The Edge of the Earth Read Online Free Page B

orange and pink, blue and violet; branches and coils, spines and nubbins and surfaces that appeared glassy smooth. Confined in jars were more creatures, some sluglike, some waving tentacles. Presumably, they’d been plucked live from their homes (although most appeared to be dead, despite the attempt to provide them with an appropriately watery environment). I lifted one jar, half full of cloudy water, for a closer look and nearly dropped it again in horror. Inside, a blobbish thing floated and stank.
    “I think this is dead,” I managed.
    “I suppose we ought to throw it away, then,” Mary said regretfully.
    “What can we do with all this?” I would speak to their mother.
    “I don’t know.” Mary’s tone was bright, as if the problem didn’t concern her.
    “You won’t tell Ma, will you?” Jane said. “She don’t like us keeping this stuff.”
    “No, she don’t,” said a deep voice from the doorway. I was so startled that I almost dropped the jar again, but it was only Mr. Johnston, who’d somehow crept up the stairs without our knowing. “Here,” he said, his tone unexpectedly kind as he dipped one hand into his shirt pocket. “I picked this up the other day.” He handed Jane a twisted tube of a shell, hollow as a drinking straw, while the two boys, who’d come up the stairs after him, crowded in.
    “Thank you!” Jane handed the shell ceremoniously to one of the boys, who placed it with care, although seemingly randomly, among the other flotsam and jetsam on the floor.
    Mr. Johnston hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “What’s in the trunk? Rocks?”
    “Did you really bring rocks?” the littler boy asked eagerly.
    “It must be our books,” I said. “I’m sorry it was difficult to move. We ought to have packed more novels and verse. The lighter stuff.”
    The children looked baffled, and Johnston, too, frowned at me for a moment before he raised his eyebrows. “Huh,” he said, and smiled as if he’d discovered something he’d not anticipated that pleased him.
    “Let’s see!” All of the children piled down in a rush, so I felt obliged to follow. Archie Johnston came after us in a leisurely way, as if the place were more his than mine.
    “Thank you, Mr. Johnston,” I said.
    I’d meant it as a dismissal, but he merely nodded. “Aren’t you going to open it?”
    I might have begged off, said that I’d misplaced the key or wished to wait for Oskar, but the children were so expectant, I hadn’t the heart. At least my night things were secure in our valise, I thought as I parted the two halves of the trunk, exposing my personal possessions to Archie Johnston.
    The children’s pleasure soon overwhelmed my discomfort. Opening my trunk before them had the quality of Sir Richard Burton’s accounts of displaying matches and pocket watches to the Africans. My violin was stroked and plucked; my sketchpad admired, more, I fear, for its being nearly a whole volume of rich, blank pages available for marking than for the few stiff still lives, portraits, and landscapes I’d rendered. My pencils and pens were painstakingly tested. My feathered hat (only slightly crushed) and my paisley shawl were modeled; my rose geranium oil was sniffed. There was much scuffling and grabbing and shoving and poking, and when curiosity was sated, many items were grubby and disheveled. I supposed such behavior was typical of little boys, and the little girl was, after all, too young to know better, but I was surprised at Mary, who might be expected to fold a pair of stockings.
    For me, the greatest treasure were the bedsheets between which my mother had slid the same sachets she used in her own linen cupboard. By the time we reached them, Johnston had become bored and wandered out, so I was able to open them wide without self-consciousness. I took them upstairs, turned the mattress to what I hoped was its freshest side, and slid the sheets over it. Then I lay facedown on the bed, breathing in the dear, lost