Wordlessly, Ron ducks into the kitchen; after a moment she returns with the broom and sweeps up the remains of the teacup. Aunt Jen is still holding my arm, like she’s not sure what’s going to happen if she lets go.
“I’m okay, Auntie,” I whisper. Like I’m five again. “Really. And I’m sorry. About the teacup.” About everything.
“It’s just a cup.” She releases me, reluctantly, watching my face. A long pause. Is there fear in her eyes?
“It’s been a long night, Mare-bear,” she says eventually, and hugs me tight. “Get some sleep, all right? We’ll talk in the morning.” After one last troubled look at the piano, she disappears upstairs.
I take the dustpan from Ron and dump its contents into the trash can under the sink. Just as I throw myself back down on the couch next to the pile of blankets, the silence is shattered by a siren whistle starting in the kitchen, low at first and quickly ramping through the scale into a shriek. It’s a few endless, noisy seconds before I figure out what it is: the kettle. I jump to my feet and round the corner to find steam jetting out of it, little bits of water splashing out of the spout.
It’s sitting on the counter.
I make a couple of abortive moves toward it, not sure how to make it stop without an element to turn off, afraid of burning myself. Finally I unhook an oven mitt from the cupboard door, shove my hand into it, and snatch the kettle back onto the stove, dancing back from the hot water that splashes on the floor. Only then does the sound start to skirl back downward, fading as the steam slows to a trickle.
I stand there panting, the oven mitt still dangling from my hand. I can’t stop listening. Waiting for the next blow to fall.
Ron’s voice at my elbow makes me jump. “Here.” She holds out one of the tea towels that had been hanging on the stove handle, drops another on the floor, and sinks to a crouch, pushing it gingerly over the wet tiles.
“You shouldn’t have told your aunt,” she says, not looking at me. I shake my head, unable to summon a better response. “She must think you’re going completely off the deep end. That’s what it wants. It just totally played you.”
“I wasn’t thinking,” I mutter.
“No shit.”
“I didn’t hear you saying anything!”
“Well, of course not!” Ron sits back on her heels. “How do you think she’d react if I tried to mix into this? Your dad was already looking at me like I’m some sort of cult leader!”
I pick up the wet towels, still hot, between pinched fingers and drop them in the sink. “I guess it’s a good thing you weren’t wearing the war paint, at least.”
“I guess,” Ron snorts.
I flop down on the couch again, and Ron sinks down beside me, although she keeps a careful distance between us this time.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “She might surprise you. Your aunt. I mean, there’s only so long she can deny it, right? If it keeps on like this.”
“Yeah. And then what?” I lean into the blankets, away from her. “I should never have come back here. It almost had me earlier. Again. It almost came through.”
“It can’t,” Ron protests. “Look, when that happened it was because we basically invited it. So we’ll just be super careful from now on. Right?”
“Don’t try to make me feel better,” I snap. “It doesn’t help. I heard you, you didn’t even know who you were talking to.”
She doesn’t answer.
“Sorry,” I say after a moment, my voice small. “I shouldn’t have—oh God. I’m sorry.”
“I get it,” she says stiffly. “It’s okay.”
It’s not, though. Obviously. I’m an idiot. Niobe’s words hover in my ears: someone who will go to hell and back for you. That’s what she’s been doing all night, and look how I’m repaying her. I don’t deserve her. The ghost was right.
But so was Niobe.
I rub my eyes, trying to think, trying to wring some answers from the memory. She said…maybe this was more than a friend. The thought hurts, like a light too bright to look at, and I hurry past it. She said not to be a victim. Take action. That makes about as much sense as ever. Although the part about me bringing this on myself is starting to sound scarily accurate. Like those red shoes from Ron’s story are welded to my feet, carrying me spinning out of control. Why did I ever open my mouth?
A hitch of a breath from Ron drags my attention back to her. She grimaces and swipes a hand hastily across her face.
