by Sophie Jaff
It’s hard to swallow. “Prints?”
He’s quiet and then, every word an effort, “It might not mean anything.”
But it means something. David would not have called unless it meant something.
My knees grow loose; the bees hum louder. I sit down on the side of the path. The gravel is cold and pricking the undersides of my legs and there are ants. I don’t care.
“Listen,” he says, again. It’s unnecessary now, though, to tell me to listen.
I have never listened harder in my life.
In fact I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t sitting on a gravel road, clutching my phone to my ear.
“I’m on my way now, the moment I heard I rented a car—”
“You think . . .” I find I cannot finish the sentence. “You think . . .”
This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening. This can’t be happening.
He is silent for a moment and then faintly, as if he’s not talking to me now but to himself, “I can’t let it happen again, not after Sara . . .”
“Sara?” My voice is not my own. It is a stranger’s voice, completely disembodied. “What has Sara got to do with this?”
“Katherine,” he says, and his forced calm control makes me want to scream. I will scream in a moment. “Katherine, what did Sael tell you about Sara?”
“He said she was hit by a car.”
On the other end there is only silence.
“David? . . . Hello? . . . Hello? . . .”
Into the void.
“Oh my God.” He is almost inaudible but I can hear his incredulity. “Is that what he told you?” There’s a sickening hint of hope in David’s voice. Please, it begs, please tell me that Sael didn’t tell you this. Please take it back.
Now it’s my turn to answer his question with a question. “What happened to Sara?” There is silence, so I ask it again. “David, what happened to Sara?”
After he tells me, he says again that he will be here soon. He will be here and the police will be here. I must keep calm. I have to keep calm.
The laughter bubbles up. Keep calm. What a fucking joke. He mustn’t know, he mustn’t suspect. Sael my lover, Sael my new fiancé, Sael the Sic—
I laugh and laugh and laugh and—
“Stop it!” David barks, shocking me into silence.
“What do I do?”
“You have to keep calm,” he says again. “You have to act natural.”
No. I cannot do this. My cheeks are wet and that’s how I know I’m crying. Tears leaking out of my eyes, running down my chin. I shake my head as I sit on the cold small stones in the last of the dying sun. I shake my head. No.
“Yes,” says David, as if he can see me. As if he can see me shaking my head. “Yes, you can. I believe in you.”
“I can’t.”
“I believe in you,” he says. “You have to, for me. I know you can do this.”
“I don’t think I can.”
“You will. You will.”
“David.” I cannot speak above a whisper. “Hurry.”
“I am.” There’s a pause and then he says it.
Says it and it’s all I can hold on to.
“I love you,” he says, and is gone.
I am unaware of the stones that cut me, or the ants that trickle around my legs. I don’t hear the miniscule drill of the mosquitoes or the birds as they sing good night.
Spots, black and shimmering.
Please keep in touch.
Let’s run away.
Let us know how we can contact you.
Hands are numb.
Just you and me.
Breathe.
Who had access to your apartment?
Breathe.
Was she involved with anyone?
Breathe.
She was found dead in her bed, dead in her bed, dead in her bed, dead in her—
A wave of gray.
I thought maybe I was emotionally dead.
Spots.
He’s a keeper.
Black spots.
Who had access to your apartment?
Shimmering.
What did Sael tell you about Sara?
Folded over,
There had to be something wrong with me.
knees in the dirt,
The body count has reached twelve.
a searing pain in my gut,
Come to bed, Katherine.
the bitter taste surges up.
Just to sleep.
I guess I went a little crazy.
A hot wave rises,
I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat.
all the delicious breakfast, the plums,
They may have found some prints that matched.
the dark-skinned plums. I will never eat plums again.
Let’s get out of here.
They’ve been trying to get hold of him for at least two days.
I think women felt it too.
Splattering the gravel,
The police say they’ve been trying him, that it just goes to voice mail.
behind the tree trunk, on all fours,
We strongly advise that you stay in touch at all times.
up and up,
Will you wear this, now and forever and always?
retching, shaking and shaking and retching until
Just you and me.
nothing is left in my body, there’s nothing left to be sick with.
You and your roommate, it doesn’t fit his pattern.
The stink and misery of it all. Kneeling in the dirt, head down and pounding.
“Sara was murdered,” David had said. “She was found dead in their apartment, and her killer was never caught.”
Hours, maybe years, later, I stand up, wiping my mouth clean as best I can. I rub my eyes. I’m freezing. Night has descended while I was here. Already the stars are prickling out at the edges of the sky. The crickets are loud. I round the bend in the path and, as if from a great distance, see the lights in the cabin windows. I see the lights and I know.
He’s home.
