December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  “You killed David, you shot Fever, and you tortured the sheriff!” she shouted. “Now you’re surprised that the police are on their way? Get up! I want to smack you into the wall until these policemen pull me off your unconscious body!”

  The words were so viciously pronounced and so loudly expressed that I was afraid Ceri might have snapped.

  Issie’s face was a mask of terror. For a moment. Then her entire mien shifted frantically, and she began to laugh.

  “All right,” Issie said after a moment, shaking her head. “You’re good.”

  Ceri shrugged. “Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  I glanced back and forth between them several times. “What in the hell are you two doing?”

  “I was seeing, or trying to see,” Ceri explained, “if I could scrub away all the veneer and get to the real person, whoever was running the Issie Raynerd Show.”

  “And here I am,” Issie offered, presenting her arms as if she were accepting applause.

  “I—I’m confused,” I said.

  The sirens were approaching quickly.

  “I believe that the doctor has seen through most of my disguises,” Issie admitted. “Men doctors are always easier to fool than women doctors are.”

  Most of her zaniest accent was gone, and all of the winsome quality had left with it. Once again she was the hard, damaged mountain girl, her most honest role.

  “Looks like you won’t ever get the whole story, with the police taking me away,” Issie continued, actually winking at Dr. Nelson. “That’ll be frustrating for both of you.”

  The sirens were in my yard. A car door slammed.

  “They’ll take you back to Central State,” Ceri said.

  “It’s not as bad as it used to be,” she answered, but some of the vigor had left her voice.

  “Since 1842? I should hope.” Ceri was moving slowly around her chair, to put the chair in between her and Issie.

  “Central State?” I asked them both.

  “The hospital in Milledgeville, remember?” Ceri answered. “Among other things, it provides psychiatric evaluation and treatment services for people referred from Georgia’s criminal justice system.”

  “Insane asylum,” Issie said plainly.

  “I know what it is,” I assured them both. “I’m just wondering why she wouldn’t go to jail instead of to the hospital.”

  “Because I’m crazy, Fever.” Issie laughed. “Anybody can see that.”

  “It’s just an acting job,” I objected, then looked to Ceri. “Right?”

  “Oh, no,” Ceri said firmly. “She thinks that she’s acting, of course, and fooling lots of people. But something happened. I think it happened to her on that trip to Wales and Ireland all those years ago. She’s very seriously disturbed.”

  There were footsteps on the porch, and, a second later, a pounding at the door.

  I backed toward the door, for some reason, even under those circumstances, not wanting to turn my back to Issie.

  I opened the door. Several men with guns drawn flew into my house. Behind them, Melissa Mathews strode in and glanced around, noticing the rifle and poker by the door.

  “Well,” she said softly, “this is a better situation than I thought it would be.”

  Issie looked at me. “Did you happen to see those camel crickets in the cave while ago?” she asked casually.

  “I did,” I answered, baffled.

  “Did you know,” Issie asked, smiling, “that they live out all their lives inside those caves? And when it’s a long time without food, down there in the dark, do you know what they do?”

  I shook my head, staring at her.

  “They eat off their own feet and legs,” she said, obviously enjoying the idea, “even though they know it’ll never grow back. I’ve watched them do it.”

  At first I just assumed she was raving, then I thought she might be deliberately trying to disgust me, but I finally arrived at the very clear notion that she was trying to tell me something—maybe something important about who or what she was.

  “Where’s David Newcomb?” Melissa asked, all business.

  “His body is down at the entrance to the cave,” I said. “What we might call the front entrance.”

  Melissa turned to the two state patrolmen. “Would you’uns mind going on down there with the ambulance men? You know where it is. I’ll stay here with her.”

  Without further exchange, the patrolmen were out the door and down the steps. I could hear them speaking with other people, presumably the ambulance men.

  “Why don’t we all have a seat?” Ceri asked as if we were about to begin a group session, or so I imagined.

  Ceri and Issie sat on the sofa. I took one of the chairs opposite; Melissa took the other. She put one boot up on the coffee table in between her and Issie, and very ceremoniously drew her pistol.

