Hold Me Close

by Megan Hart

  They share the drink and a package of stale pretzels that taste slightly bitter but don’t make her feel sick. Effie makes Heath take more than she does. He’s bigger and needs it. Besides, though she can’t say so without making him feel bad, he deserves more. He’s the one who works for it.

  It’s too warm. She’s very thirsty now, but there’s no more lemonade. Effie blinks and blinks at the orange lights, which have begun to grow bigger and smaller, like some kind of Alice in Wonderland trick.

  “There was something in the lemonade,” Heath says. “I’m sorry.”

  Effie’s laugh is the burble of a brook rushing over stones. The bones in her hands have gone translucent. She’s growing wings. Something is happening.

  “There’s always something in everything,” she says.

  She doesn’t mean to kiss him. They haven’t talked about what happens when the lights go off and he gets into bed with her. How he touches her, or the things he likes her to do. She shouldn’t kiss his cheek, his ear, his neck, his mouth. She shouldn’t open his lips with her tongue and push herself onto his lap.

  It is the first time they’ve done this with the lights still on. She has seen him naked, of course. They don’t have much room for modesty down here. It’s different now, though, with her hands on his body and the sound of Heath’s moaning in her ears.

  Something has overtaken them, a force neither of them can fight against. Because this feels good, and down here in the basement, almost nothing else does. They should stop for so many reasons, but all Effie can think about is getting that feeling back, the one that erases everything else.

  Being with Heath blocks out the world.

  They are stupid with it. Sating themselves and going at it again, then falling asleep curled in each other’s arms without bothering to put their clothes back on or to pull up the blankets.

  There is music, that song, the song, and the lights, and Effie struggles up and out of sleep as if she’s swimming through marshmallow fluff. Sticky, suffocating, she can’t breathe. She’s covered in sweat.

  “I knew it,” Daddy says from the doorway. “I always knew it. Get up! Get up, you disgusting brats!”

  He has Heath by one arm, yanking him. Heath falls out of the bed. Effie finds her way to consciousness. She launches herself from the bed. Bare feet hit the filthy concrete. Her ankle twists.

  When Effie comes at him with windmill arms, all it takes is one strong crack of his fist against her cheek to send her down. She hits her head. There is no pain. Everything is soft-edged, blurry, floating. She is on her feet again, though. Screaming.

  Screaming.

  If they can get him down, they can run. Find the key. In his pocket. Open the door. Up the stairs. Break the door, they can break the door, they’ll break.

  Something breaks. Glass. No key, no door, no running, her head spins, and Effie falls back when Daddy hits her again.

  Leaning over her, spit flies from his mouth. His face is red. He stinks, sour breath. Dandruff in the part of his thinning hair. His eyes are red, with slits like a cat or a lizard. Oh, shit, oh, shit, what’s wrong with his eyes?

  Her wrist breaks with a crack louder than the shatter of glass. Now there’s pain, instant and ferocious and all-consuming. She can’t even scream with it. All she can do is fall back.

  “I knew you were a little whore all along, I knew it. I knew it! You’ve been fucking him this whole time, haven’t you?” Daddy hits her again. The same arm. More pain. Effie’s scream is thin and breathless, a tin-whistle teakettle shriek.

  “Leave her alone!” Heath hits Daddy over the back and shoulders with the rickety chair. It splinters, pieces flying. Some hit Effie in the face, scratching.

  Daddy turns. He’s so much bigger than Heath, his fists are hammers. Punching. Heath lifts the chair leg, the end jagged.

  Daddy goes to his knees. The chair leg sticking out of his stomach wobbles. There is blood, not as much as you’d expect, until he pulls it out, and then there’s a flood of it. Daddy gets to his feet. Again, he punches Heath in the face, sending him to the floor with a thud as loud as thunder. He kicks. Again. Again. Hand over the hole in his belly, blood gouting.

