“So…are you going to answer my question?”
I take a moment to thread the needle, then look into her eyes. Everything is going to be all right, Michael. Skirting the question for the time being, I say, “When I took the sled alongside your house, I saw you through the basement window.”
“What did you see?”
“You and your brother. But what worries me the most are the scars I saw on your body.”
She closes her eyes, as though she were on the stand, expecting to be dealt a fatal blow in court. “The ones on my back?”
“I saw those too, but we’ll get to those later. They’re not the ones I’m concerned about.”
I touch her arm, gently, then slowly run it down to her hand. I turn it over, palm facing up. It’s calloused, the nails bitten down into tender nubs. She pulls it away.
“You still haven’t told me why you were at my house last night…and I don’t believe for a second it was to peek in on me through the basement window.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“So?”
“Let me get you fixed up, and then I’ll tell you.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
In thirty minutes, her lips are stitched and bandaged, her eyebrow butterflied. There’s no way to hide the mouse swelling around her eye, but she isn’t bleeding anymore, and that’s really the best I can do. I give her an ice pack from the freezer to help keep the swelling down, then ask her to follow me into the living room.
The bunny-in-the-bag is still by the door—no Isolate interference here. I walk to it, give it a nudge with my foot. It hops once.
“What the hell is in there?”
“Not Bonzo, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Nope, your pet Bonzo is in my bed right now, its head chopped off, its little kitty guts pooling out alongside my wife’s dried-out placenta.
“Stop…don’t joke around like that.”
“No joke, Shea.” I haven’t said her name since she asked me to say it in my dream. The ethereal weight of it falling from my lips nearly equals that of last night, stirring in me a welcome diversion from all that is wrong in my life. “There’s a rabbit in the bag.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Scout’s honor.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Let it out.”
I shake my head. “Not until you let me show you something.”
Her brow furrows with a mix of annoyance and curiosity. If I had to guess, I’d say she’s keeping a nasty temper at bay right now. “What is it?”
I walk in close to her and place my hand against her face. “I won’t hurt you. I’m here to help you. You have to listen to me. Please.”
“How do I know I can trust you? I don’t even know you. And to be honest, you’re not acting like a normal person would, you know?”
I run my fingertips against the skin of her swollen eye, now red and frigid from the icepack. The little man in my head says, Takes one to know one, Michael. You’re a doctor. Easy to tell she’s got a few loose screws, just like her old man. “I’m the only one you can trust, Shea.” She’s thinking I’m referring to her parents and her brother as being untrustworthy, as my doctor’s role lends credence to being able to recognize her messed-up familial situation. What she doesn’t know is that I’m the only person in all of Ashborough she can place her trust in.
She complies with an acquiescent nod.
“Let’s go…there’s something you need to see.”
Grabbing the bunny-in-the-bag, I guide her back through the house, into the waiting room and out the side door. The wind bites at us as we make our way around the side of the house and into the backyard. The day is overcast, keeping the sun’s glare off the snow and out of our eyes.
“Where are you taking me?”
Without pause, I tell her: “To the place I was trying to get to last night. Come on.”
I trudge forward, footsteps crunching hollowly in the frozen snow as I make my way to the perimeter of the property. Shea follows close behind, not once looking back until I stop a few feet from the shed. The wooden door is open, and for a moment I consider peeking past it to see if there’s a near-dead deer inside—just as Phillip Deighton had left me all those months ago. But then the smidgeon of common sense I have takes over, and forces me to peer ahead into the stark woodland. I see nothing but snow and bare trees leading back into the hills.
“What is it, Dr. Cayle?”
“Please, call me Michael.” A pause, then, “It’s nothing Shea. Nothing…but then again, it’s everything.”
I pace forward and Shea follows. In five minutes we’re well beyond the perimeter of the woods, following a snow-covered path. It’s on this well-traveled path where the woods, thick in most places, clears away to brambles and high grass, brown but still standing tall through the snow. The trees reach out high above our heads, naked branches caressing like fingers, whistling down from the wind’s embrace.
I stop for a moment to catch my breath. A wave of lightheadedness taunts me, and I pray I don’t go down in the snow. Thankfully it passes, leaving us standing like barren tree trunks, the only movement between us the frozen mist of our heavy breathing.
“What brings your family to Ashborough?” I ask, breaking five minutes of silence.
She smiles, as if the story’s complicated. “Honestly, I don’t know for sure.”
“Tell me what you do know.”
Shrugging her shoulders, she gazes far off into the gray woodland. “On the surface, it seems like a dream come true, at least for us Washburns. But deeper down…it all seems so damn strange.”
“Try me.”
“Well…my dad lost his job in Seattle, and we were pretty much out on our asses when he tells us about some job he’s found in New England, and that we better get our asses in gear because we’re moving ASAP. Mom was out of a job. I was working as a barista, but our car finally broke down so I had no way to get to work. I suppose it wasn’t all too hard to pack up our few belongings and get the hell out of Dodge.”
“There was no notice?”
