In the singing deep night, back among a clump of bushes— half hidden, but laid out as if she had put herself down there to enjoy the soft stars—lay Eliza Ramsell.
Francine screamed.
The woman lay as if she were floating there, her face moon-freckled, her eyes like white marble, her tongue clamped in her lips.
Lavinia felt the ravine turning like a gigantic black merry-go-round underfoot. Francine was gasping and choking, and a long while later Lavinia heard herself say, “We’d better get the police.”
* * *
“Hold me, Lavinia, please hold me, I’m cold. Oh, I’ve never been so cold since winter.”
Lavinia held Francine and the policemen were all around in the ravine grass. Flashlights darted about, voices mingled, and the night grew toward 8:30.
“It’s like December. I need a sweater,” said Francine, eyes shut, against Lavinia’s shoulder.
The policeman said, “I guess you can go now, ladies. You might drop by the station tomorrow for a little more questioning.”
Lavinia and Francine walked away from the police and the delicate sheet-covered thing on the ravine grass.
Lavinia felt her heart going loudly within her and she was cold, too, with a February cold. There were bits of sudden snow all over her flesh and the moon washed her brittle fingers whiter, and she remembered doing all the talking while Francine just sobbed.
A police voice called, “You want an escort, ladies?”
“No, we’ll make it,” said Lavinia, and they walked on. I can’t remember anything now, she thought. I can’t remember how she looked lying there, or anything. I don’t believe it happened. Already I’m forgetting. I’m making myself
forget.
“I’ve never seen a dead person before,” said Francine.
Lavinia looked at her wrist watch, which seemed impossibly far away. “It’s only 8:30. We’ll pick up Helen and get on to the show.”
“The show!”
“It’s what we need.”
“Lavinia, you don’t mean it!”
“We’ve got to forget this. It’s not good to remember.”
“But Eliza’s back there now and—”
“We need to laugh. We’ll go on to the show as if nothing happened.”
“But Eliza was once your friend, my friend—”
“We can’t help her; we can only help ourselves forget. I insist. I won’t go home and brood over it. I won’t think of it. I’ll fill my mind with everything else but.”
They started up the side of the ravine on a stony path in the dark. They heard voices and stopped.
Below, near the creek waters, a voice was murmuring, “I am The Lonely One. I am The Lonely One. I kill people.”
“And I’m Eliza Ramsell. Look. And I’m dead. See my tongue out my mouth, see!”
Francine shrieked. “You, there! Children, you nasty children! Get home, get out of the ravine, you hear me? Get home, get home, get home!”
The children fled from their game. The night swallowed their laughter away up the distant hills into the warm darkness.
Francine sobbed and walked on.