Tom,” she said. “And I’m not sure why the basement was opened. I was in the bath at the time it appears that Sophie accessed it.” She swiveled her eyes toward me, and my cheeks burned. I shouldn’t have gone inside. She had warned me. But I had thought Gaia was down there. I had heard a noise.
Tom had his hands on his hips, his head lowered. I was beginning to stop shaking, my breath slowing, and I saw Clive give Derry an unreadable look. Maren shifted from foot to foot, visibly wondering if this was the right time to leave, but Tom wasn’t done with whatever ax he had to grind.
“I don’t appreciate lies,” he said in a low voice, stepping toward her and looking her straight in the face. “Though you know that perfectly well, don’t you, Maren?” This time I saw her flinch, as though expecting to be struck. “Don’t let it happen again. Understood?”
“Understood,” Maren said in a hoarse voice.
Tom turned his back to her. A few seconds later she slid out of the room, and everyone breathed again.
“Perhaps you’ll join us for breakfast, Sophie?” Derry said. “I’m making a full English.”
I glanced at Tom, who rolled his eyes. Derry gave a wry smirk.
“Tom knows perfectly well we’re both carnivores,” Derry said with an eye roll. “Perhaps I can tempt you?”
“A full English sounds great,” I said, stupidly, causing Tom to raise his eyebrows in surprise. I couldn’t think fast enough to counter this statement so I mumbled, “G’night,” and headed to my room.
13
would you return
NOW
I climbed into bed and pulled the covers over my head. I was disappointed that both Gaia and Coco were all tuckered out in their rooms. There was no chance of me sleeping, and I was still very queasy. Hideous thoughts stampeded around my brain like wildebeests. Maybe I was actually going out of my mind.
I cowered beneath the covers for a long time, until the voices along the corridor died down and the noises in the woods began to stir. When the floorboards outside my room creaked, I whispered, “Come in, Gaia. It’s all right.”
“Not Gaia,” a voice answered back. I looked up and saw Maren standing in the doorway, still in her slippers and inside-out cardi, holding a glass of something. She raised it.
“You want to join me?” she asked meaningfully.
I eyed her nervously, unsure I’d heard her correctly. “Join you . . . for a drink?”
“You don’t drink?”
Maren mysteriously turned to walk away, glancing over her shoulder in a manner that suggested I was to follow. My stomach dropped into my socks, then from there to the core of the earth. She was on to me.
I tried not to be sick with fear as I followed Maren upstairs to her room, which was lit by a table lamp and a cobwebbed chandelier, its light dimmed low as candles. A small TV monitor played a Norwegian game show. A large sleigh bed occupied the middle of the room, and by the bay window an armchair was turned to a small table, upon which sat a chessboard, a crystal bottle of something alcoholic, and an ashtray unspooling a thread of smoke from a cigarette.
“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing at the chair on the other side of the table on which a pile of laundry had been abandoned.
I lifted the laundry and looked from left to right for a place to dump it. Maren made no suggestions but settled into the armchair opposite and offered me a drink. I said yes without asking what it was. Finally I placed the laundry on the bed beside the other items that had been dumped there—a bag of wool and knitting needles, a mirror, and a box of Christmas decorations—and sat down.
“Smoke?” Maren said, a fresh cigarette bouncing between her lips. I shook my head nervously.
“Mead,” she said, when I tried the drink she’d poured. “Dates back to Viking times.”
I coughed and set down the drink. I wanted this all to be over and done with. Just say you know I’m not Sophie. But she merely sucked on her cigarette and smiled, enjoying my torment. “I’m sorry about earlier,” I started to say. “Honestly, I didn’t go in the basement to snoop . . .”
She waved away my comment. “When the workday is over I prefer not to think about any of it.” Suspicion still dancing in her eyes. I looked away and wrung my hands beneath the table. She pulled the stopper