  “Just so we all know how I’m doing,” Melissa said, “I’ll tell you, Issie, that I’m looking for any excuse to shoot you dead. Any excuse. If you go to sneeze, you’d best to warn me before you do. You hear me?”

  Issie nodded, not remotely intimidated.

  “Good,” Ceri said. “Now. Issie was just about to tell us something important. Let’s start in Wales.”

  “Let’s not,” Issie said sharply. “Let’s start on the day I fell in love with Fever Devilin. That’s the fatal autumn day.”

  We were all silent, waiting. The sound of voices trailed off down the mountain toward the dead body of David Newcomb. Then Issie began to talk.

  26

  “In the autumn of the year, many years ago,” Issie began, “my mother packed me off to school. She told me she knew of a man from our part of the world who taught at a great university in the city. She said to go study with him, that he was a good man. So that is what I did.”

  I was suddenly cold, and thought about going to stir the coals, or add another log to the fireplace.

  “That first day I felt a rush of wings up in my breast,” Issie went on, her voice mild and serene. “His looks were familiar to me, like a dozen other mountain boys I knew. But his voice and his ways were new. He filled up a room—the way a hot fire does, or a morning sun through the window. Honest to God. That’s what he was like to me.”

  Melissa let go a breath, mostly to demonstrate that she was not being taken in by Issie’s persuasive admissions.

  “By November I was in love with him all the way,” Issie confessed. “I had no one to tell. Momma didn’t like it when I talked about boys. I didn’t have a father, nor sisters to talk with. I was an only child who’d never met her father. He was never mentioned in Momma’s house. So I kept it locked up, how I felt. But when I heard about the trip to Wales, and how some students could go, I was so happy. You can’t know how happy I was. I would go on that trip, I would tell him about my feelings, he would see that we were meant to be together, and everything would be fine after that. No more long weeks and years alone. No more feeling like I was the only one of my kind in this world. That’s what would happen and I knew it.”

  “But the special tickets for that trip were only for graduate students,” I said, deliberately interrupting what, to me, was a very uncomfortable line of the story.

  “Yes,” she said, “I found that out. I cried and cried when I went home at Christmas break, and Momma finally asked me why. I told her I just had to go on the trip to Wales to be with you. I thought she’d be happy, since she was the one who told me about you in the first place. But she wasn’t. She was troubled in her head, I could tell. Still, I cried some more, and she agreed at last to pay my way. But she wouldn’t let me go alone. She got someone to go with me.”

  “You said you couldn’t fly,” Ceri interrupted carefully. “You had to make it an ocean voyage.”

  “We drove up to New York City,” Issie said, nodding, “Momma and me. We met this man there. His name was Tristan. He was very sweet to me, and Momma told me to be nice to him. We stayed at a real hotel. It was nice. Then
we got on the ship and headed for London.”

  “But it was a difficult crossing.” Ceri leaned toward Issie.

  “No,” Issie said, her face contorting. “It was Hell.”

  “Why?” Ceri asked gently.

  “That’s when it happened.” Issie let out a shuddering sigh. “It was a very bad storm. We both got sick, me and Tristan. I went to the bags that Momma had packed. She had given me three medicine powders, one for seasickness, which she knew I was prone to; one for female complaint, which wasn’t necessary because it wasn’t my time; and one—one she said to give to Fever when I met him, that it would help him to hear my complaint of love.”

  “The love-philtre,” I said.

  “That’s what I thought it was.” She closed her eyes. “God. How was I ever that young?”

  “What was it?” Ceri asked.

  “I didn’t know then,” Issie went on. “I just mixed it up the way Momma said to do for the seasickness, put it into a syringe like she taught me, and gave myself a shot, and Tristan a shot. It wasn’t but seconds later when I knew something was wrong.”

  “You took the wrong medicine,” Ceri said softly.

  “Medicine,” Issie repeated ruefully. “It burned in my thigh where I shot it in, then it burned in my whole body. I was flushed as a doe in heat, I was. I was sick with it, and hot, and filled up with desire. I knew right away what I’d done, but it didn’t matter to me then. I just wanted him.”