She looks back at me. “No, not really. Pops was late on a few accounts—if you get my drift—and we had no choice to hightail it out of there before one of us got hurt. At first we didn’t believe him, about the job here in New England that is, but when we got here we found ourselves with a furnished home all cleaned and ready for us to move into. Pops told us he’d be able to pay the rent with a week’s pay—that’s much less than we were paying for the trailer back home. Honestly, I still don’t believe it. Too good to be true, you know?”
Damn right I know. “I’m curious, Shea…what job was he offered?”
“Pops is real good with cars. Said he was told that the mechanic here in Ashborough passed on and that they needed a good man for the job right away.”
“Doesn’t that sound odd…that some down-on-his-luck mechanic in Seattle is offered a job on the other side of the country?”
Not any different than a Manhattan doctor being offered a deal too good to be true.
“Damn straight, but here we are, with a helluva roof over our heads and food on the table. And now, a doctor as our closest neighbor. Honestly Michael, it feels like we’ve hit the jackpot.”
Just won the fucking booby prize, you did.
I nod slowly, then ask her the burning question again. “Does your father abuse you, Shea?”
Icy tears well in her eyes. She pulls her gaze away again. “You’re the doctor. You know the signs.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“You’re enough to get out. Get a job, find a place of your own.”
“Tried that last year, when I turned seventeen. Pops came and beat the shit out of my boyfriend. Put a gun in his mouth and told him he’d blow his fucking head off if he ever came near me again. Of course, I was barely seventeen, and he was twenty-six. But he took care of me, and that’s what I was looking for.”
My (crumbling) mind forces
me to promise: “I’ll take care of you Shea. But first, you’re gonna have to take care of me. Do me one favor, and I’ll make sure that ‘Pops’ never lays another finger on you again.”
And that’s when she steps to me and hugs me. Tightly. Just as she did when she first came into my home. I hold her back, clutching the leather of her jacket and feeling my emotions rise in me like steam from a geyser. I know: there is no more powerful emotion in the human body than the yearning for intimacy, the rise of sexual desire. Despite the terrible circumstances, the pain and agony and the breaking down of my mind and body, I find a welling of need in me, given rise from her offer of appreciation and show of faith, as well as my sexual preoccupation with her brought forth from my dream. It’s a powerful combination, one that for now will no doubt keep me going.
“Thank you Michael,” she says. The emotions in me begin to show in a physical way, embarrassing me as Shea continues to press up against me. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that I’m still alive, and that with all that’s happened, there’s still something worth living for.
“I’ve been through a lot here, Shea, and I hope to someday explain it all to you. I know this sounds damn crazy, I mean, we’ve just met, and I must seem like a crazy man to you. But you have to trust me.”
“I’ve seen much in my life Michael.” She pulls away, offers me a thin smile, and adds, “You do seem a bit mad, but right now you’re all I’ve got. I have no choice but to trust you.”
I nod. Damn. This is too good to be true, and for the slightest moment I forget why I’m actually here in the woods. “Same goes for me.” I step away from her and allow the stirring in me to settle back down. “Come on, we’re about halfway there.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Farther along into the woods, I ask Shea, “What was that thing I saw in your basement?”
“What did you see?”
“Your brother and you. You were either packing away, or setting up, some sort of apparatus. It looked like a pulley system, and a block with thick hook-eyes in it. There was a rope…and then I saw huge deep-sea fishing hooks.”
She nods, biting the half of her bottom lip that doesn’t have a bandage. “You know, I should be pissed off at you for looking in at me…but I’m not. From the moment we met, I couldn’t help but think that you were sent to me, and that you are now here with me for a reason—just as my family was brought here to Ashborough for a reason. I’ve never been one for fate, but Bonzo did run away to your house, and now here we are, together, just me and you, alone in the woods. And you’re telling me that you’re the only one I can trust. And I believe you. If that’s not fate, then I don’t know what is.” She paces to a huge elm and rubs a gloved hand against the rough bark. “My life has pretty much sucked up until now. But ever since coming here, I’ve felt an incredible amount of allure. The woods, the house, you. Everything!” She spins around, hands held out as she makes her way back to me. She looks like a battered ballerina, something right out of a Tim Burton film. “For the first time in my life, I feel a sense of happiness.”
Her shouts trigger mixed emotions in me: fear of drawing the Isolates to us, and happiness for the girl of my dreams. “It’s more than likely because you’ve escaped the past where all your unpleasant memories were created.”
She stops spinning then zig-zags over to me and grabs me by the coat. The bunny-in-the-bag leaps about a bit, and I have to grip the pillowcase more tightly to keep from dropping it. “It’s the woods, Michael. They speak to me. And they make me happy.”
Despite her feeling happy for the first time in her wounded life, I’m very concerned for her. The Isolates have begun to weave their dark magic into her. Soon she’ll be having dreams, hearing voices, seeing things. She’ll follow all these enticements, blinded to the evil lying just beyond its cloak, ready to pounce. I can’t let this happen—she’s all I’ve got—so I go back to the original subject to distract her. “Shea…the pulley. The block. The hooks. Is it all some sort of hunting tool? Something to hang a kill from? What is it?”
