"Hush thee, my baby,
Lie still with thy daddy,
Thy mommy has gone to the mill,
To grind thee some wheat,
To make thee some meat,
Oh, my dear baby, do lie still!"
The night Mother died, Liesl lay as still as ice on her bed, awaiting the sunset, unable to move as the rain shattered against the panes, and she'd hear Father sit on the bench and Chopin's "Nocturnes" spinning spinning spinning deep into the night. The scents of the trees below her window drifted up into her room, the smell of rain, of bonfires, and the whisper of leaves rustling across the flagstones in the garden. She closed her eyes against the pleas of the piano, the fingers unfurled, pressing softly against her breast.
Some nights she stood at her window and gazed down across the garden, into the forest. She could almost see the flare of eyes, beasts skulking in the wood, eyes riveted on hers, glittering fire against sable. She could hear the growl below the lash of the trees against the wind.
She saw the silhouette emerging from the shadow of the grandfather clock. The silhouette wavered; specter-like, lurching down the corridor like a corpse, towards her.
She squeezed her eyes shut as he stumbled in, falling against her beneath the quilts. His hair glittered as it swept across her face, smelling of blood, of pennies. His hands reached for her. The fingers flickered like spiders across her thighs. He bowed his head as if in prayer and his mouth brushed against her cheek, his breath like blooms of roses, stained with wine.
She squeezed her eyes shut and imagined her room to be a church, father bent over the organ, his head bowed, caressing the keys.
She inhaled the odor from the banks of flowers and the smoke of the incense, dissolving under the heat rising from the candles.
Father's hands trembled against her, his lips quivered, whispering and crying, his breath against her cheek as his tongue licked away his tears.
She felt the pulse of the priest chanting litanies, the falsetto of the choirboys, and the organ. She heard the clack of rosary beads working between fingers. She lay as still as a ghost on the pew.
Father's cries echoed in her head like laughter.
Liesl tucked the blanket tightly beneath her chin, shivering. She watched something across the room. A doll leaned against the window. Her father had given it to her, for her thirteenth birthday. Its hair quivered against the eyes. She felt trapped by the eyes, as though they were watching her. The girl stared back at the doll. Light slid like a crack down the side of its face. Its eyes stared and shone in the light. The hands were outstretched.
Rain rushed in streams from the sky. Liesl glided between the streetlamps that rose like steeples out of the flagstones. She tilted her face skyward, hair pouring in down her cheeks.
She watched her feet move across the cobbles, the stones singing beneath her boots. Hands deep in pockets, her fingers clutched the velvet of her cloak. She staggered down the streets, just one more block and then home, her new home. She knew she could never go back. Never. Father would come looking for her. She feared this more than anything. She wished only that her mother would find her. But mother was dead and would never come to her. Liesl was alone, but for the few trinkets she managed to steal from the house in the night.
Liesl knew no one saw her come. She did not feel father's eyes watching her here. She pulled a cord from around her neck and cupped the key in her palm. She crept across the threshold and into the corridor. Her boots echoed on the planks.
She mounted the staircase, gripping the banister, steadying herself with both arms outstretched, her hands dragging over the walls. The stairs moaned under her weight. The walls seemed to breathe and whisper as her fingers brushed over the paper.
She lay in the cot and thought of the angel in the garden at her mother's grave, its wings cracked in a storm, and fallen to the ground. They landed together, one wing pressed against the other like hands clasped in prayer. The angel's face resembled her mother's, but behind the shoulders, where the wings shattered, a crest protruded from the sculpted robes. Like rows of teeth, she thought. The thought scared her. In the twilight, her eyes gleamed with thoughts of death. She prayed a dreamless sleep waited.
Through the night he walked, his coat billowing behind him, through the bracken and clumps of sedge, towards the house laying quiet in the meadow.
At the break of the woods stood a mansion of brick supported by columns. Beneath the umbrella of an elm a woman dressed in widow's weeds stooped over a pile of leaves, scattering them across the lawn with her arms. As he strode closer to the woman he saw they were not leaves at all, but photographs. The woman raised her head, sensing his approach. The woman threw back her head and her mouth fell open, as if to laugh, but instead a song flowed from her: "Wouldn't you have thought she'd have tried to swim?"
The attic room is filled with shadows. A candle gutters on a table next to a cot. The rain drips in through the window. The rain plays a staccato against the flagstones. The room is foggy with candle smoke. Liesl dreams. She is combing her mother's hair. Her mother is laughing. In the distance she hears the shatter of glass, the creak and groan of the stair, the click of claws on the floorboards. Her mother turns to her and takes her in her arms and pulls her close. Looking up into her mother's face, Liesl sees her mother's eyes, and as she bends down to kiss Liesl, her smile is full of glass.