  Effie can’t move. Her arm is in agony. Her head swims. This is a nightmare, she thinks, crawling to Heath, who won’t wake up. She can’t wake up, either. She wants to wake up.

  “Both of you, just like the other ones. Sick little fucks. Lying little cunts. Like your mother, full of filth and lies, oh, oh, you stupid little bitches.”

  Daddy spits. Frothy blood curdles in the corners of his mouth. There’s more shouting, but Effie can’t hear it. Her ears are ringing, ringing, there’s a conflagration, a tintinnabulation, and then...

  There is darkness.

  And it stays dark for a long, long time.

  chapter forty-one

  The house was not on Effie’s way to anywhere she ever really had to go, but she drove past it anyway, at least two or three times a week. Snow fell, nobody plowed the driveway. She drove past on garbage day and never saw a can at the curb. The mailbox never had the red flag up.

  But the lights were always on inside.

  She never stopped again. If the weather had been warm, she might’ve jogged past to get a closer look beyond the living room curtains, but winter had sunk in its teeth at last and wasn’t letting go. She satisfied herself with slowing as she passed. Once or twice, a silhouetted figure twitched the curtains, or at least she let herself imagine so.

  She never meant to drive past with Polly in the car, but like an addict who promises only one drink, only one pill, never when it will get in the way of life, just a little hit to keep things going...that was Effie with that house. Of course that was the day the ambulance sat in the driveway. That was the day the traffic was blocked by a cop car, not Bill’s, thank God, so that Effie had to slow and stop to wait for the cars coming in the opposite direction to pass before she could drive on.

  “What’s going on, Mom?” Polly looked up from her phone, where she’d been busily trying to beat the next level of her favorite game.

  Effie rolled down her window to say to the woman standing on the sidewalk, her dog on a leash, “What’s happening?”

  “Guy died,” the woman said, all too eager to share the information. No shame at all. Sort of gleeful, actually. “Guess his daughter came in to check on him when she hadn’t heard from him in a few days, found him dead.”

  “Gross,” Polly said.

  Effie looked at her daughter, who’d been made immune to the random deaths of strangers by too much violence on television. Or something. “How did he die?”

  “Stroke, I think someone said.” The woman shrugged. “He was pretty old, and it was a shame, to tell you the truth, that his children left him alone so much. The house was in total neglect.”

  “How long have you lived in this neighborhood?” Effie asked.

  The woman looked surprised and a little affronted. “Five years. Why?”

  Effie rolled up her window and drove on without replying. Polly’s phone bleated and beeped. She finished the level and turned to her mother.

  “Mom.”

  “Yeah, Wog. What?”

  “Mom, was that the house?”

  Startled, Effie twisted to look at Polly. Her fingers gripped the wheel hard enough to hurt. “Why do you ask me that?”

  “I know it was close to Nana’s house. And this isn’t the way to the mall.” Polly looked solemn. “And...I saw a picture of it on the internet, when I was looking at that stuff I wasn’t supposed to see. I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t look again after you said not to.”

  Effie swallowed and concentrated on the road ahead, mindful of what had happened the last time she hadn’t been paying attention. She’d barely gotten over the bruises. “Yes. That was the house. I shouldn�
��t have taken you past it.”

  Polly looked behind them. “He’s dead now. Doesn’t that make you feel better?”

  With a small gasp, Effie pulled to the side of the road and slammed the car into Park. She turned to take Polly by the front of her puffy winter coat. “Don’t you ever say such a thing! Wishing someone dead is wrong, Polly.”

  Polly didn’t flinch, though when Effie let go, she did shift a little toward the window. “Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I just...” Effie drew in a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking. “It’s complicated, Pollywog. It’s hard and it hurts and... I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  Polly reached to hug her. “Don’t cry, Mama. It’s okay. I mean, maybe you can be okay now, right?”

