In Veritas

by C. J. Lavigne

  While he plucks, she spends three weeks wandering the city, feeling the air turn cool and watching red and brown tint the fall leaves. She tastes the pavement with each footstep.

  She tours her city from the flapping tarps of the market to the crumbling stone and weathered wood of her own Glebe neighbourhood. She inhales the clean glass lines of the Queen Street business district and the dustiness of the downtown cafés. She passes soda cans, cigarette butts, and discarded wrappers, evaluating each in turn. She even takes buses to Kanata and Orléans, where suburban miniature mansions line up in crowded rows, identical soldiers on bright green lawns.

  Sometimes she catches a hint of shadow at the corner of her vision, or a drift of petal scent across her skin, but when she looks, she can find no trace of the dog. Though she checks each morning, the magician does not appear again at the market’s edge. Verity stands in his place beneath the stone archway and smells perfume drifting when the wind catches at the flyers pasted to the red wall of the bookstore across the street. Recognizing the jagged edges of the cheaply printed logo spelling out The Between, she crosses to brush her fingertips over paper faded by sun and wrinkled by rain. The concert date is February 3, but a banner across the top reads CANCELLED. In the background is a black smear in the shape of a wolf—or a dog.

  The flyers have a familiar hollow feel; Verity knocks once, but hears only the dullness of damp plywood. Her knuckle scratches against a rusted nail. She frowns. She glances back toward the market, but sees only a passing car.

  The theatre listed on the flyers is McLuhan’s, but Verity walks by the building on Bank Street and finds the windows boarded. She has passed it before—it is only a few blocks from her house—but she has tended to cross to the other side of the road, bothered by the flutter of papers affixed to the plywood and faux-Victorian columns at the building’s front entrance. This time she stops directly in front of the doors and makes herself look. She sees a blur of advertisements for theatre groups, guitar lessons, and upcoming plays. She sees faded posters for movies long gone. She sees, over and over, stapled pages with the logo for The Between and an image of the black dog, each with CANCELLED stamped across the grinning muzzle. Indeed, the marquee above the doors spells it out in unevenly spaced black and white: THE BETWEEN CANCELLED SOR Y.

  The sign drones irritatingly in her ear; she shakes her head. She tries the doors and finds them locked. She stands on the street for a minute and then, on a whim, she takes the Between pin from her pocket and affixes it to the lapel of her jacket. She wonders whether it will change her life; she waits a moment to see if the wind reverses or the magician appears, but the doors remain closed. The fall air is crisp and clear.

  She leaves the pin on.

  Three days later, a long-haired young man approaches her as she is sitting at a small outdoor bistro, nudging a roll of avocado sushi with her index finger. He is panhandling on the corner. He has ripped off the sleeves of his vinyl jacket, and his face is a glitter of piercings. Something in the desolate slope of his shoulders reminds her of the magician—though if the man in black were fraying at the edges, this boy is worn to scraps. When he walks up to Verity, hands jammed in his pockets, she is already fishing for money.

  What he says is: “You like their music, huh?”

  Verity stares blankly until the boy motions toward the pin at her chest; she touches it with one bemused hand. “Oh. I’ve never heard them.”

  The twist of the boy’s mouth brushes like sandpaper across her skin. “Oh.” He half turns away and Verity sees The Between studded in steel pips across his back before he reconsiders enough to add, “Got any change?”

  She can’t find any coins, but she gives him a twenty-dollar bill from her wallet and he tugs three fingers at his greasy bangs when he backs away. She thinks he’s being sarcastic.

  A week later, she sits on a park bench watching a six-legged cat and wondering at the peculiar precision of its gait. The cat is stalking a pigeon, much to the chagrin of a flock of other pigeons and the displeasure of the small woman sitting on the other bench just to Verity’s left. The woman is a wisp, her hair in a neat copper-grey bun. Her every worldly possession is apparently kept in a small shopping cart. She has half a loaf of bread in her lap, and she’s tossing bits to the birds, but she pauses to throw one at the cat. “Shoo,” she admonishes. A crumb bounces off the cat’s ear and it hisses. Its tongue is forked; a tiny gout of flame escapes its teeth.

