“I was afraid, because in that moment I was still so very, very angry. I wanted to kill him. Not a figure of speech. I wanted to see his blood on my living room floor. I was afraid, because I knew if I lashed out at him, if I gave voice to the rage I was feeling, he’d come for me. And if he did that, I’d grab whichever one of those big heavy objects was closest and I’d use it on him. He’d never expect that, and I can be fast when I want to be.
“I wasn’t afraid that he might stop me and overpower me. I was afraid that he wouldn’t. Once I started hitting him, I didn’t think I’d be able to stop. And in my mind, I wouldn’t be paying him back for all the times he’d hit me. In my mind, I was thinking only of Percy; poor, defenseless Percy, who had been too timid and scared to even try to jump off my lap when I held her, whose only defense was trust—the hope and belief that the people holding her wouldn’t try to hurt her. Randy had taken advantage of that trust, had violated it in the most basic, permanent way. And I knew that if he ever wanted to, he’d do it again.
“I had a sense that the rabbit’s only chance was to bite, and to bite so hard that there was never any going back.
“I was wavering between two decisions—reaching for the hunk of volcanic rock on the bookshelf, or squatting down to stack Randy’s books in the box—when I heard a sound.
“It was a sort of scratching. It was coming from the back door. I looked in that direction, and Randy moved. He was so fast, so… cunning… that I barely knew what he was doing.
“He grabbed me by my hair, right at the top of my head, and shoved me in the stomach with his other hand, forcing me to bend over, driving me down to my knees.
“‘Isn’t this what you mean to be doing right now?’ he said through his teeth. He was panting all of a sudden, almost like he was turned on, like this was some kind of twisted foreplay. His voice went low, distracted, and he said, ‘In the box, Chris. Put them in the box,’ but underneath the actual words, what he really seemed to be saying was, I dare you not to, Chris. Please, make me make you do it. I want to make you do it.
“I think he knew. I think he saw that I was on the edge of fighting back. And you know what’s really sick? I think he liked it. I think he thought it gave him the excuse he needed to really let himself go. Does that make sense? He wanted me to push him. Later, then, maybe he could say he hadn’t meant for things to turn out the way they did, that it had all happened so fast, that I’d pushed him and pushed him, that a man can only take so much. Maybe he’d call it temporary insanity. And the crazy thing was, most people would probably believe it. After all, how could the guy in the Alex P. Keaton sweater vest really be a premeditated murderer?
“And then I heard it again—that scratching, coming from just outside the back door—and it all made sense. I almost laughed out loud.
“He’d bought me a new rabbit. He had come over while he thought I was at work, put the new rabbit in Percy’s old hutch, and was repainting the name over the door. He thought he was doing something sweet. He really and truly did. I wondered for a moment what name he had chosen for the new rabbit. He’d never liked the name ‘Percy’ anyway. Apparently, he’d decided naming duties were best left to him from now on.
“So I started putting his books in the box. He still had his fist wrapped in my hair, forcing my chin down to my chest. I think he was a little disappointed when I actually obeyed. He didn’t let go. He hunkered down in front of me and sighed and said, ‘I love you, Chris, you stupid bitch. You need me. You can’t go anywhere, and you can’t get rid of me. What were you thinking? Without me, you’re just a silly little bird flying around, not knowing what to do, banging off the windows, just hurting yourself. You need me to keep you grounded and to watch over you.
“‘And I need you, too, Chris. Do you realize that? Without you, I just don’t know what I’d do. I love you. You make me angry sometimes, but that’s just because of how much I care. I hope you know that. If you haven’t learned that by now, well, I guess I just need to work a little harder at teaching you. I’ve been a little soft, maybe. It’s my fault. I accept that. Fair enough?’ And he nodded down at me. I sensed it, I could feel it in the way he was still holding my hair, forcing me down.
“I was still putting away his books, stacking them in the box. The biggest book, the one I had thrown last, was the only one left on the floor. It was just out of my reach, right by Randy’s feet. He saw that I was nearly finished, and he finally let go of my hair.