  Effie clung for a moment to her daughter before pulling herself together by sheer force of will. Traffic passed them, going too fast. A car horn blared a complaint. She’d be lucky if they didn’t get clipped.

  She put on a smile for her kid. “Yes, honey. Now I can be okay.”

  * * *

  Of course she was not okay.

  How many times had she dreamed, literally, of Daddy’s death? She’d fought nightmares for years about throttling him, watching his face go blue and then his tongue, black, lolling out of his mouth. She’d dreamed about the fire, the three of them burning to death while Daddy laughed. She’d dreamed of watching him carve Sheila into tiny pieces and forcing her and Heath to eat them. Years of horrible dreams, and yet now that he truly was dead, all she could think of was that she’d never had the chance to confront him.

  Worse, the local news hadn’t mentioned even a word of it. No coverage of the ambulance or police car’s flashing lights, no quotes from smug, self-righteous neighbors. Nothing on the television, nothing even on the websites.

  Nothing on the forum.

  Effie had ignored this forum for years. Even her curiosity about what they were saying about her latest works had not been enough to prompt her to dive into what she thought was a cesspool of almost-salacious voyeurism. She had a log-in, though. Ancient, tied to an old email address she hadn’t used in forever. She knew the password, had no trouble recalling that. It was, of course, thelosthours.

  That fucking forum where the freaks hung out dissecting every tiny thing that had happened to her and Heath in that basement, and not a single thread had appeared about Daddy’s death. There were posts about his time in prison and his release, information about the house itself and who’d owned it all that time. Nothing about him dying in it.

  Days, a week, another week passed. Still nothing.

  Nothing anywhere. She scoured the local newspaper’s site for an obituary, a notice about a funeral service, a memorial. Something, anything to note that the man who’d changed her entire life had passed on, and someone, anyone other than she herself to notice. But nobody seemed to.

  She called Heath. “He’s dead. And nobody cares. Nobody notices. It’s like he didn’t exist.”

  She filled the rest of the message with silence, praying that somehow he’d pick up the phone, but of course that wasn’t how voice mail worked. He didn’t call her back. He was the only person who could possibly understand why this upset her so much, and she’d lost him.

  If Daddy didn’t exist, Effie thought, if what happened to them together didn’t exist, then...did she?

  Without Heath, did it matter?

  chapter forty-two

  It had taken her the entire morning to convince herself to finally get in the car and drive here, but now that she was here, all Effie felt was calm. Blank. Daddy was gone. Nothing would bring him back.

  She needed this, though. To walk through the front door of that house and walk back out again, free to do so as many times as she wanted. A dozen times. A hundred. Proof that there was nothing there to hold her any longer.

  A couple cars had parked in the driveway and some more had taken up the spots in front, so Effie found one across the street. She watched a couple with a young child come out the front door and get in an SUV. She waited, but the front door remained closed after them. This was it. Now or never.

  She tugged the hem of her blazer over her hips when she got out of the car. Smoothed her skirt. She’d raided her closet for an outfit that resembled upscale professional, someone who looked as though they could afford the ridiculously reasonable asking price for this house. Effie had never gone to an open house before, but she had an idea that the Realtor would be able to spot her right off as a looky-loo, and she didn’t want to have to answer any awkward questions.

  Did she knock? Or go right in? Her hesitation was rewarded by not having to choose when the front door opened to reveal an older couple on their way out. She stepped aside to let them pass, then went into the foyer.

  Everything was so...small.

  It was also bright, airy, clean. Freshly painted. The smell of vanilla wafted toward her from the kitchen. Effie forced herself to walk down the hall. No pictures on the walls. A sunken living room to her right contained a few pieces of carefully staged furniture and a cheerful fire burning in a small woodstove.

  “Hi, there!” A woman who had to be the Realtor greeted Effie with a chipper grin. “Thanks for stopping in. There’s some literature on the table there, and help yourself to cookies and punch. If you have any questions, please let me know.”

