He hasn’t noticed me yet. He’s sitting on a wrought iron bed that must be a hundred years old. Older. It makes the one in the room I was locked in look brand new. The mattress on it is modern though and it doesn’t quite fit it. It hangs over the side a few inches. An almost empty bottle of whiskey is on the nightstand. I’ve seen him drunk before. It’s not pretty. But tonight is different. There’s a darkness to him. A shadow. A sadness.
I realize what’s different. Missing. His anger. Something about it, how he’s sitting there alone and a little lost, it makes my heart twist. Makes it hurt.
He’s looking through a box, an old wooden box that must have been painted pink once. From inside, he’s taking out folded sheet of paper after folded sheet of paper.
“Where is it?” he asks. “Where did you leave it?”
I look around the room and smell the stale, old scent of cigarette smoke from years past. I see the doll house. Barbie. I had a similar one growing up but this one’s a little older. Not too much though. There’s a small table in the corner, the once-colorful mosaic design on top now just old and broken. It looks like something that belongs outside in a garden. Beside it is a simple wooden chair.
“Where?” he says again.
I step into the room. “Jericho?”
He looks at me and is on his feet in an instant. I realize it takes him a minute to realize it’s me because his expression is different in that moment.
“You shouldn’t be down here. Go back upstairs,” he says, voice like gravel.
I look around the room, see a crucifix hanging crooked from a nail. I also notice a picture on the far wall. Whatever was framed inside, now yellowed and faded.
“Whose room is this?” I ask.
“No one. Go upstairs.” He sits back down, takes a drink from the bottle then opens the nightstand drawer, beginning to rifle through it.
“What are you looking for?” I ask, taking a few steps toward him. Unsure what to make of him like this.
“Nothing,” he says.
He closes the drawer and looks at the box again. It’s open, the pieces of paper scattered on the bed. He starts to load them back into the box but when he’s done, instead of closing it and putting it away, he picks it up, and, as if suddenly furious, he hurls it across the room.
I let out a scream, jumping back.
It crashes into the single frame on the wall. The box drops to the ground, frame swinging on a single nail.
“This is where they did it. Both of them.” He shakes his head, looks up and points. “The hanging beam.”
I look up too and shudder when I see the ancient wooden beam that stretches from wall to wall.
“Hanging beam?” I ask.
“That’s the chair Zoë stood on. I don’t know why it’s still here. Why we didn’t burn it. I don’t know what the hell Mary used. Don’t know why Zoë brought these things down here. I don’t know any of it.”
“Jericho?” I follow him when he sits down and picks up the bottle.
“Why the hell would anyone want to be in here?”
I swallow, sit beside him, and take the bottle. I set it aside but keep hold of his hand.
“Come upstairs with me,” I say.
He blinks like he’s having a hard time keeping his eyes open. I wonder how full that bottle was earlier. “I’d better never find you down here, Isabelle.”
My mouth opens. Does he think I’d hang myself? Is that what he’s saying? “Come upstairs.”
“Zeke knows,” he says. “He knows why. I know he does.”
I lay my head on his shoulder and squeeze his hand.
“It’s why he killed dad.”
That startles me and I pull back. “What?”
He puts his head in his hands. “Why?” he roars.
“You’re drunk, Jericho. You’re not thinking straight.”
He gets to his feet, walks to where the box lies broken on the floor, the notes scattered. He stands in the middle of the mess and shakes his head.
I stand, go to him. I take one of his hands and press it to my belly.
“Take me upstairs. I’m tired and hungry and it’s cold down here. The baby…”
He looks at me, mouth open, forehead furrowed. He presses my stomach gently and sets his forehead on my shoulder.
“I don’t understand why,” he says, and I don’t know if it’s his words or the tone of them that breaks my heart in two.
“It’s okay. Let’s go upstairs.”
He straightens to his full height, looks down at me, studies me for a long moment. “Your name means promise. Do you know that?”
I’m surprised he’d know that. “God’s promise,” I say. “My mom chose it.”
“Fuck god. There is no fucking god and if there is, he doesn’t deserve your affection.” He shakes his head, closes his eyes then runs a hand into his hair and opens his eyes. “The baby. I hope it’s not a girl. The St. James’s girls…there’s history you know? I don’t want it to repeat.”
“It won’t.”
“Angelique.” He sighs.
“It won’t repeat—”
“That’s what history does,” he interrupts. “It repeats. It’s on an endless fucking loop.”
I get in front of him, take his face in my hands. “Look at me.”
“Endless.”
“Look at me.” He does. “Take me upstairs. I don’t want to be down here. It’s not good for the baby.”
His eyes narrow thoughtfully, and he finally nods. He cups my face with one hand, thumb gentle on my cheekbone. He kisses my forehead, my cheek, my mouth.
“Promise,” he says and takes my hand. He turns me and just as we’re about to walk out of the room I feel a draft tickle my neck. Glancing back, I see something behind the picture that he knocked askew. A cubby hole. A place to hide something. And the edge of what looks like a beaded necklace dangling from behind the picture. It must have come loose when the box crashed into the frame.
“Your feet are bare,” he says, dragging my attention away. He lifts me up just before switching the light off. He doesn’t close the door but carries me to climb the stairs. “I don’t want you coming down here again. Understand? It’s not safe. It’s cursed, that cellar. I don’t want you in it.”
I nod as he sets me on the floor in the main part of the house. I don’t want to be down there.
He closes the door and I watch him. Watch this giant of a man who is back to being himself now, tall and powerful. The dragon tattoo moving on his back as he locks the door and slips the single, large key into the pocket of his pants. When he turns to me, the man I glimpsed downstairs, the broken one, he’s gone. No, not gone. Hidden from view. He’s in there. I’ve seen him now. I know.
“I mean it, Isabelle. I don’t ever what you down there. Am I clear?”
I nod and my stomach growls loudly. I’ve only eaten a bowl of Catherine’s brothy soup.
Jericho smiles. “I’ll make you a sandwich.” We walk into the kitchen, and I don’t pull my hand free of his.
11