The Music of the Deep: A Novel

by Elizabeth Hall

  Alex had pulled her car into the driveway, grateful to see that Daniel was not home yet. She sat there for a moment, arms over the top of the steering wheel, thinking about the fact that in just less than a week, she would be leaving this car behind. Not that it mattered—she had long since passed the point where she had felt like anything was really hers. They had long passed the point where her desires, her likes, had any effect on decisions.

  They had sold her Honda several years ago, not long after they married. She now drove the Volvo that Daniel had chosen. It had leather seats, not because he was spoiling his wife with a nice car, but because he often took this car when he needed to make an impression on a new job prospect.

  It was five-thirty on a December evening. The sky was black; the house was dark. Alex let herself in and hung her coat by the door. She walked through the kitchen and heaved a sigh. Standing at the counter, she realized that she would have to come up with something for dinner. The last few weeks, she had been so absorbed in cleaning out her mother’s effects, the last thing that had crossed her mind was figuring out what to cook for dinner.

  She rounded the corner to the living room and gasped. “Ahh!” Her hand rose up to her throat. “You scared me,” she said. “I didn’t know you were home.”

  Daniel sat by the fireplace, the one they rarely used, in front of a crackling fire. There were no lights on in the house, and his face was lit only by the glow from the fire. He ran his hands over his face, dark and coarse with beard stubble, and looked up at her, his eyes dark as the night.

  “Who is he, Alex?”

  She swallowed. “What are you talking about?” She tried to make her heart slow down, tried to keep her body and face relaxed. Look normal. Act normal. Don’t give anything away.

  “The man you’ve been seeing.” He watched her intently. She continued to stand just inside the entryway to the living room.

  Alex was stupefied. A man? She had a million secrets, at this point, a whole case of lies and plans that he knew nothing about. But a man? “That’s crazy. I’m not seeing anyone.”

  He was up and on her before she had time to blink, his hand gripping the front of her shirt as he lifted her slightly from the floor. “You’re calling me crazy?”

  “No. No, I would never . . .”

  He slapped her, dropping the wad of shirt that he held in his hand. She stumbled sideways, against the side of the sofa, but did not drop.

  He turned, went back to the fire, and sat down in the chair. He ran his hands through his hair, once again, and then leaned forward, feeding the flames. “I know all about it, Alex. Don’t bother to try and cover it up with lies.”

  She moved forward, to his side. “Daniel, I would never cheat on you.”

  He turned and looked at her. “Oh, really? Well, isn’t that interesting. Because Kevin? The kid who runs errands for me? He saw you with a man at Starbucks.”

  Alex felt the wind go out of her. She stood as still as a fence post, her mind racing. “No, Daniel. It’s not what you think.”

  “You know what I think? I think it might be time for you to learn your lesson.”

  She looked at him, wondering what horror he had in mind for her tonight. Her gaze dropped from his face to his hands, and that was when she saw the papers that he was feeding into the fire. Drawings. Pencil, colored pencil, charcoal. The artwork that her mother had created over the past forty years, the only box of things that Alex had allowed herself to keep. She looked at the box, sitting next to his side. It was already half gone, and she watched in shock as he fed another drawing into the fire.

  He turned and looked at her, a smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “You can’t fool me, Alex. I always find out, in the end. I can always tell when you’re lying. You think you’re so smart. But I always know.” He glared at her. “Maybe this will teach you to tell me the truth.”

  She had heard the expression seeing red, a literary reference that she had stumbled across several times in all those years of losing herself in books. And suddenly she knew exactly what that meant. Her anger surged, swelling through every part of her five-foot-one-inch frame, flaming in her blood vessels so that all she could see was the color red. Red walls, red carpet, red sofa. She saw everything he had ever done to her, every time he had hit her or humiliated her, all of it, burning in her mind like a bright red ball of fire.

