At the Water's Edge

  "I'm sure we will," said Hank. He was leaning back with his legs crossed, blowing rings of smoke.

  "How can you be so calm about this? How the hell are we supposed to figure out what's true when so many of them are obviously lying to us?"

  "We should stop paying them, that's how," said Hank. He successfully blew a smaller smoke ring through a larger one. He leaned forward and poked me on the knee. "Maddie, did you see that?"

  "I did," I said.

  So did Angus, who was watching from behind the bar.

  "If you'd learn to smoke, I could teach you all kinds of tricks," Hank continued. "Watch this--"

  He exhaled a vertical loop before sucking it back into his mouth.

  "Hank, for God's sake!" said Ellis. "Get back on topic. If we don't pay them, they won't meet us."

  "And if we do pay them, they'll lie. If people are willing to meet with us just to tell their story, they're more likely to tell the truth." Hank turned to me. "What do you think, darling girl?"

  "I really don't know," I said. "I can see both sides, I suppose."

  "What was that?" Ellis said, swiveling toward me. "Would you please repeat that?"

  "I said I really don't know."

  "No, you don't," he said, "and yet you're always offering opinions."

  I decided to ignore the insult and poked through the remainder of the pie. I was looking for pieces of rabbit, because I didn't care for the mushrooms. Unfortunately, they were the same shade of brown.

  A fully formed thought crashed into my head, a coup de foudre. I put my fork down and looked at Ellis, feeling my eyes grow wide.

  He had decided upon sight that the elves' cups were noxious, but there was absolutely nothing noxious-looking about them other than their red interiors.

  "Stop gaping," Ellis said. "You'll catch flies."

  "Ellis!" Hank snapped. "What the hell is wrong with you? That's Maddie you're talking to."

  "If you'll excuse me," I said, setting my napkin by my plate and rising.

  Ellis scowled and shook his head.

  "Shall I walk you up?" said Hank, rising quickly.

  "No thank you. I'll be fine on my own."

  "Yes, of course," he said, although he came around the table and touched my elbow. "Maddie, he doesn't mean it. He's just being a knucklehead. He's under a lot of stress."

  "Stress," I said. "Yes, of course."

  --

  I tried to wrap my head around the enormity of what I suspected. If I was right, not only would it prove Ellis immoral on a completely different scale, it would also negate the entire purpose of this foolish, arrogant venture. Finding the monster wouldn't restore his honor, because he had no honor to restore.

  Over the course of the night, I became convinced.

  He hadn't crashed cars because he couldn't tell if the light was red or green. He'd crashed cars because he was drunk. Likewise, it was no coincidence that the dresses and jewelry he bought me were almost exclusively red. He knew it set off my green eyes. And the only reason I could think of for him buying me a bright red gas mask case was that it matched my gloves.

  The thing I found most abhorrent was that he'd made such a show about trying to enlist a second time, then acted so devastated when they'd turned him down again. The entire spectacle was designed to garner sympathy, which--incredibly--he seemed to think he deserved. It was a production worthy of my mother.

  --

  I made sure I was the first one down the next morning, bringing my coat, gas mask, and gloves with me. I set the gloves on the table and waited. I was usually the last one down, so I didn't know who would arrive first.

  To my relief, it was Ellis.

  "Good morning, darling," he said, kissing me on the cheek. "You're up early. Big plans?"

  I was momentarily shocked by his cheer. I wondered if he even remembered the previous night.

  "Just tromping around the countryside," I said, trying to match his tone. "I wish I had my watercolors."

  "Your paintings would be entirely washed away by the rain." He pulled a logbook out of his duffel bag and opened it.

  I fingered my scarlet gloves, flattening the thumbs carefully against the palms.

  "Yes, I suppose you're right," I said. "Which reminds me, I'm so glad you got a weather-resistant case for my gas mask. I'm sure a cardboard box would have dissolved by now."

  "Nothing but the best for my girl," he answered.

  "But I am curious why you got this color."

