Penelope says, having found the row of pink-backed novels on their special shelf.
“How could a childless widow write so much about romance and love?” Janus comes up behind her—maybe.
Penelope shrugs. “Fiction is sometimes better than reality, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps.” Now he shrugs. “I still think it’s strange, though.”
“I think it’s even stranger that she wrote about such romantic things, considering—”
“Considering what?”
“What she was accused of. If we believe it to be true.”
“That was a very long time ago.” Janus doesn’t want to think about all that. Such things are messy and uncomfortable, and he is a very neat boy.
“Come on, then,” says Penelope, “let’s find this mysterious study.” She will be craving a cigarette at this point, be eager to get things over with so she can attend to her vices. She knows better, of course, being a modern woman in an aging body, but not even the dreaded forty can make her quit her beloved cigarettes, wrinkled skin or not.
Back in the hall, there is only one door left to try, and lo and behold, it’s the study in there; my large oaken desk—not so polished anymore, typewriters hidden beneath thick plastic covers, a chunky old laptop, and windows framed by velvet drapes. Behind the desk is a wide wicker chair, heaped with hard pillows in green silk, matching the hand-painted wallpaper where vines dance like charmed snakes, sprouting fat and glossy leaves. Penelope is instantly taken, trails the vines with her fingertips.
Janus’s gaze travels further, and takes in the pieces of wood, roots, and pebbles littering the windowsills; the taxidermy viper mounted on the wall, scales like hard nails, black eyes peering. He sees all the glass jars filled with dried flowers, sometimes a dead moth, sometimes a rock, lined up neatly on the shelf behind the desk, and then, at last, he sees this: a stack of pink paper, typed out by yours truly, lying there like a marzipan cake, all ready to be sliced and eaten. Neither of you look at the room after that. Your eyes are glued to this pink shape.
“There it is,” one of you says.
“That must be it,” says the other.
Janus’s hand reaches for it first, Penelope’s red nails follow quickly. Both of you read your names on the top sheet. Penelope lifts it away.
And now, here you are. You’re standing in my study, holding this story in your hands—the last one I’ll ever tell. That means I’ve been gone for more than a year and that my whereabouts are still unknown, as that was my agreement with Mr. Norris. Within these pages is the key to unlock my last will and testament, the secret word that will make Mr. Norris open that thick manila envelope and tell you how rich you’ve become. If you can’t find it, there’ll be no prize and my money will go elsewhere.
It’s a drag, I know. But sometimes the world is just cruel. And you do want to know, don’t you? Want to know if those stories your mother told you are true. If I really killed them all. If I am that mad.
This is the story as I recall it, and yours now too, to guard or treasure or forget as you please. I wanted someone to know, you see. To know my truth, now that I am gone.
How everything and none of it happened.
II
I have sometimes been asked why I remained in S— after the trial. After the man you knew as Tommy Tipp died. It would have been so easy then, to slip away and move somewhere else, to a town or a city where people didn’t know me. A clean slate was what Dr. Martin prescribed.
A fresh start.
Of course, I didn’t particularly like staying in S—. All the eyes staring when I walked down the street or bought ground beef and carrots at the grocery store. My name had been on everyone’s lips for months, my face gracing the front pages. If they didn’t know me before, they certainly did by then. But I had reasons, as you’ll come to understand.
And things weren’t quite as they seemed.
Tommy Tipp was not what you think he was.
I know you liked him, he was always good to you children. I remember him taking Janus fishing and spinning with Penelope on the lawn. You picked him flowers once, do you remember, Penelope, those daisies and bluebells you gave him? Even your mother warmed to him, eventually. Told me how happy she was that I had finally