The Music Box: Chapter Thirty-Nine

When Minerva had spoken of having had her eye on Aloysius Crouch, she was having one of her little jokes with herself. Minerva was and always had been completely blind, unable to see as others understood it. But she more than made up for this in countless other ways, not the least of which was her extraordinary command of sound. Furthermore, she could tell her guests what was happening in the world directly above where they now sat, purely by the vibrations she could detect passing though the earth and the air.

Add to this the ability to ‘see’ through the eyes of others, to pick up on their thoughts and deepest feelings, and Minerva was far from in need of any kind of pity over her blindness. When Emily found this out, she was unsure whether Minerva kept this area free of light simply because she didn’t need it, or to keep others from seeing her.

It was growing quite late and Emily knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her eyes open much longer. Minerva called for servants to prepare beds for her guests, making sure that they would be comfortable, as they needed to be refreshed for the next day. Minerva asked Emily whether she would allow her to visit her dreams that night to see what more she could learn, in case there were things that could help that Emily may not have realised. Emily agreed, wanting to do everything she could. They all went their separate ways, agreeing to meet first thing next morning.

As she lay her head down on her pillow, the events of the day swam around Emily’s head. She dozed off with a kaleidoscope of adventure spinning around in her mind.

***

Emily walked back up the main street of the village towards home. She had just left Mr Crouch’s store and was bustling along, aware that the day was swiftly drawing to its conclusion. Across the sky the streaks of cloud had taken on the tones of a fruit stall, apricots and peaches that caught the last of the sun as it sank behind a bundle of cloud teetering on the horizon’s edge, threatening to slip over with the disappearing sun.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at all, until she decided to cross the street. Despite having made the decision and tried to act on it, there was something keeping her on this side. And the speed fluctuations too – they seemed out of step with what she was expecting. Her feet were going a little faster than she might have expected, and when she tried to catch her reflection in the nearest window, her head would not turn as she told it to.

This wasn’t her! Emily understood that she had passed into her own body, but that it was Crouch who remained in control. She realised she was seeing through her own eyes, tracing her own journey, but that she was doing so remotely, in a dream from Minerva’s lair. Try as she might, she could gain no control over her actions. It took some time to let go, to be able to drift with Crouch’s intentions driving her movement. Once she was able to fall into the rhythm, Emily turned her mind to trying to see the world as Crouch was seeing it. An idea came to her, but she was unable to tap into Crouch’s thought stream. Although she could see what he saw, she wasn’t able to access his ideas or pre-guess his intentions.

Nearing the top of the street, Emily wondered if he knew how to find his way to her home. Well of course he did - he would have worked all that out earlier. He seemed to plan everything so carefully that Emily began to wonder what possible way there might be that he could slip up, reveal his true self without meaning to, shoot a hole in his entire plan and pave the way for his unmasking. She felt this would be part of the way to having her able to return home – if Crouch was unable to continue his charade as Emily, then she could come back. She wasn’t sure how that might be, but felt that it was at least something for which she could hold out hope.

Emily felt the chill in the air and knew it was getting quite late. She wondered what Crouch would say to her mother to explain her lateness – even if she had been at Tabitha’s house, as she had fibbed, she should have been well home by now.

Turning into their lane, Emily felt that Crouch was slowing. She realised he was following her same rules for passing up the lane, passing carefully from one stone to the next, studiously avoiding all the cracks. She wondered if it he shared the same superstition and aversion to being the instigator of bad luck, or if there really was a vestige of her own self in this body, a latent self that even Crouch was unable to circumvent or over-ride.

They weaved their way up the winding lane until they finally reached her house. He paused long enough for her to take in its familiar visage, though she now saw it as though afresh, like it was being seen for the very first time. She took in its cold, grey exterior, the roughly hewn stone blocks that had been raised one by one until they met the builder’s approval of what made a ‘home’. She wondered if the person who had built it had thought about the lives that would inhabit it, the stories that would grow to fill its spaces, slip into its nooks and crannies, pass through cracks in the floorboards and rise in other rooms, or settle into the very stone itself, soaking in the porous, microscopic holes and becoming part of the very essence of the house itself, such that nobody could ever banish them, no matter how they aired it or tried to sweep away the dust of the past.

The steps, although hewn from a stone even denser than the house, a cousin of that which lined the street, appeared to bow in the middle. This was where generations of footfall had worn them to a smooth, almost polished finished. The roundness of their edges glistened as though rubbed lovingly for good luck until you could see your reflection, but in reality it was unthinking boots and, to a lesser extent, bare feet passing up and down them, day in and day out, oblivious to their form in anything other than a utilitarian fulfilment of a need to breach the gap from home to street, secret life to public life, hoarded memory to collectible experience. Her own small feet, even with such a light step, had contributed in some small way, over time, to this gentle wear, helped shape its appearance – in so many respects as it had always been, yet changing every moment, submitting to time’s wearying command over the living and dead, the dynamic and inert. Time – the creator and destroyer, the enabler and the final word. It makes the rules, it wins every time.

Simple garden beds stood to each side of the steps, harbouring blooms of simple ambitions – paper daisies, orange and yellow gerberas and, to her mother’s eternal chagrin, dandelions that would appear overnight and declare themselves happily at home.

With no control over movement, Emily found her senses were heightened, free to roam without the requirement for cognitive coordination. She could smell the final perfume burst from the flowers as they prepared to close up for the night, the last of the day’s warmth having abandoned them to their own ends. Wafting down from their roof was a sweet woody scent, the smoking chimney offering up a hint of hickory. Her parents wouldn’t be burning it tonight, but they had placed a small stick in some time back and it was still offering traces of its ghostly essence.

At last she felt Crouch heading slowly up the stairs, smoothing out the dress and secreting the music box behind her back. She wondered what story he would concoct to explain the late arrival, how he would hide the music box before being confronted. Her hand reached out for the door handle and felt its cool touch. The door opened silently.