  "To match your gloves, of course. Say, what do you suppose a fellow has to do to get some breakfast around here?" He craned his neck, searching for Rhona.

  "But my gloves are green," I said.

  "No they're not, they're red."

  "No," I said, slowly. "They're green."

  He looked down at the gloves, and then lifted his gaze until it was locked on mine.

  "Well," he said, just as slowly, "you told me they were red."

  "Did I?" I said, still playing with the gloves. "That must have been another pair. These are green, and it's a rather odd color combination. I feel a bit like a Christmas wreath."

  I looked up. He was unblinking, his expression cold as granite.

  "Anyway," I continued, "if you find yourself back in Inverness, I could use a new pair. These ones have water stains all over them. And this time I would like red--did you know there's a saying, that red is the new badge of courage?"

  Hank appeared beside me. "What's up, kids?"

  "What color are these gloves?" Ellis demanded.

  "What?" said Hank.

  "Maddie's gloves. What color are they?"

  "They're red," said Hank.

  Ellis stood so suddenly his chair legs belched against the stone floor. He tossed his logbook into the duffel bag, pulled the bag onto the chair, then yanked the coarse-toothed zipper so hard it took him three tries to get it closed. He threw me a final searing glare and stormed outside.

  After a couple of seconds, Hank said, "Christ. You two aren't falling apart on me, are you?"

  Instead of answering, I stared into my lap.

  He pulled out a chair and sat. "Is this about last night? He was just being stupid. He's under boatloads of stress. If the Colonel doesn't forgive him, he's seen the last cent he's going to until we find the monster. And even then, the Colonel still has to forgive him."

  "You underestimate the powers of Edith Stone Hyde."

  "I hope so, because he sent her a letter yesterday morning. That's why he got so snockered last night."

  I was shocked. "He wrote to her? What did he say?"

  "Well, he didn't show it to me, but I assume he threw himself on her mercy and begged for divine intervention with the Colonel."

  "I had no idea he was going to write to her."

  "He didn't want you to worry."

  "Because I'm so delicate?"

  "Because he wanted to protect you."

  "Well, he has a funny way of showing it."

  Hank sighed. "If you're talking about last night, they're just words, Maddie. You know he didn't mean any of it."

  "I don't know anything anymore. I don't think he even remembers. He's taking my pills and washing them down with liquor."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I just told you."

  His eyes met mine with something like comprehension.

  "When did this start?"

  "He's always helped himself, but it's really ramped up since we got here."

  "I had no idea." He stared into space. After what felt like an eternity, he took a deep breath and slapped his thighs. "All right. Don't worry, darling girl. I'll straighten him out."

  "It's too late," I said.

  "I'll straighten him out," Hank said firmly.

  When the front door clicked shut behind him, I whispered, again, "It's too late."

  --

  Ellis returned to the inn that night sober and courteous to a fault. His calm exterior and placid expression were too calm, too placid, and I wondered wheth
er he was masking terrible hurt or terrible anger.

  I began to second-guess myself.

  If he really was color-blind and I'd accused him of faking it, I was no better than all the other judgmental people. But if he was faking it and knew I'd found out, I was as lethal to him as a loaded gun.

  If the Colonel discovered that Ellis had lied to shirk duty, he'd disown him immediately and permanently, and there would be nothing Edith Stone Hyde or anybody else could do about it.

  Either way, I'd made a mistake and was going to have to fix it.

  --

  When Ellis laid eyes on me the next morning, his expression confirmed how critical it was for me to get things back on an even keel. The second he saw me, his jaw clenched and he stared at his logbook.

  I hated what I had to do, and hated even more that I knew how. I would be drawing directly from my mother's playbook.

  "Good morning, darling," I said, joining him. "Where's Hank?"

  He made a great show of licking his finger and turning the page.

  "Sweetheart, please tell me what I've done," I said. "You left in such a hurry yesterday, and then you barely spoke to me at dinner. I know I've done something, but I don't know what."

  He continued to look down at the book, pretending I wasn't there.

