Four hours. Four measly hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough to get me through my chores for the day. Especially when my mind kept wanting to revisit the terrifying events of last night. Lizzie’s muttering and trancelike stupor, her insistence that there was a curse on the Borden family. It was unfathomable and yet so utterly believable at the same time.
I doubted Lizzie slept at all. She poked her head into my room just after dawn and told me she had some errands to run for the Fruit and Flowers Mission. Had I not been so exhausted, I would have questioned her, asked exactly what kind of charitable errands she could possibly be charged with at that early hour.
But now it was nearly noon, and she’d yet to return. Probably for the best. Talking about last night would only make it worse, keep it fresh in my mind when all I really wanted to do was forget.
Bending down, I rolled up the area rug in the sitting room and lifted it. It was old, the edges fraying, and the colors in the middle trudged out from Mr. Borden’s constant pacing. I could barely keep a grip on it as I made my way down the back stairs and towards the fence that separated the Borden house from the rest of the world.
Panting beneath the weight of the rug, I couldn’t help but think of Lizzie. She’d helped me with the larger chores before, claiming it was unfair for me to suffer because her father was too miserly to hire a second maid. These rugs would’ve been nothing for the two of us to manage. Between her sturdiness and my wiry strength, we would’ve had them beaten and laid back down in two hours flat. Instead, I’d likely struggle with them the whole afternoon.
“Bridget!” Minnie hovered by the fence, her face flushed with heat. Judging by the large basket at her feet and the clips in her hand, she was hanging out the wash.
Smiling, I heaved the rug over the fence and swiped the sweat off my forehead. I couldn’t help but notice her droopy eyes, the pale look to her skin that told me she’d been out with Seamus the night before. She looked as tired as me, maybe even more so.
I laughed, thinking what a strange match they were. Minnie’s innocent expressions, fair skin, and slight build looked downright misplaced next to Seamus’s boisterous presence. I think that’s why she was drawn to him. Where I craved predictability, Minnie seemed to thrive on spontaneity. Seamus made Minnie’s life bearable, made her laugh when the world of Fall River regulated us into a bone-weary mess.
“Everything all right?” she asked.
I smiled, realizing that she probably had been chattering along while I was lost in my head. “Of course. Why do you ask?”
Minnie looked at the yard behind me as if to ensure no one was sneaking up to listen. I followed her gaze, wondering why in the world she thought anyone would be interested in our simple conversations. “What is it?”
She paused, her eyes wide and conflicted as she answered. “I saw the lanterns turning on and off last night. I could have sworn I saw shadows moving around, too.”
I did my best to hide my surprise . . . and my anger. Rumors about the Bordens were already plentiful, and Lizzie most certainly did not need Minnie making them worse. “I couldn’t sleep. The heat up on the third floor can be dreadful this time of year, so I took to the kitchen in search of better air. No doubt it was me you saw wandering about.”
Minnie nodded, but her lips remained pursed into that thin, tight line. She didn’t believe my story. I wouldn’t either I suppose, but then again, I knew the truth, had witnessed it in eerie detail.
“But there were two shadows. And before that . . . ,” Minnie trailed off, and I gestured for her to keep talking. The one thing Lizzie had taught me was to listen to everything. Better to know what people are saying about you than pretend everything is fine, she would always say. Something about it giving you the upper hand. Besides, I knew Minnie better than anyone—even Seamus. If there was something to find out, I’d get it from her.
“Before that what, Minnie?” I asked, coaxing her along.
She fidgeted with the stained apron tied around her waist, her large green eyes darting this way and that. We were friends, good friends, and she didn’t want to answer. That couldn’t be good.
“How long have you known me?” I asked.
“Since primary school.”
“Umm-hmm, and who introduced you to Seamus?”
“You,” she said, a tiny smile playing at her lips.
“You can tell me anything, Minnie O’Rourke. Anything. I’ll keep your confidence, you have my word.”
“Well, it’s just that there was this noise. A sound that woke me up. I swear, Bridget, it sounded like someone singing.” Her voice lowered, and she leaned in closer. “A nursery rhyme.”
The beater I’d been holding slipped from my hands and landed in the grass by my feet. The story about the Borden children who died in the well came back to me, and I did my best to contain it, shove it back into the dark recesses of my mind where I housed all of Lizzie’s secrets.