  Verity tilts her head, watching the beast retreat. The pigeons that scatter before it are just pigeons; she hasn’t seen a dragon in days.

  “You leave my birds alone,” says the woman, fiercely. She glares in the direction of where the hexapede cat has vanished behind a tree. “You’re not special. All the more claws to hurt them with,” she grumbles. “Go on before someone sees you.”

  Before Verity can say anything, the woman has turned to address her. Beneath sparse brows, the stranger has eyes like milky agates, sharply slanted at the edges. “Do you like their music, dear?”

  When Verity is silent too long, the woman reaches a dry-soiled hand and taps at the bundle of her belongings in the metal cart and the edge of an ill-packed t-shirt dangling like a tattered flag. The Between.

  Verity hesitates. “I, um ... their concert was cancelled.”

  “Hmph,” sniffs the woman dubiously. Verity wants very much to ask about the cat, but then the woman rises—more spryly than her bowed form might suggest—and trundles her cart away down the path, her thin shoulders stiff. The cat is gone. The pigeons cluster hopefully around the now-absence of bread.

  The third time Verity is approached, she has stopped at a flower cart on a corner of Sparks Street, the pedestrian mall cool in the shadow of government buildings. She is trying to decide whether the roses whistle like carnations or the carnations taste of nasturtium; it takes her some time to register the soft breath of surveillance across her skin.

  She turns swiftly. The flowers have her expecting the dog, but she encounters instead the mocha eyes of a brown girl standing at her elbow. “Hi,” says the girl, who might be sixteen or seventeen. Her thick black hair is drawn back with an elastic. She is wearing a red hoodie with a The Between logo silkscreened onto the upper right of her chest. Despite her small stature, she seems somehow more solid than anyone passing, as though she is a rock wearing against the edges of the city. “Great music, huh?”

  Verity admits, hesitantly, “I’ve never heard them. But people don’t seem to like that answer.”

  She expects the girl’s lips to draw tight, but instead they curve in a grin. “You’re supposed to say the second album was better than the third.”

  “Was it?”

  The girl’s smile is unrepentant. “No. But that’s the countersign. I mean, such as it is. The system isn’t great.”

  Verity finds the evenness of the girl’s teeth reassuring; the white smile plays across the air, leaving a precise track of glowing green that Verity does her best not to stare at. She focuses on the girl’s face—or at least, the smoothness of her hairline, because Verity is not particularly tall but the girl doesn’t come past her shoulder.

  “I won’t say it if it’s not true,” Verity says, apologetically. “And I don’t really understand. The pin—there was a dog....”

  “Oh,” replies the girl. “You’re one of his.” She seems disappointed—one shoulder lifts in a shrug—but then she tilts her head. “And it’s not not true. I mean, really. Also, it can be kind of funny. A guy argued with me once for ten minutes. He felt my musical tastes were lacking.”

  Verity doesn’t know what to say to that, except, “I don’t lie.” She looks down at the sidewalk and expects that the girl will retreat like the others, but she finds herself staring down at her own sneakers and a pair of unmoving blue flats. The girl has a scuff on her right toe.

  “Hm,” says the girl. This time she looks at Verity more intently. “Really?”

  “...I could say someone told me the second album wa
s better? Is that close enough?”

  “There you go!” All shoes are unmoving. Verity wants to shift her feet, but it would destroy the perfect balance of canvas and concrete. The girl’s voice tastes like an apricot.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” confesses Verity again.

  The girl laughs. “My name’s Privya. But listen—” and here her tone sharpens, “what colour is my voice?”

  Silver, thinks Verity automatically, but she doesn’t answer, because the shock of the girl’s question has turned the air to static. There is a single moment where she looks up, surprised, and the girl—Privya—is still standing there, short and unassuming with her hair in a ponytail and her hands jammed in the pockets of her hoodie. Privya’s gaze is both knowing and expectant.

  Uncertain, Verity parts her lips.