The Maiden of Morwyn Castle | PART NINE
Y AND BY, SIR AUGUST CAME TO THEIR chamber, eager to join his new bride upon their wedding night, but he found no bride, no one at all, only a pile of white feathers upon the floor and an empty cup with the remnants of thin blue dregs. He thought of the Maiden and her brews, and cried, “There is witchery and treachery here!”
And as he opened his mouth to raise the alarm, so the peal of bells rang out over the servants’ calls of “Fire!”
The terrible flames roared through the halls of the castle. And it was said the fire was a brilliant green, and blue and black, and that the very flames reared back and hissed like snakes and slithered and raged among the ramparts and would not be doused. Knights and servants ran to and fro as the fire consumed all in its way, but most of the wedding party were burned to death for they could not be awakened, no matter how they were shaken or beseeched. But not a hair upon the lord’s head was harmed and he believed it to be because the brooch that he wore was blessed and that it had protected him, and from thenceforth swore he would never take it off. And as dawn broke the fire died down and smoldered, at last, to an end. Then the lord decreed that all must search for his bride in every chamber of Morwyn Castle and in every neigh-boring house till she was discovered, and that the Maiden must be brought to him in iron chains to answer for her wickedness.
Alas, the Maiden had disappeared along with the bride and neither was ever seen again.
Part Three
23
Live in the moment. Live in the now. Live each day as though it were your last. There is no day like today. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Life is a journey, not a destination. Forever is composed of nows.
You do not rush to joyful red. Instead you let each moment linger there upon your tongue before you swallow, each bead of caviar complete, each throatful of oyster sweet.
Finally, finally, she blazes red. The dandelion is delicate within its fragile fullness; you pause before you purse your lips to blow. You take your time before you step into the darkness.
She sits, holding his hand. Then she sees you standing still. Oh, beloved, oh, my Katherine. She thinks that you have not seen her, you are so quiet.
“Here!” she whispers. It’s a stage whisper, stretched and tight, one word carrying the weight of a thousand cries, strained to breaking point.
As if you could not smell her a mile away. As if you could not see her, your chosen one, in the dark. As if she did not flame as red as the core of the earth. There is doubt and fear and horror but they do not sway her as they once did; still, she burns bright. Still, she is red.
“Here,” and she waves with a wild gesture. It is a wave of a sailor on a sinking ship in a storm-tossed sea, although it is the height of a summer night and there is not even the littlest breeze to lift a strand of her hair.
She does not call loudly. She is fearful of waking him. She is fearful of not waking him.
“Here,” she says and she calls to you, calls what she thinks is your name.
She wonders why you are not running, not frantic.
You smile in the dark as you start up the wooden stairs to the little deck. The corners of your lips, where the muscles pull, cradle the knowledge that soon she will know you by your real name. Your lips are full, are filled with kisses kept for her, and the ends of your lips curl again because finally you see her, and because finally it is time.
Because you are ready, you take your time in climbing up the steps. It does no good to rush.
Now you have reached the top of the stairs and you see him stretched out, even in sleep grasping her hand. It is strange to her that you do not fall to your knees at once to help her. It is strange, your measured walk, your air of calm.
Yes, this is love. Her touch, touching. You bend down to examine him. The man whose hand she holds.
“Thank God,” she says. “Thank God you’re here.”
The irony is unbearably lovely.
“I didn’t know what to do.” She is defensive. “I drugged him with my pills. Some that I take, for anxiety and to sleep.” She reels off the names. “I’m scared that I gave him too much. Oh my God”—now pleading—“what are we going to do?”
We. We, and now you are a we. Despite everything that has passed, she thinks you are bonded together by fear and necessity.
“I didn’t know what to do.” She’s crying. She’s trying to hold on to what is real. Safety in patterns, perhaps she feels there is more truth in repetition.
“You did the right thing.”
“You think so?”
“Absolutely.”
“Yes?”
It is beautiful to be honest with her, and truly she did do what was right, for you. You stand up and look out over the railing. “It’s so peaceful here,” you say.
She wonders why you are admiring the scenery when your greatest friend, outed as a monster, lies drugged and the police are on their way. She doesn’t understand. She will, though.
“What are you talking about?” she says. Her voice is growing louder with panic. “What do we do? Where are the police?”
You do not answer.
“David, you said the police were on their way!”
You did say that.
“David?” She walks up to you, grabs your arm.
You turn around slowly to face her. “Katherine.”
“David!” She thinks she has your attention again. As if she had ever lost it. “David, what do we do?”
“Come here,” you say.
You pull her in. You hug her tight.
For a moment she allows herself to relax. You are tall and firm; you smell warm and clean and sure. You know her so well. You’re strong and there; you’ll know what to do.
