I drove to Belize City, languished at the border as soldiers checked bags and vehicles. I searched faces. No sign of her going through customs. After two fruitless days, I returned to Mexico, stopped at a resort on the shores of a large lake. While lunching under its palapa, I showed the bartender the Polaroid.
He nodded. "Yes, she’s been here."
My heart raced. "Do you know where she went? I have to find her."
"I see many faces, señor. I have a good memory, an excellent memory. But I cannot tell you when she was here."
"Was she with a man?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Perhaps. I see so many faces."
I left, hopeful, drove the coast, the ocean always in my periphery, passed Akumal without slowing and entered Cancun, where I rented a room for the night. In early morning, I merged with the gaggles of tourists, searched among the natives selling souvenirs, peered at the peons bent to their various labors. I asked about her, showed the picture. Nothing. Then, late that night, in a beachfront cantina, I showed the picture to an old Indian woman.
"Sí," she said, nodding at the photo. "She had a drink here two nights ago." She sighed. "Alone. She was upset, I think, as if she was here trying to avoid something. Or someone. "
The next morning I approached a boy hawking small statues.
"Oh, yes, señor, I’ve seen her. She was a good tipper. She bought two small sandstone carvings and tipped me ten dollars American. Very nice. And beautiful, of course." He grinned. "You must be the gentleman she spoke of. I heard her mention him on her phone."
"No," I said. "Friends, that’s all."
"I’m sorry, señor. Truly. Would you like to buy a carving?"
He reached in his knapsack, produced a statue made from molded concrete. I gave him a twenty. His coterie of friends followed him away, jabbering excitedly as he waved the money.
I searched all day. Nothing. I slept until eleven the next morning, a most fitful sleep. It took three cups of fine Mexican coffee to clear the cobwebs. Chichén Itzá, I thought--I haven’t looked for her at the most sacred of Mayan sites.
I questioned tour guides there. In mid-afternoon, I showed the photo to a policeman, a tall, thin man of obvious Castilian descent, who spoke impeccable English.
"Yes," he said, "most definitely. She was here no more than ten minutes ago, in the company of a short Mayan man. Both were dressed well. Well enough to stand out in the crowd."
My pulse began to pound. I thanked him, darted through the growing crowd, searched faces. Nothing. Signs of her had cropped up everywhere I’d been; people had described her perfectly. Yet she was as elusive as the fog that settles over the Yucatan in the hours before dawn. Ephemeral, always just out of reach. I had to wonder: who--or what--was she? The silly airhead she seemed at first, exaggerated by my overactive imagination? And what was the feeling of cold apprehension that was slowly coming over me?
I returned to Akumal, parked at the hotel, and checked against all hope for a message.
"No, señor," the clerk said.
I stumbled to my room, frustrated, my nerves on edge. I paced. I threw wild, manic punches at empty air. I swore, albeit under my breath, so the people in the rooms next to mine wouldn’t call hotel security.
Then I remembered the knife. I sat on bed’s edge, began to stroke it. I let it slide to my chest, rubbed it across my abdomen. Doing this felt natural, and so calming. Finally, I fell to my pillow, still clasping the knife. Sleep came--a difficult, dream-tossed slumber.
In the morning, neither the knife nor a cup of instant coffee could expunge the despondency over my fruitless search for the woman. I have to refocus, I thought, I have to think about other things. I remembered a tiny library in Akumal. Maybe sitting for an hour or so and reading about local lore would calm me. The librarian there directed me to a small array of books. As I read, I heard soft laughter.
"Silly man," a woman’s voice whispered. "What do you expect to find here?"
I spun, knocked several dusty volumes to the floor. Library patrons looked up, frowned. I grabbed my things and dashed out. A taxi sat idling a block away. A few shoppers wandered the street. If she’d been there, she’d negotiated a nimble getaway.
While walking to my car, I noticed a woman depart a small boutique. Her shoulder length hair was the same blonde. The same brown skin and petite build. Her yellow, floral-patterned dress looked a lot like the one she’d worn the day I met her at Tulum. I ran, caught up with her at the next corner. "Hey!" I exclaimed, laughing. "You won’t get away this time."
