Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

  My foot slipped on the tile. The monster raged against me, sensing weakness, but I held firm. Its eyes bulged and red spider veins appeared in the whites.

  A few more seconds and it will be gone and Jenny will be safe forever.

  I heard my sister’s voice in my head. ‘You’re my hero, Johnny, you’re the best brother in the world. You always know what to do.’

  The thrashing slowed. Stopped.

  Arms and legs slackened, slipped back under the water. No bubbles rose from the mouth. I held on for a few more seconds. Just to make sure. The monster in the movies always comes back right at the end but I wouldn’t let it. Not this time. This is a John Royal picture show.

  I dried my hands and left the bathroom. It was done. The evil dead, the house ours. I couldn’t hear anything but my heart and its dull thunder. My home, finally silent, finally safe for Jenny. We wouldn’t need to leave any more. We could stay forever. I went up to our bedroom.

  My sister, glowing golden from the inside, opened the door for me, took my hand. The throb in my head, arms, legs, chest, slowed, turned warm like early morning sun on my back. I took a long breath, filled my lungs to their edges. The room smelled different. Clear, fresh, as if a storm had raged in the night and left the air thin, scrubbed clean of dust and heat. The kind of air you suck down in gulps. The kind that tastes sweet and urges you to bite it. The kind that eases you into heavy, empty sleep.

  Jenny let go of my hand and twirled, spun around with her arms out and laughed. I didn’t hear the laugh, not exactly, not with my ears but inside my head, so much closer than I’d ever heard before. She lit up the room. I blinked, rubbed my eye, and she was not twirling any more. She was in bed, sitting up under the scratchy yellow blanket. The light dimmed but I knew the way. I’d know it in the dark, my eyes squeezed shut. I’d always know where to find my sister.

  I set a Joni Mitchell record playing, Jenny’s favourite. Then I crawled into bed where my shining sister lay and I said, ‘We’re safe now.’

  She smiled and asked me to tell her a story.

  27

  Muted. As if the land, the birds, the wind itself, were treading softly, barefoot on thick carpet, afraid to make a noise and disturb the calm.

  Ears rang.

  Hands, skin raw like fresh sunburn, flinched against the rough blanket.

  Arms, legs, back ached.

  Eyes wouldn’t focus. Everything soft edges and jittery, a TV with a broken aerial.

  I moved but my muscles begged me not to.

  The bed was empty beside me. Jenny already up. Making breakfast?

  But I heard nothing in the kitchen.

  The house didn’t feel like mine. Like I’d wandered into someone else’s, crawled into their bed.

  Maybe Jenny is reading on the couch. Maybe Momma is sleeping sound.

  You know different, Johnny.

  All I could think was how tired I was last night. Tired down to the marrow. Everything heavy and thick in my head. Sleep stole me away before I got to the end of ‘once upon a time’. Jenny had asked for a story. She always asked for a story.

  Maybe her and Momma went out.

  They’re not out, Johnny.

  Sunlight speared through my bedroom window, lit up the dust, highlighted a square of floor near the door. Footprints. Mine. Shaped in mud.

  Fresh air drifted in. Tasted like far-off smoke. And somewhere in the distance, a low rumble, a sound I couldn’t place. My mind lost in the afterlight, empty of memory.

  I pushed the scratchy yellow blanket away. Smell of strawberry bath soap wafted up. Momma’s bath soap.

  Sickly sweet.

  Felt the mud on my feet, flaking between my toes.

  Every movement took a lifetime. I was in water, in sand, in treacle, my body and my mind, slowed down to a snail. Everything an effort. Everything a hurt.

  I watched my finger rub a line of mud from my foot. Let the dirt fall into the bed. Momma would be mad.

  My stomach twisted. Momma. Suddenly dizzy. White spots sparked in my eyes.

  I got out of bed, still dressed in yesterday’s clothes. Jenny would call me a hobo for that.

  My t-shirt felt odd. Stiff against me, like it’d got wet with something and dried wrong. But I couldn’t look down. Couldn’t see. Wouldn’t.

  The world was all blur. The ringing in my ears got worse. The rumble on the air grew louder. Only one clear thought rang out in my head.

  Don’t go in the bathroom, John.

