her so happy and carefree for months. Mother gives directions for the trunks to be unloaded and brought in, then sweeps up to where Catherine and I are standing. She catches Catherine’s grimace.
“Our nearest neighbor isn’t for some distance and she won’t bother anyone.” All the same Mother yells after Emeline to mind her dress.
Catherine grumbles something, and then picks up her skirts and stalks off to the front door where Father has finally emerged. He stands aside as the trunks are loaded in, and gives Mother a cursory peck on the cheek in greeting. When Catherine passes he affords her a chilly “Hello,” and then looks away.
“How lucky for us that your father had this house built as a summer home,” Mother had said last month when it became clear that the rumors were not going to abate, that Father was not going to be able to continue with his business in Boston anymore.
Luck doesn’t have much to do with our new circumstances, but it calmed her to speak of it in such terms. Father had come out to New Oldbury the week before to meet with his new business partner here and tour the mill in which he was investing. It was a mercy that he was able to furnish the house and make it all ready for Mother; I don’t think her nerves could have taken the prospect of starting over in an empty house.
Once the trunks are all inside, Father bids us good-night and disappears back into his study, leaving us to explore our new home.
“New Oldbury,” Catherine says with a grimace. “Whoever heard of such a ridiculous name?” She’s inspecting the rooms, running a gloved finger over the white mantel in the parlor. The house is more opulent, grander than I ever could have imagined. There’s even a room for the sole purpose of dining. It’s papered in a panoramic scene of people enjoying a French garden, some in boats drifting past marble ruins, others lounging on grassy banks with parasols and baskets. I imagine myself slipping into that static glimpse of paradise. Could I row the little boat out past the horizon? Or would I find that the world ends where the artist’s brush had painted a thin blue line?
Everything is the best, the newest. Father has spared no expense, and yet my heart only drops deeper as I wander through each room. All the silk drapes and woodblock wallpaper in the world can’t mask the fact that we’re here as outcasts. All this wealth, and to what purpose?
I move to the library. A stern ancestor of Mother’s on the Hale side glowers down at the finery from beneath her starched white cap. When I was little Catherine told me that the woman was hanged as a witch in Salem, and tried to frighten me by saying the eyes of the painting could see everything I did. I was never scared of the woman herself, but of her fate. Her face, to me, always held more of a grim warning than anger. “Do not make the mistakes I made,” she seemed to say. What those mistakes were, I have no idea. To this day I can’t pass under her portrait without a shiver running down my spine.
Mother hardly notices the decorations and furnishings, and bids us good-night and retreats to find her bedchamber. Dark rings hang under her eyes and her color is poor. It’s hardly surprising; the house is stifling in the July heat. Father hasn’t aired the rooms and it feels as though the gray, paneled wallpaper and golden drapes are closing in on me. I’m just about to step outside for some air when Emeline comes bounding back in, cheeks flushed, Snip bouncing at her side.
“There’s a tiny house up the hill behind the house! It doesn’t have any walls but there are benches and a little steeple. And a pond! Lydia,” she says, taking my hand in hers, “a pond. Do you think there’s mermaids in it? Can we go back and look for them?”
I’ve been reading to her from a book of poems, and one of them mentioned the mythical creatures. All she can think about since then is finding a mermaid and then no doubt exhausting it with a list of questions about life beneath the water.
“Why don’t we take a look tomorrow in the daylight? It must be well past your bedtime now. Let’s find your trunk and get you into bed.”
Catherine has thrown herself down onto one of the plush, upholstered chairs, her hand resting on her stomach. “Let Ada do it, that’s what she’s for.”
Emeline is on the floor playing with Snip, the mermaids apparently forgotten already. I lower my voice so that she can’t hear. “Do you have to be so harsh? Everything she ever knew was in Boston. I can make it easier by tending to her myself.”
Catherine rolls her eyes. “Oh, please. It’s a grand house in the country, she’ll be fine. Soon she’ll completely forget what it was like to live in the city anyway.”
A headache is coming on, and perspiration drips down my neck. All I want to do is get out of my dress and into a bed with cool, clean sheets, not argue with impossible Catherine. But I can’t help myself. “So you’ll be happy here then? In your grand house in the country?”
She bristles. “Boston was becoming tiresome. I—”
“It was tiresome because of the situation you put us in,” I snap.
There’s a tug at my skirt, Emeline is staring up at me. Catherine presses her lips and looks away. I sigh. “I’m taking her to bed. Good night, Catherine.”
Catherine nods, her shoulders slumping forward. She looks so tired, and for a moment I almost feel sorry for her. But then I remember why we’re here in the first place, and my sympathy evaporates.
* * *
The eerie stillness of this new place makes falling asleep almost impossible. I don’t know how long I lay in my new bed, my body tensed, flinching at every faraway hoot of an owl that punctuates the night like a gunshot. It feels like hours later when the owl finally grows weary of its endless mourning and takes wing. My eyes are just starting to grow heavy when a terrible sound cuts through the silence.
Sitting bolt upright, I hold my breath as it comes again. It’s a slow moan, a keening wail. The sound is so wretched that it’s the culmination of every lost soul and groan of cold wind that has ever swept the earth.
My blood goes cold despite the stifling heat. I don’t know where my parents’ bedchamber is, and although the wail comes again and sounds as if it were in every plank of wood and every pane of glass, it must be Mother. She hasn’t cried like this since Charles left, but the stress of the move must have taken its toll. I slump back into my pillows, guilty that I can’t gather the strength to go to Mother and comfort her.
Kicking off the sticky sheets, I lie back down and close my eyes, trying to block out the awful noise. At last the wail builds and crescendos, trailing off into nothing more than an echoing sob.
The first dim light of morning is breaking when I finally drift off to a fitful sleep, unsure that the cries were anything more than a dream.
FATHER IS OUT on business, so it’s just Catherine, Emeline, Mother and me around the breakfast table the next morning. Some of the color has returned to Mother’s face, and she’s smiling as she butters her toast, listening to Emeline chatter on about the pond and all the merpeople that are just waiting to make her acquaintance. Perhaps Mother’s crying last night was what she needed, a cathartic release of all the stress and sadness that has led up to this move. Catherine is looking less well, her face pale and drawn as she sips her tea. I’m sure I don’t look much better after my waking night.
I give Emeline’s head a light pat before slipping into my seat
