Mrs. Schneider spoke again. "It was the mother, I think," she said, softly.

I leaned against the windowpane and waited for her to continue.

"Once, when this man, this 'Caleb,' was drunk, he told Miss Emily of his mother. She was a hard woman, Mr. Parker. The father, he had left them out of fear of her. She beat her boy, beat him with sticks and chains, and she did worse things too. And later, when she was done, she would hurt him. She would drag him by the legs, or the hair, and kick him until he coughed blood. She chained him outside, like a dog, naked, in rain, and snow. All this, he told Miss Emily."

"Did he tell her where all this took place?"

She shook her head. "Maybe south. I don't know. I think…"

I didn't interrupt as her brow furrowed and the fingers of her right hand danced in the air before me.

"Medina," she said at last, her eyes ablaze in triumph. "He said something to Miss Emily about a Medina."

I noted down the name. "And what happened to his mother?"

Mrs. Schneider twisted in her chair to look at me. "He killed her," she said simply.

Behind me, the door opened as a nurse brought in a pot of coffee and two cups, along with a tray of cookies, presumably at the instigation of Dr. Ryley. Mrs. Schneider looked a little surprised, then took on the role of hostess, pouring my coffee, offering sugar, cream. She pressed cookies on me, which I refused, since I figured she might be grateful for them later. I was right. She took one for herself, carefully put the rest in two napkins from the tray and placed them in the bottom drawer of her dressing table. Then, as the snow clouds gathered once again in the skies above and the afternoon grew dark, she told me more about Emily Watts.

"She was not a woman who talked very much, Mr. Parker, only that one time," she said in her carefully pronounced English, which still carried traces of her roots in her w's-"vas," "voman"-and in some of her vowels. "She said 'hello,' or 'good-night,' or spoke of the weather, but no more. She never again talked of the boy. The others here, if you ask them, even if you step into their rooms for a moment, they will talk of their children, their grandchildren, their husbands, their wives." She smiled. "Just as I did to you, Mr. Parker."

I was about to say something, to tell her that I didn't mind, that it was interesting, the least I could do, something half-meant and well intended, when she raised a hand to stop me. "Don't even begin to tell me that you enjoyed it. I am not a young girl who needs to be humored." The smile remained as she said it. There was something in her, some relic of old beauty, that told me that in her youth many men had humored her, and had been glad to do so.

"So she did not talk of such things," she went on. "There were no photographs in her room, no pictures, and since I have been here, since 1992, all she has ever said to me is, 'Hello, Mrs. Schneider,'

'Gutt Morning, Mrs. Schneider,'

'Is a fine day, Mrs. Schneider.' That was all, nothing else, except for that one time, and I think she was ashamed of it later, or perhaps afraid. She had no visitors, and never spoke of it again, until the young man came."

I leaned forward, and she imitated the movement, so that we were only inches apart. "He came some days after I made the call to Mr. Willeford, after I saw his notice in the newspaper. We heard shouting from downstairs and then the sound of running. A young man, a big man, with large, wild eyes, came past my door and burst into Miss Emily's room. Well, I was afraid for her, and for me, but I took my stick-"She pointed to a walking stick with a head carved into the shape of a bird and a metal tip at the end."-and I followed him.

"When I came to the room, Miss Emily was sitting at her window, just as I am now, but her hands were like, ach, like this." Mrs. Schneider put her hands flat on her cheeks and opened her mouth wide in an expression of shock. "And the young man, he looked at her and he said only one word. He said to her: 'Momma?' Like that, like a question. But she only shook her head and said, 'No, no, no,' again and again. The boy, he reached out for her, but already she was moving away from him, back, back, until she was in the corner of her room, down on the floor.

"Then I heard from behind me the sound of the nurses. They brought with them the fat guard, the one Miss Emily hit on the night she ran off, and I was bundled out of the room while they took the boy away. I watched him as they took him, Mr. Parker, and his face… Oh, his face was like he had seen someone die, someone he loved. He cried and called out again, 'Momma, Momma,' but she did not reply.

"The police arrived, and they took the boy away. A nurse, she came to Miss Emily and she asked her if it was true, what the boy had said. And Miss Emily told her, 'No,' that she does not know what he is talking about, that she has no son, no child.

"But that night, I heard her crying for so long that I thought she would never stop. I went to her and held her. I told her that it was okay, that she was safe, but she said only one thing."

She paused and I saw that her hands were shaking. I reached out and stilled them and she moved her right hand, slipping it over mine and holding it tightly, her eyes closed. And I think, for a moment, I became her son, her child, one of those who never visited and who had left her to die in the cold north as surely as if they had hauled her into the forests of Piscataquis or Aroostook and abandoned her there. Her eyes reopened and she released my hand. Her own hands were still once again when she did so.

"Mrs. Schneider," I said gently. "What did she say?"

"She said: 'Now he will kill me.'"

"Who did she mean? Billy, the young man who came to her?" But I think I already knew the real answer.

Mrs. Schneider shook her head. "No, the other. The one she was always afraid would find her, and nobody could help her, or save her from him."

In her words, I heard the echo of other words, words heard in a dream on a dark night, words whispered to me by someone who no longer had a voice.

"It was the one who came later," concluded the old woman. "He learned of what had happened, and he came."

I waited. Something brushed softly against the window and I watched a snowflake drift down the pane, melting as it went. "It was the night before she ran away. It was cold that night. I remember, I had to ask for an extra blanket, it was so cold. When I woke, it was dark, black, with no moon. And I heard a noise, a scraping from outside.

"I climbed from my bed and the floor was so chilly that I-ah!-I gasped. I went to the window and drew the curtain a little, but I could see nothing. Then the sound came again, and I looked straight down and…"

She was terrified. I could feel it coming off her in waves, a deep abiding fear that had shaken her to her core.

"There was a man, Mr. Parker, and he was climbing up the pipe, hand over hand. His head was down, and turned away from me, so I could not see him. And, anyway, it was so dark that he was only a shadow. But the shadow reached the window of Miss Emily's room and I could see him pushing at it with one hand, trying to force it up. I heard Miss Emily scream, and I screamed too, and ran into the hallway calling for a nurse. And all the time, I can hear Miss Emily screaming and screaming. But when they came, the man was gone and they could find no trace of him in the grounds."

"What kind of man was he, Mrs. Schneider? Tall? Short? Big? Small?"

"I told you: it was dark. I could not see clearly." She shook her head in distress as she tried to remember.

"Could it have been Billy?"

"No." She was definite about that. "It was the wrong shape. It was not as big as him." She lifted her hands in imitation of Billy's large shoulders. "When I told Dr. Ryley about the man, I think he believed that I was imagining things, that we were two old women frightening each other. But we were not. Mr. Parker, I could not see this man clearly, but I could feel him. He was no thief come to steal from old women. He wanted something else. He wanted to hurt Miss Emily, to punish her for something she did long ago. The boy Billy, the boy who called her 'Momma,' he started something by coming here. Perhaps, Mr. Parker, I started it, by calling this man Willeford. Perhaps it is all my fault."