Diane Setterfield - The Thirteenth Tale

He was Emmeline's, that was reason enough. He was Ambrose's. That was a subject I did not dwell on. But he was also mine. I marveled at his pearly skin, at the pink jut of his lips, at the tentative movements of his tiny hands. The ferocity of my desire to protect him overwhelmed me: I wanted to protect him for Emmeline 's sake, to protect her for his sake, to protect the two of them for myself. Watching him and Emmeline together, I could not drag my eyes away. They were beautiful. My one desire was to keep them safe. And I soon learned that they needed a guardian to keep them safe.

Adeline was jealous of the baby. More jealous than she had been of Hester, more jealous than of me. It was only to be expected: Emmeline had been fond of Hester, she loved me, but neither of these affections had touched the supremacy of her feeling for Adeline. But the baby… ah, the baby was different. The baby usurped all.

I should not have been surprised at the extent of Adeline's hatred. I knew how ugly her anger could be, had witnessed the extent of her violence. Yet the day I first understood the lengths she might go to, I could scarcely believe it. Passing Emmeline's bedroom, I silently pushed the door open to see if she was still sleeping. I found Adeline in the room, leaning over the crib by the bed, and something in her posture alarmed me. Hearing my step, she started, then turned and rushed past me out of the room. In her hands she clutched a small cushion.

I felt compelled to dash to the cot. The infant was sleeping soundly, hand curled by his ear, breathing his light, delicate baby breath.

Safe!

Until next time.

I began to spy on Adeline. My old days of haunting came in useful again as from behind curtains and yew trees I watched her. There was a randomness in her actions; indoors or outdoors, taking no notice of the time of day or the weather, she engaged in meaningless, repeated actions. She was obeying dictates that were outside my understanding. But gradually one activity came particularly to my attention. Once, twice, three times a day, she came to the coach house and left it again, carrying a can of petrol with her each time. She took the can to the drawing room, or the library or the garden. Then she would seem to lose interest. She knew what she was doing, but distantly, half forgetful. When she wasn't looking I took the cans away. Whatever did she make of the disappearing cans? She must have thought they had some animus of their own, that they could move about at will. Or perhaps she took her memories of moving them for dreams or plans yet to be realized. Whatever the reason, she did not seem to find it strange that they were not where she had left them. Yet despite the waywardness of the petrol cans, she persisted in fetching them from the coach house, and secreting them in various places around the house.

I seemed to spend half my day returning the cans to the coach house. But one day, not wanting to leave Emmeline and the baby asleep and unprotected, I put one instead in the library. Out of sight, behind the books, on an upper shelf. And it occurred to me that perhaps this was a better place. Because, by always returning them to the coach house, all I was doing was ensuring that it would go on forever. A merry-go-round. By removing them from the circuit altogether, perhaps I might put an end to the rigmarole.

Watching her tired me out, but she\ She never tired. A little sleep went a long way with her. She could be up and about at any hour of the night. And I was getting sleepy. One day, in the early evening, Emme-line went to bed. The boy was in his cot in her room. He 'd been colicky, awake and wailing all day, but now, feeling better, he slept soundly.

I drew the curtains.

It was time to go and check on Adeline. I was tired of always being vigilant. Watching Emmeline and her child while they slept, watching Adeline while they were awake, I hardly slept at all. How peaceful it was in the room. Emmeline's breathing, slowing me down, relaxing me. And alongside it, the light touch of air that was the baby breathing. I remember listening to them, the harmony of it, thinking how tranquil it was, thinking of a way of describing it-that was how I always entertained myself, the putting into words of things I saw and heard-and I thought I would have to describe how the breathing seemed to penetrate me, take over my breath, as though we were all part of the same thing, me and Emmeline and our baby, all three one breath. It took hold of me, this idea, and I felt myself drifting off with them, into sleep.

Something woke me. Like a cat I was alert before I ever had my eyes open. I didn't move, kept my breathing regular, and watched Adeline from between my lashes.

She bent over the cot, lifted the baby and was on her way out of the room. I could have called out to stop her. But I didn't. If I had cried out, she would have postponed her plan, whereas by letting her go on with it, I could find out what she intended and put a stop to it once and for all. The baby stirred in her arms. He was thinking about waking up. He didn't like to be in anyone's arms but Emmeline's, and a baby is not taken in by a twin.

I followed her downstairs to the library and peeped through the door that she had left ajar. The baby was on the desk, next to the pile of books that were never reshelved because I reread them so frequently. Next to their neat rectangle I saw movement in the folds of the baby's blanket. I heard his muffled half grunts. He was awake.

Kneeling by the fireside was Adeline. She took coals from the scuttle, logs from their place by the hearth, and deposited them haphazardly in the fireplace. She did not know how to make a proper fire. I had learned from the Missus the correct arrangement of paper, kindling, coals and logs; Adeline's fires were wild and random affairs that ought not to burn at all.

The realization of what she intended slowly unfolded in me.

She would not succeed, would she? There was only a shadow of warmth in the ashes, not enough to relight coals or logs, and I never left kindling or matches in reach. Hers was a mad fire; it couldn't catch; I knew it couldn't. But I could not reassure myself. Her desire for flames was all the kindling she needed. All she had to do was look at something for it to spark. The incendiary magic she possessed was so strong she could set fire to water if she wanted to badly enough.

In horror I watched her place the baby on the coals, still wrapped in his blanket.

Then she looked about the room. What was she after?

When she made for the door and opened it, I jumped back into the shadows. But she had not discovered my spying. It was something else she was after. She turned into the passage under the stairs and disappeared.

I ran to the fireplace and removed the baby from the pyre. I wrapped his blanket quickly around a moth-eaten bolster from the chaise longue and put it on the coals in his place. But there was no time to flee. I heard steps on the stone flags, a dragging noise that was the sound of a petrol can scraping on the floor, and the door opened just as I stepped back into one of the library bays.

Hush, I prayed silently, don't cry now, and I held the infant close to my body so he would not miss the warmth of his blanket.

Back at the fireplace, head on one side, Adeline surveyed her fire. What was wrong? Had she noticed the change? But it appeared not. She looked around the room. What was it she wanted?

The baby stirred, a jerk of the arms, a kick of the legs, a tensing of the backbone that is so often the precursor to a wail. I resettled him, head heavy on my shoulder; I felt his breath on my neck. Don't cry. Please don't cry.

He was still again, and I watched.

My books. On the desk. The ones I couldn't pass without opening at random, for the pleasure of a few words, a quick hello. How incongruous to see them in her hands. Adeline and books? It looked all wrong. Even when she opened the cover, I thought for one long, bizarre moment that she was going to read -