them crossing the street, hand in hand.
• • •
Sarah also dreams, dreams a child with blond curls, hugging her around the neck. The chubby arms squeezing tighter and tighter until she is gasping for breath, a long scratch on her neck where she scrabbles to pry them loose. She lies back on the pillow, feeling her pounding heart, and hears the downstairs clock chime. It isn’t until she’s used the pot, poured water from the pitcher and splashed her face, that she remembers what day it is. She kneels by the side of the bed and gives thanks.
• • •
Alice wakes again with a start, as if at a sudden sound. The back stairs creak and that will be her sister, Sarah, and it will be exactly eight minutes before six. Hours before she needs to be behind her counter at Becks’ store, but Alice has never asked why she rises, leaves the house so early. It will be something to do with the cause Mrs. Beck has drawn her in to, leaflets to post or a meeting. She may even go creeping down back lanes, may peerinto dawn windows looking for empty bottles, for signs of dissipation. There is nothing wrong, of course not, with wanting to live a pure life. Nothing wrong with the Union, the meetings and speeches. But the thought of her sister standing grim-faced by the tavern door fills Alice with a familiar, helpless fury, and she rolls in her bed and closes her eyes, hoping for just a little more sleep. Finds herself thinking of Mr. Heath, who is surely awake, behind his cell door, tries to imagine what it can possibly be like. Knowing that your life is now measured in hours, in minutes, less time than it takes to ride the train to the city, to read a book from beginning to end. She knows from the newspaper that Reverend Toller will attend the execution, that he has visited a number of times in the months since the trial, and she wonders if his intention was to bring comfort. A man who sat without a flicker of emotion through his own wife’s funeral, who turned away when his son began to sob. But what comfort could even a kindlier man bring, what comfort could there be, even in forgiveness, knowing that you wouldn’t meet them again in Heaven. That even if you could, they would surely run and hide.
It’s more likely, Alice supposes, that Reverend Toller simply kneels and prays, that perhaps they pray together. The same newspaper that called Heath a fiend, a monster, now reports that he spends most of his time sitting silently on the edge of his cot, staring at a spot on the floor. In fact, he has barely spoken since they found him that day, slumped on a cushion of crimson leaves at the base of an oak tree in the heart of Jackson’s wood. The gun, with one bullet left, held loosely in his hand.
• • •
Her feet are tangled in her nightdress and the bedclothes are a terrible weight. She kicks them off and feels the cool air on herskin. It is May, late May, and in the time since her first waking the room has appeared, the heavy, dark dressing table, the chair by the window. She closes her eyes again and tests the pain in her head. Still there, but muffled, and the bottle is half full, so maybe it will be all right. The pattern is familiar to her now, although that doesn’t make it any easier. Just not as frightening; the first time she thought she must be dying, right there at the dinner table, on her fourteenth birthday. A shimmering in the air as her mother raised the silver knife to cut another slice of cake, the pain suddenly there, where all had been sweet and normal, building and building. As her parents helped her from the room she saw Sarah reach with her fork, spear the crumbling piece left on Alice’s plate. Upstairs, it was her father who measured out the liquid from the medicine chest, mixed it with a little sweet red syrup. Alice’s stomach heaved when it touched her lips, but there was his cool hand on her forehead, his voice speaking softly, and she held on to that.
Sleep now
, he said,
and
• • •
Sarah also dreams, dreams a child with blond curls, hugging her around the neck. The chubby arms squeezing tighter and tighter until she is gasping for breath, a long scratch on her neck where she scrabbles to pry them loose. She lies back on the pillow, feeling her pounding heart, and hears the downstairs clock chime. It isn’t until she’s used the pot, poured water from the pitcher and splashed her face, that she remembers what day it is. She kneels by the side of the bed and gives thanks.
• • •
Alice wakes again with a start, as if at a sudden sound. The back stairs creak and that will be her sister, Sarah, and it will be exactly eight minutes before six. Hours before she needs to be behind her counter at Becks’ store, but Alice has never asked why she rises, leaves the house so early. It will be something to do with the cause Mrs. Beck has drawn her in to, leaflets to post or a meeting. She may even go creeping down back lanes, may peerinto dawn windows looking for empty bottles, for signs of dissipation. There is nothing wrong, of course not, with wanting to live a pure life. Nothing wrong with the Union, the meetings and speeches. But the thought of her sister standing grim-faced by the tavern door fills Alice with a familiar, helpless fury, and she rolls in her bed and closes her eyes, hoping for just a little more sleep. Finds herself thinking of Mr. Heath, who is surely awake, behind his cell door, tries to imagine what it can possibly be like. Knowing that your life is now measured in hours, in minutes, less time than it takes to ride the train to the city, to read a book from beginning to end. She knows from the newspaper that Reverend Toller will attend the execution, that he has visited a number of times in the months since the trial, and she wonders if his intention was to bring comfort. A man who sat without a flicker of emotion through his own wife’s funeral, who turned away when his son began to sob. But what comfort could even a kindlier man bring, what comfort could there be, even in forgiveness, knowing that you wouldn’t meet them again in Heaven. That even if you could, they would surely run and hide.
It’s more likely, Alice supposes, that Reverend Toller simply kneels and prays, that perhaps they pray together. The same newspaper that called Heath a fiend, a monster, now reports that he spends most of his time sitting silently on the edge of his cot, staring at a spot on the floor. In fact, he has barely spoken since they found him that day, slumped on a cushion of crimson leaves at the base of an oak tree in the heart of Jackson’s wood. The gun, with one bullet left, held loosely in his hand.
• • •
Her feet are tangled in her nightdress and the bedclothes are a terrible weight. She kicks them off and feels the cool air on herskin. It is May, late May, and in the time since her first waking the room has appeared, the heavy, dark dressing table, the chair by the window. She closes her eyes again and tests the pain in her head. Still there, but muffled, and the bottle is half full, so maybe it will be all right. The pattern is familiar to her now, although that doesn’t make it any easier. Just not as frightening; the first time she thought she must be dying, right there at the dinner table, on her fourteenth birthday. A shimmering in the air as her mother raised the silver knife to cut another slice of cake, the pain suddenly there, where all had been sweet and normal, building and building. As her parents helped her from the room she saw Sarah reach with her fork, spear the crumbling piece left on Alice’s plate. Upstairs, it was her father who measured out the liquid from the medicine chest, mixed it with a little sweet red syrup. Alice’s stomach heaved when it touched her lips, but there was his cool hand on her forehead, his voice speaking softly, and she held on to that.
Sleep now
, he said,
and
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