Monstrous Affections

by David Nickle

  Swamp witch soared. She climbed again to the very top of her domain — the place where the dome of stars turned solid and fruit-drunk swallows’d stun themselves dead. Dragonfly set up there, buzzing beneath the sallow light of Sirius, and swamp witch leaned over to him and asked him what he’d meant by that.

  And dragonfly whispered his answer with his wings, buzzing against the hard shell of the world so they echoed down to earth. Swamp witch peered down there — at her town, her people, who from this place seemed even tinier than she was now. She smiled and squinted: could almost make them out. There was little Linda Farley, her eyes dried up and a big old garden hoe in her hands; Jack Irving, with a red plastic gas can, riding shotgun in Harry Oates’ pickup; Bess Overland with a flensing knife and Tommy Balchy, beautiful young Tommy, with a big old two-by-four that’d had a nail driven through it. He was leading the senior class from the Okehole County High School, and a bunch of straggling ninth-graders, down Brevener Street, toward the front of old Albert Farmer’s smoke and book.

  Swamp witch smiled a little, with sudden nostalgia. The last time she’d seen her folk like that had been before she’d met Albert — just before, when she’d been invited to leave her home town — on pain of death pretty well. She saw that so clearly, she knew, because it was so similar to her recollection of what was about to happen.

  Tea-drinking man was going to pick up the telephone in Albert Farmer’s shop, dial a long-distance operator who hadn’t heard from Okehole County in Lord knew how long, and tell the others that he’d done it. “Symme’ry,” he’d say, then repeat slowly, “sym-met-tree. Is restored. We got it.”

  And at the other end, a voice that ululated like wind chimes would laugh and thank him and tell him that his cheque was in the mail, the board of directors was pleased, there was a new office with a window waiting for him, see you later and stop by the club when you get back. And tea-drinking man would with shaking hand hang up the phone, and step outside to survey his new town.

  And then — like before, when swamp witch had come out of the pharmacy, the glamour fresh upon her, two smooth pebbles in her pocket and the knowledge that she could do anything — anything! — then, the town would set upon him.

  Swamp witch had been faster than tea-drinking man would be. Swamp witch had also known the town, known it like her own soul practically, and she’d cut down the alleyway between Bill’s and the Household Hardware and muttered “glycol,” and vanished from their sight, leaving them all hopped up and pissed off with nothing they could do.

  Slow, sick old tea-drinking man, who’d swapped his dreaming sickness for snake sick, wouldn’t have the same advantage.

  They’d do to him what they couldn’t ever do to her.

  And that would be the end.

  — Think, she asked dragonfly, once they got that out of their system, tearin’ themselves up a witch, actually beatin’ one — think it’d cure them of all the regret that fellow’d stoked ’em with?

  Dragonfly pondered the question and finally said:

  — You don’t ask a question like that unless you know the answer.

  — You are a wise bug, said swamp witch.

  — Not wise enough to know where you want to go next.

  — Hmm.

  Last time this had happened, swamp witch had figured she’d head straight for the wetlands and wait it out. Then, she’d been sidetracked by a game of checkers and the promise of certainty. This time, as she directed dragonfly down toward the mist of the wetland and past that to her tiny hutch, swamp witch vowed that she would not pause on her way there. She would spend the next six days in the swamp, thinking about what she’d do on the seventh. It would take a lot of careful thinking leading up to Saturday, because for the first time in her life, she’d be free that night.

  The Delilah Party

  Mitchell Owens spent much of his seventeen years a quiet boy, sitting very still in the darkest part of a very dark room. Most people could not figure him out, and as far as Mitchell was concerned, the feeling was mutual.

  But his older friend Stefan wasn’t most people. He picked up on Mitchell’s vibe right away, as Mitchell was still squeezing into the back of Stef and Trudy’s Explorer in the parking lot of the Becker’s convenience store where they had met three times now. Stefan looked over his shoulder, looked again with his eyes a little narrower, then turned around so his knees were on the seat and his skinny chest was pressed against the headrest.

