For the first time, I noticed that one of Dr. Timberland’s walls was covered with the same landscape wallpaper he had in his office. The pines stood silently, the light shone endlessly, the waterfall was suspended in midair.

The bedroom on the other side of the house was barely bigger than the unmade bed that occupied it, a sulking pile of open bathrobes, knit shawls and quilts. I lifted them up one after the other and shook them, but the old lady, to my disappointment, was nowhere to be found. Old age and sickness left a smell similar to when one opens a dirty dishwasher in the summertime to find room for a last spoon or glass. A reserve of pill bottles kept guard on the barricaded windowsill; I brought a handful of them to the light; all of them were the prescribed medication of Miss Paulina Craft. About a hundred small pictures had been pasted on the wall, mostly of a young skinny boy in glasses and two pretty young women with long, ringlets and bright, all-believing eyes. There it was again, change, that restless drop of water. Not only the contents of the pictures had changed, but the pictures themselves were arching, bending, preparing to flake off the wall.

The kitchen hadn’t moved since I last saw it. Only the cat was still there, and for some reason, had not used its litter box the past few days. When I stepped around one of its unclean doings, it rounded its back, backed up under the worktop, and spat at me.

I removed Dr. Timberland’s stained sheets and packed them tightly, along with the pillows and mattress protection, into the oven. The bare mattress was also spotted. I longed for cleanliness. I stabbed the mattress and ripped off the coarse, sky-blue material. White feathers twirled up to greet me.

CHAPTER 21

When I finally made it back home after three days of wandering and fasting, I was surprised to find how many dirty dishes I’d left around, leaning against the windows and walls, plates with splotches of past meals. I had no time to lose. I mopped the floor. In the kitchen, something smelly caught my attention, drawing me reluctantly to the garbage bin, where I stood without the courage to open its omnivorous mouth. When I pressed my foot down, the cantaloupe halves from the evening with Professor Ranji were staring up at me, swarming with hundreds of maggots.

I ran to my bedroom and thrust back the sheets. The dry, withered rump roast lay there like a baby which had never grown in size, though had wrinkled with old age. I lifted it by the string and fed it to the garbage disposal. I poured whisky and dropped flaming matches down the drain. I scrubbed the hob until it gleamed. I tore open my mattress. I thought everything was ready and I could finally take a shower and change, when I saw Professor Ranji’s footprints on the walls. With a feather-duster, I removed them one by one until I came to Stag Head and, in dusting him, the feathers became tangled in the antlers.