Innocence

Even disabled, breathless, unable to see anything but smears of color that melted together without form, Telford swung both arms wildly, frantic to strike a blow or catch a fistful of her hair, or snare her by an article of clothing. She dodged, crouched, scurried away from him, out of the bedroom, through the rest of the apartment, where the delicate poinsettias, against which she brushed, scattered broken scarlet bracts in her wake, just as the promise of the season now lay broken beyond repair.

She descended the stairs two at a time, crashing to each landing with both feet, and came off the sixth flight into the foyer without once daring to look back. She hurried out into the early night, where the air was as cold and moist as that in an icehouse, although the settled soot and the hard edges of the city were not yet masked by the first snow.

Four doors to the east stood the Billingham mansion, equal to—though more pretentious than—her father’s house. The front steps were flanked by broad stone walls on which rested two massive carved-stone lions in the position of the Sphinx, heads raised and faces solemn, blank eyes gazing toward the street not as if alert for prey, but as if watching for the first rough beasts of Armageddon.

The Billinghams, known to her by their family name but never glimpsed, were on an extended stay in Europe and the street swarmed with traffic; therefore, Gwyneth made no attempt to cross the four busy lanes, but instead ran to the watchful lions. The flanking limestone walls diminished as the stairs ascended, and she scrambled onto the farther of the two, lying atop the polished-granite cap, beside the lion, which was at least twice her size. She eased her head forward to look past the big cat’s chest, west toward her father’s house.

Never did she consider screaming for help, because whoever might respond to her would want to protect her or console her, and their natural inclination would be to reach out, to take her hand or pat her shoulder or put an arm around her, and she could not tolerate being touched. They would ask questions that she must answer. She didn’t wish to hear their voices, because then her required response would allow them to hear hers. She was loath to share with strangers any part of her true self, not even her voice, which she had never shared with her father’s household staff.

As she lay belly-down, the cold granite leached away her body heat. She was not dressed for the out-of-doors, and her tremors of fear quickly became violent shudders.

After a few minutes, peering past the lion that sheltered her, Gwyneth saw Telford exit her father’s house and descend the front stairs. He wore his overcoat and carried a white bundle that must have been the scones in the bag that might have incriminated him in some way if he left it behind. To her dismay, he turned toward her.

She could tell that his vision, while improved, was not normal, because he proceeded like a man in no hurry, his face thrust forward as if in doubt of the way before him. When he passed a lamppost, he turned his head from it, the light too bright for his stinging, dilated eyes.

As Telford approached, his breath steamed from him as if he were a dragon bespelled into the form of a man. Gwyneth knew, in passing, he would instinctively look to his left and up, and in spite of his compromised vision and the night shadows in which she was lying, he would see her. What she knew proved to be only what she feared, and the curator went past, oblivious of her, cursing softly in a voice strained by fear.

Two houses farther east, he got into a car parked at the curb. Over the rush of traffic in the street, Gwyneth couldn’t hear the engine start, but a graveyard’s worth of ghosts plumed up from the tailpipe, feathering away among the skeletal branches of an overhanging tree.

Telford’s Cadillac faced toward the girl, but from her higher position, the intervening limbs of another tree obscured most of his windshield, and she could not see him behind the steering wheel. She felt certain that she had escaped him for the night, but she remained prostrate and motionless in the dark of the lion.

Although surely he had splashed cold water in his eyes to dilute the Mace and though he must have been anxious to be gone, he waited another five minutes before gaining enough confidence in his vision to pull out from the curb into the street. He drove to the end of the block and turned south on the avenue.

The girl hurried home and locked the front door behind her. She ventured to the kitchen doorway to confirm her father’s death, and at the first glimpse of his lifeless face, she turned from him, unable to endure the sight. She could have drowned in a black sea of grief, but such surrender would have dishonored her father, who believed in perseverance in the face of any loss or misfortune. She fled to the fourth floor.