Lovecraft Country

by Matt Ruff

  “Ida,” Hippolyta said. “You don’t have to stay here. You can—”

  “No!” Ida dipped her hand into the bag again, came out with the .38. “You go back . . . You go, and when that door’s shut, you’re just a dream I had.” Gesturing with the gun: “Now get.”

  And still Hippolyta might have tried to convince her, but just then Scylla made a ghastly retching noise up the beach. The sound galvanized Hippolyta into motion. She pivoted on the sand and half-stepped, half-leapt through the doorway.

  Sudden shock of winter cold. The increase in gravity staggered her, and if not for the railing to lean against she would have fallen.

  She steadied herself and turned around, to find Ida staring at her from several feet and thrillions of miles away. The old woman was waving. Not saying goodbye; urging her to get on with it.

  Hippolyta stumbled back to the control console. But with her hand on the key, she hesitated. Mouthing the words broadly so that her lips could be read from across the universe, she said: “Ida, are you sure? Are you absolutely—”

  Ida brought the gun up. Despite the sound barrier between them, Hippolyta would have sworn she could hear the hammer cocking.

  She yanked the key from its slot. The dome went dark and the almost imperceptible background hum ceased. Then, as the lights came up, there was a new sound: the tick-tick-tick of tiny metal reels as each number window reset itself to 001.

  Hippolyta looked at the key in one hand and the box in the other and thought about tossing them both into the black pool. Instead she pocketed the key and, holding the box to her chest, turned and started for home.

  Clouds had covered the sky above Warlock Hill in her absence. She emerged from the dome into pitch darkness and made her way carefully down the hillside. She’d crossed the footbridge and was passing the empty guard shack when her flashlight gave out. She continued blindly following the path, ducking her head against the falling snow that blew into her eyes.

  She came to the chain sooner than she expected to and would have tripped over it in the dark. But suddenly she could see again. She looked up into the glow of headlights: A second Chevy truck had pulled up behind the first and three more white men had gotten out. One of them, by looks another moonlighting farmer, had the front passenger door of Hippolyta’s Roadmaster open and was leaning in to check the glove box. The other two, who stood idly by while the car was searched, were more refined sorts: silver-haired patricians in long dark coats.

  It was one of the dark coats who first noticed Hippolyta. “You there!” he shouted, brandishing a pistol. The other dark coat drew a gun as well, while the farmer popped his head up out of the car.

  “Don’t shoot!” Hippolyta dropped the dead flashlight and Ida’s gift box and put her hands up.

  “Who are you?” the first dark coat demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “Don’t shoot!” Hippolyta repeated. Keeping her hands raised, she stepped over the chain.

  Gripping her collar like a leash, the dark coat shoved her up against the Roadmaster and stuck his gun in her face. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m just trying to get home!” Hippolyta told him. “Please, mister . . . I took a wrong turn, and I’m just trying to get directions back to the highway!”

  She could see he didn’t believe her. At the same time he was obviously having trouble conceiving why else she would be here. Whatever sorts of trespassers these people were worried about, she didn’t fit the description.

  The farmer hopped the chain and picked up the box that Hippolyta had dropped. He held it by his ear and shook it, then used a buck knife to cut away the sawgrass binding the lid shut.

  “Wait a minute,” Hippolyta said.

  “Shut up,” said the man with the gun in her face.

  The farmer lifted the lid of the box and squinted at the little black sphere stuffed inside it. For your silence, Hippolyta heard Ida say, and she thought: Oh Ida, you didn’t have to do that—I wouldn’t have told anyone. And yet she did understand: not only the lengths to which a mother might go to protect her child; but the impulsive acts to which a heart, disturbed by years of longing, might be prone.

  The farmer, who understood nothing, stuck his face up close to the sphere and sniffed it. “What is that?” said the second dark coat. The farmer shrugged and prodded the sphere with the tip of his knife.