  She flew at him, her hands and feet flailing, pulling his hair, screaming in a way she had never done in her whole life, a bloodcurdling scream that came up from somewhere deep in her soul, somewhere that had been crushed under the weight of too much oppression, too much abuse, for far too long.

  He flung her off and stood, his fist coming back and landing squarely on her left eye.

  And just like every other time that he had hit her, her mind went blank. A numb black slate that would not allow any of the pain, any of the realization of what was really happening, to penetrate the layers of her foggy brain. It was gone, all of it, every moment of that evening, lost in the will to survive, in the body’s need to shut out the horror.

  When she woke, she lay on the floor of their living room, curled on her side, every bit of her body screaming with pain. She sat up, looking around the room. Daniel lay nearby, as if he had grown tired of beating her and had lain down for a nap. It seemed odd, off, somehow. Between them, lying on the floor, was the poker from the fireplace. Alex pushed herself up and hurried to get out of there, before Daniel could wake and come after her again.

  The next thing she could remember was driving. It was dark; she was on a highway. The lights of Albuquerque appeared only as a vague glow in her rearview mirror. She had no real idea where she was, or what highway she was on. She could not remember leaving. She did not remember getting rid of the Volvo, but she must have done that at some point, because she was now driving her mother’s car, an older Subaru Forester.

  That was when the pain started to return. She glanced in the rearview mirror: one eye was swollen shut; her side ached and throbbed, although she could not remember exactly what had happened. Her nose hurt, her cheeks hurt, every inch of her body hurt.

  She took a deep breath. The only thing she knew, with certainty, was that she was out. Driving away from Albuquerque. Away from Daniel and eleven years of hell. She glanced at the passenger seat and was glad to see her purse and a jacket. On the floor, she could see the straps of her travel bag.

  She didn’t notice her hands, not until she lifted one to touch her swollen eye. In the dim light, it was difficult to tell what was on her palm, but it felt sticky. It wasn’t until she stopped for gas, three hours later, and went to the restroom inside that she could see what it was. Her palm was covered in blood.

  Alex bolted up in her bed in Copper Cove, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. She was breathing too fast, about to hyperventilate. Her hands cramped. In one swift bombardment, all the ghosts that had been buried deep in her subconscious mind rushed back, jumping out at her from all sides. Alex sat, looking at her palm, remembering the blood. Remembering the fireplace poker, lying on the floor of the living room, between the two of them. Remembering Daniel, slumped on the floor. She shook her head. No. No. It couldn’t be. She would never actually hurt someone. Would she? She didn’t remember actually hitting him.

  Just outside the window of the bedroom, she heard the sound of scratching. The rosebushes sounded almost like fingernails, scraping against the wood of the window frame, occasionally scraping against the glass. Alex stood and pulled back the curtain.

  It had snowed during the night. An inch of soft white covered every surface, every branch of every tree. It rested on the fence around the cemetery, dusted the tops of all the gravestones. The snow reflected the light, turned the entire landscape soft and silent and glowing.

  Wind sifted through the branches of the rosebush, just outside. The branches were long; a few stubborn leaves clung to the vine. She watched as the wind whipped them once again, watched as they scratched against her window.r />
  She forced herself to take a breath. It was only that rosebush, after all. She started to turn away when something else caught her eye, vaguely visible in the dim light. Alex raised the window, letting the cool air rush in around her. On the ledge, just beneath the window, there were scratch marks in the wood. They looked nothing like the slim marks that would be left by the thorns on the rosebush. These scratches were deep, more like fingernails, reaching for the window, trying to get in. They looked as if someone, not tall enough to actually reach the window from outside, had been trying to pull themselves up, fingernails scratching the wood trim, unable to get in.

  Alex looked at the bush below, at the ground around it. There were footprints in the fresh snow, the footprints of one person, someone who had walked right up to the window of this room where she had slept. One set of footprints, walking right up to the window where she now stood, leaning out the window and shivering from the cold.

