The Story Sisters

“You’re completely wrong,” Elv said. Lorry had to be somewhere.

He had his coat on when they found him, Pete told her. He was ready to leave and go home when he overdosed. He had that black cap of his and a sack of groceries from the market and a dozen roses, the kind that were so resistant to cold weather they were often kept on the sidewalk in plastic bins, the kind he’d brought her on the night when she knew the saucers of salt wouldn’t protect the two of them from evil. Pete held her while she sobbed. She had never sounded like that. She didn’t even know where the noise was coming from if not from the otherworld, the scream she would have cried so long ago if she hadn’t been tied up with ropes, her mouth stuffed with bread so no one could hear her.

Everyone could hear her now.

Confession

The wolf came to me at midnight and stood below my window. He had chased the innocent, defiled the sacred, run after horses and carriages, caused the snow to turn red with blood. He had an arrow in his side. He was the one bleeding now.

I told him it would hurt, and to shut his eyes. I took out the arrow, cleaned the wound, gave him supper. People in the village said he devoured me then, left only my boots in the snow. They said it would teach the other girls a lesson, and maybe it did. From where I lived in the woods I could hear them calling at night. I wondered what lesson they’d learned.

THE SEASON HAD BEEN COLDER THAN USUAL AND THERE WERE many deaths in the city. The cold crept inside rooms, and Paris filled with people wearing long black coats. Tourists could not believe this was the city they had dreamed of visiting. They locked themselves in their hotel rooms and drank hot coffee, wishing they were back in New Jersey or Idaho. It was a season of grief and broken hearts, and in many apartments the heat gave out altogether. Children were covered with layers of wool blankets at night; in the mornings, they held steaming cups of cocoa to warm their hands. Several sparrows froze solid on the branches of the chestnut tree in Natalia’s courtyard and had to be shaken from their perches with the swipe of a broom handle.

Shiloh died in his sleep one morning as the dark was lifting. Claire woke suddenly. Clouds of her breath formed in the chilly air. Nothing felt alive. Usually the birds were chattering at this hour, waking in the dreamy silver light. But now they had all been swept up into a dustpan, deposited in the bin in the courtyard along with potato peelings and newspapers.

Though he’d grown old, Shiloh had insisted on following Claire until the end. When his feet began to drag on the sidewalks, Natalia fashioned boots for him out of leather. For a while he was steadier. People in the neighborhood applauded when he managed to haul himself down the street. Shiloh struggled, but his downfall was imminent. In the end, his hips and legs gave out. It became difficult to wake him in the mornings. His breathing rattled, his eyes were milky. Soon he’d stopped eating his supper. Now he was gone. Claire wrenched herself out of bed and went to lie beside him on the carpet. She had been fifteen when her mother brought him home. She remembered writing Take him back.

In the kitchen, where she was fixing a pot of coffee, Natalia heard a plaintive sound. She thought it was a bird, then remembered they were all gone. As she went along the hallway the cry grew louder. She was led to the bedroom door. It was locked. When Claire at last came out, she was wearing boots and the jacket her mother used to wear in the garden. Her face was pale and grim.

“Where are you going?” Natalia followed along behind her granddaughter. She had suspected Claire might do something rash when this time came, something on impulse. She had already phoned Leah to ask her advice. Madame Cohen had assured her that help was on the way.

“I’m going to bury him,” Claire told her grandmother.

“We don’t have a shovel,” Natalia said, hoping to dissuade her. This was what grave diggers were for, to take grief into their capable hands. Surely there was such a service for animals.

“There are shovels in the shed,” Claire said.

The landlord kept tools locked up in a little wooden lean-to in the courtyard; tenants were forbidden from using them, but Claire didn’t care. She went downstairs, picked up a rock, and smashed the lock on the shed until it yielded. Stringy cobwebs and rusted garden implements greeted her. A few frozen carcasses still littered the courtyard: wren, sparrow, pigeon, dove. Claire grabbed one of the old shovels and slammed the shed door shut. Icicles fell and shattered into blue sparks.

When Claire turned, three young men were standing behind her. They were so unexpected she took a step back. They were tall and all three had shovels. They weren’t there by accident. Madame Cohen had sent over her younger grandsons. All were in medical school. The older grandsons were already doctors and unavailable for dog burials, but these three would do. Claire had not seen any of them since they were children, so the eldest introduced himself and his brothers.

“Where do you want it?” Émile, the first grandson, asked. He was known to be the serious one. He said what he meant. People thought he might be a psychiatrist one day.

“Not ‘it,’” Claire said. “He.”

Claire decided the first grandson was an idiot. She pointed to the chestnut tree. There was a patch of soil between the tree trunk and the cobbled courtyard. Émile and the second brother, Gérald, began to dig. Gérald hummed. People thought he would work in the lab. He was a fool as well. The third of Madame Cohen’s grandsons followed Claire upstairs to help bring Shiloh down. He was the youngest, the tallest, and the most awkward. He nodded a hello to Madame Rosen, banging his head on the low kitchen doorway as he followed Claire to the bedroom to retrieve Shiloh. The German shepherd looked crumpled and much smaller than he had in life. It took all of Claire’s restraint not to throw herself down beside him.