The woman turned, gave me a quizzical look. I gasped. She was older, much older than I’d expected. I could tell now that broad streaks of gray corrupted her blonde hair. Her face had long since wrinkled beyond the masking ability of makeup. She was heavier in the hips, and her shoulders were slightly stooped. But her eyes were the same: clear, bright, penetrating.
"I’m sorry," I mumbled as I pulled out the photo. "I thought you were this woman."
She examined it, looked back and forth between the picture and me. "I look a little like her, I suppose." Then she frowned. "Actually, she looks a lot like my daughter, a great deal like her in fact. But the photo is of such poor quality, you know? We were vacationing together, but she’s gone off on some adventure. She’s such a difficult child, always complicating my life." She returned the photo.
I apologized again and plodded toward my car. How could I have mistaken this woman for her? This one seemed almost eerie, like a specter. I thought about that. I had been reading something about the Descending God legend just before I bolted from the library. Descending God had to be honored with a ritual sacrifice before the Mayan culture could rise again. I smirked, thinking about the clichéd sacrifice of a virgin. But, no, the depiction I’d read of this ritual seemed to indicate something else, some other form of sacrifice.
Then the smell of food hit me, and I realized I was hungry. I stopped at a sidewalk café, ordered a flagon of coffee and a pair of sweet rolls. As I ate, Descending God’s sacrifice, it’s odd, nebulous nature, kept haunting. I poured the flagon empty, stirred in a dollop of cream. Finally, it hit me. I knew what the sacrifice was all about, what there was about the knife that had saddened me.
I returned to my room, sat on the bed’s edge, head in hands. No, it couldn’t be true. This was simply a morbid thought hidden within my emotions, wrapped about the loss of my girlfriend and my father. All right, I thought, there’s only one way to rid oneself of such unhealthy thoughts, you have to confront them head-on. I dressed, added a light jacket against the chill, placed the knife in my belt, finished packing, left a large tip each for the concierge and maid, and paid my hotel bill.
As I lumbered through the lobby with my bags, I glanced through the restaurant’s glass doors. There she was, bent over the table I usually occupied, writing. She straightened, stuffed the note into an envelope, handed it to the waiter, and left by the rear door. I knew I couldn’t force an encounter, so I loaded my car, then entered the restaurant and approached the maître d’.
"I saw a woman writing a note at my table," I said. "I’m sure the note you’re holding is for me."
The maître d’, a different one from all the other times I’d eaten here, eyed the knife in my belt and frowned. "Then may I see your identification?"
This exasperated. "Now, come on," I said, loudly. "I’ve eaten here every night." I pointed. "At that table."
He didn’t reply; he only brushed a finger against a thumb to underscore his insistence on seeing my ID. I showed him my driver’s license. As he inspected it, his frown creased deeper. "This says your name is Nathan Ploegger. The note is for someone else."
I nodded, somewhat frantically. "I gave her a different name when we first met, you see? I was feeling maybe a bit insecure that day and I wanted to impress her, she’s very beautiful, you know, and I thought, well, maybe a more terse name would be more memorable, that she’d remember me later and I’ve been looking for her all over Mexico these past
few days and, well, I’m sure you see what I mean." I reached for the note.
Frowning, he snatched it away and motioned to the bartender, a large, barrel-chested man with arms as thick and solid as oak branches. "I’m sure you’ll be fine after a good rest, Mr. Ploegger. This gentleman will help you to your room."
The barkeep clamped my arm with a powerful hand.
"All right," I said, "I’ll leave. But I don’t need to go to my room." What with seeing the woman and the difficulty over the note, I’d almost forgotten where I was going. "I’ll just walk on the beach, I’m sure that’ll help." I smiled, and the barkeep released me.
Outside, I breathed in the ocean’s rich aroma, listened to the waves cough as they came in, watched them spread, ghostlike, and die against the sand. I walked the beach one last time, felt for the knife’s hilt. Once again, touching it seemed to comfort me.