Minnie shifted in her place, grabbed another handful of pins from the basket, and set about hanging up the bed linens to dry. I knew what she was doing, I’d done it more than once myself—avoiding the obvious, avoiding having to process through a logical explanation for something that was clearly insane.
“Anyway, I got up and thought I’d been dreaming, but when I came downstairs and saw the light in the Borden house, I got to wondering.”
I sent up a quick prayer for forgiveness, then started to weave my lie. “Aye, it was my singing you heard. The air in that house is heavy. You know how Mrs. Borden is, afraid opening the windows will invite prowlers.”
I stopped long enough to judge Minnie’s expression. She nodded, buying my tale. “The air in the kitchen was no better than my rooms, so I went outside. I don’t take too kindly to the dark, ya’ know, so I started singing an old rhyme Mum used to sing to me back in Ireland. Soothes my nerves, ’tis all. Sorry I woke you.”
Minnie shook her head, the smile on her face bright and genuine. I wished I could do that with Lizzie, go and tell some silly tale and have her believe it . . . believe she wasn’t going crazy, and that the unimaginable wasn’t possible.
“You didn’t wake me. I was concerned and wanted to make sure you were well. The stuff that goes in that house and all . . . well, I simply wanted to make sure you were all right. Liam would have a fit if he knew something was wrong over there, and I stood by and did nothing.”
I muttered a curse under my breath as I picked up the rug beater once more and took a heavy swing. A billow of dust spread across the fence, covering Minnie’s face. She coughed, two month’s worth of Borden dust seeping into her lungs. Having Minnie next door was good, pleasant. But at times like this, I wished her blocks away, none the wiser to anything going on in the Borden house and unable to relay anything to Liam.
“Don’t be tattling like the rest of the neighborhood, Minnie. We were raised better than that. The Bordens are fine people.”
The Bordens may have been fine people, but they were also odd people, and the entire town, including Minnie, knew that. No doubt I wouldn’t always be able to explain away the peculiarities of that house, but for Lizzie’s sake, I’d do my best. I wouldn’t let my own friends make her life more unbearable than it already was.
“I’m not tattling, I swear! It’s only that—” Minnie stopped abruptly, her green eyes skirting upward towards Lizzie’s room. The windows were dark, shut up tight with the lace curtains drawn across them. Nobody could see in or out of that house, and that’s the way Mr. Borden liked it.
I followed her line of vision, only refocusing on her as I remembered my lengthy list of chores. Minnie’s face was grim, her gaze dancing along the angles of the house.
“Do you want to hear what Mr. Alfred told me this morning?” she asked, and I swung my head towards the barn.
Mr. Alfred was one of the farm hands out on the Borden’s farm in Swansea. I’d heard Mr. Morse and Mr. Borden talk about him often, bickering back and forth over whether he had the smarts about him to be the manager.
I hadn’t heard Mr. Alfred come by this morning, but that was no surprise. He never came in the house, just repaired whatever Mr. Borden had sent for him to fix and moved on. I had no interaction with him, but the fact that Minnie did had me curious. No doubt it would interest Seamus, too.
I scanned the barn. I knew one of the hinges on the door was broken; Mr. Borden had complained about it the other day at supper. I presumed that’s why Mr. Borden had sent for Mr. Alfred, but from what I could see, the hinge was still broken, the wood still leaning awkwardly to the right.
“When did you talk to him?” I asked.
“This morning, when he first came. He told me to mind myself in the heat.” She flushed as she said it, the small smile at her lips telling me she was more interested in the attention she was getting from Mr. Alfred than in her employer’s wash.
Mr. Borden would not be happy that his hired help was talking to the neighbors, would probably have Mr. Alfred’s job for it if he ever found out. “What else did Mr. Alfred have to say?” I asked.
Minnie perked up and leaned over the fence, eager to talk. “Did you know Miss Lizzie kept pigeons in that barn?”
I shook my head and pretended as if that was news to me. I hadn’t merely heard about it; I’d seen their bloody carcasses splayed out in the kitchen for me to cook. Their dead eyes, lifeless and fixed on me as if they were still seeing . . . still part of this earth.
“There are always birds roosting in the barn,” I said as I took another swing at the rug. “They use the old hay in the loft for their nests.”
