Memoir of a Trapped Housewife

Chapter Sixteen {Impending Confrontation}

Chapter Sixteen

Impending Confrontation

Following Calvin's suggestion to pause our search until the next day breached the horizon, I slinked up to my room when the car reached the estate and lay on the cold, plushy bed. The ceiling loomed above me, its white surface mixing strangely until it revealed the face of Sable. Startled, I rose to my full height, eyes trapped staring upon the image.

Diamond tears sparkled on her tan cheeks, rosy as always. She was saying something I couldn't understand. The muffled words hung in strange strings, similar to a hypnotist's chant as he swings a watch like a pendulum, or like the strings an enigmatic foreign language twists. My brows crunched with confusion. Perhaps these words were meant to be remembered, to mean something more than what I thought--mayhap this was a clue I was to follow.

Struggling against exhausted mental tides, I fought to file away all she said.

Her somber, distressed rambling, that rose from highs to lows in tone, went on for what seemed to be hours and it was only when I pinched my flesh raised with goosebumps that I recognized I was dreaming. Feeling horribly let down, I relaxed on my figment sheets and wondered if the sight I saw was a false, fatigued fabrication meant only to calm a troubled mind; to relieve stress induced by the lack of a sister, by the lack of a proper answer to her whereabouts.

What if the sight I saw was true? I'd only heard the language from the lips of dear Grace, but Sable's rambling sounded Russian to me.

Russian. Stepanov. The Python. Blackstone.

Coincidence was a strange being.

I woke when faint splashes of sunlight creamed my hardwood floors. Checking the time--the clock read five o'clock--I dressed, bathed, ignored the horror spreading on the faces of my coworkers as they discovered the news of Anna's death, only so I could avoid the pangs piercing my heart, and spooned a poorly cooked meal into my mouth. The fare's sad taste was a fate inflicted by Mrs. Boucher. The cook was hunched over the sink, hollow eyes gazing at scummy potato eyes ready to be cleaned. She barely acknowledged the mindless hustle around her.

When I passed, however, she snatched my arm quicker than wind changes direction. Muffling a yelp by chomping down on the lower lip, I allowed myself to be dragged close. Her lips came close to my ear and moved with panicked fervor.

"Do you understand what I mean now, child?" she asked. Jarvis from the horse barn slithered by, heading for the back door leading to the outside. I inspected him with new interest, pondering hard if he could be the one.

"What are you talking about Mrs. Boucher?" I looked to her.

"Anna," I was told, "her life was blasted from her so suddenly. She didn't-"

"-Please," I begged, feeling my throat becoming scratchy with tears. "I want to remember Anna as she was. When people talk of her all I can see is her lying in the grass...bleeding an awful amount of blood and-."

"-You," Mrs. Boucher stopped, hollow eyes refilling with something akin to life. "You were the one who found her?"

I rubbed my hands together, seeking warmth. "She was cold, so cold, a peach in the icebox. I miss her, already. It's stupid, I know, we barely knew each other. I've tried not to think about it. I try not to think about a lot of things. Oh gracious, I miss her. I do."

Mrs. Boucher stared; stared and stared and stared.

Then she whispered so low and so quaveringly I felt more anxious than before, "You know, don't you?"