  But there were no footprints the other direction. Whatever had walked up to this window, whatever had tried to scratch its way inside, could not be human. Whatever had come up here in the night had left no trace in the fresh powder of having walked away.

  She raised a hand to her heart, trying to stop the rising sense of panic. No. Oh, please, no. Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.

  THIRTY

  Alex drank three cups of coffee before she headed to work at Maggie’s, a desperate attempt to counteract the fact that she had not been able to go back to sleep. All day she sat at her table, trying to focus on the words of the reports, trying to focus on what she needed to do. Her hands shook. She could not look Maggie in the eye. She did her best to seem totally absorbed in her work.

  And all day long, words ran through her head in a chorus, like the lyrics of a song that gets stuck and won’t let go. I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t mean to do it.

  At three, Maggie leaned back in her own chair across the room, removed her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. “Alex, it’s New Year’s Eve, and you’ve been at it all day. Why don’t we go ahead and knock off for the evening?”

  Alex glanced up and gave a deep sigh. “Okay. That sounds good.” She turned off the computer and straightened her stack of papers. She pushed in her chair, walked over to the hooks by the door, and with every movement she told herself, Act normal. Look normal.

  Maggie stood and went to the big window, looking out at the sky. “Storm coming. Do you have plans tonight, Alex?”

  Alex stood by the door, pulling on her jacket. “Not really. I might go down to the spinsters for a bit, do a little spinning. Nothing earth-shattering.” She winced at her use of the word earth-shattering, as if anything she said might give her away, might somehow flash the truth of her situation like the neon signs in town. “What about you, Maggie? Any plans?”

  Maggie continued to stare out to sea. She shook her head. “No. I’m not really into the holidays.”

  Alex paused at the door. “Happy New Year, Maggie.”

  Maggie nodded. “Yeah. You, too.”

  Alex showed up at the Hadley house right at four. The storm had started; wind whipped the branches of the trees, and rain pelted them, coming in at a slant as David unlocked the door. They stepped inside the house, shaking off their drops of moisture and stomping their feet on the mat. The house behind them was cold and dark.

  Caroline showed up a minute later, running, and she, too, came in shaking and dripping. “It’s going to be a humdinger out there. Watch out for flying lawn furniture.” She shook for a minute. “But at least the rain melted all the snow.”

  David bent and started a fire in the fireplace, and Caroline and Alex stood nearby, their hands stuffed up under their arms in an attempt to stay warm. The kindling took, and David stood, shivering.

  “No Grace tonight?” Alex asked. “No Emmie?”

  David shook his head. “She and Emmie always spend New Year’s Eve together, at home. I don’t think they like all the crazies that come out on the last night of the year.”

  David sat down and pulled out his bag of knitting. Caroline stood in front of the fire, warming her backside. Alex slipped into the chair that she had come to think of as hers. She pulled the spinning wheel from her bag and started to lock the pieces into place, but even here, with David and Caroline, her hands continued to shake. She dropped a bobbin on the floor, and it rolled over to David’s feet.

  He bent and retrieved it, holding it out to Alex.

  She reached for it, her hands almost vibrating, and sat down again. She felt sweat pop out on her lip.

  “Alex, are you all right?” David asked. “You look a little . . . I don’t know. Kind of peaked, is that the right word?”

  Alex swallowed. “I’m all right. Just not enough sleep, that’s all.”

  Caroline turned away from the fire. “It’s that house, isn’t it? Something is going on in that house.”

  Alex shrugged. She tried to start her spinning, but the fiber broke before she had managed two turns of the wheel.

  “Actually,” David began, “I did a little checking. Since the other morning, when we talked. Spoke to a few friends.”

  Alex did not look up. She could not breathe.

  “You have friends?” Caroline quipped.

  “Why don’t you go annoy a heterosexual?”

  Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s the plan. Later this evening, in fact.”

  David looked at Alex. “I know a few people. Because of the newspaper. A few friends at the county records office. One or two at the sheriff’s office.”

