The Caretakers (3 page)

Authors: David Nickle

BOOK: The Caretakers

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“What are you doing?”

“I just want to see if perhaps one of my colleagues left a note on that board.”

The housekeeper looked at Evelyn straight on. She was a small woman, stout without being fat, probably quite muscular, given her vocation. There was something serious in her look but not thoughtful. For a moment, it seemed as though she might actually physically prevent her from getting to the board. But the moment passed, and she looked away.

“I have to get this room ready.”

Evelyn said that she wouldn't be long, and moved the easel out just far enough to see, and as it turned out, she wasn't long. The board had been polished clean.

“Thank you,” she said, and returned to the hall, and summoned the elevator.

As the doors closed on her, she stood still listening to the wind howl at the top of the shaft. She debated a moment where to go and finally elected to return to her room. From there, she would try to text and then, if that failed, call Leslie, and then Bill, and finally Miss Erish. The elevator engaged and took her to her floor, and she waited barely an instant before she got off and returned to her roomâtrying to ignore a growing feeling during her march that she would not need to call or text anyone, because of course Miss Erish would be waiting there. Evelyn somehow knew that even before she caught the scent and slid the room card into the lock. It had happened before. Not always, but enough.

Miss Erish was seated in the low armchair next to the desk. The tablet was propped up in its case at her side. Evelyn could not see the screen, but it bathed Miss Erish in the same yellow light as it had in the bar.

Evelyn put her room card on the nightstand by the bed. Miss Erish's eyes flickered between the screen and Evelyn, as Evelyn sat on the edge of the bed.

“I am alone,” said Miss Erish.

“Yes,” said Evelyn. The room was emptyâundisturbedâin the state she had left it. With the curtains drawn, it might still not have been dawn yet. She checked the washroom, just to be sure, and it was so: just her and Miss Erish.

“Where are the others?” said Miss Erish. Evelyn started to answer, but Miss Erish raised a hand.

“Would you sit down, please,” she demanded.

Evelyn sat down at the foot of the bed.

“You took too long,” said Miss Erish.

Evelyn did not think that she had, but she knew there was no use arguing.

“I do apologize,” she said.

“Don't speak,” Miss Erish said. “Don't breathe.”

Evelyn drew in a breath and held it there.

“I didn't breathe,” said Miss Erish. “Underneath those cold waters of the Great River, how could I? Why should you?”

Miss Erish leaned forward and drew herself to her feet. She withdrew the veil from her face, her fingertips making a squeaking noise as she caressed her own cheek.

“It was a gift, a gift of breathlessness. I didn't know what a gift it was at first, as my lungs burned and I sank into the silt. My anger, it burned also, oh, how hot in my breast! It caught me afire; that is how it was. On fire in the midst of extinguishing waters. Do you think you will suffocate if you keep that up?”

Evelyn made as to draw breath, but Miss Erish raised a finger:
not yet
.

“You will not,” said Miss Erish. “No matter how you may wish itâno matter how strong your will, your flesh will betray it.”

Evelyn let her breath out and heaved another in.

“And yet. Your will, it might be stronger than
that
,” Miss Erish reproved.

Evelyn dared say nothing.

“The river gave me up, too. Eventually. It drew me, still and furious, through villages and the great golden cities, across a broad delta beneath palms, and through reeds, and on the tide to the sea with the fisher-boats. I was a great beauty then. More beautiful than you. Can you imagine?”

Evelyn simply nodded. Miss Erish arched her back as though preening. Her eyes never left Evelyn.

“There was drinking last evening,” she said. “You didn't attend, did you? I know that Mr. Hunter would have preferred you had. He thinks about you a great deal. He is in love with you. There. It is out.”

Miss Erish finally turned to look at the screen of her tablet.

“Did you encourage him?” she asked softly.

“Once,” said Evelyn.

“Only once?”

“Perhaps more.”

“Ah. Well. No matter.” Miss Erish turned her tablet's face down, so the light squeezed into a thin glow around its edge and Miss Erish was in shadow. “Mr. Allen has seen to him.”

Evelyn wasn't precisely sure what she had meant by
seen to him
. It could mean a great many things, owing to the absence of both Leslie Hunter and Bill Allen from this hotel suite into which Miss Erish had let herself. Evelyn wasn't sureâbut she thought she knew.

Miss Erish's joints popped and groaned as she settled forward in her chair.

