She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. As soon as she was free of this house, she could do anything she wanted. George was too weak to hold her. He wouldn’t know what she’d done to him until it was too late. Another part of her pitied him, knew this would destroy him. But when she thought of all the times she’d had to bathe for him before being taken to his room and the stinking, sweating weight of him on top of her, his clumsy, fumbling hands, the foul breath from his drooping lip, when she remembered that, then the pity washed away to leave only hate.

Joy avoided him as the day ground on into evening, but she kept Mary close, finding ways the child could help her, giving her menial tasks, like carrying the dustpan outside for emptying or dusting the surfaces. They spoke little, which was not unusual when they were upstairs, but a heavier silence hung over the house today, as if the very walls were ashamed of what had happened.

Ivan wandered from room to room, watching, watching, watching, his eyes small and dark and quick. She felt them on her when he passed, the welts beneath her dress singing out at his presence.

Noreen watched too. Several times, she tried to take Joy aside, get her on her own, but Joy resisted. She knew what Noreen would say, and she had no desire to hear it. But as the darkness slipped in from outside, the oil lamps doing little to hold it back, Noreen trapped her on the stairs.

“I won’t help you,” Noreen whispered. “All right, I can’t stop you, but I’ll not help you.”

“You do what you want,” Joy said, louder than she should.

“Aye, I will.” Noreen’s voice rose as she spoke. “I’ll live. You get yourself and thon child killed. But you won’t take me with you.”

They glared at each other for a moment before Joy pushed past Noreen and down the stairs to the living room. She closed the door behind her and pressed her back against it, her arms folded across her chest. Her curses resonated in the room.

The sloshing of liquid in a bottle startled her, and she let out a cry, as if she’d been touched by a cold hand. She searched the room for the source of the sound. There, in the far corner, where the light from the fireplace could not quite reach him, Tam sat on the floor with a bottle of whiskey resting on his knee. He brought it to his lips and took a swallow, grunted as it went down. His thick tongue appeared from between his lips and retreated again.

“What’re you at, girl?” he said, the words lumpen in his mouth. “What’re you sneaking around like a mouse for?”

He pointed the neck of the bottle at her.