The Children(20)

They went toward the back door first, where there wasn’t any trail to follow. Same thing in the other direction. She must—and Guinevere gagged thinking it—have caught all the blood in the cup of her palm, the cotton of her shirt.

Ennis grabbed her arm. “Look.”

She followed his eye to a spot on the wall beside the staircase: a red fingerprint above the fourth step. Putting her foot on the first, Guinevere peered toward the landing. “You think she lost it upstairs?”

“There’s nothing up there that could’ve cut her. She said out.”

If there was a loose finger rolling around the second floor, Guinevere would prefer to stay right where she was. But Llewellyn had given them a job. “She wasn’t wearing a jacket.”

“It’s not that cold.”

“Ennis.”

His shoulders dropped. “Fine. Let’s hurry.”

They pelted up the stairs. No blood, no blood, then a fat, juicy bead of it on the top step.

Guinevere made bug eyes at him. “See?”

“Obviously I see! You check their room. I’ll check the third floor.”

The room with the creepy desk, he meant. Edith’s reading room. She hadn’t even opened her parents’ bedroom door before Ennis was shouting for her from above.

She took the steps two at a time. He stood outside the doorway of the third-floor room. When she joined him the skin between her shoulder blades twitched like horseflesh. There was an odor coming out of the dark. Humid, coppery. It made her head pound with red visions. Their mother holding an apple and a paring knife. The downward swing of some barbaric antique paper cutter. The fast drop of a window. Edith crumpling, howling—though they’d heard no cry—and the raw place where her finger was not.

Ennis snaked a hand in and threw the switch.

No blood. Not anywhere. Electric sconces lit the floor in overlapping pools, illuminating nothing worse than dust.

As they stepped inside, Guinevere remembered why she didn’t like it. The way the room held you, warmth brushing your skin like centipede legs. How could Edith spend so much time in here?

She held her breath as they dashed along its periphery. Books stood in the corner in vertical skyscraper stacks, one of which toppled as she passed. A flash of red caught her eye—a cardigan, fallen off the chair. Coffee cups and ashtrays balanced on the mantel and the windowsills, and on the spindly desk sat an empty typewriter, a copy of The Princess and the Goblin, and an open notebook.

Both pages were covered in Edith’s raggedy writing, most of it obscured by terse horizontal cross-outs. From what remained Guinevere picked out an orphaned scrawl.

done: mirror, painting, fairy dust, rabbit hole + wardrobe(/closet) obviously. maybe: elevator, slide, cave? something w mailbox, train, train tunnel? (check Nesbit tho) Ferris wheel?? shit

“Maybe . . .”

Her voice was too loud in the room.

“Maybe what?” Ennis whispered.

“Maybe she didn’t mean lost lost,” she whispered back. “Maybe she hurt her finger really bad. Like, so bad she might as well have lost it.”

He stared at her, jaw ticking back and forth. “Yeah. Maybe you’re right. Anyway, it’s not in here.”

All the way down the stairs Guinevere took in big lungfuls of ordinary air, praying they would reach the first floor and find everything resolved, Edith holding an ice pack to a bandaged, intact finger. But as they descended Llewellyn ran past with an armful of shoes and jackets. He saw them and shouted, “Well?”

When they shook their heads he let loose a steaming stream of Welsh, throwing Edith’s boots to the ground. “Where are my car keys? Where! Get these on her. She’s in shock.” He bolted toward the kitchen.

Edith had drifted into the hall. Dead calm, red and white as a peppermint stick: blanched but for the slapped-looking cheeks, the blood streaking her hand and wrist and shirtfront.

Guinevere knelt in front of her, waggling a boot. “Mom?”

Obediently Edith lifted one foot, then the other. As Guinevere tugged the laces on her boots, smelling leather and feet, she was dizzied by a head rush of fury. There was a soft pattering on the crown of her head, and she put fingers to it before she could think. Blood. She scuttled away, stomach rising.

“Oh, shoot,” her mother said vacantly.

Llewellyn ran back, car keys jingling, and took Edith by the shoulders.

“Edie. Where is it?” His voice was deep and calm. “You must tell me. Guinevere”—he snapped his fingers at her without looking—“is going to put ice in a bowl, a bag, anything. If we find it, they can reattach it, so I need you to tell me right now where the hell your finger is.”

Edith watched him with an expression so strange, so submerged in a place past reaching, Guinevere found she couldn’t move at all. Not to touch the blood in her hair or run to the kitchen to sling ice into a bowl. So she saw it when Edith rose up from wherever she had sunk, gaze sharpening.

“It’s gone.”

She said it with such finality all the panic went out of him, all the headlong motion. He slumped and in a changed voice said, “You’ll stay here.” Looking at Edith, talking to the children. “Ennis, you’re man of the house, take care of your sister. Be good, my loves. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Edith shrugged free of him as he started to lead her out. “No, it’s fine. Look, Llew. It’s not even bleeding anymore.” Salt-pillar pale, smiling a radiant smile, she brandished her four-fingered hand. It was the ring finger that was gone, wedding ring with it.