  “Looks like you ate a bug, Mitch,” he said.

  “Didn’t eat a bug,” said Mitchell.

  “Just an expression,” said Trudy, eyeing him herself in the rearview mirror. She was haloed in the light of the Becker’s sign so from behind her blonde hair looked like the discharge off a Van de Graaff generator — black as midnight in the middle of her skull, leaping bolts of yellow on the rim. The rearview mirror told a different story: her eyes were in full illumination, a blazing rectangle of light.

  Mitchell stammered when he spoke up:

  “Th-they took away my laptop.”

  “I see you don’t have it with you,” said Stefan. “By they I assume you mean the police.”

  “Yuh.”

  “Bummer,” said Stefan.

  “You’ll get it back,” said Trudy.

  “Did they follow you?” asked Stefan.

  “No.”

  “Why would they follow Mitch?” Trudy put the Explorer into gear, and tapped the gas so that Stefan lurched against the seat. “Fuck, woman!” he said, and Trudy said, “I’ve got a name. Sit forward. It’s more comfortable.”

  “Fuck,” said Stefan again, and he winked at Mitchell. “Do up your seatbelt, Mitch. Woman — Trudy’s — in a mood.”

  “Fuck you,” said Trudy as they pulled out of the parking lot, and at that, Mitchell felt himself smile. He would get the laptop back. Of course he would.

  The Explorer pulled right onto Starling with only a little room to spare before it joined the early evening traffic and subsumed itself to its pattern: drive a bit and stop awhile. Watch the light from red to green, red to flashing green, red to red while the other side got flashing green. Wait and go. Go and wait. Mitchell was feeling better and better. The laptop would be his again. It was part of the pattern.

  “So they treat you okay?” said Trudy.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” said Stefan.

  “Cops are fucking fascists. They get a kid like Mitch here and they’ll just be pricks to him.”

  “They got your laptop,” said Stefan. “You have anything on the hard drive?”

  Mitchell didn’t know what he meant and said so. Stefan and Trudy shared a glance, and Trudy pulled into the left lane so she could turn onto Bern Street when her turn came.

  “We’ve got some friends coming over,” said Stefan conversationally. “From the news group. I think you’ve met some of them. Remember Mrs. Woolfe?”

  Mitchell thought about that. He put the name to a tall woman with glasses and a dark tattoo that crept over the edge of her turtleneck sweater like foliage. “Was she the one who was always sad?”

  “Lesley?” said Trudy. “She wasn’t sad.”

  “She just wasn’t smiling,” said Stefan. “But that doesn’t mean she was sad.”

  Mitchell nodded. Those were two expressions that Mitchell was always mixing up. “Not sad. Just concentrating.”

  “Right.”

  The Explorer swung vertiginously through the intersection about a second after the light switched to amber. Mitchell glanced back sceptically. Sure enough, it was red before they’d cleared it. He was sure someone was going to honk.

  “So what did they ask you?”

  Stefan was half turned around in his seat, so only one eye looked back at Mitchell. The skin of his forehead was puckered up over his raised eyebrow. He was either being worried or casual.

  Mitchell said: “They asked me how well I knew Delilah. They wanted to know if I ever emailed her or knew her in this chat room that I guess she went to.”<
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  “Our chat room?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “Another one. Not like the one we have. Hers was for wrestling. They asked if I had any pictures of her on my computer or anything.”

  “Which you don’t.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You don’t have any pictures of her on your computer,” said Trudy. “Right?”

  “Oh. Right. I don’t.”

  “And you didn’t bookmark the chatroom.”

  “I use the computer at the library for that.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Why would I be worried?”

  “No reason,” said Trudy, and Stefan said, “You might have something to worry about if you did something. I mean — ”

  “No reason,” said Trudy again.

  “Okay.”

