Текст книги "Home Improvement: Undead Edition"

Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод

Соавторы: Seanan McGuire,Rochelle Krich,Toni Kelner,Simon R. Green,E. e. Knight,S. J. Rozan,Charlaine Harris,Melissa Marr,Stacia Kane
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

Eve told her.

“That is soromantic. Tom and I dated in high school. We always knew we’d get married. Boring, huh?” She smiled. “I’m glad we finally met, Eve. Welcome to the neighborhood. I’m sure you’re going to be very happy here. Michael, what did I tell you? Not so far!”

* * *

JOE AND EVEate Shabbat dinner in the dining room, uncluttered now that he had moved the boxes into the living room, and she hadn’t even asked. The light switch for the chandelier had stopped working. Eve didn’t mind. The fixture was ugly, and some of the globes were cracked. She much preferred the honeyed glow from the candles in the two silver candelabras, an engagement gift from Joe’s parents. The lighting, lovely and soft, hid the spiderweb of cracks on the walls and ceiling.

Over Ruth’s potato leek soup, Eve told Joe about Nancy and Brian Goodrich.

“Two lives gone because of a tragic mistake, just like that.” Joe snapped his fingers. “I don’t know about you, Eve, but this makes what happened less creepy. You and I—we’re nothing like the Goodriches. I feel better about the house.”

“Me, too.” She really did. “Speaking of the house, I saw cracks on the bedroom wall, above the headboards.”

Joe nodded. “The house is settling. It happens.”

“But we painted less than a week ago, Joe.”

“I guess the house has its own schedule.” He smiled. “We have touch-up paint, babe, so there’s no problem.”

Joe insisted on clearing the table and doing the dishes. Eve, still suffering from the hangover-like aftereffects of the migraine, took two Advil tablets and had read a chapter of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoowhen Joe joined her.

Joe fell asleep first. Eve took an Ambien and twisted the outer shell of the Shabbat lamp on her nightstand until the room was dark. Drifting off to sleep, she realized she’d forgotten about the Advil she’d taken earlier and wondered if mixing the two pills was dangerous. She could check the package warnings, but unless she was prepared to make herself gag and cough up the Ambien, which she wasn’t, what was the point? She wasn’t really worried.

This time she dreamed she was at her parents’ house. Her mother and father were seated on low folding chairs in their living room. Sitting shivafor Eve. The third low chair, Joe’s, was unoccupied. Eve found Joe leaning against a wall. She saw the slim, brown-haired woman sidle next to him, saw them link their hands, just for a second, when no one was watching.

No one except Eve.

Saturday morning Eve stayed in bed while Joe attended Shabbat services at the synagogue on Chandler, a five-minute walk from their house—another selling point.

“Sure you don’t want to come with me, babe?” Joe said before he left. “You might feel better if you get out, and you’ll meet people in the community.”

Eve was sure.

She wasn’tsure, for the first time since they had started chatting on J-Date, about Joe. She accepted that the nightmare was a product of her unsettled imagination, compounded by the tragedy that had befallen the house’s previous owners. But dreams had a purpose, didn’t they? Wasn’t she supposed to learn something from them?

And what did she really know about the man she’d met on an Internet site less than two years ago? She had never caught Joe in a lie, but then, she’d never questioned anything he’d told her. She’d checked him out before they met—that was only prudent, and she would have done so even without her parents’ urging. She had spoken to his rabbi (“A great guy, Joe!”), had heard positive comments from friends of friends. The Stollmans, her mother had learned, were solid people, well liked by the San Francisco Jewish community.

Eve knew that Joe had spent a year in an Israeli yeshiva after high school and had worked as a day trader in Brooklyn before returning to San Francisco, where he obtained his administrator’s license in a nursing home. Eve knew little about his six-month marriage. Joe didn’t like to talk about his ex-wife. All Eve knew was her name. Karen.

None of which was damning, Eve had to admit.

Eve knew what Joe would say if she told him about the woman in the dream. A figment of your imagination, babe. You’re insecure. You’ve always been insecure about your looks.

That was true. But . . .

Eve got out of bed and searched through Joe’s things, first in the armoire, then in the dresser. She found nothing suspicious, no references to another woman, no photos. In Joe’s nightstand she did find every note she’d written to him since they’d met, every card she’d given him.

Joe loved her.How could she have doubted him?

The door to the bathroom was open. She stepped inside. The room would be beautiful when it was finished, airy and spacious, so elegant with the white marble.

