Sacrifice

by Edward Lee

  The basement, she recognized at once. Wood steps led down into the half-light. Next thing Holly knew, she was descending.

  Each stair creaked as she placed a bare foot upon it. Each stair felt warm—much warmer, in fact, than the upstairs flooring. She took slow, careful steps, not just in an effort to keep quiet, but because she still felt half drunk from all the Scotch she’d poured into herself earlier. Her hand grasped the wood banister to steady herself through each step. Once she made it to the bottom she was standing in a dim cone of light, from a single hanging bulb above her.

  The basement looked sepulchral. Uneven stone slabs formed the walls, rather than conventional bricks, the gaps between each oozing long-hardened yellowed mortar. The stones looked stained, as if once covered by fungus or lichens. Narrow windows, only six or eight inches high, were set just under the ceiling, a foot higher than the top of Holly’s head. When she looked up she could see the thoroughness with which the house had been renovated. The original rafters of the floor joists remained but accompanied by newly installed joists as reinforcement, and several brand-new post footings had been set up from cement blocks, for further support. The place must’ve cost a fortune to refurbish this completely.

  What was obviously a new wall stood at the basement’s farthest end, and a plain door, barely discernible in the light offered from the single, bare bulb. But forward of this she could see all the typical basement sundries. Moving crates and large boxes. Some of the boxes sat opened; some remained tied closed. Sheeted shapes stood in a line along the left wall, furniture, no doubt, covered to keep the dust off. But one object remained uncovered: an old brass-railed floor mirror, its oval glass tilted slightly in its bracket and frame. Holly couldn’t help but frown at the reflection of herself, the dark figure, disheveled hair, face drained from her previous indulgence with alcohol. She looked like a rag-tag ghost from some purple-prosed Victorian fable, a revenant. A silent haunter of the dark…

  She didn’t bother investigating the other end of the basement. It was too dark, and probably the same as the rest, just dead space filled with the things Alice had no use for but didn’t have the heart to get rid of. Holly’s dry mouth beckoned her afresh; the horn toad that was her tongue was even drier now, so she turned and prepared to get back upstairs.

  And stopped.

  How odd, she thought.

  What snagged her attention just as she would have left was a gap of some sort. Right there in the stone wall.

  Holly stepped forward, to look more closely.

  Yes, there was a gap in the wall…

  And it was then that she noticed old pieces of wood planking mortared in between some of the walls’ flat stones, like filler. But one of the planks had been removed.

  Holly put her finger in the gap, for no real reason. The plank itself, which had once filled it, lay right here atop a tall cardboard moving box. She picked up the errant piece of wood, looked at it then. It felt strangely light, perhaps from sheer age; obviously an original installment of the watch house. Something had been engraved in its face, she realized, when she ran her finger across it.

  But she couldn’t really see it. The light was too dim over by the wall.

  She walked over to the center of the basement, then examined the board directly under the light.

  Yes, it was a word engraved on the board, as she’d suspected.

  SCR1MM, she read.

  Scrimm?

  What did that mean?

  It was probably nothing of any significance at all but interesting nonetheless. Scrimm.

  Then Holly went back and put the board on top of the box where she’d found it, and—

  Noticed something else.

  In the gap from which the board had obviously been extracted, she could see another piece of similar planking. What the hell, she thought, and replaced her fingers in the gap.

  She pulled against it, against the board’s edge, and in just a few moments it began to slide out of the embedded mortar.

  She yanked it out in increments; the wood was old, and it was just short of being crumbly. She didn’t want to break it, but—for a reason she could not discern—she wanted to dig the entire piece, intact, out of the wall.

  And when she did, she held it next to the first board and saw that their edges fit together perfectly, not two separate planks but the same plank broken in the middle.

  She took them both under the light, still holding them together, and read the complete engraving:

  H.M.S. SCRIMM

  ««—»»

  Alice felt at odds with…something.

  Well, actually, the something was herself, though it took her the rest of the morning to realize that.

  After Holly left Alice picked up the house, not that it really needed it. Lately, though, it seemed that keeping the house in perfect order was something she did automatically, as though the house were really a loved one, an infirm grandparent whose love summoned constant attention. Alice enjoyed picking up the house, fussing with pictures, readjusting the sashes on the drapes. It had become akin to a ritual. And besides, the man from the newspaper was supposed to come by at around five; he said they’d like to run five good pictures of the watch house for a special feature they were doing about the city’s historic houses. Alice wanted everything to be perfect, which was reasonable, but even after she knew everything was in order she continued diddling around, making last-minute changes and rearrangements. Maybe I’m just bored, she considered, but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t bored with her life anymore; she was content, satisfied.

  She opened the refrigerator, leaning over, and picked several pieces of maroon tuna out of Holly’s leftover sushi, leaving the rice. Dieting had never been this easy, either; some cog inside her had finally turned, shifting her willpower’s gears. Before, she would snack when she was unhappy, or feeling unfulfilled (which was most of the time); hence, the extra pounds that seemed to have plagued her for her entire adult life. This surprise weight loss seemed to feed her spirit, and vice versa. Though she’d never really been outright overweight, she’d always been plump, but now that the plumpness had vanished; she felt certain it would never return.