  Mitchell leaned back in the Explorer’s seat so that Trudy’s eyes were gone from the rear view mirror and all he could see was the dark roof of the Explorer. He unzipped his jacket because the heat of the car was getting to him. The Explorer turned right at Sparroway Circle, and then turned right again at the entrance to Number Five Sparroway Circle’s parking garage. Mitchell did a little cha-cha thing on his left thigh with the first two fingers of his right hand as the Explorer made its way through Level One of the garage, which included most of the guest parking, then his fingers made their way to the lock switch as they prowled across the slightly better-lit Level Two. He locked and unlocked the door three times then made himself stop when they pulled into Space 152. Trudy and Stefan pretended not to notice — just locked up the car for good using a button on Trudy’s keychain, took him to the elevator which they opened using a card on Stefan’s keychain, and got on board. The door closed on them and the elevator started going up.

  “School was bad today,” said Mitchell.

  Stefan pushed his hands into the pockets of his dark leather coat. Trudy bent her head forward like she was looking at her feet, then suddenly turned her eyes to the side so they were looking at Mitchell.

  “What are we,” she said, “your parents?”

  “No.” Mitchell’s parents were another story. “You’re my friends.”

  When the elevator got to the very top of the building it opened up on a wide hallway. There were only two apartments on this floor — one at either end of the hallway. Stefan and Trudy’s apartment was on the right. The other one belonged to a guy named Giorgio Piccininni, but it was basically vacant because Giorgio was in Italy doing real estate or something. There were voices coming from Stefan and Trudy’s place and Mitchell thought he heard the sound of their Media Centre. He recognized the voice on the home theatre from the news channel and he thought he recognized the voices talking but it was hard to tell.

  “I’ll wait out here,” he said.

  Trudy took his arm. “Come on, scaredy-cat,” she said. “We went to a lot of trouble to make sure this place was safe for you.” Then she pushed the door open the rest of the way and gave him a little push. “Inside.”

  Mitchell stumbled through the double doors. The main room was high, with a big sleek chandelier hanging down from a ceiling that was two entire floors up. At one end was a kitchen that opened up on a dining room. At the other end was a sitting area, which faced a television set that was almost as big as the Explorer. Five people were sitting around it, watching the 24-hour news channel. Mitchell couldn’t remember who all the people were, although he had met them all before — three times in person, and many, many times online in the chat room. Three of them were men and two were women. He didn’t think either of the women was Mrs. Lesley Woolfe. The news anchor on television was Gloria Stahl. She was talking about Delilah Franken and her high school sports record.

  “Just make yourselves at home,” said Trudy.

  One of the men turned to the door and waved. He was completely bald and his eyes were jiggly.

  “Hey, Mitch,” he said. “Hey, guys. Everything going okay out there?”

  Stefan smiled. “You know as much as we do.” He walked over and sat down on the arm of the sofa. “More, maybe. What’s she going on about?”

  The woman nearest Stefan rested her hand on his knee and smiled up at him. “The Police Chief’s had another press conference,” she said. “He just did the usual: asked that anyone with information about poor Delilah’s disappearance should call CrimeStoppers. Didn’t have anything new to say.”

  “Well of course he didn’t,” said Trudy. She put her hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. Her thumb touched the back of his neck and he took a sharp breath.

  “Can I go on the computer?” asked Mitchell.

  The woman by Stefan shook her head, but she smiled or seemed to. “Mitchell Owens,” she said, “you are a prize.”

  Trudy’s hand slid off Mitchell’s shoulder and she took him by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll boot it up for you.”

  “I know how,” said Mitchell. But he let her lead him to the sunroom anyway. He stood there for a moment, looking down over the flickering lights — the patterns of brake lights and headlights and signs and window lamps. Mitchell looked back when the computer chimed up to its logon screen.

  “You are a prize,” said Trudy, typing the password which was BLENDER. “Shelly was right about that.”

  “Ah,” said Mitchell. “Shelly.” That was her name.

  Trudy’s eyes flashed again. “Do you like her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Could she — ” Trudy gestured in the air with her hands and looked at the ceiling. “You know.”