  "Except that's not true," I said miserably. "I do know why you're angry. It was my pitiful attempt at a joke, wasn't it? Ellis, please look at me."

  He lifted his face. His expression was glacial, his eyes hard.

  "My joke about the gloves," I went on. "I was trying to be funny, not make fun of you. But I should have known better than to joke about your condition. It was awful of me."

  He had no reaction at all. He simply stared, his lips pressed into a grim line.

  I had no choice but to barrel on, because I had no other plan.

  "I thought if I told you my gloves were green, you'd think Hank had pulled a prank on you by picking the wrong color case for my gas mask, but then it all went wrong. As soon as I saw your face I should have stopped, but I was so far in I kept going and tried to turn it around instead. It's all so stupid--I really do need new gloves, and I was just trying to come up with a clever way of asking. It was the vaudeville in me trying to come out, but I'm no star. I'm meant to be a supporting act. So rest assured that yesterday's performance marked both the debut and finale of my solo career in practical jokes."

  He finally spoke. "Not vaudeville. Burlesque."

  My cheeks burned. "Yes. Of course. It's just we don't usually call it that."

  "My mother always said that blood will out. I wish I'd paid attention."

  My mouth opened and closed a couple of times before I could respond. "I suppose I deserved that, after what I said to you."

  He laughed once, a short, harsh bray.

  --

  The two of them didn't return to the inn that night or the next, so I had no idea if Ellis had bought my story about the gloves. They left no note or any other indication of where they had gone.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  When Anna finally returned, five days after learning of Hugh's death, she accepted my condolences and otherwise simply carried on, although there was a heaviness in her step that hadn't been there before. She let me resume doing the rooms, for which I was very grateful, because I'd been losing my mind trying to stay out of Rhona's way and had no idea what I'd say to Angus if I found myself alone with him.

  The crone apparently shared Anna's view about picking up after others, because Ellis's dirty socks and underpants lay exactly where he'd stepped out of them three nights before, and his pajamas lay in a crumpled heap in the corner. Hank had at least tossed his clothes onto the chair.

  Of the hundred pills I'd initially found in Ellis's room, only thirty-six were left.

  --

  Hank and Ellis returned that night. When they came through the door, I took a deep breath, steeling myself.

  "Darling!" said Ellis. He swooped over and kissed my cheek before sitting next to me on the couch. He stank of paraffin oil, but not liquor.

  "Did you miss me?" he asked.

  "Of course," I said, trying to read his face.

  Hank plopped down on one of the chairs opposite. "You'll never guess where we've been."

  "She doesn't care about that," said Ellis, rubbing his hands together. "Quick--get her prezzie!"

  Hank dug around in one of the duffel bags and handed Ellis a thin gift-wrapped box, which he solemnly presented on the palms of both hands.

  I pulled off the satin bow and lifted the lid. A pair of red kid gloves lay inside, on tissue paper flecked with gold.

  The blood drained from my face.

  "What do you think? Do you like them?" he asked.

  "They're beautiful," I said.

  "More importantly, what color are they?"

  "They're red," I said in a near-whisper.

  "Good," said Ellis, smiling broadly. "That's what Hank said, too, but I never know with you two jokers." He held a hand over his head and snapped his fingers. "Bartender! Two whiskeys. Actually, just bring the bottle."

  Angus glared, but pulled out two glasses. Meg picked them up and tucked a bottle under her arm, her expression conveying every word that didn't come out of her mouth.

  The gloves were a message, obviously, but what did they mean? Had I managed to convince Ellis that I still believed he was color-blind? Or had he interpreted my desperate soliloquy as a promise to keep his secret? Or was he actually color-blind?

  --

  Over the course of the evening, Ellis drank almost a whole bottle of whiskey, but he remained--at least outwardly--jovial.

  He kept a proprietorial hand on my shoulder or leg the entire time, and it was a constant struggle to keep from shrinking away. I stole occasional glances at Angus, whose face was unreadable.

