and right now, what I had to do was walk out of here.
Somehow.
12
The Devil’s Handiwork
Daisy
At eleven o’clock in the morning, I put the washing into the dryer, feeling a bit guilty about using it when the wind and sun were out there doing their job. The clothesline in the back garden was full of colorful dresses and blouses and trousers, flying in the spring breeze like extremely cheerful and rather large prayer flags. Gray’s mum was clearly a woman who loved her colors. We wouldn’t be here long enough, though, to dry the heavy cotton garments on the line, and the girls had nothing else to wear, so the dryer it was.
Gray wasn’t back from his meeting, but I hadn’t expected him this soon. I’d woken sometime after he’d left, had crept quietly out of the big bed so as not to disturb my sisters, dressed in the light that seeped around the closed blinds, and come downstairs to find the big brown dog lying by the door, either guarding us or waiting for Gray to come back, I wasn’t sure. She stood up at sight of me, though, wagged her tail, and came over for a pat, so maybe she was doing both.
I’d also found out pretty smartly that Gray’s house was more than a cube—or, rather, a rectangle. It was the spectator’s box for a nature show.
The living area faced north, into the morning sun. Into the mountains. Their lower slopes, just above the lake, were clad in spring green, with the rocky heights rising above. All that glass in the cube had been put in to catch the view in the least obstructed way possible. There would be another outlook like this, an even better one, from the master bedroom.
I made myself another cup of tea, sat at the table with the dog at my feet, looked out at all of it, and thought that I needed to call Dorian. There was a landline in the kitchen. I’d use that. I also thought that I shouldn’t like looking at these mountains. They should feel oppressive, but they didn’t. It’s hard to blame mountains for what happens beneath them, or maybe it’s just that the scenery you’ve grown up with can’t help but being the most comfortable view, and that my early childhood had actually been pretty happy. I hadn’t known any better, and I’d loved my brothers and sisters and cousins, and my mother, too. I’d loved being the oldest, responsible and trusted, and I’d loved being outside. Outside had been my favorite time. The Suri alpacas with their gentle eyes and long, fine, silky hair, fawn and brown and cream and gray and black, and the rows of lavender. The heavenly scent of it, the feel of the sun on my back and the sound of the gentle, industrious bees buzzing around the bushes, collecting the dusty pollen on their legs and taking it back to the hives.
If I’d been allowed to work outside, I’d probably never have left. Maybe I was lucky after all on all that bathroom and laundry duty, not to mention the knitting. I’d been such rubbish at knitting, I’d only been allowed to do scarves, and I’d had to rip out as much as I’d knitted. Hence the extra bathroom duty.
Let’s just say I didn’t knit anymore. I still cleaned my bathroom, though. Obsessively.
But, yes, it was beautiful here in front of these windows, and so peaceful in this quiet house with its nearly Zen decorating scheme. And I was too full of memories, the underparts of my brain too consumed with processing the night and morning’s adventures, to cope in my usual fashion of rushing on to do the next thing. That was why, maybe, I didn’t call Dorian, why I drank my tea and thought about this morning instead. About the girls.
It had taken a while for them to settle down, as exhausted as they’d been, and I’d understood why. It was just that, now that the danger was over, I’d wanted to collapse myself. They had so much emotion, and so many emotions. And I hadn’t spent any time with them at all for twelve years. I hadn’t even seen Obedience in twelve years, not since she was four, and I’d only seen Fruitful during one hurried, tense visit.
I didn’t doubt myself, normally. I didn’t have time. Call it fatigue, call it weakness, or call it my upbringing rearing its ugly head, but I was doubting myself now.