  The sphere exploded out of the box, turning itself inside out as it flew up, little tentacles reaching towards startled blue eyes. The farmer’s feet shot out from under him and he flipped onto his back, clawing at the creature, which had flattened and stretched itself over his face in an attempt to devour his head.

  “Jesus Christ.” The dark coat loosened his grip on Hippolyta and pivoted towards the stricken farmer, in the process aiming the gun away. Hippolyta braced herself against the car and shoved him, hard. He lost his grip on her entirely and stumbled headlong into the other dark coat, the two of them coming together with a loud double pop! and falling entangled in a heap. They rolled apart; their jaws went slack and they looked up, unblinking, as though transfixed by some astronomical wonder.

  Meanwhile the farmer, smothering, went into convulsions, beating his arms and legs frantically against the snow.

  He was still doing it, but slower, when Hippolyta got in her car and drove away.

  “Horace,” she said, three days later, “have you seen that comic book you gave me?”

  Horace, sitting contented among his spoils at the foot of the Christmas tree, looked up at her. “Which one?”

  “The new Orithyia Blue. Number eleven.”

  “No. You took it on your trip, remember?”

  “And you didn’t take it out of the car since I got back?”

  Horace shook his head. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “I’m worried I might have lost it,” Hippolyta said.

  “You read it though, right?” Horace took a quick inventory of his presents: the Matchbox cars, the big box of art supplies, the remote-control Robert the Robot. “You must have.”

  “I did,” she said. “I liked it.” Hippolyta forced a smile, telling herself: registration papers still in the glove box, nothing else missing from the car, maybe it’s not what you’re thinking. “I just feel bad, that’s all.”

  “It’s OK.” He picked up the Matchbox London bus and swooped it through the air like a double-decker spaceship. “I can draw you another copy if you like.”

  “That’d be nice,” Hippolyta said. “Tell me something, though: That first copy you gave me. What name did you use on it?” Since learning that Dr. Seuss had been born Theodor Geisel, Horace had been experimenting with professional pseudonyms. George didn’t care for the practice, pointing out that Berry was a good name that deserved to be honored, but Hippolyta had supported Horace’s right to sign his work as he wished. Thank God.

  “H.G.,” Horace told her. Short for “Horace Green,” the initials a nod to both his mother’s maiden name and the author of War of the Worlds. “The same as on all the Orithyia Blues.”

  “Right.” Hippolyta exhaled softly in relief. “Right, of course . . . And you’re sure?”

  “I think so.” Horace looked at her curiously. “Why does it matter?”

  “It doesn’t.” She smiled again, reassuringly, but Horace continued to stare at her until George came in from the kitchen, bearing three steaming mugs on a tray.

  “So,” George said. “Who wants hot chocolate?”

  JEKYLL IN HYDE PARK

  I knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.

  —Robert Louis Stevenson,

  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

  New Year’s Day, Ruby woke up white.

  Her luck had been running bad since Christmas, and she’d figured she still had a blow or two coming. But she certainly hadn’t expected this. Not that she had any rig
ht to complain: She did ask for it.

  The trouble started on Christmas Eve. Ruby was working for Demarski Catering, serving drinks at a party at a big house up in Ravenswood. The manager that night was Katherine Demarski, Ruby’s least favorite; the youngest of the five Demarski siblings, Katherine loved having the chance to boss other people around, and she never used a kind word where a mean one would do. Worse, in Ruby’s estimation, she was lazy, always disappearing when things were busiest.

  It was during one of Katherine’s absences that the owner of the house approached Ruby with a special assignment: A guest had gotten sick in one of the second-floor bathrooms, and he wanted it cleaned up. Wiping up vomit wasn’t part of Ruby’s job description, but neither was saying no to the host, so she went and found a rag and a bucket.

  She was searching for the bathroom when she startled Katherine Demarski in an upstairs hallway. “What are you doing up here?” Katherine demanded. Ruby showed her the bucket and explained her mission. “Well, get to it,” Katherine said. “And then get your ass back downstairs.” Ruby’s eyes went flinty at the word “ass,” but she held her tongue and did as she was told.