  “Tristan,” Ceri prompted.

  Issie began to shake; her black shawl fell from her shoulders, exposing milk-white skin.

  “Yes.” Issie creaked. “Yes. Tristan. I’d given him the shot, and he was clearly taken with the fire as I was. I stretched out to him, and put my arms about his neck, and went to kiss him. I was ready to give him everything and all at once. But he cussed and hollered and drew away something fierce. I was wild with it. I grabbed him and drew him to me, but he took my shoulders and shook me hard. ‘Listen to me!’ he shouted. He shouted at me. I was shaking and crying and tore up with wanting him, wanting him bad. Then. Then he told me.”

  Issie was beginning to cry, although I don’t think she knew it.

  “What did Tristan say?” I asked, or was compelled to ask.

  “He said we mustn’t touch that way,” she answered hoarsely, “because he was my father! Tristan Newcomb was my father!”

  Ceri sat back, her hand over her mouth. I blinked several times, partly in disbelief, partly at the slow awakening of some subconscious terror that was, at that moment, unnamed.

  “What was the drug?” Ceri asked, her hand still at her lips.

  “Cocaine,” Issie whispered, heartbroken. “I know that now. My mother had given me cocaine to take to Fever. My mother. I guess she thought we could share it and get to talking. I don’t know.”

  “God Almighty,” Melissa managed to say.

  Issie reacted to Melissa in an unexpected way. “But that wasn’t the worst of it,” she snapped, clearly filled with a sudden rage. “I felt so ashamed that I’d lusted at my own father, I was like to die. He was good to me then. He did his best to calm me down. He knew after a while, or figured out, that we’d taken cocaine. It wasn’t the first time he’d had some. He was hopping mad at Momma. He couldn’t think why she would give it to me. So I told him, because I didn’t know then what cocaine was, that she’d given it to me as a love potion, to take with Fever, so that Fever would fall in love with me when I got to Wales—the way I was in love with him. Tristan got real quiet then. He cursed again, and his hands began to shake, and said that wasn’t Momma’s intention, not at all. I didn’t know what was the matter with him. I was a little afraid.”

  “You were in shock,” Ceri said quickly, “from— from Tristan’s news.”

  “I guess,” she responded vaguely. “It’s hard to remember how I felt then. It was so long ago. I told Tristan all about my love for Fever, but he kept stopping me and telling me not to talk. It was hard—the cocaine made me want to tell him everything.”

  “Well,” Melissa began, without a hint of empathy, “that explains one thing, at least.”

  “What?” I turned toward Melissa.

  “Now you know her real name,” Melissa said coldly. “It’s Isolde Newcomb.”

  Issie smiled then. It was the single most chilling facial expression I had ever seen.

  “There’s more,” she said, in a completely new voice.

  I stood, for some reason. “That’s what happened to her,” I muttered, going to the fireplace to stir the coals. “All of that, it’s what made her fall apart. Who wouldn’t?”

  I looked around, foolishly, for the poker, taking moments too long to remember that it was by the door.

  “What more?” Ceri asked gently.

  “I think she’s told us enough,” I said insistently. “Taking cocaine, feeling sick on the ocean, finding out that the man she made a pass at was her father, realizing some fairly unsavory things about her mother? That’s enough to send anyone over the edge. No wonder she ended up in the state hospital.”

  “There’s more,” Issie sang, the same hideous grin plastered to her face.

  “Fever?” Ceri said, realizing my distress.

  “I just don’t think this is the right thing to do,” I said to Ceri, as if no one else could hear me. “She’s been through a lot, she’s obviously out of her mind. Let it be. Let someone at the hospital take care of it.”

  Melissa leaned forward. “Maybe you’d better sit down, Dr. Devilin,” she said. “You don’t look right.”

  I could feel that my face was clammy, and my eyes burned. I felt cold in my bones, and my mouth was dry. Was it further shock from the gunshot wound? Or witnessing a murder? How was Ceri so calm? Why was I so disconcerted?

