Una pulled on her rubber gloves and began scrubbing the cooktop, trying not to listen. Don Pulaski swore all the time, but Beth only swore when she was really upset.
“He’s been weird ever since he went there. It’s been over a week, and he hasn’t touched me. Notonce. No sex. No grabbing my ass. Not even a kiss. He barely looks at me!” Her voice was high and shrill. “Last night, I cooked dinner, opened a nice bottle of Chianti, and told him dessert was a surprise. I gave him a little time to digest his steak, then I called him for dessert. I was in the kitchen with a lacy negligee and a bottle of Hershey’s syrup. I waited and waited for him to come in, and guess what? He never did! He just shouted that he didn’t want dessert.”
Underlying Beth’s indignation was a note of fear.
“I want a baby more than anything, but I can’t get pregnant by myself. He’s acting this way because ofher. Don practically bit my head off when I asked why Mrs. Smith needed a car when she doesn’t even drive. He said the commission’s gonna pay for our trip to Jamaica, so I should shut up and be happy. Don has a temper—everybody knows that—but he’s never talked to me that way before. Notonce.”
Una had heard Don fly off the handle many times. He was a loud and brash man. He yelled at sports teams and news anchors on TV. He shouted at the mailman, the garbage collectors, and kids who walked on his grass. He was a bulldog of a man with a barrel chest, slicked-back brown hair, and dark, hooded eyes. He barked and bellowed unless he was talking to Beth. With her, his voice was spun sugar, all airy sweetness.
“I have no idea what she looks like,” Beth said, twining the phone cord around and around her palm. “Don didn’t see her. She put a check in an envelope and taped it to her front door. I know it sounds crazy, but just being that close to herdidsomething to him. Just being on her property, it cursed him somehow. Like in a fairy tale.” Beth shot Una a plaintive look. “You believe in curses, don’t you, Una?”
Una nodded. She’d seen old women in her village carve runes into sheep bones and bury them outside an enemy’s house. She’d seen painted stones left on windowsills and heard dark mutterings fly up the chimney with the smoke. She’d seen animals grow sick from curses and recover when curses were lifted.
Yes. She believed in curses.
She watched Beth clutch the gold cross nestled in the hollow of her throat. “I’vebeento church, Paula. Four times since Don went to her house. I lit candles. I prayed to Saint Anne and the Blessed Mother. My mom thinks I’m being punished for dressing like a hooker, which is ridiculous. I could wear a potato sack, and men would still look at me like I’m a lollipop they want to lick. Except for Don.He’snot looking at me in that way anymore. He’s looking rightthroughme.” Beth walked over to the window. “It’s Mrs. Smith. She’s coming between us. The woman’s a spider, and I’m going to flush her out into the light and squash her. Yeah, Idohave an idea. If I can get my garden club to help, we can make Mrs. Smith wish she lived on a different street.”
Beth ended the call but didn’t return the phone to the cradle. She just stood in front of the window, staring at the treetops in the distance. She couldn’t see Mrs. Smith’s house, but Una knew she was thinking about it. Abouther.
When the jarring off-the-hook alert blared from the phone speaker, Beth thudded it into the cradle. She left the room, a hornet’s buzz of angry muttering trailing after her.
Una had no idea what Beth was planning, but she was scared for her.
You’re here to work. Don’t get involved, Una reminded herself.
She turned the knob at the kitchen sink and waited for the hot water to flow onto her sponge. While she waited, she also glanced out the window, her eyes locking on the cluster of jagged treetops in the distance. She couldn’t see Mrs. Smith’s house from here, but she could feel it. She could feel its presence and the presence of the woman within.
Danger waits there, she thought.
Suddenly, the water from the tap turned viciously cold. So cold that it burned. Una felt like her fingers were freezing inside her glove. She’d had frostbite before, but this sensation was a thousand times worse. It was like touching the red eye of the cooktop for several agonizing seconds.
Jerking her hand away from the water, Una peeled off her glove to find scarlet blisters on every finger. They looked like tiny toothless mouths. Like the open sores left by a cluster of leeches.
Wrapping her hand in a clean rag, Una pressed it against her belly and waited for the pain to subside. Then she reached for the Comet and, using her uninjured hand, began to scrub the sink.
She did not look out the window again.
4
Jill
Jill Scott stood at her bedroom window, watching her mother drive away. When the station wagon reached the top of the driveway and turned right, something loosened in her chest. With her mother gone, she could relax.
She finished making her bed, folding the top sheet over the powder-blue comforter and smoothing away all the wrinkles. Then she put her nightgown away, placing it neatly in the drawer next to her socks and underwear. When she shut the drawer, a tiny shudder ran through the piece of furniture, causing one of the carousel horse music boxes on the hutch to play the opening notes of “You Light Up My Life.”
Locating the source of the sound, Jill ran her fingers over the yellow roses on the porcelain mane. The horse had been a Christmas gift from her parents, an addition to her collection, and though she’d pretended to love it, she hid it behind the other horses to avoid looking at it.
She didn’t like its open mouth or the way its lips peeled back in a snarl. It looked like it wanted to take a bite out of something with its little Chiclet teeth. Its black eyes seemed accusatory, as if it was Jill’s fault that its body was impaled by a silver pole.
There were eight carousel music boxes on the shelf. Jill’s favorites played “The Way We Were” and “Greensleeves.” She was about to turn the winding key on the horse with the blue flowers woven into its mane when she heard the rattle of Una’s car.
Dimples popped on Jill’s cheeks, and her braces flashed as she smiled.
She waited until she heard Una’s key scratch the front door lock. She gave her time to put her things down and to call out a greeting before emerging from her room.
Justin, her baby brother, was less reserved than Jill. He came racing out of his room at the end of the hall and hurled himself into Una’s arms.
“Good morning, my darling.” Una giggled. “Soon, you’ll be so big and strong that you’ll knock me over like a bowling pin.”
