The Music Box: Chapter Fifty-Two

Isabelle dropped the brush she had just picked up, hearing only a faint distant sound as it clattered to the floor.

She had never told Emily about her time in the woods, or in fact anything from the time before Seaforth. Often Emily had asked about why the other children had grandparents and she didn’t, and where Percy and Isabelle had come from if they had not grown up in Seaforth, but they had always assured her that they would tell her everything when the time was right.

Her voice, trembling, caught in her throat, but she managed to get it out. “What did you just say?”

Emily gazed up at her with her piercing eyes and Isabelle suddenly felt like she had to close her mind off, that Emily was somehow reaching in there and seeing things without her saying a word.

“I asked about your time in the woods. I would like to hear about them.”

Before Isabelle could say anything, Percy came through the doorway. He had his hat in his hand and was just pulling on his coat, so Isabelle knew he was off to town.

“Percy love, why don’t you take Emily down with you? You know she loves a visit into town.”

“Hmmmm?” asked Percy absentmindedly, patting his coat pocket as though assuring himself that whatever it was he had in there had not mysteriously disappeared as he walked into the room.

“Oh yes, why not? Come along Emily, we’ll not be out too long and then you have the rest of the day.”

Isabelle watched Emily and saw she frowned her brow, before quickly forcing on a false smile. She knew Emily normally jumped at the chance to get down to the main street, so was perplexed at the cloud that passed over her. But if she had blinked she would have missed it, for Emily was now nodding at the idea, though a furtive glance thrown over her shoulder told Isabelle that her daughter seemed quite displeased at the prospect of being out with Percy.

“Go get something warm on Emily, so you don’t catch a chill.”

Emily slipped from her seat, and without further a word slipped out through the doorway.

“Percy?” Isabelle began. “Have you noticed anything at all… strange about Emily?”

“What? Oh no, not really. I mean she seems a little quiet at the moment, but then I daresay that’s not all that unusual, she definitely goes through these patches.”

What neither of them would say, but each must have known the other was thinking, was that Percy wouldn’t really have been able to tell if Emily had grown a second head and was speaking fluent Chinese. Percy knew as well as Isabelle that he could be a little vague and distracted while in one of his writing periods, but Isabelle was so proud of him that she did not dare burst his bubble with too much worry, particularly with him so close to being finished.

“Oh, never mind, I’m sure it’s just something that has happened with one of her little friends or something, I’m sure it will all blow over,” Isabelle said, not sure whether she was trying to convince Percy or herself.

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek just as Emily returned through the doorway, now wearing her scarlet cloak and a woollen hat. Percy patted Isabelle goodbye on the arm, took Emily’s hand and walked through the door.

“Your hat!” Isabelle yelled, seeing he had put it on the table while he pulled on his coat. But the sound of her cry was met with the slamming of the front door - they had already gone.

For the first time since she had returned home, Isabelle felt deeply troubled. Everything had seemed as though it were getting back to normal, and now this. What could Emily have possibly meant? Perhaps she had confused the question, so Isabelle wracked her mind for whether she had been on any recent outings into the nearby woods that Emily may have been confused about. But, hanging over this, was the brightly lit world ‘lived’ – Emily had definitely asked about when she had lived in the woods.

Had she said something to Emily about it after all? During her turn perhaps, and that’s why she didn’t remember? But that didn’t seem right, it was some time now that she had been home and Emily had only just sprung it on her, just like that.

Making it hard to work any of this out was the pull her memories of that time were now having on her. While she valiantly tried to stay in the present, to work out what was going on, and what she could possibly say to Emily when she came back – she was not prepared to lie to her daughter – she was drawn down an increasingly slippery slope to that time, to her forest life.

For the last few days it had been so close, somehow within arm’s reach everywhere she went. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but now felt that there must have been something in this strange proximity that had led to Emily’s probing query.

Absentmindedly, Isabelle fiddled with Percy’s hat. Its soft felt contoured to her fingers, acquiesced as she spun it, feeling its familiar shape in her hand. Without really thinking she placed it on her head, feeling it fall over her ears where Percy’s wider head must meet its band. She thought about how good Percy had been to her, keeping things going while she was away in the hospital, looking after the house, after Emily, still working to keep bread on the table and still finding time to come and see her.

She felt bad for having told him about what she had seen, as though it betrayed a weakness that she couldn’t deal with it herself. But she knew he would have wanted to know, knew that they shared absolutely everything; that they had done so ever since...

It was pointless trying not to think of the forest any more. Isabelle had long tried to bury that part of her life, but there was no way she could pretend it had never happened. Not least because that was where she had met Percy, the love of her life, the man for which she had risked everything, and who had now only recently saved her in return.

For a long time it really had seemed like a dream, or a particularly vivid story – somebody else’s – that she had read. Her parents had never read her any stories as a child, but Isabelle had still been in possession of a strong imagination. At times she could feel that this was the realm to which her time belonged, but now she knew there was something holding her back that was in there. She had to go back if she wished to move on.

Isabelle pulled the brim of Percy’s hat down over her eyes, allowing the curtains to be drawn on her present self and entering the memories that had been banking up and seeking release.