  So much of her life had turned around so quickly; it almost astonished her. But why? she wondered now, munching the last piece of tuna. To what did she owe this new and proverbial lease on life?

  Holly? she wondered. Holly’s counseling?

  She shrugged. This didn’t feel right as an answer. She was grateful for Holly’s efforts, but—

  Why don’t I give myself some credit for a change? she thought next. And what was wrong with that? For as long as she could remember, her vacant self-esteem had kept her feeling buried, such that she had no confidence left at all. Again, she thought of one thing feeding the other, and this applied to her so clearly. Her poor view of herself only continued to feed the same poor view, getting it fat. But now that was all gone—it even seemed alien to her, as though thinking back on it was really thinking back about someone else, not her. Why be so quick all the time to look to others? She pulled herself out of her doldrums on her own, with her own fortitude. Not Holly’s, not someone else’s. It was Alice’s own reassessment of herself that had reinstalled her vitality.

  But there was a problem right now, wasn’t there?

  Problems, she thought, closing the door to the fridge.

  The cold air gusted into her face.

  The problem was Holly.

  Not so much Holly’s strange, erratic behavior last night—that, actually, had nothing to do with the ponderings that had been bothering Alice since yesterday when the psychiatrist had first come over. Certainly, Holly’s drinking, and her getting sick, was something to draw concern—such a sudden lack of self-control and simple common sense was not like Holly at all. Everyone lost control sometimes, everyone made mistakes, and certainly Alice had made plenty herself in her life.

  It was something else.

  She supposed she’d noticed it all along, even last s
pring when she’d first started coming to Holly for counseling.

  But she couldn’t deny any of it now, could she?

  All those looks, all those side glances and gestures. Vocal gestures, too; body language and turns of phrase. Holly wore an aspect of herself like a heavy garment, but now the garment was fraying. Too many times of late, Alice had noticed it immediately: a broken look in Holly’s eyes that was nearly crush-like.

  The way a schoolgirl looks at a boy she likes but is too insecure to let on.

  She’s attracted to me, Alice finally, objectively announced to herself. My psychiatrist is physically— sexually—attracted to me…

  She’d be fooling herself to deny it, and she knew she’d been doing just that, fooling herself, for all this time.

  She knew why, of course. The very idea, for any number of reasons, seemed absolutely absurd. Alice knew she was heterosexual—something that couldn’t be denied, considering her most recent bedroom exploits—and she’d never once felt physically attracted to a woman. She didn’t even understand it, had never even really thought about it…

  So…why did I do…what I did? she finally, and quite boldly, asked herself then.

  It wasn’t particularly significant; she really hadn’t even thought about it, not consciously—she just…did it.

  It had been yesterday, early evening, just when Holly had arrived for the sushi. Alice had been taking a shower…

  She’d just stepped out, was drying off…

  She’d left the bathroom door partly open, too, something she never did. Maybe it was simply because she was in a hurry; she didn’t want to keep Holly waiting.

  Maybe.

  And when she’d been drying off from the shower she’d noticed that Holly was standing just inside the bathroom. And what else was Holly doing? She was staring at Alice’s reflection in the full-length dressing mirror…

  Standing there, yes. And staring—

  At Alice’s naked reflection.

  And even in the double-reflection Alice could see that ever-familiar glint in the psychiatrist’s eyes, a glint of longing, a glint of sexual longing.

  Even a glint of love.

  Her first impulse was to close the door, or to step back farther behind the partially opened door to conceal herself.

  But…

  Alice did neither of those things. What she did instead was this: She acted as though she didn’t notice. And she went about slowly drying her nude body with the towel, even turning every so often, bending over and stretching, in order to—

  In order to what?

  To give Holly a better look at me, Alice had no choice now but to admit. I was doing it all on purpose, wasn’t I? I was titillating her, teasing her…

  Yes. But why? Why did I do that?

  The answer came all too plainly.

  She’d done it on purpose. She’d even left both the bedroom and bathroom doors open on purpose, she realized. She’d hoped that it would happen, and when it did…

  I wanted Holly to see me there, nude. I wanted to excite her…

  And that got her thinking just then, about Holly, about herself.

  About a lot of things.

  ««—»»

  Oh, Stevie! You bad, bad boy!

  It had become something of a habit now, and an intense anticipation. Waiting for the late newspaper, The Evening Capital, to arrive at his doorstep.

  He’d actually been pacing his apartment, glancing out the slider every few minutes. The paper truck always parked right out front before the kid got out and made his deliveries to each building. It was like waiting for a check that he knew was in the mail.

  It was like waiting for…good news.

  And when it had come Steve snatched it up and was, only moments later, back in his kitchen, flipping excitedly through the county news section.

  And there it was:

  COUNTY COUNCILMAN CLARENCE MULLINS’ WIFE AND NIECE RAPED, MURDERED.

  Right there on the front page of the county section. The headliner, in giant type.