She giggles, light and airy like a child being tickled, then pushes away from me. “No, not quite. It’s…it’s probably the only thing from my past that I’ve brought here with me. It’s something I couldn’t leave behind.”
“What’s it for?” I ask, all of a sudden conscious of the fact that it might be some sort of device for self-mutilation, for exerting pain into the body in return for "spiritual awareness."
“It’s a suspension gig. It’s something we’ve all done, but it’s my dad’s baby and we were setting it up for him. It’s been a few months since his last suspension, and he was anxious to do it again. I know this sounds awful, but it’s really the only thing we do as a family. It’s the only thing that brings up together.”
I should be shocked, but I’m not. I’ve heard about human suspensions before. It’s a highly respected form of body modification that’s popular amongst Modern Tribalists and Goths—many of whom I’d seen in passing while living in Manhattan. It’s done primarily to gain a high level of spiritual fulfillment or awareness, but it can also used as a form of entertainment by performance artists. I for one know it can be damaging should it not be done properly, and the mere thought of things going wrong while suspended makes me shudder.
I then remember, while peering through the basement window, that Shea had had two knotty scars on her back in the meat above her shoulder blades. It’s all too obvious to me now. “You do this to yourself, don’t you?”
She nods.
I grab her by the hand, then slide the sleeve of her leather jacket up her arm to the elbow—as far as it will go. Looking at her forearm I see a series of thin pink scars marring her skin, each an inch or so long, lined up like sticks in the sand.
I’ve seen this before too.
She’s a cutter.
“Someday, you and I are gonna have to talk, Shea.”
She pulls away, suddenly embarrassed as she pulls her jacket sleeve back down. “Isn’t there something you wanted to show me?”
I nod, then march away in bitter silence, deeper into the woods. I wander off the path into a thicket of trees where the snow is thin and icy mud patches crack loudly beneath our footsteps. Soon, the trees before us thin out and I can see in the near-distance the place I’d hoped to never have to lay eyes on again…much less visit.
God help me…God help us all.
We step into the clearing of trees, a perfect carpet of muddy leaves and pine needles blanketing the icy ground. Amid the clearing are the stones of the Isolates, great slabs of non-indigenous rock, each of them rectangular in shape and fitted into a wide circular shape. Some of the stones stand as high as ten feet, some are only a few feet tall. Others lay flat on the forest floor, situated at complementary angles. I can recall the first time I saw this place and how I imagined that some sort of pattern might become visible if viewed from high above. I looked up and once again realized such a feat to be impossible, as the trees here have found a way to extend their branches out to close out the sky, hence keeping this miraculous work of ancient art a secret.
“This is amazing,” Shea says. She walks along the perimeter of the area, pacing from stone to stone, checking out their smooth surfaces and the crude enormity of them all. “Jesus,” she says. “How did they get here?”
“How is not important,” I say, walking to the center stone, the largest of the collection. It’s flat and detached in the middle of the configuration, possessing blood stains ranging in age from a few centuries old, to perhaps only a few days. Looking at Shea, all I can think about is how Phillip brought me here and told me the supposed legend of Old Lady Zellis and the Isolates—a legend that’d turned out to be very much alive.
Now Old Lady Zellis is dead, along with a few hundred Isolates, all by my hand. And I’ve barely got my life to show for it.
Without warning I begin to weaken, and like magic the fever in my body and the pain in my wound returns. The painkiller is wearing off. “Sh
ea…come here. It’s time.” I lift the bag and place it on the center stone.
She turns to look at me. “Time for what.”
I fix her gaze and stare at those stunning blue eyes, never more serious in my life. “Time for you to return the favor.”
She nods, albeit tentatively, then slowly paces over to me, her combat boots pressing fresh prints into the hard snow. It occurs to me at this moment that I’ve stupidly neglected to bring some sort of weapon to commit the dirty deed. This forces me look around. Did I really expect to find a knife in the snow? There’s nothing at all useful here for killing a bunny—not a stick or a rock—and I curse under my breath with the word “shit” still managing to make its way out, soft but clear.
“What’s wrong?”
Everything in your life, Michael?
As if to say "nothing at all," I shake my head then reach into pillowcase, grab the rabbit by the scruff of its neck, pull it out and hold it down on the stone.
“Shit, doc, what the hell are you doing?”
I lock her gaze and hold it there, drilling her. “Y-You have to t-trust me,” I say through chattering teeth, as chills assault my body once again. “It’s the only way, please.”
“Only way for what?”
“To save your life…the life of your family…and the lives of mine.”
“Your family? What family? Michael, what the hell is going on here?”
I clench my teeth in frustration. “Shea, please, just listen to me. Things aren’t as they seem here in Ashborough. I know this seems insane, but please believe me when I tell you that I’m not this fucked up by choice. If you want to live, then please…take the rabbit in your hands and kill it.”
“Jesus doc, no fucking way.”
“Shea…please!” The rabbit kicks and thrashes in my grasp. I squeeze tighter, feeling its warm rabbit insides and hammering heart.
“If it’s so important, then you do it.”
“I…can’t, please, I’ll explain everything afterwards. You have to do it…”
Shea takes a step forward.
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