“Not birds, Bridget. Pets. Miss Lizzie kept them as pets.”
I tried to act surprised, desperately wanting to hear what gossip was flowing about Lizzie now. To most, she was an uncomely spinster who spoke her mind too freely. To me, she was the one person in this house that treated me as a person, someone to talk to, to share meals with.
“Now why would Miss Lizzie do something as foolish as keeping pigeons?” I asked.
“Don’t know,” Minnie said as she took another damp sheet out of her basket and snapped it into the breeze. “But Mr. Alfred says she would steal food from the house to feed them every day.”
Lizzie hadn’t stolen any food; I’d given it to her. A few crumbs of day-old bread or a handful of sesame seeds I’d stored for cooking.
“He told me a few days back, Mr. Borden got angry with Miss Lizzie about the birds, told her they served no purpose but to attract young boys and their cap guns.”
“I don’t recall seeing any boys hanging around the barn,” I said. That was the same thing I’d told Mr. Borden when he’d asked about Lizzie’s coming and goings last month. And it was the truth. Not once had I seen a male suitor approach Lizzie. Not once, in all of our late night conversations, had I ever heard her mention one.
“Don’t matter if they were. According to Mr. Alfred, Mr. Borden killed the pigeons anyway. He took an axe to their necks, then brought them in the house for Miss Lizzie to see. That’s why Mr. Alfred was here, to clear the nesting boxes Miss Lizzie built in the barn and seal up any cracks.”
I kept my gaze still, despite the clawing sensation in my chest. Funny how Mr. Borden was so determined to tear away every last piece of Lizzie’s happiness, but couldn’t be bothered with fixing the barn door.
“You sure Mr. Alfred isn’t telling you some tale?”
“Aye. He showed me the axe himself. There was dried blood still coating the handle.”
“Did Mr. Alfred tell you anything else?” I asked. If Mr. Alfred knew about the pigeons, I wondered what other tales he was spreading.
“No, just that it was nice seeing me.”
The tiny smile that found its way back to her lips annoyed me, and I straightened my back to look her directly in the eye. I wasn’t particularly close to Seamus, but he was Liam’s brother and had gone out of his way to make me feel welcome in his family. Plus, he’d be my family soon, even have a room in the house Liam was planning on building for us. Because of that . . . because Liam mattered more to me than anyone else most days, I’d set my best friend straight.
“You should keep your prattle to yourself, Minnie. Folks around here don’t hire maids who are prone to gossip. I doubt Seamus would much appreciate it either, seeing as Mr. Alfred is unattached and you seem more than willing to spend your time flirting.”
I turned and walked away, afraid that if I stayed there much longer she’d see the truth I was trying to hide. The house I was working in was filled with crazy people, and everyone in Fall River knew it . . . including me.
“No, Bridget. Wait. Please.”
I stopped and turned around to face her. She looked scared, panicked. “Listen, Minnie,” I said. “All I’m saying is that you’d do well to remember who Miss Lizzie is, who Mr. Borden is. Neither one would take to kindly to you speaking ill of them.”
“You won’t tell him, will you? I mean, Seamus . . . nothing is going on between me and Mr. Alfred. I swear it.”
I let my arms fall limply to my sides, my muscles screaming from the overly aggressive beating I had given the parlor rug. Minnie looked so small on the other side of the fence, so lost and confused, that for a moment I felt guilty. True, I lived in the same claustrophobic world she did, but at least I had Liam. I had someone to talk to, someone who listened and offered me an out, should I want to take it. Minnie had no one save Seamus. And he wasn’t a day older than me, and not nearly as frugal or loyal as his brother. Best as he tried, I wasn’t sure he could actually provide the kind of support Minnie needed.
No, I wouldn’t tell him, not because Minnie was my friend or because I wanted to stop the gossip she was spreading. I wouldn’t tell Seamus because at the end of the day, I felt sorry for Minnie. She was all alone in that house, her employer a widow who rarely ventured out of her room. A house that Lizzie believed was cursed, one that saw the death of two children and their mother all before Lawdwick Borden sold it. Despite all the yelling and hatred that seemed to fester in the Borden house, I wasn’t ever alone, not really. I had Lizzie, and even on her worst days, it was better than having no one at all.