You do.
You wish time could freeze like this: the night, the moon cool and watchful over the lake, the lover sleeping, your beloved’s face pressed just underneath your collarbone. The perfect place for weeping.
“Katherine?” you ask as you rock her gently, gently.
“Yes?” She sniffs.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
She’s unsure but willing to be comforted. “Yes, David?”
You bend forward and, savoring each syllable, tell her, “That is not my name.”
“What?” She pulls a little apart, still in your arms, to look up into your face. She hasn’t heard you. She’s exhausted, emotionally spent, worn and ragged. She didn’t hear you.
You smile down, down into her tear-streaked face. Your voice is low and loving and a little regretful. Saying good-bye is hard, but greeting the new is joyful. “I have not been David for a while now.”
“David, what are you talking about?”
This time there is a tiny spark, the copper taste, a dawning. Blinking up through her tears, she tries to focus on you. You, the man she knows as David Balan, so calm, so kind, so faithful coming to her aid even after her betrayal, who loves her still.
You lean over and whisper who you are. You bend down and gently form the words with your lips against the cup of her ear, the name she’ll know you by.
The name you have been given, an ancient name, a heavy and splattered cloak hemmed with red, encrusted. You name yourself.
It is not disappointing, this moment. The moment of knowledge.
And Eve took of the fruit and ate it and knew of her nakedness.
The moment of understanding. Not full and true understanding, not yet, but the first realization of who you are. And before she can stiffen or draw breath to cry out, your hands press on those very special and sensitive places on her neck, an ancient technique from the East that has served you well throughout the centuries. No drugs for her, no dregs of wine or chemicals to alter, disturb, or corrupt and
her eyes roll back to whites,
her eyelids close, the red velvet curtain
sweeping down over
the first tumultuous act. You hold
the full weight of her lolling,
boneless.
You hold her.
Your love. Your life. Your beginning, your end, now finally in your arms.
You sigh. You wish you could stand here longer, but you have promises to keep and miles before you go to sleep.
After all, there is much to be done.
24
Head.
Head hurts.
My head really hurts.
My head really hurts and I’m cold. I pull up the blanket.
There is no blanket. I’m on the floor, naked on the floor.
My eyelids are heavy.
Light hurts my eyes.
Blinks.
Red blurs.
Blinks.
Red toenail polish.
Bare toes.
Feet.
There’s a young woman crouching next to me, staring down. Strands of her long black hair are matted against her forehead and against her cheek; thin gold hoops dangle from her ears. She wears a mint-green dress, sleeveless and marbled with blood; a strap has been cut to reveal one full striated breast hanging splattered, bare and heavy.
I open my mouth.
The young woman puts one finger to her flaking blue lips.
Shhh.
Cocks her head toward the sliding glass door where the moonlight is shining in.
Downstairs.
I sit up.
I can’t.
My head is full of jagg
ed glass and stones.
I try to sit up.
Slowly.
Where are my clothes?
She beckons with her finger; her nail polish is red.
Come.
My legs are shaky,
Trembling.
I reach,
Push on the couch, push myself up.
Standing naked.
Strands of rope fall down.
She crooks her finger.
Come.
I follow her toward the door. She is quiet. I stare at the shape carved into the pale brown skin of her shoulder, two wavy vertical lines enclosed in a half-moon. Its crusty contours are mesmerizing, oozing black trails down her back.
She points out through the sliding door leading to the deck.
She dissolves through the glass, stands on the other side. Beckons.
Come!
The glass is solid against my palms.
I pull at the sliding door. I pull and pull but there is no strength in my hands; my fingertips slip and slide with sweat. The girl is looking through the glass, eyes widening, opening her hands in the universal gesture of
Hurry up!
With all my strength I pull but I can only manage a thin crack. I close my eyes and pull; then it’s a wedge. Not enough room to squeeze through but she’s desperate now, her mouth open in silent call:
Come!
I have to.
One leg.
Ass.
Torso, breast.
Shoulder.
Neck, face, cheek scraped.
Head.
Other leg.
Scraping the side of the door.
Pain, burning.
Through.
Outside on the deck.
It’s cold.
Breeze against bare skin.
Cold.
Sael lies motionless.
I move toward him.
A figure sitting next to him looks up.
Her plump face seems familiar, although it’s drained of color and almost yellow. Something that looks like it was once blue sweatpants clings darkly to her thighs. Her gray sports bra is stiff and dark with greenish flecks of vomit or bile, and one lace in her splattered sneaker is untied. A thick black gash runs across her throat. Around the folds of her navel is a crusted triangle, each of its points enclosed by a smaller circle.
