37

 

 

SHE DRAGGED HERSELF upstairs, but on the landing,turned right into the spare room, which was still torn apart from cleaning and boxing up donations, the bed unmade. Here she lay down on the bare mattress, meaning to catch her breath, but the exhaustion caught her unawares, and she let her eyes close. Just for a moment. Just a moment.

 

THEY WERE IN the shop, Gwynn trying to fit the coupons to the available goods, and to the things on her mother’s list, her younger sister laughing with someone up near the front counter. When Tommy Chelton slipped into the row of tinned goods behind her, at first, frowning at the near-bare shelves, she didn’t see him. As he drew closer, the skin at the back of her neck prickled. She whirled. Her eyes fell on him, and she felt the flush of blood rushing to the surface, the nausea building in the pit of her stomach. She tried to step past him, purposefully looking away, but he moved sideways and blocked the aisle.

“You can’t avoid me,” he said.

“Let me pass.”

There was another peal of laughter from Lucy at the front, full of the immeasurable joy of being sixteen. Tommy smiled slyly and tossed a look over his shoulder to where Lucy stood. “You know what I want,” he said, his eyes following her younger sister’s movements. “You know you’re mine.” He was smiling when he turned his black eyes upon her. “You know you haven’t written to Martin since you followed me up to the dovecote.”

He couldn’t know that. Her own eyes flickered to his, and his expression told her he knew his shot had hit home. The nausea was rising in her throat. Again she tried to get around him; again he slid to the side and blocked her way. When he stared at her she felt his touch on her skin, the searing pain that tore her in two.

His fingers trailed along her inner arm, and she jerked away violently. “Don’t you touch me,” she hissed, a cornered animal.

Again Tommy only smiled. “You know,” he whispered, leaning in so close she felt his breath on her cheek, “you want it.” Then he laughed, perhaps the ugliest, most chilling sound she had ever heard. She quailed before it. “Meanwhile, maybe I’ll find someone else who is more accommodating.”

Before she could unravel what he might mean, he turned on his heel and made his way out of the aisle. Closing her eyes tightly, she leaned her forehead against the shelf, trying to control her shaking. Then she heard another laugh from Lucy, and her heart constricted. She nearly flew to the end of the row, scanning the front of the shop for her sister. She rounded the corner just in time to see Tommy jostle Lucy at the counter; he swiftly apologized, and then, with a movement that made her nerves scream, he ran a steadying hand down the inside Lucy’s arm. Then he tipped his hat, lifting his eyes past Lucy to give Gwynn a black look before leaving the shop.

 

GWYNN CRIED OUT, huddled under the duvet in the spare room. She barely registered Mary coming upstairs to look in on her, before she tumbled back into troubled sleep.

 

GWYNN FOUND HER eyes drawn to the calendar tacked to the bedroom wall.

Nearly a week late. She stared in despair.

She turned away just as Lucy bounded up the stairs and into their room, to throw herself across her yellow coverlet. “You know that Tommy Chelton?” she asked, chewing the side of her thumb.

Gwynn pressed her palms into her eyes, her entire body recoiling at the name. There was nothing in Lucy’s voice save the richness of silly laughter. “Yes,” she managed. Barely. “I know him a bit.”

Lucy rolled over and clutched her pillow to her thin chest. “He asked me if I liked doves. This afternoon, when I was at the lending library? I said I did, and he told me he raised them, and maybe I’d like to come see them sometime?” She laughed. “He’s ever so much older than I am. More Gareth’s age. I can’t think why he’d even talk to me.”

But Gwynn knew. She stared at her Lucy’s downy arm, where Tommy Chelton had run his hand down the pale skin, knowing Gwynn would see, knowing Gwynn would know.

It was a threat.

She thought of his leer. She thought of his hands on her younger sister. Her innocent sister. She put a shaking hand to her belly.

Late.

In the morning she vomited up her breakfast almost as soon as she had eaten. Then she dressed herself carefully and made her way up Eyewell Lane to knock on the blue door of Dove Cottage.

No one answered. With trepidation that nearly overpowered her resolve, she passed around to the gate in the wall and let herself into the garden. It looked, to her eyes, more barren than it had been before. She crossed to the rear gate, which stood open, a maw waiting to swallow her whole. Taking a deep breath and biting her lip to keep back the tears, she left the garden and entered the wood. The sounds of the cooing doves came to her as she drew closer to the clearing and the low building. The door was open. As she paused, staring at its hulking blackness, Tommy appeared in the doorway; he ducked under the lintel and took one step outside. Then he stopped, waiting, his dark eyes fixed on her face. His lips were twisted into a triumphant smile.

Gwynn swallowed and met his eyes and spoke the hardest words she had ever said.

“I will marry you.”

His smile widened. His teeth shone wolfishly.

She spun away quickly, fell to her knees, and vomited for the second time that morning. This time, however, nothing came up. There was nothing left inside her.