  Steve read the article in a nearly giggly enthusiasm. The lofty journalist had detailed the crime and then elaborated upon the total tragedy. This was the third and fourth such burglary-related atrocity in a week. The police were convinced it was the same man, and they were also convinced—even better—that it was a white man. Wow, Steve thought. Such technology in law enforcement today! County police evidence technicians were able to positively determine the perpetrator’s racial origins by a “fusiformal” analysis of several pubic hairs found on the crime scene. Got to be careful with those short and curlies, Steve thought. They’d even blood-typed the rapist/killer’s semen, no doubt found in abundance, and had sent a sample to some Chicago crime lab for “a genetic-profile workup.” Good luck, boys, Steve thought. You can type my peckersnot and analyze my pubes till you’re blue in the face, and it won’t give you shit. He knew he hadn’t left a single fingerprint in the joint because he was wearing gloves. Steve always wore gloves. It enthused him further to know that thousands and thousands of dollars of taxpayer money was being spent to forensically process evidence for absolutely nothing.

  And then the article ran on about the kid, the niece. Sixteen years old, it said she was. Steve felt really bad about this—

  For all of about thirty seconds.

  What a kick that had been! Steve loved surprises, and that had been one hell of a surprise. He had no idea the kid was even in the house; he supposed he should have staked out the place better. Make a note of that, he reminded himself. But, seriously, kiddies. Next time ol’ Steve is raping and murdering your moms…stay in your room! Steve’s head tossed back, he laughed loud and hard.

  He’d taken his time with the girl. She was cherry, too; he felt her pop once he got her tied down and was rolling. Some nice, slow, gentle lovemaking, yes sir! And then—

  BAM!

  —popped her a good one with Mrs. Mullins’s big boat anchor of a gun. The shot had blown the top of the kid’s head clean off, kind of like taking the lid off a jar of peanut butter, and had completely emptied her cranial vault. He didn’t really want to kill her, but what choice did he have?

  Then he’d gone back into the bedroom and taken care of the woman, who still lay on the bed, paralyzed from Steve’s previous spine shot. He’d given her a last tumble and then popped her in the ear with his .25—a 25-caliber lobotomy, you might say—and that was the end of her career with the department of education, huh?

  He’d gotten out quick after that, had snagged the little bit of jewelry she had and both laptops. A half hour later he was back home, having a beer and watching Nymphoid Barbarian in a Dinosaur Hell on the USA Network. Steve liked the hostess, some blond chick with big tits.

  This morning he’d stopped by Charlie’s and bagged almost two grand for the goods. That big revolver turned out to be a high-priced antique, a Webley .455. He could’ve sold it in the want-ads for about five-hundred-dollars, but that would’ve been pretty stupid. Besides, Steve wanted to keep it. He was sentimental.

  Next, the article mentioned some other recent murders in the area: some happy-go-lucky private-contract plumber—found dead in a ravine off Governor’s Bridge road—and that local cartoonist—found dead in a Dumpster with his guts cut out, behind some restaurant. Steve was pissed. Hey, don’t blame those murders on me ’cos I didn’t do ’em. I ain’t takin’ the rap for some other guy’s work. Then the oyster-brained journalist, of course, had ended the article by blaming the availability of handguns. Oh, man, this is so great! Steve reveled. If handgun ownership was illegal, this chucklehead writer was saying, there’d be no crime, there’d be no murders! What a bunch of idiots!

  Yeah, that’s right! Disarm a nation of 260 million because ten thousand people get murdered every year, and another five thousand fucked-up teenagers kill themselves listening to Judas Priest and Black Sabbath! Sure, sure! Sounds good to me, gang!

  Shit, the only chance in the world that the black woman had of surviving was
that big Webley .455 in her hand. And if she hadn’t had that big piece—

  I would’ve killed her any-fucking-way! So there’s your gun control, buddy!

  What a wonderful world! Steve thought.

  And he knew it would be even more wonderful, just a few nights from now, when he did the job again.

  — | — | —

  26

  What a spoiler.

  Alice had felt so good of late.

  And now this.

  She didn’t feel good now, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was Holly, all Holly. Alice had thought about the shower incident all day and now into the early evening, and she just couldn’t come to grips with it. She wasn’t blaming Holly—no. There was only one person to blame, and that person was—

  Alice Sterling, she thought.

  But why would she do something like that? Deliberately expose herself to a woman; moreover, a woman who she knew was attracted to her?

  I’m not attracted to Holly. I’m not attracted to women. I’m not a lesbian, Alice felt certain.

  So—

  Maybe I’ve just got a case of the guilts, she considered next. But even that didn’t make much sense.

  Why feel guilty about something she was unfamiliar with? The idea of lesbianism—along with the image: two women making love—didn’t bother her at all. In this day and age such things were acknowledged without a second thought, weren’t they? So why should she care? Why should she feel guilty, for God’s sake?

  By her own assessment of the problem, there was nothing to feel guilty about.

  Or perhaps—

  Perhaps I just feel bad about taking advantage of another person’s feelings, she thought then, sitting in the den, watching the clock. And it was taking advantage, wasn’t it? It had to be. She knew now that Holly was attracted to her, yet Alice had not acknowledged—and she felt positive that she never would acknowledge—that certainty. So why had she done it? Why had she knowingly exposed her body to her psychiatrist?