She frowned. Nails were protruding from the cement backer boards. Stepping closer, she noticed gouges in the boards. She examined the bottom of the shower. The marks and cracks on the mortar were back.

“KEN IS GOINGto quit,” Eve told Joe when he returned from shul. “I wouldn’t blame him. This is crazy, Joe.”

Joe examined the nails, studied the mortar.

“Let’s eat,” he said.

He was quiet over lunch. When they finished dessert, he said, “I have to tell you something, Eve. You’re going to be upset, but I’m hoping you can keep an open mind. Okay?”

Eve gripped the edge of the table. He wanted a divorce. He wanted to be with the brown-haired woman in Eve’s dreams. “Okay,” she said. As if she had a choice.

“I’ve been thinking about the bathroom,” he said. “The marks, the nails.”

The bathroom. In her relief Eve almost laughed.

“Is it possible—don’t answer before you hear me out, okay?—is it possible that you’ve been walking in your sleep and doing stuff you don’t remember?”

“You bastard.” Her lips were white.

“You’re taking Ambien every night, right? Ambien makes some people hallucinate, Eve. It can make people walk in their sleep and binge without knowing what they’re doing. It was in the news, remember? We talked about it. There are cases of people who didn’t know they were driving, for God’s sake.”

Eve shook her head.

“Think about it, babe,” Joe said. “That’s all I ask.”

Eve went back to her bed. When Joe came into the room she turned on her side. A moment later he was lying next to her.

“Eve, you know I love you. The Ambien is the only thing that makes sense.”

“The floors are ruined.”

“What?”

“The hardwood floors we just paid two thousand dollars to refinish? There are tons of scratches. You probably made them when you were moving the boxes.”

Joe rolled onto his back. “You didn’t say anything.”

“Well, now I am.”

He sighed. “What is this, tit for tat?”

“There are scratches on our bedroom floor, too.”

“You helped me move the beds, Eve. We were both careful about the floors. Maybe Ken’s guys did it.”

“Why don’t you tell him that, Joe? He’ll charge us double for redoing the shower pan, again.”

Eve gazed out the window.

THAT NIGHT SHEdidn’t take an Ambien. She dreamed she was at her parents’ house. Joe and the brown-haired woman—Eve hated her!—were alone in a hall. She heard Joe whispering, “You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been through, Eve was so crazy.” She heard the woman saying, “No one blames you, Joey, everyone knows she was suicidal.”

And then the voices: Leave, leave, leave, leave, leave.

Sunday morning she told Joe she hadn’t taken an Ambien.

“And?” he said.

“You were right. No nightmare, no voices.”

He grinned. “Well, now we know. I’m sorry about the floors, Eve. I should have been more careful. We’ll get them redone after everything’s finished. And don’t worry about Ken. I’ll smooth things out, guy to guy. It’ll cost us, but the main thing is you’re okay. This is great, babe, isn’t it?”

“It really is,” Eve said, trembling with hate so strong, it frightened her.

Joe would tell Ken. They would laugh about it, guy to guy, Hahahahah, women, when it was Joe who had damaged the shower and walls, deliberately.

The noises she’d heard the first night had been animal sounds. Cats or squirrels, maybe birds. But her anxiety had given Joe the idea to frighten her. He was very clever, her Joe. He’d probably made a tape that he played when Eve was sleeping. Leave, leave, leave, leave, leave.The weight on her body, the breath on her face? That was Joe. He’d moved quickly and pretended to be asleep when she’d opened her eyes.

It had taken Eve a while to puzzle out why Joe would do something so cruel and hateful. When she did, she was angry at herself for being so stupid.

Joe wanted the house. He didn’t want her. He would make her so terrified that she would beg him to sell the house. He would refuse. They would divorce. He would remain in the house and everyone would say, “No one can blame him. Eve was crazy.”

Eve tried to define the moment Joe had stopped loving her. Then she wondered if he had loved her at all. Maybe it had always been about the inheritance, which she had foolishly mentioned when they were dating.

Well, Eve had news for Joe. She wanted a divorce, too. And guess what, babe? You’ll get far less than half of what the house is worth, almost nothing.Eve had inherited the money beforeshe met Joe, so it wasn’t community property.

Eve decided to bide her time before confronting Joe. She needed proof. She considered moving out, but she had to stay in the house, to protect her claim.

Squatters’ rights, babe.

Of course, Joe wouldn’t leave. Oh, no. Joe would continue his campaign of fear to drive her out.

She was stronger than he knew.