  I trailed dry mud. Walked in my own footprints. Down the attic stairs. Past the closed bathroom door.

  Don’t go in.

  From behind the door, a sound. Dripping. Constant, rhythmic plink, plink, plink. Water into water. Tap into bath.

  Don’t go in.

  The floor, the wood of the upstairs hallway, felt strange under my feet. Soaked and swollen. Still damp. All the way down the stairs into the family room.

  My AMX Javelin matchbox sat on the cabinet. Coins and bills spilled out and onto the floor. She took it. She wanted to leave you here. The voice, like a dying echo, faded.

  Mud everywhere. Footprints. Smears. And something else. A line of dark brown. I followed it, dazed and unthinking into the kitchen, to the back door. Flecks of brown on the screen. Not mud. I knew it wasn’t mud.

  The sun beat through the windows but barely lit the room. Outside, birds began their morning song but did nothing to drown out that distant rumble. I knew the sound now, as if from another life, the life I had before all this. And the smell. Mud and smoke and strawberry and something else. A cold butcher-shop smell

  In the kitchen sink, one of Momma’s knives. The blade dark red. Almost black. I stared at it. My fingers went to my pocket and felt the flick knife there. The handle initialled RB. Rudy. My friend. And Gloria.

  Aching sobbing agony flared in my chest and I couldn’t breathe

  Out the front door, into the yard. Past Momma’s truck with a dent in the side. Past the frayed rope hanging off the oak tree. Used to have a tyre on it. We meant to hang a new one, Jenny and me, meant to swing on it and play. But we never did.

  Out of the yard, onto the track. Sharp spikes of gravel drove into my bare feet. I passed the mailbox at the end of our track with ‘Royal’ in red paint on the side. Faded and chipped but in Momma’s curled hand.

  My name. Jenny’s name. Momma’s name.

  I felt the tears. Pouring down my cheeks. Falling like rain. Spotting on the dried blood on my white t-shirt, flaring it red again. Jenny’s blood. An ocean of it. Covered me shoulder to waist, diluted by bath water, smelling like strawberries

  A mile in bare feet. A car stopped, a man spoke to me and I spoke back but I don’t remember …

  I killed her.

  The moment faded, a dream, never really there.

  I walked down the centre of Main Street. Something sticky on the asphalt and I looked down to see fresh blood. A cut on the sole of my foot left red smears on the black. In my chest, sharp wings stirred. I felt vibrations through the road, like a giant engine revving up beneath my feet. The smell of smoke stronger here. The rumble louder. I saw shapes in the corner of my eyes. People. The good townsfolk of Larson. Heard a gasp. A shout. Someone said my name. But nobody stopped me. Maybe someone tried but my brain wouldn’t see them. The blur and daze clouded everything. I walked bloody footprints over the grass to the church. My legs had taken me here, spurred on by something I didn’t understand. A lost dog returning to a master who beat it. A lost dog. Me.

  On the church steps, a figure. A shadow. A man, barely there, the sun shone through him. A man I knew. A man who wasn’t a man. Old blue jeans, faded now to grey, rips in the knees. Red chequered shirt. Light brown hair. A horse on his belt buckle. The rumble. The sound, like an idling engine, grew in my ears. The pale man smoked a cigarette. He raised his hand and smiled. His face suddenly my face. A cloud passed over the sun. The man was gone and I trod blood on the church steps.

  Had he even been there? Had he
ever?

  I pushed the door open. Felt its weight against my aching arm. The same arm. Skin burning from the hot water. Scratch marks near my elbow.

  An image of the Three Points burst into my head. A shape lay on the dusty island.

  As quickly as it came, the picture disappeared, like a movie-show flicker reel. Two seconds and gone

  The booming sermon voice of my pastor addressing empty benches. Saw him in his pulpit as he saw me. He stopped mid-verse. Was that my name he said? It was like trying to hear through water. Then he was away from his pulpit, running down the aisle to me. My pastor. My friend. My father. He’ll help. He’ll know what to do. But the closer he came, the clearer I saw his face. The face I’d seen in his house, sitting beside my sister. The last time I’d seen Jenny.

  With him.

  With Wakefield.

