American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,155

the same reason I am,” she says.

Megan still does not trust her enough to answer.

“By which I mean, we share a common acquaintance.” The old woman nods at the tunnel.

“Are you a friend of hers?” asks Megan.

“Hers?” asks the old woman, as if a little surprised to hear the term. “Oh. Well. I am actually, erm, her sister, if you must know.”

“Her sister? No, you’re not.”

“I most certainly am, dear.”

“But you don’t look anything alike.”

“That does not mean we are not sisters. It’s why I’ve come looking for her.” She looks back at the tunnel, concerned. “How long has she been gone?”

“Why?” asks Megan.

“Because I am worried about her.” She pats the ground next to her. “Come sit by me. There’s nothing to be troubled about.”

Though initially reluctant, Megan does so. It is hard to mistrust a little old lady covered in mud.

“She was your friend, wasn’t she?” the old woman asks.

Megan nods. “Was it wrong?”

“Was what wrong?”

“That we were friends,” says Megan.

“Why would you ask that?”

“Because I do a lot of bad things,” says Megan. “It’s why everyone left. Why Lady Fish left.”

“Lady Fish? Who do you mean by… ah. I see.” The old lady considers it. “You think she left because of you? Well, I very much doubt that.”

“You do?” asks Megan, hopefully.

“Yes,” says the old woman. “You don’t seem to be a very bad girl to me. And I think she had other reasons for leaving.”

“Are you going to try and bring her back?”

“If she wishes to, I will try to make that happen.”

“I hope you do,” says Megan. “I miss her.”

“You were very close, I take it.”

Megan nods.

“When did she leave?”

“After the funeral.”

“Mr. Weringer’s funeral?” asks the old woman.

“I don’t know his name.”

“I see,” says the old woman. “So it was very recent, then. Did she say anything to you before she left?”

Megan thinks as she stares down into the tunnel. And she remembers. It can be so hard sometimes to remember their conversations. It’s like having spoken to someone in a dream.

“She said she was worried about me,” she says. “She said… she never wanted anything to happen to me.”

“Did she,” says the old woman.

“But I wasn’t sure why I would be in trouble. I hadn’t done anything then. And I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“I have no reason to think so.” The old woman goes silent, thinking. Then she looks around the edges of Lady Fish’s house, examining the mud. “Hm.”

“What is it?” asks Megan.

“Nothing, but… was anyone else here? Recently, I mean. Did anyone else come to see Lady Fish?”

Megan thinks. It seems like so long ago… but then she remembers one evening when she sneaked out of the house to see Lady Fish, because she had heard shouting from down in the basement, and her mother kept going down and coming up and going down, and the smell of cigarettes was so strong Megan just had to get out of the house, and she went straight to Lady Fish… but she saw someone was there.

“A man,” says Megan. “A man came to see her.”

“And who was this man?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t?”

“No.”

“Well, what did he look like?”

Megan thinks hard. “He was wearing a hat.”

“A hat?”

“A white hat.”

“A white hat…,” says the old woman. “Hm. No, that doesn’t mean anything to me. But perhaps it is something. Did you hear what they were discussing?”

“I could hear what he said. But I couldn’t hear what Lady Fish was saying. You never can, unless she’s talking to you.”

“Really? She must be one of the very young ones, then. What did this man say?”

“He said he needed help. Help in bringing someone back, I think. And Lady Fish needed to come with him.”

The old woman goes very still. She stares through the trees into the sunset, her face grave.

“I see,” she says quietly. “That is very good to know, then. Very, very good.” She stands up. “I must go now, my dear. You have been very helpful. For that I thank you.”

“Will you find her?” asks Megan.

“I hope to.”

“And she’ll come back?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know, my dear,” the old woman says.

“But you have to know,” says Megan. “How can you not know?” The loneliness that descends on her is blank and crushing. She sits down on the marshy ground and begins to cry.

The old woman, who previously seemed so grandmotherly, simply watches, her eyes small and inscrutable. It is then that Megan begins to feel, even through her sobs, that all of this person’s actions and