  Mitchell blinked. “What do you mean?”

  Now Trudy’s eyes widened and she looked down at him with a tight little slit of a mouth. When she spoke, she whispered like she was shouting.

  “You know what I mean!”

  Mitchell looked over at the computer screen. The wallpaper was new — a scan of Delilah Franken, the one from the police website. Her hair was darker than it should be. She was wearing her graduation gown and she didn’t look comfortable in it. He moused over to the START menu and fired up Photoshop.

  Trudy seemed to calm down. She put her hand on Mitchell’s shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “What are you up to there, Mitchy?”

  “Make her happy.”

  “Oh.” Trudy chuckled. “Well go to it, sport.”

  Mitchell found the JPEG and opened it up. It was a big file and when he zoomed into 100 per cent all he could see was her mouth, a bit of her chin and the bottom of her nose. That was good. It looked like there was a blemish on her chin, maybe some acne because she was so stressed out about graduating, so he cloned some skin from her cheek onto it, then he opened up the Liquify filter and went to work on her mouth. Delilah was one of those girls who smiled like she was sad, with the mouth turned down at the edges. Mitchell fixed that, edging the pixels at the corners up and up and up. Once he was satisfied Delilah was happy enough, he applied the changes and went to work on her hair, which in the picture was a dingy brown. He magnetic-lassoed it with a one-pixel feather then went into Image>Adjustments>Curves, and he lightened it up and improved the contrast so it looked like she had blonde streaks which is how she wore it these days. He liked the idea, but not so much the effect: the feather made the background glow too much around her hair, like a halo. But he didn’t know how to fix it either. So Mitchell left it the way it was and saved it under another file name. He closed it, then he went into File>Open recent and opened it again. He did it again, four times.

  “Wow. She sure is happy.”

  Mitchell took a sharp breath.

  “Really happy.”

  He took his hand away from the mouse.

  “Fucking overjoyed.” Laughter followed. Mitchell turned around.

  The whole party, all seven of them, were there. Shelly was dangling a mostly empty wine glass beside her as she pressed against a skinny grey-haired man, who was leaning against the doorframe beside Stefan, who was bent forward over the back of an office chair, his hands o
n the arm-rests straddling the bare arms of another woman with short dark hair and light-coloured jeans who was sitting there legs crossed, one bare foot with manicured toenails brushing the shoulder of the bald man, who sat on the floor almost cross-legged. Behind them, a blond-haired fellow wearing a black T-shirt stood on his toes to look at the computer screen. Trudy was crouched down beside Mitchell, her hands on the desktop and her chin resting on her knuckles. She looked up at Mitchell.

  “Happy now?” she said. Stefan laughed, Shelly giggled, and that set everyone else off.

  Mitchell looked back at the picture. Delilah smiled back out at him, and he thought he could see why they were laughing. She was smiling wide: too wide, as wide as the Joker did in Batman. As he looked at it now, he saw the problem with that. It was unnatural. Delilah had never smiled that way. Not even in grade school. If she did, why she’d rip her cheeks right off her cheekbones and then there’d be nothing but blood and tears. Mitchell guessed it was pretty funny, seeing Delilah Franken smiling like that.

  He let his breath out.

  “I’m done on the computer,” he said. “Can I have something to eat?”

  Trudy’s knees made a cracking noise as she got up. “Sure thing. Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  The others spread to make a pathway for Trudy and Mitchell out of the sunroom. Looking over his shoulder, he saw that they all gathered around the computer, to get a closer look at the picture he made. Mitchell felt an unfamiliar sense of pride. They were looking at his picture — his work. Even if he hadn’t gotten the hair right, that was something.

  Trudy opened the refrigerator and pulled out a tray covered in Saran wrap. She stood quickly, balancing the tray on the fingertips of one hand while she cocked her hip and planted the other hand there. “Canapes?” she said.

  “Canapés,” said Mitchell. Trudy had pronounced it like Can Apes.