Page 28 of Night Falls on Predicament Avenue
Now Effie heard his footsteps fading in the entryway of their home. She shot to her feet and, ignoring her mother’s cry of her name, hurried after Mr. Anderson. His broad form had already exited the front door. Effie chased after him. The flurry of her footsteps behind him made the man stop and turn on thewalkway, bordered by bushes turning green in the springtime promise of beauty.
“Are you saying my sister is in danger?” Effie blurted out without regret.
Mr. Anderson swiped his hat from his head, holding it before him in his fists. “I’m saying it is a possibility, yes.”
Effie descended the steps of the veranda, her hand poised for balance along the railing. “I don’t understand. Why would—?”
“Give it a moment of thought, Miss James, and it will all make sense.” Mr. Anderson’s words weren’t delivered callously. Just a straightforwardness that, for the moment, Effie appreciated. The dramatics of the morning had her nerves feeling taut and exposed.
“But Polly is no threat to whoever is responsible for what happened. She hasn’t spoken a word since that night.”
“True, but if she regains her faculties, that could change the ending to the perpetrator’s story—an ending they will not want. Anonymity is their primary goal at this point.”
“If there’s no body, then there isn’t a crime, right?” Effie was desperate to find justification that would release Polly—and herself—from the danger of retribution.
“Miss James,” Mr. Anderson said matter-of-factly, “with what we found at the house on Predicament Avenue, and with the knife, it’s not a question of whether a crime was committed. It is a question ofto whomandby whom.”
Effie studied Mr. Anderson, who seemed patient enough under her perusal. The breeze lifted his hair from his forehead, but it didn’t soften the angular lines of his face or the mystery she saw in his eyes. “And your wife? You truly believe she was the one attacked?”
“For more reasons than I can count, I pray not.” The gravity in his tone was perhaps the first sign that he cared for the situation emotionally, beyond the logic and the reasoning of solving the questions that hung over the house on Predicament Avenue.
“And you love her?” Effie let the question slip out before she could stop it.
“My wife?” Mr. Anderson gave a solemn nod. “More than the breath in my body,” he answered.
Effie’s heart sank for reasons she couldn’t explain. She felt empathy for him—a wife who had gone missing who he presumed might have been murdered. And for herself because she found him an egregious interruption to her sensibilities. The way his eyes were like hooded pools of secrets that belied not the secrecy of ill intent but some unspoken pain—some hidden burden that he had buried so deep within that he appeared cold and distant and even rude.
“I am sorry, Mr. Anderson,” Effie breathed. “Truly.”
“Stay well, Miss James.” He dipped his head and repositioned his hat.
Effie nodded in response. “And you.”
But their eyes stayed latched on to each other, gauging and searching. For the first time, Effie felt as if Mr. Anderson was letting her in just a little bit. It was a place she was shocked to find she wanted to go, and it was a place she knew was not hers to venture into.
It was Isabelle’s place. Isabelle Addington. His wife.
Her
Sometime in the Past
HAVEYOUEVERopened your eyes in the night and stared upward into the black? Have you ever crossed your arms over your chest, pretending your bed pillow to be the last you lay your head on as you are laid to rest in your coffin? Have you wondered, as you stare into the dark abyss, what it will be like when your casket is lowered into your grave and the first thuds of dirt land atop you, sealing your fate?
I have. It will be where I am sooner rather than later. This nighttime darkness will be my forever vision. Eventually I will smell only the musk of the earth, the decay of my flesh, the lingering of my perfume on the buttons of my dress. I will hear nothing, for there will be nothing to hear. I will be alone with voices only in my head, memories replaying in circular fashion, over and over again.
But I will not beat on the roof of my coffin, nor will I gasp for air. I will not be buried alive, for I am dying. Even now. In death, someone else will make certain my arms cross over my breast. Someone else will place a bouquet of roses or wildflowers inmy grasp to mask the scent of death. There will be dried petals, spiced candles, and a filmy gauze of white decorating me in my eternal sleep. At least that is my hope.
They say that your soul leaves your body when you die. That you float toward heaven and God’s outstretched palm. Or you plummet below into an eternal flame of torment and mockery for your sins. But does your soul leave you so quickly, and do you hear those grieving around you? Do you hover over them, observant and thoughtful? Do you hear the words they speak of you after you are no longer there as a witness?
“Shewas a lovely person.”
“Not to speak ill of thedead, but...”
“God rest her soul.”
“Oh, her poor family...”
Or do you merely sleep in your tomb until soon the voices fade, the earth suffocates, and all is as it should be? Still. Alone. Silent.