  He’ll not help. He’s not good. My heart hammered, shook the world. And I was crying. I was screaming. Inside my head. Outside my head. Too much. It was too much. Wings beat, stripped my insides raw, threatened to break me apart. Hot white pain seared through my brain. And the smell. My God. The smell of burning and fire everywhere and the engine rumble, the drone, filled up my ears, shook my bones, no escape, I couldn’t drown it out, couldn’t scream it away. Hell was coming for me. The devil riding out to claim me for what I’d done. What have I done? What have I done? I saw the devil running at me, arms out, fingers, claws reaching, white collar blazing, blinding. Here he comes, here he is, he’s got you, Johnny boy, he’s got you good. The birds raged. My eyes went dark. Blackness rushed me from all sides and I fell.

  28

  ‘Open your eyes, John.’

  I knew the voice. Swimming in the dark.

  Open your eyes, John. Different voice. Jenny’s. Shining in the black. Open your eyes.

  Other voices floated down into my pit.

  ‘… he was mumbling … his sister, his mother …’

  ‘… the blood on his shirt …’

  ‘… keep it quiet …’

  Two men. Frank and someone else.

  In the dark, Jenny took my hand, turned up the volume.

  ‘Go and check his house,’ Frank said.

  Footsteps. A door. Silence. More darkness. More sleep.

  I stirred when Jenny’s hand squeezed mine. Her light brought me to the surface and then she was gone. I opened my eyes to moving shapes. Fish. In all colours, hanging from a mobile on the ceiling. Kindergarteners made them during Sunday Bible Study. I remembered hanging them during a session with Frank.

  ‘John?’ Frank said.

  I sat up on the couch. My bloody t-shirt gone, replaced with a clean one, soft to touch. I took in the room. The rec room, same one Rudy must have slept in when he broke his arm. The window behind me the same one where he saw Pastor Jacobs meeting Bung-Eye. I felt the flick knife in my pocket.

  ‘What happened?’ Frank asked.

  He put his hand on my arm and it was electricity. Shocked me back and away from him, eyes wide and blazing.

  ‘You did this. You did this,’ I said, breath caught, chest tight. ‘I can’t … How could you … You did this.’

  His hands clamped down on my shoulders. ‘John.’ He shook me. ‘John. Remember what I taught you. Remember to count. Come on now, one-one-thousand …’

  ‘Fuck you!’

  My lungs opened like a flower, air rushed in, filled me head to toe. I saw him beside Jenny. Saw him drug her. Saw him call for Wakefield. Saw him let that murderer touch my sister.

  I lunged at Frank. My hands closed around his neck and squeezed and squeezed until he was gasping.

  Count now. Go on.

  Count, you son of a bitch.

  His eyes bulged. Spider veins popped. Face turned red. A few more seconds.

  He drove his fist into my stomach, blasted my lungs, loosened my grip enough for him to scramble away.

  All my energy drained and I slumped on the couch, clutching my side, wanting to cry. Wanting to scream. Wanting to sleep forever and never wake up.

  ‘John, listen,’ Frank tried. ‘I need to talk to you and you need to listen.’

  I shook my head. Didn’t want to hear it. Couldn’t. ‘I saw you. I know what you are.’

  ‘John—’

  ‘No! I saw you with Jenny.’

  My voice broke at her name. Confusion on his face, I wanted to rip it off. ‘In your house. With him.’

  The confusion changed to something else. Anger? Shame? His brow, usually calm and open, was dark, drawn, his eyes down. He crossed his arms over his chest and leant back on the craft table.

  ‘You don’t understand anything, John.’

  ‘I understand enough. Wakefield threatened my sister. I tell you and he makes good on his threat. You ratted me out. You … helped him do that to her.’

  It hurt to speak. Talking about something made it real. I wasn’t ready for it to be real. To face … her … what I’d done to her … oh God, Momma. Where’s my momma I want my momma.

  Keep going. But the hurt rose in my body, aching against my bones, forcing tears out of my eyes.

  ‘You lied to me,’ I said. ‘You were meant to protect me and her and you let this … you made it happen. Why?’

  Frank bit his bottom lip, twisted his face into a sneer. I wondered if the costume he wore burnt him, like sunlight burns a vampire. Is that white collar too tight? Does it mean anything to you any more?

