and pull until finally he growls low in his throat and pins me to the wall so he can get at the door. His belly crushes my chest, and blackness circles around my eyes, and my lungs choke for air.
His face comes close to my ear. “Y-you and me can b-b-be friends. I can git ya p-peppermints and c-c-cookies. Anythin’ y-you want. We can b-b-be best friends.” He rubs his cheek along my chin and my shoulder, his whiskers scrubbing hard as he smells my hair, then sticks his face in around the neck of my nighty. “Y-you smell like out-outside. Y-you b-been meetin’ one of the b-big boys down there? Y-you got a b-boyfriend again?”
His voice seems like it’s coming from far off, echoing the way foghorns do on the river’s cold mornings. My knees buckle. My feet go prickly and numb. I can’t feel the wall or him. My ribs jerk like a fish’s gills when it’s hanging on the stringer.
I see sparkle fairies. They dance wild in the dark.
No! I tell myself. No! But there’s nothing left to fight with. My body’s gone. Maybe I’ll suffocate and die. I hope so.
Just as quick, he lets loose of me, and cool rushes in where his body was, and a breath pours into my belly. I slide down the wall and land in a pile, dizzy, blinking and trying to push off the floor.
“Mr. Riggs?” The sharp voice of a worker comes from the stairway. “What are you doing up here at this hour?”
My eyes clear, and I see him standing in front of me, so she won’t see. I pull back into the shadows, squeeze tight against the wall. If they catch me here, I’ll be the one who’s in trouble, not him. I’ll get locked away again…or worse.
“H-heard thunder while ago. G-gotta close up the w-windows.”
The worker comes around the railing. The moonlight catches her, and I see she’s the new one that came since Miss Dodd left. I don’t know much about her or if she’s mean or not. She sounds mean. She doesn’t like Riggs being up here, that’s clear enough. If she gives him trouble, she won’t last long at Mrs. Murphy’s.
“I didn’t hear anything.” She twists back and forth, looking toward the bedroom doors.
“I’z out-outside when I h-heard it. Was s-some s-s-stray cats yowlin’. T-took my rifle out to k-kill ’em.”
“Good heavens. You’d have woken the whole place. Surely the cats aren’t hurting anything.”
“C-cousin Ida don’t like nothin’ prowling round where it don’t b-b-belong.” By Cousin Ida, he means Mrs. Murphy. He also means to let the new worker know her place.
“I’ll check the windows myself.” She’s not backing down, and I don’t know whether I’m glad or not. If she keeps coming closer, she’ll see me. If she leaves, Riggs will drag me off into the bathroom. “No need in disturbing your sleep, Mr. Riggs, when I’m being paid to watch the children at night.”
He moves away from me and closer to her, his steps uneven and wobbly. At the corner of the railing, he blocks her path. The two shadows melt into one. He whispers something.
“Mr. Riggs!” Her hand swings out of the shadow and back in. Skin slaps on skin. “Have you been drinking?”
“I s-s-seen how you b-been watchin’ me.”
“I have done no such thing.”
“Y-you b-b-be nice, or I’ll tell Cousin Ida. She d-don’t like nobody to g-gimme trouble.”
She sidles to the wall and slides past him, and he lets her by. “You…you will keep away from me, or…or I…I’ll tell her myself. I’ll tell her you got liquored up and were fresh with me.”
He lumbers on toward the stairs. “Y-you oughta look—see the li’l boys first. S-s-somebody tumped outta bed in there.” His feet fall heavy as he walks on down. The boards squeak and sing.
Hugging her arms around herself, the worker watches him before going to see about the toddlers. I stand up on shaky legs and hurry to my bed, and pull the covers all the way to my neck and wrap up. It’s a good thing, because the worker comes in our room next, maybe thinking Riggs was closest to it.
She walks along and lifts covers and looks at every one of us like she’s checking for something. When she comes to my bed, I breathe long and deep and fight hard not to shiver as she pulls the covers off me and feels my skin. Maybe she wonders why I’m wrapped up so tight when