“Ron—”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she croaks. “It’s not you, all right? I just had this awful fight with my mom. Before I left. I said…some things you just don’t say, you know?”
If I were as brave as she thinks I am, I’d reach for her hand. The ghost will never let me. I fold my arms instead.
“God. This is stupid,” Ron says. “You’ve got enough to worry about.” I just look at her, and she pushes her hands through her hair. “It’s just…what if she’s been the real thing all along? And I was just too mundane and jealous and…and chickenshit to see it? What if it was me pushing her away, all this time? What if it’s my fault she can’t read me, what if it’s because I gave up on her?”
“I don’t think your mom would let you push her very far.” It’s like the ghost is sitting between us, a gulf I don’t dare cross. “And you would never give up on her. Not really. She’s your mom. I mean, how long have you known me? And you’re still here. After all this.”
“Yeah, and a fat lot of good it’s done anybody.” She rests her head wearily on her hand. When she moves I catch a glimpse of livid bruises darkening on her upper arm; she follows my gaze and tugs the sleeve of the T-shirt she’s wearing down a little. I look away.
“I should never have dragged you into this.”
“I was the one who got all cocksure and called the thing,” Ron counters. She sniffs. “It’s not your fault it listened to me.” Her eyes close briefly. “Maybe I could get it to follow me somehow, distract it. Maybe that might persuade Mom to do some ghostbusting.”
I fight down a flash of panic at the idea. “God, don’t do that. What if it caught you? I don’t think it would work anyway. It didn’t follow you before, after the other night by the river.”
“Yeah.” She shivers a little, pulls her feet onto the couch. “It was like it was starving. You know? Like a black hole. I wasn’t sure if it wanted to eat me alive or… I don’t know.”
“You should go.” The echo of the ghost’s words is ugly in my mouth, but I have to say it. “You should go home. It’s still here. It’s already beaten you up enough.”
Ron shakes her head, emphatic, unmovable. “No. I’m not going anywhere. Not until we figure this out.”
I’m not going to cry again. I’m not.
“Why?”
Ron hesitates.
“It’s not like I wasn’t tempted, believe me. I almost did, when I saw you walking down the street with your hair floating. It walked away, and I stood there, and I thought, I don’t have to follow it.” She looks at me, her lips twisting. “But then I thought, if I ran away…that’s all I’d ever be. The kind of person who runs away. The kind of person who does nothing. And goddamn, I refuse to be that. I’m not.”
“No,” I agree faintly. My smile is wobbly, but it’s real. “You’re not.”
21
I toss and turn on the couch, trying to get comfortable. I forgot to take the pills tonight, and the moths are back, my thoughts reeling in frantic, jittery loops like they’re swirling around a light bulb. I stare at the shadowy ceiling, trying to quiet them enough to make sense. The wind roars and whistles outside. What now? What am I going to do?
Maybe I sleep for a couple of hours. I’m not aware of drifting into it, but there comes a point where I can feel it slipping away from me, like water inching down the beach. It leaves a deeper, chilly silence in its wake.
I try to speak, to sit up. The farthest I get is clenching and unclenching my fists at my sides, my fingers cold and numb, scratching soundlessly, uselessly, against Aunt Jen’s afghan.
When I open my eyes a figure sits at the other end of the couch, a murky silhouette. If it was a real person it would be sitting on my legs. If it was a real person I would hear it breathing, the small noises of its movement. But it’s motionless like no living thing is motionless, except for the restless, swirling shadow of its hair. Its presence is its only weight, and it flattens the air against my limbs, my chest, my face. Binding me in place. Every breath is a slow, drowning gasp.
Give up, Not-Marianne whispers. I’m not sure if its lips have moved. I can’t look at it except in stolen glances. Why does it still look like me?
I won’t, I cry. Or try to. My lips form the words.
You will. I’ll make you.
Please. Please just go away.
You’ll fold like a paper doll. That’s all you are. A pathetic, wispy little doll mouthing other people’s words. There’s not a single piece of you that you own.
