The Swan Gondola (37 page)

I
READ THE LETTER,
and I read it again and again and again. I picked up a pen and ran its dry nib over Cecily's words—
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here
—over and over, following the slants and dips of her cursive.

Even if it was only a hoax, I would let myself be fooled. I would play along. I could imagine Mrs. Margaret, or Wakefield's sister, or Wakefield himself, weary of all the letters I sent to the house. I could imagine them wanting to taunt. Those three, they did love a dirty trick.

But I knew my way around the pitfalls of forgery. In my literary business, I'd been asked a time or two to mirror and mimic, to fake a wife's handwriting or a husband's signature, for seemingly deceitful purposes. If Cecily's letter had been written by someone else, there'd be stops and starts. There'd be tremors and tracing. Letters would fail to connect. You'd be able to see past the words to all the toil and industry in it.

And this, with little doubt, was truly Cecily's hand. I'd become an expert in her bad penmanship.

So, for a few hours in the night, my head not straight, I considered her
death
the hoax, not this letter in my hands. I closed my eyes and looked past logic. I returned to the funeral, lighting here and there like a fly in the room.
How did he do it?
I wondered as I studied the plot for its hinges.

Wakefield was a master of spectacle. Maybe Cecily's death had been nothing but a week of theater. Had he spoon-fed Cecily a poison that only slowed her heart, that hid its fragile beats away long enough to convince the undertaker? Had he buried a wax wife and locked Cecily in a cellar?

I began to see other things I hadn't seen at all. In my memory, Cecily appeared at an upstairs window of the Wakefield house as we left the memorial. She parted a drape, her breath frosting the glass.

In my response to Cecily's letter, I gave no greeting. I didn't sign my name. I wrote only,
You're cruel to deceive me.

A
M
I
CRUEL?
she wrote in response, in a letter that arrived only a few days later.
Am I deceiving? I don't mean to be. I've read your every letter, and your every letter lifts my heart. I make a ritual of it all. Before sitting down with your latest, I pour some quince brandy in my little ruby-red glass from the Fair. You seal your envelopes with golden wax, and you stamp the wax with a honeybee. I cut the wax with a kitchen knife. The knife has a handle of whalebone, and carved into the handle is the tail of a whale. Your letters smell of tobacco and smoke, and I picture you puffing on a pipe as you consider what to write to me. I hold the paper to my nose. I've lost my spectacles, so I run a magnifying glass over your words. I study every scratch of your pen, I follow every curve of your every letter of every word.

I don't get your letters until they're gone. He gets them first, and he throws them in the fire. They burn away to nothing. And then they're mine.

To all you who hate me,

If Cecily's a ghost, why won't she haunt me in my own house?

Yours truly,

Ferret Skerritt

My dear Ferret,

Burn this letter before you even lay eyes on it. I don't deserve a single sympathy. I'm sorry to be such a puzzle. I won't write again.

With all my love,

Cecily

Whoever you are,

Don't stop writing.

F.

Dear Ferret,

I should never have written to you. Before you knew I was reading them, you wrote me such beautiful letters.

Yours,

Cecily

Dear Cecily,

How are you writing me at all?

Ferret

Dear Ferret,

How
am
I writing you? I can't lift a feather. How am I reading your letters? I have lied, I confess. There's no ritual. I can't swallow a measly drop of quince brandy. I can't smell the tobacco on the page.

I can't pluck a string of the mandolin in the corner. My breath won't fog the mirror. I can't write my name in the dust. The room could be locked. Or not. I can't turn a knob. I don't come and go as I please. I hear Doxie when she cries on the other side of the wall, but she can't hear me hushing her. How can I haunt the place? I can't rattle a chain or knock the pictures off the wall. I'm not a ghost, I fear. I'm less than a ghost. I'm less than the words written on the paper in your hand. I didn't write them. The ink in the pot is dry.

Cecily