Joshua has been gone for over an hour, and it was Molly who had made him go, who said they couldn’t leave Blue outside in the rain, think of her health, her well-being. Think of the publicity if a guest catches their death.
they’d already slipped up with Jago. Molly will have to smooth that crease at some point, but now is not the time. She cannot think of that boy, or the way his eyes bulged from their sockets when he realised his foolish misstep. How her husband carried the body to Jago’s car, drove the pristine Range Rover away, returned alone and hid the car beneath a tarpaulin. She doesn’t think about that. She only thinks of Joshua.
Water seeped beneath the boot room door within minutes of him leaving; Molly had to rescue all the boots and coats and hats and put them in the overhead cupboards to keep them dry, had to drag that infernal black suitcase through the house and into the attic. She had closed off the boot room and hoped it wouldn’t get worse.
But now, a slither of water snakes under the living room door. The guests have yet to see it, and Molly knows she should do something – plug the space with a blanket, dry the floor, roll back the rug – but she cannot. She stands in front of the fire, her limbs lead-heavy, her head heavier still.
I shouldn’t have let her go, Milton says from the armchair, and Molly closes her eyes and musters strength because this is the fifth time he’s said it and not once has he mentioned Joshua. She smiles and pats his arm, tells him it wasn’t his fault at all, that she’s sure he didn’t offend Blue, that no one knows why she ran off like that, and the girl must be terribly troubled, but it will all be fine and could she get him cocoa, all the while thinking that if he says that phrase one more time, she’s going to take that bloody hat he keeps fondling and shove it down his withered old throat.
Take the cocoa, she prays. Take the cocoa and sleep.
He shakes his head, says he doesn’t want any damn cocoa, and Sabina says what she needs is a coffee.
Molly takes a breath. Smooths the front of her tunic. Linen was not made for such humidity, such stress. The creases are so sharp they could have been starched. She watches the rivulet of water as it thickens, lengthens, touches the front rug. A second finger of liquid joins it. How long before the guests notice?
Coffee it is, Molly says and asks Milton if he wants a cup too, but he taps his chest as he always does, says bottled water is better for his heart, and she says she’ll get him one, and he reminds her that it has to be bottled and not that crap from the tap.
Molly tells him of course, smiles sweetly, wonders if it would be possible to break the seal, slip in a tramadol, and then reseal the lid without him noticing. She doubts she can do it tonight, but she’ll keep it in mind for another day. A day when Joshua is with her, and there is no rain, and she has regained control of that house.
Molly makes to go to the kitchen, but before she even reaches the passageway, Sabina screams.
The woman points to the front door, says my God, my God, over there, look, as though it’s not water invading the house but spiders. Sabina says they have to do something, Milton says where are the sandbags, and Molly says there are flood boards in the art cupboard.
Joshua had them made after the Levels flooded several years back. He measured the doorways, the windows, ordered them and collected them in his calm, practical manner, and he should be here to help Molly. Where is he? How much longer will he be?
It shouldn’t take so long to walk into the woods, to find that girl, bring her back – and then another thought hits Molly, so bleak and cold and familiar that she stops dead on her way to the art room, one hand pressed to the wall to keep herself upright, one to her stomach to quiet its churn. A terrible thought.
What if he isn’t planning on bringing the girl back?
What if she says something that makes him— Blue saw them arguing this morning, what if she overheard—
Molly tries to shake the thought but it lingers; she pictures Blue face down in the woods, imagines Joshua’s excuses: he reached her too late, she must have stumbled and hit her head hard, and what did Blue think would happen if she ran off in a flood like that? The other guests would have to be lied to. Another hole would need to be dug once the rainwater dried up. Would anyone miss Blue? Would they come looking? Would Joshua be carted off to jail and leave Molly alone in that house, when she hadn’t slept alone once in over a decade? Not since before they had Eleanor.