“Up on the roof,” said Miss Erish, “there is a patio and a swimming pool, adjacent to the health club. It is closed now owing to the weather and so private. The pool has a tarpaulin covering it. That is where he took Mr. Hunter.”

And that is where he saw to him
.

Evelyn sat perfectly still, or rather her body did. The terror had been creeping up on her for some time, maybe since she left the airport for the hotel, through the night alone in this very roomÂ â¦

No, it had begun sooner than that. Maybe in another bed, long ago, another cold, empty-bellied nightâso awful that Evelyn could barely recall it except in the abstractÂ â¦ in the same abstract manner that she could recall her own gratitude now to her rescuer.

“There is no water in the pool this time of year,” said Miss Erish. “The flesh will not let the will have its way alone.”

“Did heâ¦”

Evelyn felt the air in her lungs thickening like water now.

“He promised he would,” she said, “and Mr. Allen has never let me down. I have at least that one friend.”

At that, Evelyn found her voice. “I love you. I am your friend.” But she didn't, and she wasn't, not at that moment. Miss Erish shook her head slowly.

“I really didn't escape that river until long after it stopped flowing,” she said, “in the wide sea. There was no land in sight when I rose from itâno fisher, nor ibis nor gull nor albatross. You have heard me tell this before, haven't you? I forget myself.”

Evelyn had drawn her knees up to her chin. The windows in this room were double-paned and thick, but she could hear wind outside. It made her think about the empty swimming pool overhead, the tarpaulin straining at its moorings, snow sheeting across it and slipping underneath, gathering over Leslie's cooling tear ducts.

“I've been trying to reach Miss Retson on her phone,” said Miss Erish. “She's turned it off.”

“No,” said Evelyn. She explained about the battery in Andrea's phone. Miss Erish looked skeptical.

“You have a daughter. Are you waiting on her now?”

Evelyn said no, but Miss Erish didn't believe that either.

“
Your
phone has no battery problems. It is a-buzzing. Why don't you check it?”

Evelyn let her hand rest on the purse at her side, felt the rhythmic humming of the thing sure enough. Hands trembling, she reached inside and withdrew the phone.

COME HOME MOM PLS
, the text read, and she read it aloud when Miss Erish told her to. Miss Erish sat quietly for a moment, then delicately lifted the tablet so the yellow light from its screen climbed her torso like a dismal sunrise and finally illuminated her face, the eyes casting ravenously as if from the barren solitude of a tomb.

“You were here earliest,” she said. “While the others were sleeping, you were awake and about.” She set the tablet on its back, so it lit the curtains, the ceiling. “Of all of them, even Mr. AllenÂ â¦ you arrived first.”

Miss Erish looked down at the light. It seemed to grow brighter as she did soâas though the sensor had noted some competing glow, and automatically tuned the illumination higher.

“Oh dear,” said Miss Erish. “Oh dear, oh damn.”

Her voice sounded raw. It seemed to Evelyn as though she were crying. Evelyn's thumbs hovered over the screen of her phone, and the little keyboard there. She felt as though she ought to respond to her daughter, but she could not take her eyes from Miss Erish, who trembled.

“What do you think about Miss Retson? She pursued little Miss Wilson very swiftly. As though she were very worriedÂ â¦ very worried. Might sheÂ â¦ Might it be
love
? No. That cannot be. I shall send her a message. Instruct herâ” Miss Erish's fingers clacked furiously against the glass of her tablet. “Oh damn, damn.”

Evelyn set her phone down. She reached her arms toward Miss Erish, slid forward on the bed, and Miss Erish joined Evelyn there. Miss Erish felt cool and brittle beneath her blouse, and left to her own inclinations, Evelyn would have recoiled at the inhuman touch of her.

They sat like that for some time, listening to the wind outside as it howled across the highway, along the riverâsomehow growing colder themselves, in one another's embrace.

About the Author

David Nickle
is the author of the novels
The 'Geisters,
Rasputin's Bastards,
and
Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism,
and co-author of
The Claus Effect,
with Karl Schroeder. His stories are collected in
Knife Fight and Other Struggles,
and
Monstrous Affections.
He is co-editor with Madeline Ashby of Licence Expired: The Unauthorized James Bond. He lives in Toronto, Canada, where he works as a journalist covering municipal politics. You can sign up for email updates
here
.