“No,” Cecily says firmly. “No hiding. I want you home.”
SALLY
Sally doesn’t dare check onMaria until half past eight, when Mrs. Price goes home for a few hours. Sally knocks once, but when she gets no answer, she pushes the door open. “I brought you some coffee. And a turnover.”
Maria is not in her bed, and Sally spins around the small room, looking for her.
The only person she sees is that poor girl in the other bed. Yesterday evening, Mrs. Cowley instructed Sally and Birdie and the other volunteers to stop treating her burns—it was a waste of what precious vinegar they had left—and to focus on giving her heavy doses of laudanum instead. “With any luck, she’ll be dead by morning,” Mrs. Cowley had said, which sounded callous, but wasn’t intended to be.
Sally is about to check the closet for Maria, when she hears a choked sob coming from underneath Maria’s bed.
She places Maria’s breakfast on top of the dresser, then walks around to the side of her bed and gets down on her hands and knees. Sure enough, Maria lies flat on the floor, staring up at the underside of her mattress and sobbing.
“Maria? Are you all right?”
She doesn’t answer.
Sally presses her cheek to the floor and asks, “Is this about what happened this morning? Did Elliott upset you?”
Maria shakes her head no, but it’s impossible to know whether she’s answering Sally’s question or having some sort of fit.
Sally is patient.
“The room,” Maria says finally. “It won’t stop spinning.”
“Is it better under there? In the dark?”
Maria nods her head so violently Sally thinks she might do damage to herself.
“In that case, maybe I’ll join you.”
Sally is not as spry as she once was, but she manages to move into position beside Maria with relative ease. “I can see why you prefer it here,” she says, and the two of them lie side by side in silence for several minutes, listening to the sounds of the room. There is the fire, which crackles in the small coal-burning fireplace, and also the labored breathing of the girl in the other bed.
Finally, Sally says, “I would imagine that it’s difficult to lie here all day, with nothing to do but think.”
Maria whimpers in agreement.
“I’ve been so busy, I haven’t had much time for thinking. But, sometimes, when I slow down for a minute, everything that happened at the theater comes crashing down on me.”
“Were you there?”
“I was,” says Sally with a frown. “On the third floor.”
Maria turns to look at her. “That must have been very bad.”
Baddoesn’t begin to describe it, but the last thing Sally wants to do is compete with a sixteen-year-old girl, and certainly not over something like this.
“I was on the second floor,” says Maria. “With my friends. In a box.” A tear slides across the girl’s cheekbone and disappears into the folds of her neck.
“If it’s too painful, you don’t have to—”
Maria clears her throat. “No, I want to.”
Sally doesn’t push. She just waits as Maria takes a deep breath and continues.
“It was Roberta and Imogene, Louisa and me. There were others, too, but when that actor said the house was on fire, the four of us hooked arms and made for the stairs.”
Sally has a feeling she knows where this story is going.