The stress must show on her face because Sabina has followed Molly to help with the flood boards and when she sees the look her host wears, she pulls Molly in for a hug, says it will all be OK, that she will help protect the house from water damage, that Joshua will find Blue and bring her back.
There is little comfort in a thin person’s hug. Sabina’s ribcage presses into Molly’s cushioned body, her collarbones dig into Molly’s chest, her bony arms pincers. Over Sabina’s shoulder, Molly can see the water; it laps at the plate glass windows. How long before the whole of downstairs is flooded?
Sabina steps back and holds Molly’s shoulders the same way Molly holds her guests. Held her guests. Sabina says they will get the flood boards and start with the front door, that next they will move the furniture from the living room upstairs, that they can clear the therapy rooms and the kitchen and Molly says yes, yes, yes, just to shut her up.
This is not your house, she thinks. This is my house. My husband is outside in that weather. My guest ran away. And there are things you don’t know about that are threatening to overwhelm us all.
Aloud she says thank you, tells Sabina she’s so kind to help, apologises that the retreat has fallen apart, and Sabina says it’s OK, she’s happy to help, and Molly feels a vice around her head.
In the living room, Milton has left his chair. Somehow, in his infirm state, he has managed to roll the rug up away from the water; it lies like a blood sausage at the foot of the stairs. He shuffles from the coffee table to the sideboard, using his right hand to guide his walking frame as his left lifts one spiral-bound journal at a time and stores them in the high drawers. He mutters to himself. Molly catches scant few words: shouldn’t have said anything, what if she knew, kept my mouth shut, poor girl, poor girl, and it could be that he’s talking about Blue. But Molly knows Milton: he could mean his wife, his daughter, his sister, his long-dead mother.
A clock hangs from the wall near the large dining table, the one they use when the retreat is fully booked. Joshua has been gone for nearly two hours.
The windows are dark, and Sabina moves to pull the curtains closed, but Molly stops her. I want to see when he gets back, she explains.
What about Blue, Sabina asks.
Her too, Molly says, but she doesn’t give a fig about the girl who lured Joshua out into the cold, wet weather.
Milton still chastises himself, and Molly’s thoughts echo the sentiment. She shouldn’t have made her husband go out there, should’ve let the flood deal with Blue. Who does she think she is, this weird girl with the unnatural eyes and the horrible way of looking at you, really looking at you, as though she can see into your soul and make it better? There’s nothing wrong with Molly’s soul, no way to better it. Molly is the one to make it all better.
Water rushes beneath the front door and settles in a pool where the rug used to be. Sabina wrestles two flood boards through to the boot room, and Molly chases her, asks what she’s doing, and Sabina tells her that she’s boarding up the house.
That’s not how it’s done. The flood boards don’t go on the inside but the outside, otherwise the door won’t open, Joshua won’t be able to get in, he’ll be stuck outside. Molly pulls Sabina away, lifts the first board out, opens the door, and the wind blows in, pulls rain in with it, and Molly feels the cold, sees the dark ink sky and senses the menace out in those woods.
The dogs are buried in those woods.
Eleanor would have loved a dog, she thinks. Poor Eleanor.
Molly won’t lose Joshua as well. She won’t end her days alone in that house with no one about her who understands.
Milton asks her what she’s doing, says she can’t possibly go outside, but Molly pulls on a pair of wellies, drags her arms through a mac, stamps a hat on her head. The torches, she says, where did she put the torches?
You can’t go out there, Milton says again, but his eyes are on Sabina, who follows Molly’s lead and slides her feet into dark green boots and says that she can’t let Molly go out alone. It’s dark outside.
You can’t leave me here, Milton says, and Molly hears the fear but doesn’t care. She tells him she needs to find her husband; Sabina tells him they’ll be back soon. She switches a torch on and off.
What am I meant to do? the old man asks.
Molly says whatever you usually do on your own, and Milton looks like he’s been slapped. There are tears in his panicked eyes, and Molly wonders if that sadness is for his wife, daughter, mother, and sister, but suspects it’s for Milton himself.