  I'd been back to the graveyard twice since seeing his scars, and had myself mostly convinced that he was the Angus on the stone, the one who'd lost everything in the space of six weeks.

  I thought often of our embrace by the fire, and wondered if he did, too.

  --

  They never told me where they'd been, and I didn't ask. Despite Hank's promise to straighten Ellis out, they fell right back into their old pattern of returning to the inn plastered and then continuing to drink until they were both in a stupor. Judging from his fast-diminishing stash, Ellis was also gobbling pills. By my estimation, he was taking anywhere from eight to ten a day.

  On the night I knew he'd run out, he knocked on my door and asked if he could have one. After popping one into his mouth, he shook more into his hand and slid them into his pocket. From what remained, I figured he'd taken about fifty, enough to last him five or six days.

  --

  We achieved a tenuous kind of normal. Ellis seemed to have completely forgotten about the glove incident, and while he was consistently drunk, he never tipped into a rage.

  Every day he looked for a letter from his mother, and every day it didn't come. He began to say he didn't need her anyway--he was more certain than ever that when he found the monster, he would clear both his and his father's names, and that the Colonel would welcome him back with open arms and checkbook.

  Finding the monster in Loch Ness was all he cared about. He remained as ignorant as ever about the monster facing the rest of the world.

  I began to iron the newspaper, in the hope that he--or Hank--might start to read it. They did not.

  --

  Although there was no question that it was selfish and cowardly to blinker themselves against the chaos and horror, there were times I almost understood.

  At the end of January, the Red Army had liberated a network of death camps in Auschwitz, Poland, and the details that trickled out over the days and weeks were so excruciating I fought a very real urge to remain ignorant myself.

  Hundreds of thousands of people--perhaps many, many more, because the reports were often contradictory--had been interned and killed, most of them simply
for being Jewish. They'd been rounded up and transported in cattle cars, and assigned to either death or hard labor as soon as they climbed out. Death was by gas chamber, and the chambers and crematoriums ran night and day. Many of those spared immediate death died anyway, from illness, starvation, torture, and exhaustion. There were rumors of a mad doctor and unthinkable experiments.

  When the SS realized the Red Army was closing in, they tried to destroy the evidence. They blew up the gas chambers and crematoriums and set fire to other buildings before retreating on foot, forcing tens of thousands of starving inmates--every last person who was capable of walking--to march further into Nazi territory toward other death camps. The only people they left behind were those they were certain were dying. They shot people randomly as they retreated.

  Even the hardened soldiers of the Russian army were unprepared for what they found: 648 corpses that lay where they'd fallen, and more than seven thousand survivors in such terrible condition they continued to die despite immediate rescue efforts.

  They discovered that the SS had burned the infirmary with everyone inside it, 239 souls in all. One of the six storage buildings the SS had not had time to destroy was filled with tons--literally tons--of women's hair, along with human teeth, the fillings extracted, and tens of thousands of children's outfits.

  I despaired of humanity. Although the Allies were making progress, I thought maybe it was too late, that evil had already prevailed.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  With Anna weighed down by fresh grief and my own days as available as ever, I took it upon myself to expand my household duties, although I kept to the upstairs so I wouldn't get caught.

  I began sweeping the bedroom carpets with the witchlike broom, which turned out to be made of dried heather, and then, since I was sweeping anyway, did the hallway to the top of the stairs. Less than a week after Anna's return, I was doing the entire upstairs on my own, polishing the doorknobs, trimming and filling the lamps, gathering laundry, changing the sheets--even scouring the sink, tub, and toilet with Vim powder. Meg repaired my manicure as necessary, so while my nails were shorter, they were as flashy as ever, and Ellis remained none the wiser.

  I grew bolder, and one day decided to sweep all the way down the stairs, since that was where the carpet ended. Too late, I heard the clicking of Conall's toenails and a moment later was face-to-face with Angus. I was on the bottom step, in an apron, clutching the broom. I froze like a deer in the middle of the road.