The Twisted Thread Read Free

stairs and went toward the trembling girl. As she did, she couldn’t help but glance inside the room, known in the dorm as Claire’s Lair. Drawers were open, and expensive clothes were flung everywhere on the dhurrie rugs that she’d used to mask the tile. Her desk was piled with books and binders. A bulletin board was covered with snapshots and Post-its and her acceptance letter from Yale. Madeline could see the school’s name from where she stood.
    The room of a spoiled girl. A girl who had openly considered herself superior to others and been admired by her peers for her beauty and confidence. A girl whose social connections intimidated most teachers and made stark the gap between the origins of the students and the adults meant to guide them. But none of that had protected her from dying. All of a sudden, Madeline spied Claire, her almost naked body not even six feet away, sprawled on the floor near the desk chair. She was on her back, head tilted to the side. No wound or mark was visible from here; she looked almost as if she were sleeping, but there was no mistaking the absolute lack of life in the angle at which her neck was bent and in the pallor of her skin. The policemen moved protectively in front of the door but hadn’t closed it yet, unwilling apparently to alter the scene before photographers arrived. Everything had to be frozen as it had been found. Even Madeline knew that. Still, the cops’ wide legs couldn’t block her view entirely.
    Holding Sally to her chest, trying to still the girl, she couldn’t help but stare. It struck her how little she had been around the dead. Americans kept death at arm’s length, as if it were a country they would never visit. Yet even in places where mortality was less crudely separated from life, people would be stunned at the extinction of the young and lovely. No one could make Claire Harkness on the floor, her skin the color of a candle, turn into something normal. Sally kept sobbing, Madeline kept holding her. And then she realized something else that was not normal about Claire. It was her breasts. They were full, and rigid with veins, their tips wide, rosy caps. Something about them made her think of Kate. Her sister had been complaining about her newly huge nipples and had to be reassured by several doctors that they would eventually revert to small, delicate pinkness. She had nursed because it was what was best for Tadeo, she said, but after six months, that was it. She needed her body back. At the tip of each of Claire’s breasts was a grayish pearl of what could only be milk. One of the officers had had enough of Sally, the crying, and Madeline’s sweaty presence and was trying with gentle insistence to get them going. “Miss, take the young lady downstairs now, please,” he said.
    But Madeline, arms still wrapped around Sally, was rooted to the floor. “No, no, that’s not possible. Sally, did Claire just have a baby?” Madeline said sharply, still holding the girl, but lifting her chin so she could stare into the narrow face. “Where’s the baby?” Madeline found that she was almost shaking Sally’s bony shoulders. Abruptly, a number of details came into focus: Claire’s refusal to participate in sports this spring, her low grades, her sickly color the last week, the eerie buzz that had run through the dorm this weekend that Madeline had thought was only end-of-the-year jitters. A baby. And none of the community’s adults had even known she was pregnant. Or had they? Madeline’s stomach felt as if a stone had landed in it. A girl she’d supervised and taught, and she hadn’t noticed. How could she have missed something so obvious? How could she have been so stupid?
    Sally, a damp weight, said brokenly, “Miss Christopher, she wouldn’t let us tell anyone. She wanted to keep it a secret. She made us promise.”
    â€œSally,” Madeline said, more steel in