Sarah’s throat closes up, and the inside of her mouth suddenly tastes rancid. “I don’t have the virus. I barely saw anyone in Toronto.”
“I believe you. You don’t seem like the type of girl who breaks rules.”
It’s a small triumph. The mask she’s had to put on since yesterday morning—since the beginning of lockdown—is working. Let Caleb think she’s a nice girl. Nice girls don’t walk out on their boyfriends. Nice girls don’t keep knives at the bottom of their backpacks.
“I’m not worried about you spreading the virus. But what Uncle Isaac says, goes.”
Sarah impulsively squeezes Caleb’s arm, as if she can make him feel the weight of her urgency through his coat sleeve. His jaw twitches. She wonders how long it’s been since someone other than his brother has touched him. “I don’t want to impose on your hospitality.” It’s what a nice girl would say.
“It’s not an imposition. I like having someone else around besides Elijah.” He smiles, and her breathing quickens, fueled by anxiety and longing. “Don’t worry, Sarah. You’re safe here. Fromeverything,” he adds, glancing at her wrist again.
He crumples up the foil from his burger. Sarah reluctantly withdraws her hand from his arm and wraps up the remains of hers. She rises from the picnic table, the food sitting in her stomach like a rock, and follows Caleb back around the house. At first she thinks their footsteps are echoing in the silence, but then Caleb turns. “Oh, there’s Elijah,” he says. A hunched figure in a shearling coat crosses the backyard, heading toward the woods.
Caleb calls his brother’s name. Elijah glances up. “Elijah, this is Sarah.”
Sarah lifts a hand in greeting, careful to keep her face neutral. The mask again. Elijah’s face splits in the grin she knows well now, and he waves back. “Nice to meet you, Sarah!” he calls back. Then he disappears down the trampled path into the woods. The trees seem to close in over him, hiding he’d ever existed.
Caleb pauses, as if weighing his thoughts. “Be careful around him,” he says, quietly. “He hasn’t been the same since Dad died.”
“He—” Sarah stops, catching herself.He said the same thing about you.
The planes of Caleb’s face may as well be chiseled from stone. “Let’s go in.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sarah sleeps restlessly that night. The wind outside the windows scrapes its nails against the glass, calling her into the woods. It promises the woods will keep her safe. No one will be able to find her there. The pines will enshroud her like they did Jacob Vass and the other men.
She jolts awake, heart pounding, wondering if the woods drove those men mad or if they were mad in the first place.Alone, alone, alone, the wind sings. Or maybe the song is coming from inside her head. It doesn’t matter.
The wind howls its agreement.
In the morning, Caleb drops off breakfast and takes away the dinner dishes. He’s in a rush, meeting Sarah’s eyes fleetingly. She wants to reach out and touch him again, but doesn’t. “I need to go back to the motel,” he says brusquely. “Elijah will bring your lunch.”
He hasn’t glanced at her bruises again, but that’s fine. It’s easier to let him think Ben had always been rough. She doesn’t want to tell him what really happened, because she’s afraid he won’t be so kind anymore.
And so she sits at the vanity and sips her coffee, disappointed he didn’t ask to re-bandage her foot. She also wishes she’d asked him for a radio. Something to drown out her thoughts and her thudding heartbeat. The wind and the house and Jacob Vass’s ghost are her only company. Caleb’s father leers up at her from the framed photograph.Join me, he seems to say, his hand curled over his wife’s shoulder. Sarah smells stale tobacco and knocks the frame face down, shoulders heaving. It’s the scent of the coffee, she tells herself. But there’s no avoiding the discolored doorknobs, or the pockmarked headboard and hardwood floor, or the threadbare seat of the recliner. All souvenirs of an angry, violent man.
She understands why neither Caleb nor Elijah have moved into this room.We always put clean sheets on the bed in case Dad comes back. Ten years is a long time for a man to be missing, presumed dead. But can Jacob Vass really be gone when he’s shaped so much of who they are?
How long will Ben keep his residence in her head? Will she keep the metaphorical sheets on his bed in case he comes back?
No. He can’t come back. It’s over. It ended in their apartment kitchen as soon as the knife had touched him.
But Jacob Vass’s story ended in the lonely, hungry woods, and his sons still keep a room for him.
Snow whirls around the window, and in the distance, the boughs beckon. The glass is sealed with plastic film in the annual Canadian tradition of weatherizing old windows. Sarah thinks of the parlor with its vinyl runners and the layers of plastic cocooning Elijah’s studio. It’s as if Sweetside Manor is hermetically sealed. A bubble to keep its inhabitants in and?—
Andwhatout?
She picks upMacbethand settles into the recliner. It’s a day for witches and prophecies. The trees peek through the window above the bed. Malcolm’s living forest, marching ever closer.
A knock sounds as Lady Macbeth is scrubbing her hands. “Hi, Sarah,” Elijah says outside. “Caleb told me to leave your lunch by the door, but do you want to come downstairs instead?”
Sarah jumps at the chance for a change of scenery. “Sure. Just give me a minute.”
Be careful around him. She can’t believe there’s anything to fear from Elijah, with his sweet, sad face. But she digs the washcloth-wrapped knife out of her backpack and tucks it into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie.
She unlocks the door. Elijah grins, happy to see her. The sleeves of his sweater are a little too long, making him look like a schoolboy. She immediately feels foolish for bringing the knife. Caleb had probably meant she should be extra kind to him. Of course, neither brother would be the same after their father’s death. The death of a close family member—who was also an abuser—would dredge up conflicting emotions. They’re as wounded as she is.
