Page 97 of The Giver of Stars
You do not belong here. Go home.
It wasn’t the first, and she bit down hard on the feelings the notes provoked. Margery would have laughed at them, so that was what she did. She screwed the paper into a ball, threw it into the fire, and cursed under her breath. And tried not to think about where home might be, these days.
Fred stood beside the barn in the dimming light chopping wood – one of the few tasks that still defeated Alice. She found the weight and heft of the old axe unnerving, and rarely managed to split the logs along the grain, usually leaving the blade wedged at an awkward angle, stuck fast, until Fred returned. He, in contrast, hit each piece with a clean, rhythmic motion, his arms circling in a great sweep, the axe slicing each into halves and then quarters, pausing each three strikes, to hold it loosely in one hand while with the other he tossed the new logs onto the pile. She watched him for a moment, waiting until he stopped again, drew a forearm across his brow, and looked up at where she stood in the doorway, glass in hand.
‘That for me?’
She took a few steps forward and handed it to him.
‘Thank you. There’s more here than I thought.’
‘Good of you to do it.’
He took a long swig of the water and let out a breath before he handed back the glass. ‘Well. Can’t have you getting cold in winter. And they dry out quicker if you cut them smaller. Sure you don’t want to have another go?’
Something in her expression seemed to stop him.
‘You okay, Alice?’
She smiled and nodded but even as she did so she barely convinced herself. So she told him the thing she had put off telling for a full week. ‘My parents have written. To say I can come home.’
Fred’s smile evaporated.
‘They’re not happy, but they say I can’t stay here alone and they’re prepared to chalk the marriage up to youthful error. My aunt Jean has invited me to stay with her in Lowestoft. She needs help with her children and everyone agrees that this would be a good way of … well … getting me back to England without making too much of a scene. Apparently we can address all the legal matters from a suitable distance.’
‘What’s Lowestoft?’
‘A little town on the North Sea coast. Not exactly my first choice, but … Well, I suppose I’d have some independence at least.’And be away from my parents, she added silently. She swallowed. ‘They’re forwarding money for my passage. I told them I needed to stay for the end of Margery’s trial.’ She let out a dry laugh. ‘I’m not sure if my being friends with an accused murderer improved their opinion of me any.’
There was a long silence.
‘So you’re really leaving.’
She nodded. She couldn’t say any more. It was as if with that letter she had suddenly been reminded that her whole life here up to this point had been a fever dream. She pictured herself back in Mortlake, or in the fake-Tudor house in Lowestoft, her aunt’s polite enquiries as to her sleep, whethershe was ready for a little breakfast, whether she might like to take a walk to the municipal park that afternoon. She looked down at her chapped hands, at her broken nails, at the sweater she had worn for fourteen days straight over the other layers, with its tiny fragments of hay and grass seed embedded in the yarn. She looked at her boots, with the scuffs that told of remote mountain trails, of splashing through creek beds or dismounting to make her way up narrow passes in mud, fierce sunshine or endless, endless rain. What would it be like to be that other girl again? The one with polished shoes, stockings and a tame, orderly existence? With nails that had been carefully filed, and a shampoo-and-set twice a week? No longer dismounting to relieve herself behind trees, picking apples to eat as she worked, her nostrils full of wood smoke and damp earth, but instead exchanging a few polite words with the bus conductor about whether he was sure the 238 stopped outside the railway station.
Fred was watching her. There was something so pained and raw in his expression that she felt hollowed out by it. He hid it, reaching for the axe. ‘Well, I guess I might as well do the rest of these while I’m here.’
‘Margery will need them. When she comes home.’
He nodded, his eyes on the blade. ‘Yup.’
Alice waited a moment. ‘I’ll fix you something to eat … If you’re still happy to stay.’
He nodded, his eyes still downcast. ‘That would be good.’
She waited a moment longer, then turned and walked back into Margery’s cabin with the empty glass, and the sound of each whack of the blade splintering the wood behind her made her flinch, as if it were not just the wood being rent in two.
The food was terrible, as food cooked without heart often is, but Fred was too kind to comment on it, and Alice had littleto say, so the meal passed in an unusual silence, accompanied only by the rhythmic croaks of the crickets and frogs outside. He thanked her for her efforts and lied that it had been delicious, and she took the dirty plates and watched as he stood, straightening stiffly as if the wood chopping had taken more out of him than he’d let on. He hesitated, then walked out onto the stoop, where she could see his shadow through the mesh of the screen door, looking out at the mountainside.
I’m so sorry, Fred, she told him silently.I don’t want to leave you.
She turned back to the plates and began scrubbing furiously, biting back tears.
‘Alice?’ Fred appeared at the door.
‘Mm?’
‘Come outside,’ he said.
