Rupert Wale's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Rupert watched the postman from the front window for an hour. The man did not move. His eyes stayed on the third floor glass. Under the folded sheet upstairs, the dark smear had reached the wall. Rupert could not haul a single crate up the stairs while that stare held. He needed the postman off his sidewalk, and a lie about a payphone would not work twice. He went to the morgue at the end of Delia's shift. His aunt was mopping the concrete in slow, straight lines, her bleach-stained smock damp at the hem. She did not look at the wall of drawers behind her. She had not looked at them in three years, since she opened one and found someone she should have called. "I need to know about a man," Rupert said. "Grey uniform. Long black hair. Stands outside houses." Delia kept mopping. "Thomas Weld." "You know him." "He came here twice. Asked about a woman. His sister." She stopped. "I told him we had no one by that name. That was true. Then it wasn't." "Meaning what." "A body came in after. Matched what he said. I didn't call him." She wrung the mop. "He stands outside places he thinks she's inside." Rupert wrote the name on the edge of a steel cart. Thomas Weld. Sister. Missing. "He's on my sidewalk," Rupert said. "Looking at my sealed window." Delia looked at him for the first time. "Then he thinks she's in there." Rupert walked home in the dark. The postman stood where he had left him, eyes up. Rupert crossed the street with empty hands again. "Thomas." The postman's head turned. "You're looking for your sister." A long pause. "Yes." "She isn't in my house." Rupert kept his voice flat. "I built that room six weeks ago. It was empty when I sealed it. Whatever you think is up there came after." "Something is up there." "Yes." Rupert had not planned to say it. He said it anyway. "But not her. I can tell you the week it was delivered. I can tell you it came in crates." Thomas's eyes did not leave the window. "Crates." "Small ones. Sealed. Not a person." "You looked." "No." Rupert's jaw tightened. "I took money not to look." Thomas was quiet a long time. Then he lowered his eyes to Rupert's face. The dark rings under them looked deeper up close. "Open it," Thomas said. "Tonight. I'll go when I see what's inside." Rupert did not answer. He walked back across the street and shut his door. Upstairs he stood at the sealed room. The dark smear had crossed the wall and reached the baseboard. He had traded one watcher for a worse bargain. The postman would leave only when the room was opened. And Rupert had promised Petra's buyer he never would.