A MIGRAINE KEPTEve in bed the entire day, and the next and the next. The nightmares and voices disturbed her nights. The headaches, along with increasing fatigue and listlessness, made getting up in the morning impossible.

On Thursday the school principal called again. Eve told him she wasn’t coming back.

Joe looked genuinely worried. “Maybe a therapist can help you get a handle on this, honey. Do you want me to make some calls?”

You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Joe?

A day earlier Eve, listening in on the phone extension on her nightstand, had overheard Joe telling Ken they had to put the project on hold. “My wife isn’t well. I’m sure you understand.”

Her mother came every day. “Tell me what’s wrong, Evie,” Ruth implored, stroking Eve’s cheek.

Eve couldn’t tell her about Joe. Her mother wouldn’t believe her. No one would. She had found no proof, not in any of his papers or on his BlackBerry, which she’d accessed on Sunday while he was out buying groceries.

One morning, the nightmare fresh in her mind, Eve realized she’d underestimated Joe.

“You can’t imagine the hell I’ve been through, Eve was so crazy.”

“No one blames you, Joey, everyone knows she was suicidal.”

Joe wanted her dead.

He would inherit the house they’d fallen in love with and bought with Eve’s money. Oh, he would pretend to be heartbroken, and after a decent period of mourning he would remarry—“He was so lonely, poor Joe, he deserves happiness after what he’s gone through.”

Joe’s wife—the brown-haired woman or someone else, who knew how many women he had in his life?—would live in Eve’s house and sleep in Eve’s bed. She would luxuriate under water streaming from the rainforest showerhead in Eve’s marble-tiled shower and relax in the tub, letting the Jacuzzi jets massage her body. She would see the backyard bloom with flowers Eve would never have picked. She would lie in a hammock and rock a baby that wasn’t Eve’s.

Eve cried.

JOE AND HERmother drove Eve to her internist in the Third Street Towers in the city.

“Her vitals are fine, except for her blood pressure, which is a little high,” Dr. Geller said, addressing only her mother and Joe, as if Eve weren’t in the room or couldn’t hear. “She’s lost over ten pounds and she’s withdrawn, almost nonverbal. I suggest you consult with a psychiatrist.”

Eve had lost weight because she couldn’t be sure if Joe had tampered with the food he coaxed down her throat. Eve thought, wasn’t it ironic that she was thinner than she’d ever been in her life, her hips slimmer than slim?

Her mother said, “Evie, why don’t you stay with us for a few days? I can take care of you until you feel better.”

Eve wanted to say, Yes, please, yes, God, yes. She longed to lie in the safety of her bed in her old room, where she could sleep without fear of the nightmare or noises, or Joe.

But Eve couldn’t leave the house, and she couldn’t see a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist would listen while Eve talked about the voices she heard and the thing she felt pressing against her. A psychiatrist would nod while Eve told him that Joe was behind the voices, behind everything: strange marks on the mortar, popping nails, scratches on the floors, light switches that were no longer working, cracks that were spreading like vines on the Kennebunkport Green walls.

Eve would be committed.

Joe would have the house.

EVE KNEW HERparents were desperate when they brought a rabbi to the house late one Sunday morning. His name, Ruth told Eve, was Rabbi Ben-Amichai. The rabbi was a mekubal—a holy man, a master of Jewish mysticism—who lived in Jerusalem and was visiting Los Angeles. Eve’s father, Frank, had met the rabbi that morning at shuland had asked for his help.

“First the rabbi wants to check the mezuzahs,” Ruth said.

“But they’re all new.”

A week before they’d moved into the house, Eve and Joe, following Orthodox tradition, had bought eight rolled parchments, inscribed by hand with verses from the Torah in Hebrew. One mezuzahfor every doorway in the house.

“Rabbi Ben-Amichai says even if they’re new, a letter may be missing, or part of a letter, or there may be some other imperfection. If something’s wrong with a mezuzah, Eve, it won’t protect you.”

Eve stayed in bed. She pictured the rabbi hunched over the small table in the breakfast nook where the lighting was best, inspecting the mezuzahsJoe and her father were removing, one by one, from the doorposts.

An hour later her mother returned. The rabbi had pronounced the mezuzahsfine.

Eve had known they were fine. The problem wasn’t mezuzahs. The problem was Joe.

“The rabbi wants to talk to you,” Ruth said.

“Why?”

“He’s a wise man, Evie. Maybe he can help.”

“Can he stop my dreams, Mom? Can he stop the voices?” Can he stop Joe?

“Eve, get up. Now.Get up, put on a robe.”