  The next morning she attended Christmas services and went out to eat with some of her friends from church. That afternoon she was supposed to work another catering function, but when she came home to get ready, the police were in her apartment. They told her that a pair of pearl earrings had been stolen from the master bedroom during the party last night and they had it “on good authority” that Ruby had taken them.

  They handcuffed her and made her wait in the hall while they tore her room apart. Then they took her to the station, where she was interrogated by a Detective Moretti. He was very unhappy to be working on Christmas and made sure Ruby knew it. Ruby kept her own feelings to herself and focused on keeping her answers short and consistent. She only lied once, when the detective asked her, if she didn’t take the earrings, who did? Ruby said she had no idea.

  Around six p.m. the detective locked Ruby in a holding cell, told her to reflect on her sins, and left. A couple of hours later, a good Samaritan let her out to use the toilet and offered her a chance to make a phone call. But she didn’t see the use in calling anybody, and despite being innocent, she was embarrassed. She didn’t want anyone to know she was in custody.

  She spent Christmas night in the holding cell. Detective Moretti never came back. In the morning a different detective came up to the bars and asked Ruby if she was ready to confess yet. She repeated that she hadn’t done anything. The detective shrugged, opened the cell door, and told her she was free to go—for now. “But don’t disappear,” he added.

  Ruby went home to clean up her apartment. At first she was nervous, wondering if Detective Moretti was going to burst in and haul her back to the station for more questions, but by the time she got everything back in order, she was just angry at the way she’d been treated.

  The next morning she was outside Demarski Catering when Katherine’s brother Leo drove up. He wasn’t pleased to see her.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Ruby?” he said. “You know you’re fired, right?”

  “I want my paycheck,” Ruby said.

  “Well, you’re not getting it. My dad signs the paychecks, and he’s not going to sign one for you. The cops were at his house on Christmas morning.”

  “Yeah, they were at mine, too,” Ruby said.

  “I know. He offered to go with them, to knock a confession out of you. And if he catches you here . . .”

  “He should thank me for keeping my mouth shut. I didn’t say a word about your sister.”

  “What about my sister?”

  “You figure it out.”

  “No,” Leo said. “That’s bullshit.”

  “I didn’t take the earrings,” Ruby said. “But she’s the one who said I did, right? And you were there. Think about how she sounded when she said it.”

  He did. She watched him push the thought away. “Kathy’s a good girl.”

  “I don’t care what kind of girl she is. I just want my money. Bad enough I lose my job without being robbed in the bargain.”

  Leo got out his wallet and took some cash from the billfold. “Here.”

  Ruby counted it. “You owe me another twelve dollars,” she said.

  “Jesus, Ruby. Just take it and be grateful.”

  “Grateful!”

  “That’s all you’re going to get, OK?”

  “This isn’t right, Leo.”

  “It is what it is,” he told her. “Now will you please get out of here before my dad comes and beats the shit out of you?”

  It is what it is. Life isn’t fair, Ruby. You need to understand, Ruby. Lord, how she tired of hearing that! Life wasn’t fair, but still it would be nice if, just once in a while, someone else had to do the understanding.

  Self-pity wouldn’t pay the rent. That same day she was out looking for work. A housecleaning service in Kenwood was hiring, and a number of downtown hotels were looking for maids and dining-room staff. But they all wanted references, and the manager at one of the hotels said that because of a recent rash of thefts, they’d also need to run her name by the police.

  In the evening she called around to see if anyone needed a sitter. No one did, not even the Berrys, who usually liked to go out on the holidays. “We were going to that New Year’s party at your sister’s place,” George told her, “but now Hippolyta’s not feeling up to it.”

  “I hope she’s not too sick,” Ruby said.

  “Not sick at all, just moody,” George said. “She and Letitia didn’t have a fight, did they?”

  “Not that I heard. But Letitia and I haven’t talked much lately.”