  That is the precise instant when the phone vibrates in her pocket. She palms it one-handed, the action so ingrained it barely registers. “Sorry,” she says. “My—Jacob.”

  But Privya’s face has gone blank. It is the expression Verity had expected before—the same as the magician’s, shuttering and somehow betrayed. “Huh.” Privya takes a step back. “No, I’ll let you take that.” The silver has leached from her tone; her words are etched with fallen leaves. “See you around, though.”

  The phone buzzes again and Verity glances down to see two new texts:

  BROKE ALL THE G STRINGS

  OK THAT SOUNDS WEIRD

  As she watches, a third comes in:

  IM TALKING ABOUT THE GUITAR

  Words ripple across the screen. When Verity looks up, swallowing the lingering impression of sandpaper, the girl is gone, but there’s a bright pink poster waving from the lamppost near where she was standing. THE BETWEEN, it says, LIVE AT LANSDOWNE PARK ABERDEEN PAVILION. The date is next spring: March 5.

  The paper tastes like dust and empty spaces. Verity stands on the city street and feels the ghost of music drift across her skin.

  5

  OTTAWA (Oct. 3, 2013)—Officials at Agriculture Canada are warning of an apparent outbreak of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in Ontario, after a third person has been reported dead. 62-year-old Ottawa resident Manfred Rochester, along with Torontonian Adnan Sayid, 36, and an unidentified Kingston woman, has died of complications resulting from the disease; two other cases in the Ottawa area have been diagnosed.

  While Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) is closely associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (“mad cow” disease) in cattle, officials say that no source of contamination has yet been identified.

  “Rest assured we are working closely with representatives from the Centre for Disease Control in order to resolve this issue,” said the Honourable Brigitte Maisonneuve, Minister of Agriculture. “Our sincere condolences go out to the victims and their families. We grieve the loss of Mr. Rochester, a long-time employee of Ottawa’s Chaudière Falls power station, a loving husband, and a grandfather of three. At this time, however, there is no evidence that any food safety procedures have been compromised.”

  “Remember that this disease may incubate for one to eight years,” said Dr. Hans Mikaelsen, head of neuroscience at Ottawa University. “So it may be tricky to pin down the source. It’s highly unlikely that we’re discussing anything in the current food supply.”

  CJD attacks the brain and may manifest suddenly. Symptoms may include a rapid onset of dementia, with associated hallucinations and memory loss. Anyone experiencing such symptoms should seek medical help immediately.

  No cases of mad cow disease have been identified in Canada since 2006. However, despite pleas from the government and representatives of the agriculture industry, sales of beef in the province have already dropped by fifteen per cent.

  OCTOBER

  Verity stretches as she wakes, feeling the sheets rub against her bare toes. It takes her a moment to let sight and sound and taste and touch and scent settle, until she is certain that the ceiling isn’t melting and her mouth is not full of flowers. The blankets are tangled where Jacob left them. A sliver of daylight filters through the blinds and across the grey sheets.

  There is a snake in her bed.

  She thinks it should be a metaphor, but it’s a reptile instead, curled thin and black in the indentation on Jacob’s pillow. The snake has golden eyes and smells like charred lilac. It is smaller than she remembers.

  Verity looks at the snake, and the snake looks back. She isn’t sure if she should be frightened. It does not appear threatening.

  When it flicks out a little black tongue, she almost has the impression it likes her.

  “Not okay,” she tells it, firmly. Folding back the blanket on her own side, she sets her feet on the floor and rises, tugging down the buttoned top of her pyjamas.

  When she pads into the main room, it is the dog that follows. She doesn’t see the change from scales to fur; she only knows that when she walks toward the coffee pot in the kitchen, there are four paws on the hardwood behind her. The dog’s passage makes no sound, but Verity can smell it like velvet across the back of her neck.

  She hears something thud downstairs, and something else that sounds like a child wailing. There’s a square pink sticky note on her coffee mug; in Jacob’s sloppy block print, it reads, WE’RE PHOTOGRAPHERS TODAY.

