Sacred Trust. Meg O'Brien

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      My hand touches a form before me in the aisle. I feel the shape of shoulders, neck. I scream.

      My other hand swings out wildly to strike whoever it is, while the first hand is still warding him off. Then I’m swinging with both hands, punching, kicking, going for the eyes with my thumbs.

      There are no eyes. No eyes, no head.

      I am seeing Marti on that cross, swinging, and here in my attic someone has hung a body with no head. I begin to scream, over and over, the sound low in my throat, like a growl, and then I am on my knees. In a tiny, still-sane corner of 49>my mind I remember an earthquake-disaster kit I put together and left on top of a trunk. Scrambling on my hands and knees I go for it, reaching the trunk and fumbling. The kit is right where I left it, and next to it is the backpack with pepper spray and a heavy-duty flashlight. I whip out the pepper spray, then the flashlight. Pressing the rubber button on the light, I pivot around. The headless body in the aisle is illuminated. A dress form. A sewing mannequin from my downstairs sewing room. It has indeed been hung from the rafters.

      It feels as if all the bones desert my body at once, and I’m left with nothing but weak, jellied flesh, not enough to stand on. Part of me wants to laugh.

      The other part wants to kill Frannie. She must have brought this up here, knowing I never use it anymore. But she knows better than to put things in the aisle. I’ve told her to leave a path free so I can get around more easily. Why the hell didn’t she remember this, for God’s sake?

      I hear myself, inner voice rising to a crescendo, and finally I do laugh, though the timber’s a bit feeble. I’m beginning to sound like Frannie when she rants on about Billy leaving his toys all over the place. And, of course, she hung the dress form from the rafters to keep a path clear, just as I asked her to. I realize now that the form is not directly in the aisle, but off to one side.

      Rising unsteadily to my feet, I put the pepper spray down and point the flashlight toward the dark end of the attic, where the noise had come from. There is nothing there. Only the pile of blankets I thought Murphy might have fallen asleep on. The bright beam slides across their white dust-proof cover. No Murph. No murdering intruder. Nothing but cobwebs and old memories.

      Hanging alongside the aisle is my wedding gown in its protective cover. On the floor next to it are two cartons of photograph albums from the early days with Jeffrey. Next to them are two Seagram’s cartons full of spiral-bound notebooks I used for my journals till a few years ago.

      I turn away, truly worried now about Murph. If Frannie didn’t accidentally lock him up here, where in the world is he? This has never happened before.

      Downstairs again, I stand in the big center hallway and think. Maybe the cellar door got left open and he sneaked in there. It’s a small cellar, holding only the hot-water heater and furnace, so it doesn’t take too long to check out. The light is bright at the foot of the stairs, and one glance though the open door at the top tells me Murph isn’t there. While I’m wondering what to do next, my doorbell rings.

      Puzzled, I go into the foyer and turn on the porchlight, looking through the narrow window next to the door. It’s nearly seven now, dark, and my neighbors and I have an unwritten rule between us not to visit without calling first.

      Through the window I see someone I have never seen before, a young man with a shock of blond hair, in his early twenties, perhaps. He is dressed in jeans and a green windbreaker, and holds a leash. Murphy is at the end of it, head bowed, tail between his legs.

      I am so glad to see him, I yank open the door and don’t immediately answer the young man, who is asking, “Is this your dog? Somebody at the house next door said he was.”

      That Murph is my dog becomes immediately obvious when I reach down and throw my arms around him, and he—relieved, I imagine, not to be yelled at for escaping—laps my face, neck, hands and then my face again.

      “Where did you find him?” I ask finally.

      “Down on the beach near Eighth Street. He seemed lost, but I thought maybe he belonged to somebody along Scenic, or at least close by. I’ve been checking at every house along the way that had somebody at home.”

      “I don’t know how to thank you,” I say, still stroking Murphy’s head and holding him close.

      Up till now, the young man has not been smiling. At this point, his expression hardens. “Well, I’ve got two dogs myself, and I know I wouldn’t want either of them wandering around. Look, there is one thing…”

      I stop petting Murph and stand, thinking the kid probably wants a reward. “Of course. Let me give you something for your trouble.”

      He shakes his head. “No, not that. I need to ask you about this.”

      Reaching down, he pulls the light brown fur apart on Murphy’s back so that the skin is clearly visible in the illumination of the porchlight. There, scratched into the skin as if by a needle or pin, the edges still bloody, is the letter A.

      Murphy whimpers, and for a moment, my vision goes dark. “Oh, God. Oh, God.” My stomach, still half-queasy from this morning with Marti, lurches, and my legs go weak. The kid holds a hand out, and I grab it to keep myself from falling.

      “Sorry,” he says. “That’s why I took so much trouble to find the owner. I thought maybe he or she had done this, and if so, I didn’t want the dog going home to more of the same.”

      Squatting back down, I take Murphy’s face between my hands and talk to him as if he could answer. “My poor baby. Murphy, who did this to you? Who did this?”

      “His head and tail were down like that when I found him, like he’d been beaten or something, and then when I was petting him I saw this…” His voice trails off again. “I can see it’s a surprise to you.”

      My sorrow is replaced with anger. “Of course it is! I can’t even think who in the world could have done such an awful thing.”

      They are almost the exact words I said to Ben earlier, about Marti. In the next moment I’m filled with fear. There’s got to be some kind of madman on the loose. Two such terrible acts in one day? That’s one too many for coincidence.

      And the A. What can it mean? First my name on the hill where Marti died, and now this, here, on Murphy?

      It has to be someone who knows me, who knows Murph is my dog.

      That thought is the most chilling of all.

      The kid stands watching me with my arms around Murph and seems satisfied that he’s okay. I ask him if he’d like to come in for coffee. He shakes his head.

      “Thanks, but I’ve got to be somewhere. I’m just glad I found you. It took a while, you know? You might get some ID for his collar.”

      “But I—” Reaching down, I check Murphy’s collar. “His tag was on here this morning.”

      The kid shrugs. “Maybe it fell off.”

      “Are you sure I can’t give you something for your trouble?” I ask. “You really went out of your way.”

      Shaking his head again, he gives Murphy a pat on the head. “Bye, Murph. Take care.”

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