Ruth’s tone, knife sharp, sliced through Eve’s lethargy. Eve struggled out of bed. Her mother helped her into her robe and slippers. She found a scarf and tied it around Eve’s matted hair, unwashed for days.

“Perfect,” Ruth said with hollow cheer.

With her hand under Eve’s elbow, she escorted a wobbly Eve into the breakfast nook. Her father was there, and Joe.

The rabbi was old and stooped, with a long silky white beard and white hair covered by a black velvet yarmulke. His face had a thousand wrinkles.

“Sit, sit.” In a deep, unwavering voice the rabbi ordered everyone else from the room.

Eve sat opposite him and tried to place his accent. Yemenite? Definitely Sephardic. His eyes were the eyes of a young man, the dark brown of molten chocolate.

“Your husband tells me you have been hearing voices,” the rabbi said. “When did they start?”

Eve had expected skepticism or pity, but the rabbi sounded genuinely interested. “The first night we moved into the house, I heard scratching sounds. I think an animal made them. Then I started hearing the voices.”

“What do the voices sound like?”

Eve described the whooshing sound. “They tell me to leave. I’m not crazy,” she said with some defiance. “Did my husband tell you I’m crazy?”

The rabbi shook his head. “Your husband loves you very much. He is worried about you.”

Eve’s smile was thin. “He told you that, too?”

The rabbi studied her. “You don’t believe your husband loves you?”

Eve lowered her eyes under the intensity of his piercing gaze. “I don’t know what to believe.”

The rabbi nodded. “These voices that you hear in your bedroom, Mrs. Stollman. Do you hear them anywhere else?”

She shook her head.

“You also have bad dreams, yes?”

“Every night.”

“Tell me about the dreams.”

Eve started talking. The rabbi closed his eyes, and she thought, Great, the old man fell asleep, but the moment she stopped, he said, “Please, continue.”

When she had finished, the rabbi was silent for a while. Then he said, “I can see why you are so troubled. But something else is bothering you.”

“My husband didn’t tell you?” The sarcasm had slipped out. Eve flushed with embarrassment, but she wasn’t really sorry.

The rabbi’s smile was a gentle reproof. “I would very much like to hear this from you.”

So Eve told him about the cracks in the walls, the broken light switches, the scratches on the floors, the recurring strange markings in the shower.

“Who do you think is doing this?” the rabbi asked.

Did she dare? “My husband,” Eve whispered. “He wants to make me think I’m crazy. He wants—he wants the house. He doesn’t love me.” She hadn’t meant to cry, but tears streamed down her face.

“And you know this from your dreams?”

Eve felt silly.

The rabbi said, “Your husband loves you deeply. This I know to be true.”

“How? How can you know?”

“I know.”

“You dothink I’m crazy,” Eve said. Maybe she was.

The rabbi pushed himself up from the chair with a sudden movement that startled her. “Come.”

Eve followed him to her bedroom. How odd, she thought, that the rabbi seemed to know the way, as though he’d been here before. He stopped in the doorway of the master bedroom, as her mother had.

“They are very angry,” he said quietly. “I feel them.”

Eve shivered. “Who?”

Squaring his shoulders, the rabbi stepped into the room and stood motionless for several long minutes. He took his time examining the wall behind the beds, then the other walls and the floors. In the bathroom he looked first at the protruding nails. Stooping down, he peered at the markings on the bottom of the shower. He returned to the bedroom, Eve following.

“Show me where you hear the voices,” the rabbi said.

Eve walked to her bed and pointed to an area above the headboard. “There.”

“Do you hear them now?”

Was he testing her? She shook her head. “Can you—do you hear anything?”

“Mrs. Stollman, they have no quarrel with me.”

The rabbi sprinted out of the room and down the hallway as though he were fleeing. Eve, out of shape and out of breath, had difficulty keeping up. Her parents and Joe were seated at the dining room table. They stood as the rabbi and Eve passed through the room and looked at the rabbi expectantly. He motioned to them to remain where they were and continued to the breakfast room, Eve at his heels.

The rabbi sat at the table. Eve did the same.

“Mrs. Stollman, did you close up any windows in your bedroom? Any doors?”

“No. Rabbi Ben-Amichai—”

“The people who lived in this house before you—your husband told me about the tragedy. Two deaths, Hashem yerachem.” God have mercy. “Did they seal a door? A window?”

“I don’t know,” Eve said, stifling her impatience. “Rabbi Ben-Amichai, when we were in my bedroom, you said you felt them. Who is ‘they’?”

