at their repast. Tiny maggots dotted the exposed meat; newly hatched and hungry, they tumbled over one another in quest of their next bite. Bile engorged my throat, and before I could turn away the vomit sprayed from my mouth across the carnage.
Thornley laughed. “When Ma serves you chicken tonight, I just thought you’d like to know where it came from. Fresh from the slaughter.”
* * *
? ? ?
“BRAM, WE NEED TO LEAVE!” Matilda insisted in a loud whisper, tugging at my arm.
“I don’t understand,” I responded quietly. “She cannot possibly—”
“Now!”
Matilda tried to pull me towards the door, but I remained firmly in place. My eyes returned to the dirt on the floor, the way it formed a small hill as it tried to climb the sides of the bed. Then I understood. When Nanna Ellen swept her room, she swept the dirt towards her bed rather than away from it or into a dustpan. Was it deposited back on the floor as she climbed in and out of the bed frame?
I turned back to the floor and studied the footprints trailing from the door and around the room, the many little footprints—the prints of children—none large enough to have been produced by an adult.
“She doesn’t leave footprints.”
Matilda turned from the door and faced me. “What?”
“The tracks on the ground, they all belong to us. See how tiny they are? Nanna Ellen is small, but her feet are still larger than ours. She hasn’t left a single print. Remember how the dust was when we first walked in? A thin coat spread evenly and undisturbed?”
With that, Baby Richard began to stir in his crib—I had forgotten he was in the room with us. Matilda went to him. His little feet began to pump, and his blanket fell away. Richard’s face contorted, and for one brief moment the room fell into complete silence; then his mouth opened and unleashed a wailing shriek loud enough to be heard throughout the entire house. Matilda scooped him up and held him to her chest while gently rocking back and forth.
I quickly returned the mattress back to its original position, careful not to touch the dusty quilt.
Ma appeared at the door. “The lungs on that child will wake the dead! You didn’t wake him, did you?”
Matilda shook her head, and, without missing a beat, let slip a lie. “We were in Bram’s room when he started crying. I didn’t know where Nanna Ellen went, so I figured I would check on him. I think he requires a new nappy.”
Ma wasn’t listening to her, though; she stared at me. “Bram! You’re out of bed!”
When I started to cross the room, she rushed towards me and wrapped her arm around my back in an effort to help, but I shook her off. “I can do it on my own, Ma. See?” And I did just that, walking from the side of the bed to the door. I’d be lying if I said it was easy; the effort was enough to bring a sheen of sweat to my brow, but I truly felt much better than I had in recent memory. My muscles wanted to work, but, after years of atrophy, the movement was difficult.
Ma’s eyes teared up. “Well, I’ll be . . .”
“It’s all right, Ma. He can do it,” Matilda exclaimed.
Ma waved her off and took me in her arms. “Thank your lucky stars for Uncle Edward. God bless him!” She squeezed me in a hug that nearly lifted me off the ground. Beneath the sleeves of my nightshirt, the leeches’ bites itched.
“How this woman keeps a clean house yet sleeps in such a mess, I’ll never understand.” She glanced around the room in disgust. “Out with the two of you.”
* * *
? ? ?
THERE IS SOMETHING I did not tell Matilda that day, something I kept to myself all this time and will take to my grave. As I stared down at the dirt in Nanna Ellen’s bed, as I watched the worms and maggots wiggle about, as I took in the scent of death,