  After another long and frustrating day answering help-wanted ads, she came home to find an invitation to the Winthrop House New Year’s Eve party on her door. “Ruby,” Letitia had written, “I know you’re probably working but we’ll be going till dawn so you should come by. Charlie Boyd’s cousin (the good-looking one) will be there & he asked about you. P.S., I spoke to Mr. Winthrop and he promised not to make the house jump while you’re here.” Ruby stood shaking her head at this: Letitia now exacting promises from the ghost who’d tried to evict her.

  Letitia in her mansion, bought with money she hadn’t lifted a finger to earn.

  It is what it is.

  Come New Year’s Eve, Ruby was still unemployed, so after dinner she made herself up and put on her good dress. She had the cab drop her at the corner of Letitia’s block, in front of the closed-up tavern. Rather than proceed directly to the party, she lit a cigarette and stood smoking and shivering in the cold, thinking about the last night she’d spent in this neighborhood.

  Tonight the Winthrop House was all lit up, its brilliance accentuated by the darkness of the houses across the street. One house still had a FOR SALE sign on its lawn; the new owners of the others were presumably at the party. Ruby knew she ought to join them before she froze, but instead she took shelter in the tavern doorway and finished her smoke.

  She was reaching into her purse for another cigarette when the door opened behind her and a white man emerged from the pitch-dark interior. Ruby stepped away quickly, but the man was untroubled by her presence. After locking the door behind him, he turned to her smiling and touched a finger to the brim of his hat. He was young, Ruby saw, well-groomed and a sharp dresser. And cute.

  “Evening,” he greeted her. He glanced down the block at the Winthrop House, from which the sounds of a dance band could be heard. “On your way to the party?”

  “I’m invited,” Ruby said. “Still not a hundred percent sure I’m going. What about you?”

  “Not invited, unfortunately. Just passing through the neighborhood.”

  She nodded at the tavern. “This your bar?”

  “It is now. My father owned the property,” he explained. “He died last summer. I’ve been meaning to come and take a look at the place.”

  Definitely cute, Ruby thought. And it h
ad been a while. “So where you going now?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have any plans.”

  “You want to come to the party with me?”

  “I’d love to,” he said, smiling. “But only if you want to go.”

  “Well,” Ruby said. “There is that.”

  “Can I make a suggestion? There’s a club I know in Uptown, called Widdershins. We could go there.”

  She thought it over. Going to the North Side with a white man she’d just met was probably a terrible idea. But when the alternative was the Winthrop House . . . “This Widdershins. It’s not a haunted club, is it?”

  He laughed. “Alcoholic spirits only, I promise.”

  “All right then,” she said. “I’m Ruby. Ruby Dandridge.”

  “Caleb Braithwhite,” he replied, offering her his arm. “It’s nice to meet you, Ruby.”

  “A Sherpa?”

  “Yeah, you know,” Ruby said. “Like on Mount Everest?”

  “I know what a Sherpa is,” Braithwhite said laughing. “I’ve just never heard anyone say they’d like to be one before.”

  “Well, you said dream job . . . When that man made it to the top of the mountain last year, the paper had a picture of the Sherpas carrying his gear for him, and you could see all these other mountains in the background where they were climbing. I thought that’d be something, to get up every day and go to work with a view like that.” She shrugged. “I know it’s silly, but—”

  “I don’t think it’s silly. A little hard on the ankles, maybe.”

  “I’ve never had a job that wasn’t that,” Ruby replied. “But for that view, it’d be worth it.”

  They’d taken a break from dancing, retiring to a private table on the balcony; below, other couples still on the floor moved slowly to “Cabin in the Sky” while a big clock set up behind the bandstand ticked away the last minutes of 1954. Ruby was on her third cocktail, pleasantly buzzed and having fun. She liked Caleb Braithwhite. Under other circumstances she’d have been suspicious of a man who spoke so little of himself while asking so many questions about her, but tonight she’d decided to enjoy being the center of attention; if his show of interest had an ulterior motive, she could guess what that was, and didn’t mind.