  He was quiet for a long time. Outside, the ladies from the Gardening Society passed by. Only twenty feet away. Might as well have been twenty miles. On the wall, the clock ticked to eleven. At eleven oh-three, he spoke.

  ‘It’s my job to help people,’ he said, keeping his gaze to the left of me, at the brightly coloured pin board collages of church activities. ‘I have the whole town to consider. A pastor tends his flock the best way he can. The men … there is an arrangement. They have certain requirements, which have to be met in order for them to live happy, productive lives. These needs are met with company from out of town. Girls in the oldest profession already or those who would probably fall into it no matter what. They are well paid by the men they see, far better than if they were walking the streets, I insist on that.’

  I felt my blood heat, felt the rage boil.

  Hear him out, Johnny, keep it together a little longer, then decide.

  ‘It’s not their fault,’ he carried on. ‘These men are sick. They’re weak. Weak of body and weak of mind. But they are Larson’s leaders and the town needs them so we turn the other cheek like the Bible tells us. Their souls need to be saved, just like everyone else. I help them.’ He held up his hands, looked at me for the first time. ‘I don’t participate, John, you have to know that. I … I just facilitate. I keep the process under control and quiet. It happens in my house where people won’t look twice at those men coming and going. It’s safer all round.’

  I laughed. Laughed so hard it hurt my throat. Laughed so hard tears flowed freely and my cheeks turned red and the sound drowned out everything else.

  ‘Mary Ridley wasn’t safe. What does the Bible say about her?’

  Frank nodded. ‘That was a mistake. Leland knows what he did, he’s prayed for forgiveness, he’s working through his problems, and he’s compensated Mary’s family. Her mother and her father are working through their grief.’

  Mother and father. My chest clenched. Jack said they were gone. I remembered the spectre on the church steps, the words of my once-friend Frank, Death rides a pale horse. Mary didn’t have a brother. Was Jack ever really there? I tried to remember, to push through the fog in my head, if anyone else had seen the car or Jack. I knew they hadn’t. But I had. They were real. I’d touched them. Hadn’t I?

  No, John, you didn’t. You know you didn’t.

  I felt dizzy and sick and my head hurt. Is this what going crazy feels like?

  The pastor kept talking. ‘And you kids finding her, well, I’m sorry about that, John. I’m sorry you ever became involved in this. And Jenny �
� Jesus, that was not meant to happen but Ed and Leland, well, they said it was agreed and you can’t exactly argue with Ed … I …’

  I turned away. Couldn’t look at him any more. I was made of glass and I was cracking. I had a raging monster caged in my memory and I’d turned my back on that too. I touched the scratches on my arm. The scent of strawberries faded now but I still heard the plink, plink, plink of the dripping tap. What had I done?

  The right thing.

  The pastor sat beside me on the couch.

  ‘Do you know how long you’ve been here?’ he asked, didn’t wait for me to answer. ‘Two nights. You collapsed and have been in and out of consciousness since. Samuels sent officers to your house. They know what happened.’

  ‘Do they know why it happened?’

  ‘No. They think your mother killed Jenny, then got drunk and drowned in the bath.’

  Momma. Oh God. My momma was all alone. My hand, the hand that pressed down on the monster’s chest, shook and ached. I had to do it. I had to slay the monster once and for all.

  ‘That’s not what happened,’ I said. ‘I did it … to Momma … the bath. I held her until it stopped.’

  He shifted, the bed groaned. ‘I had a feeling.’

  ‘Will I go to prison? They’ll put me in the electric chair.’

  ‘You’re not going to prison.’

  I shuffled around, stared at his hunched-over back. ‘I should. I deserve to.’

  ‘No, you don’t. It’s been decided. You’ll go home and you’ll forget about all of this.’ He spoke like he was delivering a verdict on a cop show, all level and matter-of-fact. ‘You’ll grieve for your mother and your sister but you won’t talk about anything else. None of it ever happened. It was all I could do to stop those men from putting a bullet in your head. I told them you were a smart kid who could keep his mouth shut. You have to. Your mother killed your sister and drowned by accident. Do you understand?’

  They don’t want you in front of lawyers and cameras and reporters, the voice said, and it was Jenny’s voice, her tone, her rhythm. They don’t want you to throw their dirty laundry all over the six o’clock news.