In the distance, I noticed a lone fisherman cast a line into the surf. Then, as if in a dream, I heard the woman’s laughter. I peered past the angler, now silhouetted by the moon’s translucent bubble. She emerged from the shadow of a pier, walked in my direction with another, a man. They approached and were about to pass when the woman stopped, tugged at the man’s hand.
"Oh, look, it’s my friend, you know, the one I told you about."
They neared, close enough from me to take in their features. The man was swarthy, with a broken-looking, downthrust nose. Obviously the man I’d seen her with days before. He was casually dressed, pants rolled up, barefoot, shoes in his hands.
After a moment, she walked to me, kissed my cheek, then bent, picked up a jot of sandy seaweed. "I left you a note," she said. "I’m, well, I’m going to be married. Again." She glanced toward the man. "It was rather sudden, I admit, and it was a difficult thing for me to accept. But it’s the right thing, you know?"
I swallowed. "No, I don’t know."
"I’m afraid it is. I guess you could say it’s destined. Under any other conditions--"
"Please, whoever you are, don’t patronize."
"Anna," she said. "It’s Anna." She giggled, looked away shyly, and then back with those deep, penetrating eyes. "You told me a fib, didn’t you? You didn’t tell me your right name."
"I’m sorry. Yes, I lied."
"It won’t matter after tonight, but tell me. I have to know your name, too. It wouldn’t be right, not knowing, given what you’re about to do." She reached took my hand, rubbed the seaweed on it, her eyes never leaving mine.
I should have been angry, what with her trying to push me into this, but I wasn’t. For some reason I couldn’t be mad at her. I sighed. "It’s Nathan."
"Is that what your mom and ex-girlfriend call you?"
"Nate. Everyone calls me Nate."
The man, who had been keeping a discreet distance, approached.
"This is Nate," she said.
I offered the seaweed-sopped hand, but he didn’t take it; instead, his craggy features lifted into a smile.
"Nate," he said, filling that single syllable with a meaning and emotion I’d never known was there, "I’m so glad to meet you at last." He glanced to my waist. "I see you brought the knife."
I wanted to step away, to turn and run, but I couldn’t. I’d become in some strange way frozen in place, as if I were separated from my body, no longer it’s master.
"You know about the sacrifice, then?"
I swallowed, struggled to find the words. "I--I thought I was projecting my own melancholy onto this Descending God myth, so I though I'd come down here to the beach and prove--" I trailed off and stared at them miserably.
He threw back his head and howled laughter, bent and slapped both thighs, a most uncharacteristic reaction for such a dignified man. "Myth!" He turned to Anna. "Did you hear that? He’s calling it a myth now."
She shrugged, and I may have heard her choke off a sob, but it could have simply been the wave crashing behind her.
When he turned to me again, he seemed almost diaphanous, even though his face had caught the moon’s full glow. "It’s no myth, Nate. That’s why you’re here. " He nodded toward the knife. "It’s why you brought that with you. You’re the offering. The right lamb, so to speak."
My breath seemed to stop. I had to convince him I was here, not to disprove some myth, but to shed the gloomy state I’d projected onto this ancient legend.
"Your sort," he said, "your people, they once had their own myths, as you call them, but they’ve forgotten them. These stories were promises, part of your perpetuity as a race, as this one is ours. Your people were once a lot like us, you know. But now you’ve all become so, well, so unhinged from the earth."
"I haven’t!" I blurted. "I’m sympathetic. I know how the Mayans have had their culture submerged –"
"And that’s why you’ve volunteered," he said, "that’s why you’ve offered yourself."
"But I haven’t –"
"You have," he said. "You have."
Something in the way he said those two, final words spoke volumes. It was as if there was no riposte left to offer. I bowed my head and nodded.
I felt his hand on my shoulder, although it seemed all but weightless. "We’ll wait here, just a few feet away, give you room."
They moved silently into the darkness.
