The Silver Bough by Lisa Tuttle Page A

new things that were not saturated with memories of her failed marriage.
    Originally the house had been occupied by a caretaker who had tended the garden, seen to cleaning and repairs, and acted as a night watchman, but that job had gone to an earlier round of budget cuts. The house was not tied to the librarian’s job, but when she’d been told that she could rent it from the council, Kathleen had eagerly accepted. She reasoned that she’d been impulsive about accepting the job and should not also rush into buying a house. If life in remotest Scotland was not to her taste, she might want to move again after only a year. She’d be better off without the burden of a mortgage; it would be wise to wait and look around a little.
    This, at any rate, was what she told her concerned friends.
    But, really, what other house could compete with this one? She’d achieved her childhood dream of living in a library.
    She let herself in and switched on the light, admiring the reproduction Art Deco chandelier she’d installed only two weeks ago. It was so much nicer and more in keeping with the style of the house than the ugly, utilitarian plastic fixture that had been there before. The long hallway had looked gloomy and unwelcoming when she’d first seen it, but she’d painted the walls a fresh, pale lilac and given the yellowish woodwork a coat of fresh white gloss, then hung a couple of framed Mucha prints, and thought that Alexander Wall himself might have approved.

 
     

     
    I T WAS WELL past midnight when Mario turned off the lights and locked the chip shop, his working day finally at an end. The last customers had come in not long after eleven, as he’d expected: young men who’d shouted or made slurred, incomprehensible remarks as they ordered battered deep-fried sausages, meat pies, and large portions of chips to add to stomachs distended with beer. Once they’d gone, he might just as well have turned the door sign over to CLOSED and hurried through the cleaning, but his uncle—free to leave when he felt like it and untroubled by the need to pay a decent wage to the blood relative he’d taken in as a favor—set the opening hours and the menu, and didn’t respond well to helpful suggestions.
    “You’re not here to tell me my business,” he said sharply. “You’re here to learn. Do your work, pay attention, and maybe you’ll gain some understanding of how to make a living.”
    One thing Mario understood perfectly well was that he hadn’t been sent to this remote backwater to learn anything. If his English improved—as it had—that was a bonus; but his parents thought no more than he did of the importance of the arcane mysteries of preparing, serving, and selling cheap and disgusting fried food. He was here for no other reason than to be kept out of harm’s way. It was true—as some ignorant drunk had once shouted at him, meaning to give offense, probably imagining it to be some new term of racial abuse—he
was
an asylum-seeker, although not for the usual reasons.
    In his final year of school, Mario had fallen in love with his music teacher, and she with him. It was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened, and he’d thought he was in heaven on earth until, quite suddenly, she told him that her husband was getting suspicious and she couldn’t see him anymore. He’d refused to accept it, even when she insisted it was too dangerous. His life was at risk—
her
life, too. She pleaded with him not to call; her husband was monitoring the phone. Together, he was sure they could overcome all obstacles; her timidity maddened him. Why didn’t she just leave the brute? Who cared what the world thought? If the age difference hadn’t mattered at the beginning, why should it matter now? She couldn’t explain, and she wouldn’t fight. It was all down to him. If he didn’t act, he’d lose her—and having once tasted paradise, he wasn’t prepared to let it go. So he’d become ever more cunning in