeve, “other people in this town will remember it, too.”

I nod. “I know just the person we should talk to.”

Twenty-Two

It is just past five when Maeve and I arrive at the Tucker Cove Historical Society. TheCLOSEDsign is already hanging, but I knock anyway, hoping that Mrs. Dickens is still inside, tidying up. Through the smoked-glass door I see movement, and hear the thump of orthopedic shoes. Pale blue eyes, distorted by the thick lenses of spectacles, peer out the doorway.

“I’m sorry, but we’re closed. The building will open at nineA.M.tomorrow.”

“Mrs. Dickens, it’s me. We spoke a few weeks ago, about Brodie’s Watch, remember?”

“Oh hello. Ava, isn’t it? It’s nice to see you again, but the museum is still closed.”

---