“In a different voice, more like his normal Randy voice, he said, ‘here, let me help you with this big one,’ and he picked it up with both hands. He pushed himself upright, and his knees cracked as he did.
“I started to get up myself, and that’s when the book came down on my head. He hit me with it, right on the top of my head, using both his hands and all his weight. I fell down onto the floor face first, barely missing the box with my head, and everything went gray and swimmy for a while. I vaguely remember a thump, like he was dropping the book he’d hit me with, plopping it onto the pile in the box, and then there was the sound of him walking away.
“It was probably only a minute or so later, but it seemed like hours before I came back to myself. I was still lying on the living room floor, my face pressed into the carpet and the top of my head throbbing. I heard Randy whistling. He was out on the back porch again, probably finishing painting the new sign over the hutch door. I got to my feet, feeling woozy, grabbing onto the chair for support, and started for the front door. I tried to be quiet, but he heard me.
“He called out, ‘Going out for a little while, sweetheart?’ I could tell by the sound of his voice that he was smiling. He said, ‘I’ll wait here. Go get some air. When you get home, I’ve got a little surprise for you. I think you’ll like it. I always hug you after I spank you, you know. So don’t be too long, hmm?’
“I was running, stumbling, really, by the time he started whistling again. I nearly fell through the front door. I didn’t know where I was going. I made it to my car, sure he would come out from behind the apartment, maybe reach into the open window and pluck the keys out of my hand. He didn’t, and I finally got the car started.
“I just started driving, not really knowing where I was going. Maybe I’d go back to work. Maybe I’d go ahead on up to the cabin. And then…”
Christiana had stopped at that point, staring down at her hands on her lap, shaking her head minutely. “And then, I thought of you. I don’t really know why. I waited until I’d calmed down a little. The further I got away from my apartment, the better it got. That’s when I decided to call you. I needed to talk to someone… someone sane and normal and… safe. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened. I just needed normalcy.
“But you knew, somehow. You could tell something was wrong. I was worried that you’d guess it all if I stayed on the phone. For some reason, it seemed very important to me that you not know about Randy, about… about how he was with me. I was ashamed. And keeping secrets… it has its own weird kind of inertia. It’s hard to stop doing it once you start.
“I started to go back to work. And then I started to drive down to the cabin. Part of the way there, I became paranoid, though. Randy knew about the cabin. He’d never been there, but I’d told him about it, early on in our relationship. We’d planned to go there for a long weekend sometime. He didn’t have a key, but he knew where it was. He could find it, and if he did, he could surely get in. I even started thinking maybe he’d made a copy of the key, maybe even copies of all the keys on my key-ring. Like I said, he’s cunning. I knew it was crazy and paranoid of me, but after finding him there in my apartment, I was feeling a little off-kilter.
“My head still hurt. I needed to rest. I just wanted to sleep. I ended up stopping at a Super Eight motel. I stayed there for the night, but I could barely sleep. I kept thinking Randy had followed me somehow, tracked me down. Every time I heard footsteps on the sidewalk outside my room, I’d be sure it was him.
“I stayed there
through the whole next day, never even leaving the motel, eating crackers and drinking Pepsi from the machines out front.
“That next night was the worst one. I barely slept at all. I knew I was letting my fear take over, and that it was irrational. I considered going to my parents, but Randy knew where they lived, too. He would probably never go there, but probably wasn’t good enough.
“My cell phone rang a few times, but I didn’t even look at it, didn’t even want to see his number on the little display. Finally, yesterday, I decided it had to stop. I didn’t know what to do, really, I just knew I had to get out of the motel, get to where I could finally tell someone what was happening. Not my parents. Not Morrie. Not any of my friends from college, the few that are left. I checked out of the motel and thought about it as I drove, thinking of this person or that person, not knowing for sure what to do or where to go, but knowing I needed to go somewhere, and tell someone.