But you didn’t want to touch me! I shout soundlessly. Why not?
You think it matters? it sneers. Who would want to touch you? You’d crumble into pieces. You’d blow away. Who would bother?
I think it means something, I insist. I think you were afraid of me.
Without transition, like it moved impossibly fast, it’s on its feet, towering over me, its hair snaking and weaving around its face.
You wait, it breathes. You wait. You think I can’t hurt you? You think your girlfriend can save you?
She’s not—
Listen to you! it rages. You don’t deserve her! You don’t deserve any of this! None of them even want you. I’m the one who’s real! If you won’t give them back to me I will make you!
Ron doesn’t want you! I hurl the words at it. Can’t you see that? You can’t make her want you!
There’s a vast silence.
If I can’t have her, Not-Marianne whispers, its eyes wide, unblinking wells, nobody can.
Stay away from her!
The deep-water weight against me eases enough that I can heave myself upright. But in pushing my fist against the couch cushion I realize my fingers are curled around something hard and rectangular. I look down and find I’m clutching the red plastic handle of Aunt Jen’s bread knife. The faint orange glow from the streetlights gleams on every serrated point on the long blade.
What are you doing? I want it to be a demand, but the breath has been crushed out of my lungs.
What would happen, it muses, if she woke up and found you standing over her with that?
I swallow. The ghost leans over me, drops its voice to a heavy whisper.
What do you think would happen?
I can’t let go of it. It’s like I’ve forgotten how. The handle’s edges dig into my fingers. My hand rises, slowly, like I’m losing an arm wrestling match, though I’m pushing back with all my strength.
What if you put this to her throat and started sawing? Do you think she’d have time to scream?
Stop, I whimper, my bravery gone. The knife tilts in my hand. I can’t even make it tremble.
Do you think they’d listen to you then? Would they believe you?
Shadow thickens around the thing that still wears my face, the streetlights outside dimming, the wall behind it receding from my sight, sinking into a darkness that stretches out forever. Suddenly there’s a cool breath of air on my face, the green, weedy smell of the river rising up around me.
This is your last chance, it whispers.
I try to shrink back against the cushions, but instead somehow my feet slide off the couch, my toes jamming painfully into the ground. I stagger upright like something shoved me, almost losing my balance; I’m still clutching the knife in one flailing hand.
Do you think I can’t do it? Do you think I won’t?
I try to bolt for the door; instead I pivot toward Ron. One of my feet slides forward. I try to scream, to warn her, but I can’t open my mouth.
If you want to run, there’s only one way you can go. It doesn’t point, but the void behind it draws my eyes anyway. Its bare feet, its black-marked toes, hang in the air over gray sand. That’s where you belong. That’s what you deserve.
It’s the dream again. I’m back in the dream. My steps shamble toward the water despite my flailing attempts to resist. If I manage to stop, my arm lifts again against my will, raising the knife.
Go, Not-Marianne snarls. Go!
I shuffle forward a few helpless steps, as small as I can make them. Toward the ghost; almost past it. I can feel its eyes on me, alight with triumph. The smooth wood floor turns gritty and soft under my feet.
Ron’s words suddenly echo through my head. You have to give it. It can’t take it from you. There’s a way to make this stop, this death march into that horrible otherworld, into the icy water.
It can’t make me.
With a desperate, soundless shriek I pitch myself sideways. Toward my shadowy double. And it falls back with a cry of its own: a sound of disgust. Of fear. And then I stumble into the arm of the couch, four pale walls in their proper places. There’s no one there anymore, just trembling orange shadows and the whisper of the wind.
But I’m still holding the knife.
I force my fingers open and it clatters to the ground. I sit down hard on the floor and huddle there, trying to breathe, sweat standing icy on my skin. A few feet away from where the knife lies gleaming on the parquet, Ron’s hair is an inky tangle across her pillow. She’s snoring a little bit.
