courthouse clock struck the hour. The sounds blew across a town that was empty, emptier than it had ever been. Over empty streets and empty lots and empty lawns the sound faded.
‘Nine, ten, eleven, twelve,’ counted Lavinia, with Helen on her arm.
‘Don’t you feel funny?’ asked Helen.
‘How do you mean?’
‘When you think of us being out here on the sidewalks, under the trees, and all those people safe behind locked doors, lying in their beds. We’re practically the only walking people out in the open in a thousand miles, I bet.’
The sound of the deep warm dark ravine came near.
In a minute they stood before Helen’s house, looking at each other for a long time. The wind blew the odor of cut grass between them. The moon was sinking in a sky that was beginning to cloud. ‘I don’t suppose it’s any use asking you to stay, Lavinia?’
‘I’ll be going on.’
‘Sometimes—’
‘Sometimes what?’
‘Sometimes I think people want to die. You’ve acted odd all evening.’
‘I’m just not afraid,’ said Lavinia. ‘And I’m curious, I suppose. And I’m using my head. Logically, the Lonely One can’t be around. The police and all.’
‘The police are home with their covers up over their ears.’
‘Let’s just say I’m enjoying myself, precariously, but safely. If there was any real chance of anything happening to me, I’d stay here with you, you can be sure of that.’
‘Maybe part of you doesn’t want to live anymore.’
‘You and Francine. Honestly!’
‘I feel so guilty. I’ll be drinking some hot cocoa just as you reach the ravine bottom and walk on the bridge.’
‘Drink a cup for me. Good night.’
Lavinia Nebbs walked alone down the midnight street, down the late summer-night silence. She saw houses with the dark windows and far away she heard a dog barking. In five minutes, she thought, I’ll be safe at home. In five minutes I’ll be phoning silly little Francine. I’ll—’
She heard the man’s voice.
A man’s voice singing far away among the trees.
‘Oh, give me a June night, the moonlight and you …’
She walked a little faster.
The voice sang, ‘In my arms … with all your charms …’
Down the street in the dim moonlight a man walked slowly and casually along.
I can run knock on one of these doors, thought Lavinia, if I must.
‘Oh, give me a June night,’ sang the man, and he carried a long club in his hand. ‘The moonlight and you. Well, look who’s here! What a time of night for you to be out, Miss Nebbs!’
‘Officer Kennedy!’
And that’s who it was, of course.
‘I’d better see you home!’
‘Thanks, I’ll make it.’
‘But you live across the ravine.…’
Yes, she thought, but I won’t walk through the ravine with any man, not even an officer. How do I know who the Lonely One is? ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ll hurry.’
‘I’ll wait right here,’ he said. ‘If you need any help, give a yell. Voices carry good here. I’ll come running.’
‘Thank you.’
She went on, leaving him under a light, humming to himself, alone.
Here I am, she thought.
The ravine.
She stood on the edge of the one hundred and thirteen steps that went down the steep hill and then across the bridge seventy yards and up the hills leading to Park Street. And only one lantern to see by. Three minutes from now, she thought, I’ll be putting my key in my house door. Nothing can happen in just one hundred eighty seconds.
She started down the long dark-green steps into the deep ravine.
‘One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten steps,’ she counted in a whisper.
She felt she was running, but she was not running.
‘Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty steps,’ she breathed.
‘One fifth of the way!’ she announced to herself.
The ravine was deep, black and black, black! And the world was gone behind, the world of safe people in bed, the locked doors, the town, the drugstore, the theater, the lights, everything was gone. Only the ravine existed and lived, black and huge, about her.
‘Nothing’s happened, has it? No one around, is there? Twenty-four, twenty-five steps. Remember that old ghost story you told each other when you were children?’
She listened to her shoes on the steps.
‘The story about the dark man coming in your house and you upstairs in bed. And now he’s at the first step coming up to your room. And now he’s at the second step. And now he’s at the third step and the fourth step and the fifth! Oh, how you used to laugh and scream at that story! And now the horrid dark man’s at the twelfth step and now he’s opening the door of your room and now he’s standing by your bed. “I GOT YOU!”’
She screamed. It was like nothing she’d ever heard, that scream. She had never screamed that loud in her life. She stopped, she froze, she clung to the wooden banister. Her heart exploded in her. The sound of the terrified beating filled the universe.
‘There, there!’ she screamed to herself. ‘At the bottom of the steps. A man, under the light! No, now he’s gone! He was waiting there!’
She listened.
Silence.
The bridge was empty.
Nothing, she thought, holding her heart. Nothing. Fool! That story I told myself. How silly. What shall I do?
Her heartbeats faded.
Shall I call the officer – did he hear me scream?
She listened. Nothing. Nothing.
I’ll go the rest of the way. That silly story.
She began again, counting the steps.
‘Thirty-five, thirty-six, careful, don’t