“I went by my apartment first, though. I just sort of ended up there, not really knowing where else to go. It was the hardest thing to do, but I guess I needed to see, needed to force myself to at least look.
“Randy’s car wasn’t parked anywhere in sight. I was about to go in, but then, paranoid as I was, I drove around the block, just once, slowly. He drives a white Corolla. I saw one parked along the street behind my apartment. I told myself it wasn’t his, that even he wasn’t that crafty, but when I got closer and drove past it, I could see that it was. There was his university parking sticker on the front windshield, and the dent in the left of the rear bumper. The bastard was there, waiting for me, watching for me, like some kind of damn snake.
“I thought about calling the police, but what would they do? I’d given him a key, after all. Maybe they’d believe me about how things were between us, but then again, maybe they wouldn’t. Randy rarely left any obvious marks, and he could be very convincing. I couldn’t bring myself to take the chance.
“And that’s when I decided to come here, Shane. I don’t know why, really. It just seemed like a good idea. Once it came into my head, it seemed like exactly the place I needed to be. Like somehow, at least for a while, I could just stop and catch my breath. And tell someone. After all, it almost seemed like you already kind of knew. You sensed something when I called a few days earlier. Didn’t you?
“So I came, stopping only long enough to get a fresh change of clothes and some toiletries, picking them all up at a Walmart along the way. I got here last night around seven-thirty.
“I knocked, but you didn’t answer. I figured you were painting, maybe, or gone, even though your truck was still here. I waited for a while, and then knocked again. I pounded on that door, but you never came. Somehow, though, I knew you were here, or that you’d be back. So I waited in the car.
“Later, though, I decided not to bother you. The shame had started to creep back. Besides, weird as it sounds, I felt safer just being here, even sitting in my car, parked next to the pickup. It was like a little cocoon. Randy might try to find me, but I knew he’d never find me here, not up that long, gravel drive, hidden up in the woods on the river bluff. He could look all night, if he wanted, but he’d never think to look here. Somehow, I just knew that.
“And I slept, a little. Better than I had the previous few nights, even though it isn’t any too comfy trying to sleep in the car, with the seat pushed all back. I had a blanket in the trunk that I covered up with, though, and it was better than I’d have expected. I woke up a little while before you found me. I had to pee and I was cold. And that’s how I came to be here.”
Christiana had finally stopped her long story at that point, still not looking directly at Shane. She sighed. “I hope you don’t mind. I’ll leave if you do. None of this is your problem. I don’t want to push it on you, or anyone else. Like I said, I can’t really even explain why I came here. I’ll go if you want me to. Do you want me to go?”
Shane looked at her. The sun had risen high over the trees by now. It painted her features with striking clarity, shone on her black hair where it hung loose, framing her face. Tom the cat lay beneath her chair, sleeping in its shadow. Christiana waited for his answer, looking down at her hands in her lap. Finally, she looked up at him, her face composed, prepared for the worst.
Shane shook his head. “No,” he said simply. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay.”
And she did.
Chapter Thirteen
The afternoon drew out slowly as Christiana slept.
Shane sat in the studio and doodled a little, drawing meaningless scribbles and cross-hatches on the pages of a yellow legal pad, filling in the space, watching his right hand like it was a rambunctious kid that didn’t know how to sit still.
The canvas on the easel was still blank. Shane had an idea of what was supposed to go on it, at least for starters. There was one more painting in his head, one final addition to the Shane Bellamy Insanity Stairs series. Unlike the previous two (he wasn’t counting the chalk drawing on the cellar floor, since he wasn’t entirely sure he himself had actually drawn it, aside from the little editorial work he’d performed on it a few days earlier) the new painting in his head felt fragile, almost tenuous, like a soap bubble, ready to pop out of existence at the slightest provocation.
Where the previous two works had felt more like freight trains, thundering through his head and out onto the canvas, this one was like a feather, tickling so lightly that he could barely feel it. It made him curious. This time it didn’t feel like the muse. This image, more than the other two, felt like his very own, like it was being drawn from that same mysterious well, but by his own hand this time, without the heavy influence of the muse to push him, to guide the strokes.