I can’t stay here.
I hurry into the kitchen and pull the peanut butter jar down from the top shelf of the cupboard. Inside is a fat wad of bills: Aunt Jen’s emergency money. I stuff the roll of cash inside into my pocket. That ought to buy a bus trip to somewhere a good long way from here.
The sweater Ron loaned me is still damp, but I pull it on anyway. Ron stirs but doesn’t wake as I pad past her, and I pause, looking down at her. She’s flung out an arm, throwing off the blankets. As I watch, she pulls her hand back to her chest, curling up a little bit, shivering. Carefully, afraid I’ll wake her, I pick up the edge of the covers and lower them back over her. I don’t smooth back the hair that’s tumbled over her face.
I’d be the kind of person who runs away, she said earlier. I guess that’s what this makes me. Like that girl she kissed. She’s stood by me through all this, and all I’ll be is one more thing she’ll blame herself for.
I don’t have a choice. It doesn’t matter what she thinks. It doesn’t matter what any of them think—Aunt Jen, my parents. It’s better than a knife in the dark. They’ll be safe, away from me.
Right. How noble of me.
I pull open the patio door slowly so it doesn’t squeak. Aunt Jen’s money is a hard lump in my pocket. Deep down, am I just hoping that if I run fast enough, or far enough, I might escape it for a while? Because I know that’s stupid; it would never work. Even now I can feel the ghost waiting somewhere behind me. Watching.
It doesn’t matter. I step out into the garden, slide the door closed behind me. I’m going. I have to. I have to take action. I have to do something.
The clouds are shredding, and the moon winks fitfully in and out among them, sinking into the black arms of the pines beside the seawall. The streetlights are still on; there’s enough light to make out the gray shape of the garden path, the hedges trembling in the wind. When I step through the gate it yanks itself out of my hand, slams closed behind me with a clang.
“Shhh,” I hiss desperately.
The wind in the pines, the roar of the waves, is the only answer. Over the treetops, dawn is starting to show red and gold against the clouds. And slowly, I turn around to look at the bay, a shade darker than the sky behind t
he barricaded seawall, little white crests rising and falling out into the distance. This time I don’t flinch from it. The fear falls away from me like water running through my hands, leaving a horrible, empty clarity.
The money, a weight against my thigh in my pocket, is useless. The beginnings of my flimsy plan crumble around me. There’s no point. If I run from it now, away from Mom—away from Ron—it’s still won: I’ll be running from it forever, running into fear and loneliness without end. Treading water.
There’s nowhere I can go. Nowhere it won’t follow.
And into that emptiness boils something white-hot, incandescent, radiating through my chest, stealing my breath. Propelling me into motion, lengthening my stride until I’m running, tearing down the street toward the park, my steps slapping on the pavement, through the wide marshy puddles that fill the park, under the roaring trees. My lungs burn, my feet turn leaden. I stumble, but I push myself forward, don’t stop. The river has crept up even farther over the beach, leaving only a thin crescent of sand beyond the last row of poplars standing guard beside the path. I plunge across the sand into the water, cold as steel, and I run until it drags me to a stop, thigh-deep, the waves tugging at me.
“Here I am!” I scream at the horizon, throwing my arms wide. The wind whips ribbons of hair across my face. “Here I am! Come and get me!”
Squinting into the wind, gasping for breath, I watch the world before me tremble and thin, fading into transparency, draining the faint light from the sky, swallowing the moon. And it stands in the water, that thing that isn’t me. Except for the twisting halo of its hair, we could be standing on either side of a mirror. If we raised our hands our fingers would touch. There’s a wavering line between us where the water flattens into glassy stillness, stretching away behind it without end, rimed with a dim crust of ice. Unflinching this time, I look into my own dark eyes, my own face, thin and pale, luminous against the waiting, featureless, unchanging dark. The depths tug at me, a current as relentless as the waves pushing against my legs.
The Dark Beneath the Ice Page 23
