She could make out another dim light from the other end of the hall, behind the stairs, and she walked toward it. Her shoes clacked loudly on the bare wooden floor of the back hall.
It was a nightlight that had attracted her attention, and near it she saw that a door stood ajar. She reached out and pushed it farther open. She heard May’s voice, and she stepped into the room.
‘I can’t feel my legs at all,’ May said. ‘No pain in them, no feeling at all. But they still work for me, somehow. I was afraid that once the feeling went they’d be useless to me. But it’s not like that at all. But you knew that; you told me it would be like this.’ She coughed, and there was the sound in the dark room of a bed creaking. ‘Come here, there’s room.’
‘Aunt May?’
Silence – Ellen could not even hear her aunt breathing. Finally May said, ‘Ellen? Is that you?’
‘Yes, of course. Who did you think it was?’
‘What? Oh, I expect I was dreaming.’ The bed creaked again.
‘What was that you were saying about your legs?’
More creaking sounds. ‘Hmmm? What’s that, dear?’ The voice of a sleeper struggling to stay awake.
‘Never mind,’ Ellen said. ‘I didn’t realize you’d gone to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning. Good night.’
‘Good night, dear.’
Ellen backed out of the dark, stifling bedroom, feeling confused.
Aunt May must have been talking in her sleep. Or perhaps, sick and confused, she was hallucinating. But it made no sense to think – as Ellen, despite herself, was thinking – that Aunt May had been awake and had mistaken Ellen for someone else, someone she expected a visit from, someone else in the house.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs, not far above her head, sent Ellen running forward. But the stairs were dark and empty, and straining her eyes toward the top, Ellen could see nothing. The sound must have been just another product of this dying house, she thought.
Frowning, unsatisfied with her own explanation, Ellen went back into the kitchen. She found the pantry well stocked with canned goods and made herself some soup. It was while she was eating it that she heard the footsteps again – this time seemingly from the room above her head.
Ellen stared up at the ceiling. If someone was really walking around up there, he was making no attempt to be cautious. But she couldn’t believe that the sound was anything but footsteps: someone was upstairs.
Ellen set her spoon down, feeling cold. The weighty creaking continued.
Suddenly the sounds overhead stopped. The silence was unnerving, giving Ellen a vision of a man crouched down, his head pressed against the floor as he listened for some response from her.
Ellen stood up, rewarding her listener with the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. She went to the cabinet on the wall beside the telephone – and there, on a shelf with the phone book, Band-Aids, and light bulbs was a flashlight, just as in her father’s house.
The flashlight worked, and the steady beam of light cheered her. Remembering the darkness of her room, Ellen also took a light bulb before closing the cabinet and starting upstairs.
Opening each door as she came to it, Ellen found a series of unfurnished rooms, bathrooms, and closets. She heard no more footsteps and found no sign of anyone or anything that could have made them. Gradually the tension drained out of her, and she returned to her own room after taking some sheets from the linen closet.
After installing the light bulb and finding that it worked, Ellen closed the door and turned to make up the bed. Something on the pillow drew her attention: examining it more closely, she saw that it seemed to be a small pile of sawdust. Looking up the wall, she saw that a strip of wooden molding was riddled with tiny holes, leaking the dust. She wrinkled her nose in distaste: termites. She shook the pillow vigorously and stuffed it into a case, resolving to call her father first thing in the morning. May could not go on living in a place like this.
Sun streaming through the uncurtained window woke her early. She drifted toward consciousness to the cries of seagulls and the all-pervasive smell of the sea.
She got up, shivering from the dampness which seemed to have crept into her bones, and dressed quickly. She found her aunt in the kitchen, sitting at the table sipping a cup of tea.
‘There’s hot water on the stove,’ May said by way of greeting.
Ellen poured herself a cup of tea and joined her aunt at the table.
‘I’ve ordered some groceries,’ May said. ‘They should be here soon, and we can have toast and eggs for breakfast.’
Ellen looked at her aunt and saw that a dying woman shared the room with her. In the face of that solemn, unarguable fact, she could think of nothing to say. So they sat in silence broken only by the sipping of tea, until the doorbell rang.
‘Would you let him in dear?’ May asked.
‘Shall I pay him?’
‘Oh, no, he doesn’t ask for that. Just let him in.’
Wondering, Ellen opened the door on a strongly built young man holding a brown paper grocery bag in his arms. She put out her arms rather hesitantly to receive it, but he ignored her and walked into the house. He set the bag down in the kitchen and began to unload it. Ellen stood in the doorway watching, noticing that he knew where everything went.
He said nothing to May, who seemed scarcely aware of his presence, but when everything had been put away, he sat down at the table in Ellen’s place. He tilted his head on one side and eyed her. ‘You must be the niece,’ he said.
Ellen said nothing. She didn’t like the way he looked at her. His dark, nearly black eyes seemed to be without pupils – hard eyes, without depths. And he ran those eyes up and down her body, judging her. He smiled now at her silence and turned to May. ‘A quiet one,’ he said.
May stood up, holding her empty cup.
‘Let me,’ Ellen said quickly, stepping forward. May handed her the cup and sat down again, still without acknowledging the young man’s presence. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ Ellen asked.
May shook her head. ‘You eat what you like, dear. I don’t feel much like eating . . . there doesn’t seem to be much point.’
‘Oh, Aunt May, you really should have something.’
‘A piece of toast, then.’
‘I’d like some eggs,’ said the stranger. He stretched lazily in his chair. ‘I haven’t had my breakfast yet.’
Ellen looked at May, wanting some clue. Was this presumptuous stranger her friend? A hired man? She didn’t want to be rude to him if May didn’t wish it. But May was looking into the middle distance, indifferent.
Ellen looked at the man. ‘Are you waiting to be paid for the groceries?’
The stranger smiled, a hard smile that revealed a set of even teeth. ‘I bring food to your aunt as a favour. So she won’t have to go to the trouble of getting it for herself, in her condition.’
Ellen stared at him a moment longer, waiting in vain for a sign from her aunt, and then turned her back on them and went to the stove. She wondered why this man was helping her aunt – was she really not paying him? He didn’t strike her as the sort for disinterested favours.
‘Now that I’m here,’ Ellen said, getting eggs and butter out of the refrigerator, ‘you don’t have to worry about my aunt. I can run errands for her.’
‘I’ll have two fried eggs,’ he said. ‘I like the yolks runny.’
Ellen glared at him, but realised he wasn’t likely to leave just because she refused to cook his eggs – he’d probably cook them himself. And he had bought the food.
But – her small revenge – she overcooked the eggs and gave him the slightly scorched piece of toast.
When she sat down she looked at him challengingly. ‘I’m Ellen Morrow,’ she said.
He hesitated, then drawled, ‘You can call me Peter.’