  Alex’s hands were shaking so hard she did not want to even attempt spinning, and she held them in her lap.

  David kept his eyes on his knitting. “My friend from the sheriff’s office is on vacation this week, so I couldn’t get anything there.”

  Alex exhaled.

  “But I went back to the tavern yesterday evening, to talk to one of my favorite old-timers. He’s the one that supplied most of the material on my ghost tours.” David waited one moment, counting his stitches, “. . . eight, nine, ten.”

  He looked at Alex. “Seems there was an intern working for Maggie, many years ago. Late eighties, I think he said. She disappeared.”

  Caroline sat down in a chair. “What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?”

  “Just . . . disappeared. No sign of her anywhere. No body. No blood. No indication of foul play. Just nothing. She’s never been seen or heard from again. Not that he was aware of, anyway.”

  “She worked for Maggie?” Caroline asked.

  David nodded. “And she was staying in that house. The house you’re in right now, Alex.”

  Alex didn’t move. Swallowing took enormous effort. “Did she take her clothes? Like she was . . . fleeing? Running away?” She was almost afraid to say those words out loud, afraid that David and Caroline would be able to read her own history in the questions she asked.

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” David said. “He said they found her purse, still in the house. The funny thing is, I think he mentioned this to me before, all those years ago, when I was gathering info for the ghost tours. But I didn’t really think about it. Maggie’s interns all seem to leave rather suddenly. I guess I just lumped this story together with all the other interns.”

  Alex looked up and met Caroline’s gaze.

  Caroline shivered. “That’s creepy. Seems like if you were running away, you would at least want your purse.”

  David nodded. “I thought it was interesting. That was what? Almost thirty years ago? But still . . .” He was quiet for a moment. “Might be something you need to know, Alex. Since you’re living there.”

  David waited a few moments. “Hey, Alex? Jeff and I are making all kinds of food tonight. Why don’t you come spend the New Year with us?”

  Alex looked at him, as if she couldn’t quite remember who he was. She did not want to go back to that house on the hill, alone. But she also knew there was no way she could handle the strain of tryin
g to act normal, of trying to hide all the memories that had been flying back at her, of trying to look as if she were innocent of any wrongdoing. She shook her head slowly. “Thanks for asking, David. I’m not sure I want to go out tonight.”

  “Well, not with two gay guys—no. What kind of fun could that be? Your chances of finding any action would be a big fat zilch,” Caroline joked.

  David sighed and shook his head.

  “I’m not really looking for action,” Alex murmured.

  Caroline looked at her, her head tipped to one side, as if she were trying to figure something out. She leaned forward and put her hand on Alex’s forearm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Alex stared at the fiber in her lap, her eyes burning. She did not look up; she blinked rapidly, trying to chase away the tears. Her head moved in a slow nod. “I’m okay.”

  Caroline continued to watch her for a moment.

  “Well, a little action never hurt a soul, as far as I know,” she said, her eyebrows arching up. “Anybody want to join me? A few drinks at the Strait Up?”

  “Caroline, haven’t you destroyed enough marriages for one year?” David asked.

  “It was just the one. And besides, the New Year starts in a few hours. Might as well get a jump on it.” She cocked her head to the side. “Actually, it already is the New Year in most parts of the world.”

  David shook his head and waved a hand in her direction. “Go carouse to your heart’s content. But they’re saying this storm is going to be a doozy. Winds up to sixty miles per hour. Three inches of rain. Branches breaking. Trees falling. Might lose power. No lights, no electricity. You might be in the middle of that vacation crowd, in the dark.” He leaned forward dramatically. “Who knows what kind of trouble you could get into?”

  Caroline raised her shoulders in a dramatic shiver. “Sounds like fun. Bumping into men in the dark. Maybe a little groping going on.”

  “Is that your idea of fun? Being groped by perfect strangers in a dark bar?” David grimaced.

  “Of course not. I want to be the one doing the groping.” Caroline’s eyebrows arched.