Free Embers by Antoinette Stockenberg Page B

her. She comes in and throws herself in my arms and I am in a state of shock.
    'He's tried to rape me,' she says. 'Please, you have to help me. I need to get away, to get to the police.'
    "'What!' says I. 'He's attacked you now? '   It's plain I don't believe her. The timing seems downright comical. And she don't look what you call disheveled; except for her hair undone and the look in her eyes, she looks the way she did earlier in the day.
    "She pushes me away, she's furious at me. She reaches in her pocket and waves a letter in my face. ‘You still don't believe me!' she says. 'Read this, then, read this! It's a letter from Gordon. He's obsessed with me,' she says, 'that's what he is. He claims he's risked everything for me. And now he's threatening me: if he can't have me, he won't let anyone else have me, either! See for yourself!'
    "She tries to force the letter on me, but all I can think to say is, 'Where did he try this?'
    "'In the nursery, where else?' she says, as if the attacks were a regular thing.
    ‘What?' says I. 'With the children there?' It all seems so incredible to me. I don't know what to think, what to believe. And all the while I'm aware that the dollhouse is teetering, because she's leaning on it for support. I don't know what to do — save her, save the house, I don't know what.
    "While I'm standing there like a fool, there's a loud banging on the door. I run to open it: it's Gordon Camplin. He looks grim but steadylike. He's looking for Margaret Atwells, he tells me. Then he spies her, hanging back by the dollhouse.
    'Mrs. Atwells!' he cries. 'We've been looking all over for you! The household is packed up; everyone's ready to go. The last escape route off the island's been cut off by fire. We've been told to assemble in the Athletic Field. We may have to evacuate by boat. For God's sake, will you come? The children are hysterical without you.'
    "Meanwhile, I don't know who to believe. I look at him: calm, concerned, acting reasonable, trying to keep his large household together. And I look at Margaret: crying, angry, near incoherent. She don't come forward, but hangs back like a cornered thing.
    "I begin to — I think I'm going to — intervene. But Gordon speaks first. 'Whatever else has happened, they need you now,' he says quietly to her. 'You're imperiling us all when you delay. Please. Come.'
    "He holds out his hand to her. She stands there, for a short lifetime. I can see that she's agonizing whether to believe him. Finally, she gives a long sigh ... and comes out from behind the dollhouse ... and goes away with him."
    Tremblay stared into indeterminate space, his jaw a little slack, his eyes dull and unseeing. "It was the last time," he said at last, "I ever saw her."
    ****
    This is her story? Meg thought, crushed with disappointment. She glanced at Tom. There is no more? But of course there was. Tom, at least, knew it. And he was waiting for it.
    And in the meantime Orel Tremblay was looking at Meg with a sad and considering gaze. "You're right," he said in a shaky, surprised voice. "You're not at all her spitting image."
    "She was telling the truth, wasn't she," Meg whispered.
    Tremblay dropped his gaze from her and nodded. "When she walked past me with her head so high, that's when I saw the marks, black-and-blue and crystal-clear: the imprints of four fingers on her arm. I don't know how I missed ‘em when she come in. Her cape must've covered them."
    "And you let her go," Meg said. "You let him go."
    "Something you must not do," Tremblay said with a penetrating look at Meg.
    "But how was it possible?" asked Meg. "Everyone was evacuating. When would he — how could he —? No, I really don't see it," she said firmly, picturing the chaos of that night. "Besides, it would be a tremendous risk. My grandmother certainly would've reported him to you or the police or someone."
    "No risk at all," Tremblay said with a black look.
    "That's a very serious charge," Tom said quickly.
    Meg,