? ?
BENEATH MY BLANKET, my arm began to itch again, not a little itch like that brought on by a spider walking across your forearm but the kind that would be brought on by a dozen fresh mosquito bites. I tried to ignore it, but it grew fiercer. I rubbed my arm against my torso, but this did little good. Only my nails would appease the itch.
Matilda said, “You’re twitching, Bram. Let me see. You can trust me.”
I could take no more, and I pulled the arm out from under the blanket and scratched through my nightshirt with enough force that had I been dragging my nails across the surface of a table I surely would have left gouges. When the itch finally subsided, I reached for the cuff of my sleeve and tugged it up with one quick motion, my eyes fixed on Matilda.
My sister stared down at my arm, at my pale flesh. She drew closer, then closer still. When she finally spoke, she kept her eyes fixed on the appendage. “I don’t see anything.”
“No, but you should. The last time Uncle Edward bled me with leeches, the welts they left behind remained for nearly two weeks. First, as red blotches, then blotches surrounded by black and blue. Eventually, they scabbed over and began to fade. Only two days have passed, and there is no sign of what he did, only this incessant itching.”
“Maybe he did something different? Maybe he didn’t leave them on quite as long?”
I was already shaking my head. “I healed faster. I know I did. Then there is this—”
I pulled up the sleeve on my right arm and showed her my wrist. Like my left arm—and my legs, for that matter—all signs of the leeches were gone. My flesh was smooth and pure as the day I was born, all but for my right wrist.
Matilda took my hand in her own. The two small pinpricks of red glistened, scabs freshly scratched away, two tiny marks about an inch and a half apart, just below the wrist bone over the vein—the itch greatest here most of all.
Neither of us heard Ma come in and stand in the doorway until she spoke. “Have you seen Nanna Ellen? Her room is empty, and all her belongings are gone.”
* * *
? ? ?
MATILDA AND I bounded from the bed and raced down the hall. I heard Ma’s gasp as I ran past her—she was staring at me, at just how quickly I moved. I reached the door of Nanna Ellen’s room before Matilda and stared.
The floor was spotless; all the soil we found yesterday had vanished—not just swept away, for that would have left traces, but as if it had never been there. The window that had been covered was now bare, and light was streaming in, washing over the space. It seemed like a different room, no longer the void we had found yesterday, but instead a simple, empty chamber. Soft cooing emanated from Baby Richard, who was observing us intently as we stepped inside, both his tiny little hands clutching his elevated foot.
Nanna Ellen’s desk was vacant, the papers gone. Her wardrobe stood open, stripped of clothing. Matilda and I both turned to her bed—perfectly made, the sheets pulled tight. I walked over and lifted the mattress, expecting to find the bed frame filled with dirt as it had been, but instead the space was full of fresh hay, as it should be.
“It’s gone,” I muttered.
“What’s gone?” Ma replied from the doorway.
I glanced to Matilda, who was subtly shaking her head.
I returned the mattress back to the frame. “I meant she’s gone. I misspoke.”
“Did she say anything to either of you? Anything at all that would explain where she would go? Or why?”
“Nothing,” we both replied simultaneously.
Ma eyed us with that look every mother seems to have perfected, the one that says I know you’re lying. And if you don’t tell me the truth right this instant, I will pull it out of you.
“Did she leave a note?” Matilda asked.
“She did not,” Ma replied. “Of course, that