“Shedim,”the rabbi said, his voice low. “Some feel that even to say the word is not advisable.”

Demons. Eve flinched.

“They are made of air, fire, and water. The sages tell us that in three ways shedimare like angels. They have wings. They fly from one end of the earth to the other. They hear what will happen in the future.” The rabbi paused. “In three ways they are like humans. They eat and drink like humans, they reproduce like humans, they die like humans. They are here right now.”

Eve felt a prickling up and down her spine. She looked around.

“Trust me, they are here, Mrs. Stollman,” the rabbi said quietly. “The Talmudic scholar Rav Huna stated that every one of us has one thousand shedimon his left hand and ten thousand on his right.”

Eve squirmed.

“Sometimes we can sense them. Have you ever felt crowded even though no one is sitting next to you?” The rabbi leaned toward Eve. “These shedimare what you feel pressing on you every night, breathing on you.” He eyed her with sympathy and a touch of sadness. “You do not believe me.”

“It’s . . .” Eve shook her head.

“Sprinkle ashes on the floor around your bed, Mrs. Stollman. In the morning you will see their footprints, resembling those of a chicken.”

Eve flashed to the markings on the mortar. Not possible, she thought. Still, she felt a frisson of fear and revulsion.

“If you are determined to see them, take finely ground ashes of the afterbirth of a black cat and put them in your eye. You will see them.” The rabbi raised a finger. “I must warn you, this is dangerous. Rav Huna saw shedimand came to harm. Luckily the scholars prayed for him and he recovered.” The rabbi fixed her with his deep brown eyes. “Now it is you who are thinking, ‘This old man is crazy,’ yes?” A smile tugged at his lips.

Eve blushed and looked away. “The markings in the shower could be from a bird.” Or Joe.

The rabbi didn’t respond.

“Suppose you’re right,” Eve said, facing the rabbi. “Why would these shedimbe tormenting me?”

“You or someone else has interfered with them. I believe that there was a window or door on the wall where you hear the voices. You say you did not seal off a window—”

“I didn’t.”

The rabbi nodded. “You do not know if the people who lived here before you sealed off a window or door.”

“They did make changes,” Eve said, remembering what the neighbor had told her. “I don’t know what kind. Why does that matter?”

“ Shedimhave established pathways, Mrs. Stollman. When you interrupt those pathways, they are resentful. They take vengeance. These shedimresided in your house long before you moved in. To them, you are intruders, trespassers.”

Eve wanted to say, That’s ridiculous. But how could she insult this bearded holy man sitting in her home? “Rabbi, why doesn’t my husband hear the voices? Why isn’t he having similar nightmares?”

The rabbi shook his head. “That I cannot answer. Your dreams trouble you more than the voices, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“They have robbed you not only of sleep, but of peace of mind, of trust in your husband. They have convinced you he means you harm.”

Eve felt as though her heart would crack. “Yes.”

“Why do you assume these dreams are true?”

“I have the same dream, over and over. Why would that be unless my unconscious is telling me something, warning me? You said shedimcan tell the future, Rabbi. Do they share that knowledge with humans through dreams?”

The rabbi nodded. “They do.”

Well then,Eve thought.

“But shedimlove to confound humans, to mix truth with lies,” the rabbi said. “Remember, they are not here to protect you. Quite the opposite. At the very least, find the location of the window or door that was sealed off. Make a small hole through the wall so that the shedimcan resume their movement unobstructed.”

“And that will stop the voices? The nightmares?”

The rabbi sighed. “This is a house of misery and bad fortune, Mrs. Stollman. Two people have died unnatural deaths. I’m afraid the shedimwill never leave you in peace.”

“ SHEDIM? ASHES OFblack cats?” Joe said after the rabbi had blessed Eve and Joe and left with her parents. “Sounds like Macbeth, or Halloween. I don’t really believe in this stuff, babe. Do you?”

“Not really,” Eve said, wishing she did.

Her parents had been less skeptical. Her father had looked somber and her mother had said, “Oh my God,” several times and shuddered.

Watching Joe tap his fingers on the wall above her headboard in expanding circles, Eve thought, wouldn’t it be something if the rabbi were right—frightening, yes, but at the same time wonderful?

“Sounds solid to me, Eve,” Joe said.

“Oh.”

“I can call the broker tomorrow and ask him to find out if the Goodriches sealed off a window. Or I can have Ken open the wall.”

“You can ask our neighbor, Sandy,” Eve said. “She might know.”

