Odette descends the stairs, only the hiss of her skirts on the carpet following her. Through the transom over the front door comes the soft orange glow of the street lamp, and somewhere very distant, she can hear the clop of horseshoes on cobblestones.
Tap-tap-tap.
The noise comes from within the dining room, she is certain.
Tap-tap-tap.
What if her mother knocks at the door?
No, it is mad; it is foolish – but Odette is struck so forcefully by a vision of her mother clawing at the door, feet and mouth bound, like those revenants who wake to find themselves already in their grave and score their coffin lids with nail marks.
It is too awful.
She must save her – she must let her out.
Odette rushes to the door, knocking her candle over in her hurry, extinguishing the flame, and she struggles in the dark to turn the latch and tumble into—
Nothing.
The room is still. Cold.
Her mother’s body is flat on the table, grey in the moonlight through the open curtains, and beginning to smell ever so faintly of rot.
Odette covers her mouth and swallows a sob.
The tapping comes again, but now she sees what it is.
Only a bird: a crow, hopping from side to side on the windowsill, rapping its beak against the glass as though to get her attention. It cocks its head to one side, eyeing first her, then where her mother lies.
Then it raps again. One, two, three times.
Once for yes, twice for no. What do three knocks mean?
Odette is filled with a repulsion and horror so strong that she slaps her palm against the glass hard enough that the bird rises in a startle of wings and cawing.
The tapping is gone.
Her mother is still dead.
5
Cecilia
IN THE PARLOUR OFthe Gate House, Leo sits in a chair by the mantelpiece, nerves betrayed by the manner in which he taps the end of his cigarette against the case, rapid fire. Penelope has brought the sherry decanter over with three glasses, something Cecilia has never seen her do without company present. She pours out three measures and hands one to Cecilia, who clutches it like an anchor.
She cannot think. Her mind will not let her. She cannot have seen what she has seen. It is impossible, and yet it has happened, and she bears witness to it in her own weak body. So it is a fracture, a split, a madness come into the world.
Penelope raises her sherry to her lips, then puts it down again, as though she is unable to look at either of her children. ‘I must speak to you both. I am not sure you are fully aware of the situation we now find ourselves in.’
‘Not when you continue to be so cryptic,’ says Leo. ‘Out with it, Mother. What terrible secrets have you been keeping?’
‘Why must you be so dramatic? It is very callous of you. The fact of the matter is that it simply did not concern you before now.’
‘But Lydia’s death has changed things,’ says Cecilia, less a question than an offering to her mother: her children are not stupid. She can trust them with the truth.
‘Yes,’ says Penelope. ‘You both know how dearly I loved her, but the truth is: we as a family have relied on Lydia’s kind nature more than I have ever made plain.’
Leo lifts the cigarette to his lips to light it, then drops it again, the fragile shape of it bent between his fingers. ‘For God’s sake, spit it out. What is it? Are we in debt? Did we borrow money from Aunt Lydia?’