  “Something’s wrong,” I mumbled.

  “Here it comes,” Issie said, relishing my distress.

  “Seriously,” I said, to no one in particular, “I think we’ve had enough for one night.”

  “Take a look out your busted window—Doctor.” Issie laughed. “It’s coming on sunrise. You’re about to see a new day.”

  My eyes glanced out the window. The horizon was dimly red. The morning star was rising.

  “Why don’t you sit down, Fever,” Ceri encouraged.

  I made it to my chair again, but I kept up my protestations. “This woman—don’t you see that Isolde Newcomb actually has lived part of the Tristan cycle? I mean, it’s an amazing bit of ironic poetry on the part of the universe—she is the woman in the story.”

  Ceri nodded. “I see.”

  “So,” I began.

  “I see that you’re trying to put her back in the realm of myth,” Ceri continued. “I see that you’re having— I mean, sorry, but I can clearly see that you’re having an intuitive episode. I know because you’re exhibiting behavior I’ve experienced myself. You know something that you don’t know.”

  I cocked my head. “I what?”

  She smiled. “Good. That shook you loose a little. Look. Here’s what’s happening. Issie is about to tell us something significant. You already know what that is, and you don’t want her to say it out loud.”

  “I already know what that is?” I shook my head. “You’re as demented as she is.”

  “Maybe,” Ceri admitted lightheartedly, “but I know what you’re going through this second because I’ve gone through it, too.”

  “You think I know something that I’m repressing?” I asked. “You think that because you’re a psychoanalyst—”

  “I don’t think that,” she protested. “I think you’re having a precognitive episode. I think you know what she’s about to say based on your intuition.”

  “No.” But I was already feeling the creeping cold of her words, and they did seem terrifyingly correct.

  “Issie?” Ceri said, turning to face the crazed woman by her side.

  “It took rest of the week,” Issie said. “Tristan wouldn’t talk to me much after that night. He drank a lot. I
stayed in my cabin. I had my own cabin. I slept for hours on end. I was so tired. Finally when we got to London, I was so glad to get off that ship that we decided— Tristan rented a car. I drove. He didn’t drive, Tristan didn’t.”

  “Are you going to get to the point?” I heard myself snap.

  Everyone looked at me.

  Issie smiled. “Yes.”

  “You drove to Wales,” Ceri said.

  “We did. And on that trip I learned the rest of the family secrets.” Issie sat back and folded her arms with immense satisfaction. “I want to get a good look at Fever when I lay this little package down in front of him, what I’m about to tell him. I want to see it sting him like nettles and bees, the way it did me.”

  I stared at her and steeled myself, but my heart was thrashing wildly and I was experiencing a panic that threatened to rip me out of my chair and toss me off the top of the mountain.

  “When Tristan told it to me,” Issie said, “I ran the car off the road. I got out and threw up for what seemed like an hour. I couldn’t stop screaming. He was scared. We stayed there, on the side of the road, for most of the rest of that day, him trying his best to comfort me, but it did no good. The damage was done, and I was done in with it.”

  “What is it?” I demanded. “Just say it!”

  “All right,” she responded primly, “I will. Fever? Do you know who my mother is?”

  I ground my teeth so hard that I couldn’t see. “No.”

  “Yes,” she said immediately. “Yes you do. Because my mother, Fever, was your mother too. You? You’re my brother.”

  My head split open, along with my chest. I thought for a second that my body might have broken apart, exploded into white, burning streams. But that sensation only lasted for a second or two, and then, astonishingly, everything was calm.

  Everything was calm because Dr. Nelson had been correct: somehow, I’d already known what Issie had just told me. My alarm at hearing her say it out loud was not, in fact, dismay, it was the shock of recognition. Issie Newcomb was my half sister, and, in some way or other, I had always known that. To be sure, the realization had always been just out of my grasp, in the shadows between conscious thought and dreaming. But now that the magic words had been pronounced, I had an unexpected feeling of peace.