And yet, just as when he’d begun the previous two images, the picture in his head was only a fragment. It was like an anchor chain, coming up link by link, pulling something heavy, something that would only show itself once all those rusty links had been laid out on the deck, drying in the sun. It was going to be slow, patient work, but Shane was going to give it his best shot.
For now, he simply stared at the canvas again, and saw the first stroke in his mind, even if he hadn’t yet painted it. It was a vertical line, pencil thin, curving a little, fading from black to red; the first link in the chain. Shane would paint it soon. Maybe tonight. Not now, though. Not while Christiana was still there, sleeping, recouping. Later.
At one o’clock Shane headed back downstairs to find something to eat. The bottom of the stairs was gloomy, full of shadows now that the sun had officially begun its afternoon descent down the other side of the cottage. Shane was barely looking, stepping lightly on the steps so as not to wake Christiana, when one of the shadows moved.
Shane startled and stumbled a little, catching himself with a hand on the right-side banister. The shadow coiled, turned, and grew solid.
It was Marlena. She’d been standing there, at the bottom of the stairs, watching the mostly-closed door of Shane’s bedroom. In the silence, Shane could hear Christiana’s breathing, long and slow, drifting through the crack of the door. Marlena’s face spun toward him and she advanced on him, growing in size, towering up into the hot, still air over the stairs. Her eyes were black holes, widening, deepening, eating into her face, and her mouth drew down into a gruesome leer, gaping, melting like wax. She let out a long, harsh breath, a sighing scream, barely audible, and yet it seemed to shake the walls.
Shane fell back onto the stairs and scrambled backwards, no longer worried about being quiet. Marlena looked like she wanted to eat him, or smother him, or rip him limb from limb. Rage and misery beat off her like heat waves, and her hands came up, hooked into white claws, growing huge and bony.
Then, just as she seemed ready to fall upon him, she pulled back, as if conflicted, torn between him and the cracked doorway below. Her face collapsed into a sort of silent wail and her hands dropped down. She shrank away once more, drifting backwards, one hand reaching toward the door of the bedroom, toward the
sound of Christiana’s breathing, and the other reaching toward Shane. The hand reaching toward him was beckoning, palm up, plaintively beseeching. The one pointed toward the door was contorted into a hooked grapple, shaking with malice.
Marlena faded again, but as she did, she looked back up the stairs, toward where Shane lay collapsed on the steps. The look on her face was terrible. It was heartbroken, utterly wasted and bereft. Her black eyes implored Shane, begged him. And then she was gone.
Shane let out a shaky breath. He was panting, his heart thundering in his chest. She was gone, but only for now. And she was unhappy. Shane didn’t know why, but there didn’t seem to be any doubt about it.
For some reason, he thought of the drawing on the cellar floor, and of his dream, the one that had begun with Marlena standing atop the cellar stairs, looking down, and had ended with her turning on him, filled with black disappointment. She’d been unhappy about what she’d seen down there. Was it the picture itself that had disturbed her, the image of the GMC truck and the silver Honda, moments from collision? Or had it been Shane’s changes?
Shane had a terrible, creeping feeling that it was the latter.
When Marlena had first arrived in the house, she had seemed bereft, sad, solemn, but essentially harmless. Now, Shane wasn’t so sure. Now, for the first time, he began to seriously worry.
A little while later, Christiana woke up. She came out into the kitchen, bleary-eyed and tousle-haired, still wearing Shane’s tee shirt. It swayed around her thighs, making her look much younger than she really was. Shane was sitting at the tiny table in the kitchen, doodling, making nonsensical scribbles and shapes, fingering something in his left hand.
“What’s that?” Christiana asked, pulling out the other chair and plopping onto it.
Shane didn’t look up, but he closed the pad of paper and set down the pencil. “Just something I found in the woods,” he said, closing the object in his fist. It glittered a little, and let out a tiny, jolly jingle, like a memory of Christmas.
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