  The floor creaked as the woman took a few steps toward her, and Effie flinched. She knew that sound, though she’d always heard it from overhead. It was so much quieter from this spot. She pasted a smile on her face and managed a nod.

  “Thanks.”

  The Realtor turned her attention to a young couple, the woman pregnant, who’d come in from the dining room. Effie took the chance to take one of the brochures, skimming the house’s specs to look as if she was interested. Cookies and punch? As if she could eat a bite of anything in this house, ever.

  She’d been in this kitchen, but there’d been no cute dinette set. No flowers. The floor had been dirty, scuffed, faded linoleum, but now gleamed with brand-new laminate. The appliances looked new.

  “Everything’s been updated and upgraded,” the Realtor was telling the other couple. “The owner is really motivated to sell.”

  Effie looked at the brochure. “Who’s selling it?”

  “The original owner’s daughter took over the property after he passed away.” The Realtor gave her a glance and another of those too-bright grins and turned her attention to the other couple, who wanted to know about the plumbing.

  Effie crumpled the paper a little in her fist. Four bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room, dining room. Garage.

  Full, finished basement.

  The basement door had not been replaced, though it had been painted and the knob looked shiny and new. Effie touched the fresh white frame and the small marks and dents where once there’d been an entire set of locks and now there was nothing. She touched the knob. Turned it.

  The stairs beyond were well lit with brand-new bulbs, clean of even a cobweb. The wood was splintery, the stairs creaking, and her stomach lodged in her throat when she descended. She used the handrail, convinced she would fall headfirst and split herself open on the concrete floor.

  * * *

  The lights come on overhead. Bright. White. Glaring.

  The song. The song is playing. That song about the boats, sailing, it’s awful and cruel, they are down here in this room, and they will never sail away. Not ever.

  Effie’s arm hurts. A dull, solid ache that flares into agony if she moves it too much. So she doesn’t move it. She doesn’t move at all. It’s wrong of her to wish the drugs hadn’t worn off, but she does. The bed beneath her has gone clammy with sweat, and though it disgusts her, she can’t make herself get up to strip off the sheets. They have nothing to replace them with, anyway.

 
; Heath has been quiet for a while, though the soft huff of his breathing reassures her that he’s still alive. It took him so long to wake up after Daddy hit him to the ground that Effie was sure he was dead. For a while she thought maybe she was dead, too. Now she wonders how long it will be until she is.

  It had always been hard to keep track of the passing days because there was never any consistency to when the lights would come on and off, or when Daddy would visit. All Effie knows is that he hasn’t come back into the basement for so long they’ve now definitely run out of food and water. They’ve even used the small amount from the toilet tank, barely enough to wet their throats.

  “Effie?”

  She doesn’t open her eyes. There’s nothing to see. “Yeah.”

  “I’m going to try again.”

  “It’s locked,” Effie says wearily. “The door’s still locked, it will always be locked, you can try it as many times as you want, but you can’t break it down and you can’t get it unlocked.”

  “I’m going to try.”

  She manages to sit. She can feel him through the darkness, though they’re not touching. “I can help.”

  “Not with your wrist, you can’t.”

  “If the two of us try...” Effie says but stops herself. She doesn’t believe it will work, and it will hurt her arm. She lies back on the bed.

  Time passes. At least, she thinks it does. The ache in her belly grows as fierce as the throbbing in her arm, at least for a while until both fade. There’s only darkness. Only silence.

  Effie is very, very cold.

  “Effie. I want you to know, I love you. I hate Daddy for all of this, but if he hadn’t taken you, we’d never have met. You know that?”

  “I know it,” Effie answers, or at least she thinks she does. She feels as though her lips are moving, but it could be her imagination.

  “I love you, Effie. I will always love you.” Heath’s hand in hers.

  His fingers are like ice, or maybe that’s hers. Either way, there’s no warmth between them except what she remembers from when he kissed her. Heat is a memory.