I know they’re still there, though, I can feel their presence. Mom and Susannah will read this journal, and I’ll no doubt seem a pathetic wretch, a solitary misanthrope, to be pitied, perhaps even feared. That’s the way I’d feel, too, were I not ensnared in this drama I seem to have chosen, yet paradoxically not. Maybe the gloom I’ve been feeling reaches far deeper than I thought. Maybe trying to dispose of it by coming to Mexico, and then by naysaying a local myth, maybe they’re only symptoms of a darkness much wider and deeper than my own. Maybe this darkness belongs to all men, maybe even to the earth itself. Whatever the true rationalization, it’s as Anna said, it’s destined.
I know that now.
HALLOWED GROUND
Jeff Suess
I've admitted to Jeff, who's written Animaniacs and Ben 10 for DC Comics, that I initially wanted to reject this story--not because it wasn't good (as you'll see, it is not just good but great), but because he sent this 8K-monster when I already had a good idea of what I wanted from the slush pile. But, dammit, "Hallowed Ground" got to me; I'd never seen a more beautiful story about friendship and belonging couched in Lovecraft. I had to have it and damn the extra work it made for me.
Private August Boorman awoke in a devastated cornfield among the dead. A crisp blue morning sky was heavy with the smell of decay. Smoke clouds, having drifted downwind, now cleaved to the treetops. Somewhere a sparrow called out a song incongruous with the soldier’s fierce recollection—the thunder and bark of artillery, the laments of the dying. Augie lay on his back in the grass, too leaden to move, and felt a tug at his arm.
He was dimly aware of his right hand being cradled and that something metal was fitted over his finger, but he was too removed. It could have been someone else’s hand. But the sudden sharp pain pinching his finger jolted him back. Like the dead waking, Augie sat up, whipping his arm out and away from whoever had grabbed it.
The being—Augie wasn’t entirely sure it was a man—tumbled away from him and across other bodies strewn about the field like stones.
A silver clamp was attached to Augie’s index finger. It looked much like scissors with shortened sheers that curved to follow the contour of his finger. He pried the handle apart. A line of blood seeped from the ringed cut. He sucked at the stinging wound, tasting a coppery tang, and recognized the device as a cigar cutter, meant to snip off the tip of a cigar. He let the cutter drop to the ground.
The one who had grabbed him lolled on his back like an overturned tortoise, and with some effort righted himself. He regarded the private with egg-sized eyes. "Oo, still bleeding, are you? I took you for dead. Tut-tut. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell the dead from those who aren’t yet."
With laborious movement
s he climbed to his feet and Augie got a lengthy look at him. He was a toad of a man, a pear-shape tottering on spindly legs. Like a magpie, he was dressed in the mismatched clothes of others: a grimy Confederate gray uniform coat with no markings of rank paired with the leather moccasin boots of a trapper. White hair covered below his jowls but not above. And when he spoke, several gaps were evident in his smile. His bulbous head was reminiscent of a squashed turnip or gourd, and balancing atop it was a coal-black bowler.
He continued to apologize to Augie as he retrieved his instrument. "What do they call you?" he asked.
Augie swallowed to lubricate his dry throat. "Private August Boorman, Pennsylvania Third Division, First Corps."
The toad man blew air through his lips. "They say all that every time, do they? Not August or Gus?"
This close to him, he smelled of sour milk. "They call me Augie."
"A pleasure, Augie." He pumped Augie’s hand. "Mr. Bagby, that’s me," he said and tapped two fingers to his chest.
Augie had yet to move since his initial actions. When he now attempted to stand, a white pain stabbed him behind the eyes.
Mr. Bagby was busy searching the ground the way a dog hunts for a scent. Having found whatever it was he was seeking, he squatted on his haunches beside one of the dead. "You remember all this that happened, Augie?"
"No," he lied, not wanting to remember.
Mr. Bagby nodded, understanding. He lifted the arm of a dead soldier and snipped off its finger.
Shocked by this desecration, Augie lunged to stop him. "What are you—" But he winced and clutched the back of his head—it felt tacky like molasses.
"Sticky head wound," Mr. Bagby said, suddenly hovering over him. He sniffed the air around the wound as though he could detect the condition by its scent. "It’s infected," he decided. "Get some maggots in there to eat out what’s rotten."
Torn Realities Page 28
