She invited him over for tea, which led to supper, with only the two of them in the shanty, as Memel and Mewe had gone away to Listen to work the crowds at a solstice celebration. The hours drew past, and there was nothing like a slack moment, for no sooner did Klara answer a question of Lucy’s than she would ask a question herself, and then back again, until the village had gone quiet, and all were in for the night. At one point Lucy screwed up his courage and said,
“Just who is this Adolphus?”
Klara looked away. “He is a soldier I knew.”
“Knew or know?”
“Know. I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in months. And I don’t know where he goes, when he does.”
“But you wish you did?”
“Sometimes I do.” Klara looked back at Lucy. “Perhaps you might find it flattering, that I have an inclination to lie to you about this.”
“Perhaps I might,” he said.
Rose lay on the table, dozing in between them; they both stroked her but were careful never to touch each other’s hands. Lucy could have stayed up all night, but when Klara stifled a yawn, he stood, and said he would take his leave. Klara nodded; her hair was mussed and she smiled at him as he stood at the door. He walked through the village and up the hill to the castle, crossing the still entryway and pausing at the bottom of the stairwell to fish out a squat candlestick from his trouser pocket. Rose began to squirm, and so he let her down onto the ground. She disappeared around the bend of the stair and Lucy, lighting the candle, followed after. The bulbous flame was jouncing up and down as he took the steps; arriving at the mid-point landing, he paused, thinking of how pleasing Klara’s face had appeared in the candlelight, and of the way she’d hid her smile in the shadows. He recalled looking over to find she was drawing her cheek back and forth against the fur collar of her cape; and this was a proud moment for him, one that he knew he would revisit any number of times in the coming days and months.
While cataloging these happenings, he’d been peering absently into the darkened recess of the landing; and to look at him was to see a young man without a care or concern, a person for whom life posed no problems whatsoever, only opportunity, and adventure. But gradually this look left his face, and by degrees was replaced with an ever more severe and serious one. A thought had entered his mind, a terrible suspicion, which was that the darkness into which he had been gazing was not empty at all, but that it held, or hid, something; that it held someone. He stared with an increasing intensity, scarcely drawing a breath. There was no movement in the darkness, but with each passing moment he became surer and surer that there was a body hiding in the recess; and, furthermore, that it was aware of his being there—that it was watching him as well.
Now a sound became audible, but this was so slight at the start that Lucy couldn’t be sure he was hearing anything at all. Soon it increased in volume, not so very much, but loud enough that Lucy could not deny its existence. He wasn’t certain what the sound was, but thought he could identify it; and he hoped with great fervency that he was mistaken. Alas, as it became louder, his suspicion was confirmed, and he lamented this, because of all the noises to hear, at this late hour and in this lonely location, here was the one he least wished to witness, and it filled him with the direst dread. It was the sound of someone hungrily, gutturally eating.