  Verity detaches the note with two fingers and sets it down on the kitchen counter. She pours herself a cup of coffee from the mostly-full pot and curls her hands around the warmth of the mug. The dog plunks itself down in the middle of the kitchen floor and looks at her, its ears perked.

  Verity stares at the dog and the dog stares back. It seems to her she is making no more headway than when it was a snake.

  She doesn’t mind, entirely. The jet of its coat mixes well with the taut bitterness of the coffee.

  “Do you have a name?” she asks. Her voice is still rough-edged with sleep.

  The dog doesn’t answer, but there’s a faint crashing sound from below and the subsequent drift of Jacob’s voice is hopeful: “Vee?” It’s hard to watch the dog when the sounds from downstairs waft crimson across the floor.

  There are questions burning in her. She swallows them down with the coffee; she can hear Jacob talking, words muffled, tone bright.

  “Stay,” she tells the dog, firmly—feeling more than a little uncertain about the whole thing, but when she takes her mug into the bedroom and turns to close the door, the dog only cocks an ear in her direction. Its tongue lazes, black as its fur.

  Verity finds a shirt and a pair of jeans. Her half of the dresser is neat and tidy, socks lined up in rows; Jacob’s is an explosion, a plaid sleeve leaking to the floor. She changes and runs a brush through her hair. Glancing at the closed door, she draws a slow breath, then takes the time to make the bed. She draws her morning in neat cotton lines, tucking in each sheet corner before she straightens and picks the empty mug off the dresser, carrying it back to the kitchen sink.

  The dog is still there.

  “I don’t know what you want,” Verity says. “Maybe—maybe I should’ve said ‘go’? I don’t know what to say to dogs.”

  From below, she hears again, “Vee!”

  The dog slides to a sprawl on the floor, placing its head on its crossed paws. It makes no sound—no breath, no whine, no scratch of claws. Its pupils are shining and reptile-reflective. In the familiar warmth of the kitchen, Verity breathes smoke and the ashes of dreams. Then, setting her mug in the sink, she shakes her head. “Don’t....”

  She pauses, wondering exactly what she wants the dog to do, or refrain from doing. She settles for a vague wave of her hand, her own hesitance trailing sparks in the morning dust. “I’m going downstairs,” she says. “You aren’t invited.”

  Exiting the apartment, she shuts the door carefully behind her—not that she really expects a lock to contain the dog, or the snake, which already found its way in. The noise of a shrieking child echoes from the office below, and Verity keeps two fingertips on the banister as she descends, the bett
er to guide herself through the scent of shattered glass and the cloud of tension that ripples across the staircase.

  Below, the foyer opens into the main office, where Jacob’s desk is colonized by increasingly large electronic screens and piles of paper. The open area that would normally be the house’s living room is cluttered with an impressive array of camera equipment. A tripod has been knocked over. Two small children are running in uncontrolled circles while a pinched-looking woman with curling red hair and a mint-green suit stands with her arms folded, casting frequent, irritated glances at Jacob, as though it were his children who were misbehaving. Everyone except Jacob is dressed for the occasion: there are shiny buttons and ribbons, half-tied.

  Jacob is at the desk, leaning over his computer, shirt untucked and jeans stained with paint. His dreadlocks are on end and he runs his hand over them again; he looks up at Verity’s entrance. He’s gnawing slightly at the edge of his lip, but the set of his shoulders relaxes when he sees she’s arrived. His relief is a palpable thing; his affection is the loose comfort of silk tangling in her lashes.

  “Hey,” he says. “I got this set up, I think. Grab a camera?”

  There’s a dog. The dog is a snake. There are so many things Verity would like to convey; the sound she makes mingles greeting and a familiar, helpless exasperation, discomfort fading in the jangled familiarity of his mess. She shrugs, and keeps a safe distance from the marauding children as she wanders to pick up the tripod. She finds a ‘power’ button on the camera and turns it on, grimacing as it adds to the faint, electric burr of Jacob’s equipment. The room is taut with digital waves and the yelps of excited children.