“She may not be home,” Joe said. He saw the look on Eve’s face. “Okay. I’ll go check.”

Standing in front of the breakfast nook window, Eve juggled hope and despair for what seemed like an eternity until she saw Joe coming back up the walkway.

“What did Sandy say?” Eve asked, knowing the answer from Joe’s shaken expression.

Shedim.

“They sealed off a bedroom window,” Joe said, his voice subdued and so quiet she had to lean in to hear him. “Sandy wanted to know why I was asking. I said we were wondering, because the wall sounded hollow.”

“Good thinking,” Eve said. They were around her, around Joe, everywhere. Thousands, the rabbi had said.

Joe pulled Eve into his arms. “I am so, so sorry I doubted you, babe. I feel terrible that I accused you of sleepwalking and doing all that stuff.”

“You couldn’t know.”

He pulled away and stared at her. “This is surreal, isn’t it? Scary as hell.”

“It is.” Eve’s heart soared.

RABBI BEN-AMICHAI HADadvised selling the house, but Eve and Joe saw no harm in trying a less drastic measure. They would ask Ken to bore a hole through the bedroom wall. If that didn’t appease the shedim, they would sell, probably at a loss, but they would have no choice.

Joe said, only half joking, “We’d have to ask the rabbi if we’re obligated to tell the broker about the shedim.”

In the morning Joe would drive Eve to her parents’ home, where she would stay until Ken made the hole and the rabbi determined that the house was safe for Eve.

“I can take you now,” Joe said. “I don’t want you to suffer through one more night of voices and nightmares.”

Eve said, “Tomorrow is fine, Joe. Now that I know what’s going on, I’m not scared.”

Joe bought dinner from Cambridge Farms: sushi, Eve’s favorite saffron rice with cranberries, grilled steak. Eve, feeling better than she had in weeks, was ravenous. Later Joe murmured, “You and me forever, babe,” and she fell asleep in his arms.

Eve dreamed. She was in a long narrow room filled with Hebrew texts and men wrapped in prayer shawls. A shul. She saw a white-haired man with a long white beard sitting on a bench at a table piled with open texts. He was so familiar, who—

Rabbi Ben-Amichai.

A man approached the rabbi, his back to Eve. He shook the rabbi’s hand and sat across from him. The two talked. Eve heard the man say, “. . . at my wits’ end, Rabbi . . . need your help.” The rabbi raised his hands, palms up. The man leaned forward and continued. Eve couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she sensed the urgency in the hunch of his shoulders, saw the rabbi’s responding sigh. The rabbi said, “I cannot promise, but I will try.” The men shook hands again across the table. Then the man turned and Eve knew before she saw his face that it was Joe. She watched as Joe, crossing the room, greeted her father and brought him to the rabbi’s table.

The image shifted to the cemetery. Eve saw her parents and Joe’s, crying at her gravesite. She saw Joe and the brown-haired woman stealing glances, their hands touching. “. . . everyone knows she was crazy, Joe, don’t blame yourself.”Rabbi Ben-Amichai was standing to the side, his white head raised toward the sky, his faced etched with grief, tears streaming from his dark brown eyes as he beat his chest with a clenched fist.

Then the voices, the rabbi’s among them: Leave, leave, leave.Not a whisper, no, a cry.

Joe had fooled the rabbi. He had almost fooled Eve. “I don’t believe in thisshedim stuff, do you, babe? We’ll make the hole through the wall, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll sell.”

All to get her out of the house.

Eve woke with a start and blinked her eyes open. Her heart was beating so rapidly she was sure Joe heard. She gazed at Joe, lying on his back, asleep.

Lover or traitor?

And howwould she die? Would she take her own life, driven mad by the voices and dreams and despair? Or would Joe lose patience? Would he poison her? Drug her? Smother her with a pillow as he leaned in for a final kiss?

Shedimlied.

Shedimlied, Eve reminded herself. The rabbi had said so. Shedimlied. Shedimlied.

Were they urging her to leave, showing her a future they hoped she would avoid? Or were they laughing at her with malicious glee, trying to shatter her newfound faith in Joe?

How could Eve know what was truth and what was fabrication?

Lover or traitor?

Careful not to wake Joe, Eve slid off the bed. She tiptoed down the hall to the kitchen. She eased open a drawer.

She would never leave, never, unless she was taken out feet first, and then she wouldn’t go alone, oh no.

She loved Joe so much. She really did.

Eve lay on her back, the knife tucked under her thigh, sharp against her skin.