Free My Ghosts by Mary Swan Page B

said, and that’s what she thought she was doing. Breaking a spell that might have been cast at the moment of her birth, or later, when Peach took shape in the gloom. It was an evening like any other, withan autumn tang in the air. The rest were all in bed and she was tidying up a few last things, folding the newspaper Ben had left spread out on the table. The picture caught her eye, above the advertisement for the Electro-Therapy Institute, on Church Street. A drawing of a woman’s head, in profile, who looked so serene, so happy. The smiling curve that was half her mouth, and her hair dressed to show the flattest, most delicate swirl of ear.
    She might have tossed the paper in the kindling box and thought no more about it. She might have shown someone, shown Nan; no matter what, they’ve always been braver and better together. Instead she let the idea settle and spread, so proud of herself for recognizing the secret sign. It’s Science, of course it is, as Ben always says, that will make everything better. The next day she walked down Church Street, put her hand to the gleaming door and asked the cost, as if she was someone with every right to be there. The next step, simply, to find the three dollars, which was more than Charlie made in a week, but less than Ben did, and not an impossible sum. She thought of looking for some work she could do, but how could she explain it? And how to keep the money for herself, without saying why?
    Kez tosses her head in the dark, and wonders how she didn’t even feel the weave of the new spell settling around her, the evil that she did, telling herself that the others would understand if they knew, all the while being so careful that they wouldn’t. How could she not have heard the gurgling laugh of whatever creature was watching, so delighted to see her plotting, the pathetic excuses she made to herself. Telling herself that if she made sure to eat less, no one else would really suffer for the money she took from the housekeepingjar. “Maybe you’re losing your mind,” she told Nan, who was puzzled when she tipped it out to count. “Soon you’ll be drooling in a chair like old Peach, but don’t worry, Moon, I’ll wipe your chin for you.”
    She kept the coins in a little cloth purse Clare had made when she was learning to sew, adding one or two at a time, and the sound they made when she hefted it was the music of her transformed life. She thought briefly of raiding the box under Charlie’s bed for something to pawn, telling herself that none of it was well-gotten, that he was so careless he wouldn’t even notice; a mercy that she didn’t do it, but that’s the smallest of comforts now. She thinks instead of how she felt this morning, the grand day finally arrived. She slipped out the door, wondering if this was how Ross had felt, how Nan had, walking toward a new life. Thinking already of the welcome she would receive when she came back changed. And somewhere up ahead, a vision of a hazy-faced husband, of children toddling across a gleaming floor. Money enough to spread around, so that everyone would know what a good and kind person she really was.
    In the dark she presses her hands to her mouth. The long moan she’s stifled rolls through her body instead, and she doesn’t know how she’ll survive it. She’s always thought that the worst thing is for others to know; that the pinch could be borne, as long as you didn’t let on. All wrong about that too, this is far worse. She’s shamed herself, in some deep and total way. Fooled herself, caught up in a bubble of hope, as if it would float her away, when all it did was leave something too fragile between her and the malevolent world.
    There’s no stopping it now, the memory of that warm and quiet room. The crackle of the fire, and the soft scratch of the pen as the doctor made her notes. She looked like the drawing in the newspaper, except for the spectacles and the hair; her eyes, seen straight on, were so gentle.