The Glittering World

by Robert Levy

  “Congratulations,” Stanley said. “You just sold a house.” He handed Blue his copy of the contracts, as well as a large packet from the estate lawyer. “And last but not least,” he added, producing a separate envelope, “the cashier’s check. Keep an eye on that, it’s like cash.”

  Blue, without thought, slid the envelope into his breast pocket and opened the passenger door. He tentatively touched the toe of his boot to the road, afraid that something might reach up and grab him, pull him down into the earth like Amy Irving at the end of Carrie. His mind stuttered: at once he thirsted for the truth behind the newspaper clippings, and the memories that had surfaced in the basement. But a moment later he wished it would all just go away. I should have listened to my mother, he thought, and the words hummed in his head as he headed up to the house. I should have listened. The knowing and the not-knowing was splitting him in two.

  He made his way toward the MacLeod House, Gabe’s halo of blond curls visible over the porch railing. Halfway up the hill, Blue whipped out his cellphone and dialed his mother’s number in New York. It took three tries for the call to finally connect.

  “It’s me,” he said. His voice was flat, that of a stranger. “It’s Michael.”

  “Mickey? What is it, baby?” his mother croaked; she sounded sicker than ever. “What’s wrong?”

  “What happened to me, Mama?” How long it had been since he called her that, since he cried out for her the way he had in that basement, so many years ago. “When I was little? When I was taken? What happened to me? Who took me? Do you know?”

  “Where are you?”

  “The cove. I’m here, in Starling Cove.”

  “Oh. Oh, my baby boy. Why did you go back there?” She stifled a cough, blew her nose, and wept. He buried his face in his free hand, the paperwork from the sale pinched beneath his elbow, as the photo album had been not one hour earlier. “It’s not what you think,” she said meekly. “You came back to me. To the world.”

  “Did I?” He was crying now himself. “Are you sure?”

  “She lured you, Mickey. I told you! She lured you back, just like I knew she would. Even dead she won’t leave it alone. Even dead . . .”

  “Mama, what am I?” he said. “Tell me what I am.”

  “An angel, baby. You’re my little angel. Always have been, always will be.”

  we

  are not

  of the fallen

  A voice in his head, spoken in the otherwords.

  though

  we

  have been called

  many things

  “Mickey?” his mother said. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” he said, numb. “I’m here.”

  we

  have always been

  here

  The voice was no longer solitary but part of a chorus of voices, a multilayered incantation. Blue’s vision began to refract, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

  here

  before the first traveler

  here

  with only

  the sound

  of rushing wind

  and buzzing bees

  and insects that

  burrow and bite

  and so

  we

  shall always be

  It was the greatest truth Blue had ever known.

  “Fly back,” his mother was saying, but it was hard to hear her, interference jamming the line. Or was that the sound of the voices in his head? “Hurry back to . . . and we can be . . . again.” She coughed and inhaled. “You were never supposed . . . I knew it would hurt, when you finally . . . I just didn’t know how much.”

  “Hello? Mom? Can you hear me?”

  She said something else but it was garbled, an onslaught of digital scratches and pings.

  “Listen, I’m losing you,” he said. “If you can still hear me, I’ll call you from the landline.”

  Blue wiped his face, filled his lungs with great big gasps of air, and let his breath erode the thoughts racing through his mind. A histrionic jolt of opera music thundered from one of the small cabins beside the trail, and he reflexively looked heavenward. Clear skies. He took another minute to collect himself before continuing up the hill.

  “So, how did it go?” asked Gabe, rocking on the porch swing with his feet upon the railing. “What was the house like?”

  “Nothing special.” Blue was shivering; unable to look Gabe in the eye, he stared out at the cove instead. “It was a dump. You didn’t miss anything.”

  “Was it two stories? Did you walk around the property? Is it really on ten acres? I want details.”

  “Yes, no, yes. Nondescript, really. Kind of depressing. I signed the papers, so it doesn’t much matter anymore. Happy?” That Gabe tried and failed so miserably to hide his injured pride melted right through Blue’s hastily erected armor. “Sorry. I just . . . I guess I’m weirded out by being up here.”

  Don’t tell, he heard; was this his mother’s voice, now? Don’t even tell yourself.

  “Going into my dead grandmother’s house,” Blue hedged, “when I never got around to seeing her alive? It’s a shitty feeling.”

  “I wish you had let us go with you,” Gabe said. “Just to, you know, support you.”

  “That would have been smarter. Thanks.” Blue moved next to the swing but couldn’t bring himself to sit, so he dropped the contracts from the sale down in his stead. “I don’t belong here,” he said, and it was as if someone else had spoken through him, made him say the words. “I have to go.”

  “So we’ll go,” Gabe said, his blue eyes brilliant with empathy. “We’re out of here. Tomorrow.”

  But that wasn’t what Blue meant. He didn’t belong in New York, either. And he didn’t know where in the world to go next.

  “It’s beautiful here,” he managed to say. “Almost painfully so, you know? But I’m ready to get the hell gone.” And never look back.

  A loud crash echoed down the hill. Gabe jumped up, and Blue looked to the road to see if there’d been a smashup. There was another crash, and then another, a clatter like glass breaking, only duller and coming from Maureen’s studio. A figure emerged: Donald, arms flailing and disoriented, the glint of the setting sun caught in the squares of his eyeglasses before he disappeared back inside. Another racket ensued, the sound of more pottery being shattered, until Donald reappeared and staggered down the path into one of the small cabins on the far side of the drive.

  “What is he doing?” Gabe said. “Should we do something?”

  The screen door of the MacLeod House flew open. Jason rushed down the porch stairs in a half stride, half jog, face grim with his eyes fixed on the cabin down the hill. Elisa, barefooted, followed soon after, Gabe and Blue along with her. The three struggled to keep up, as if they were merely bouncing along yet another hiking trail with Jason as their intrepid guide.

  “Donald?” Jason called out as he entered the cabin. “Donald, are you all right?”

  Blue and the others stood in the doorway, the subdued light at dusk doing little to illuminate the forlorn space. Donald sat in an office chair, hunched between a framed poster from a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe and an open rolltop desk, which held what looked like a ham radio. He combed the fingers of one hand through his thinning gray hair, while the other clutched a book, the words Entomologia Generalis, Vol. II printed in gold on its cracked purple cover. His bird dog, Olivier, ran against Donald’s trouser legs, first one side, then the other, a figure eight of brown fur. Jason placed a gentle hand upon the older man’s shoulder and crouched to whisper in his ear.

  “I hear you,” Donald replied. “But there’s only so much time I have left.” He removed his glasses, resting them upon the book. His voice was weak and feverish; he appeared newly ancient. “I can’t find the hive without my memories. My . . . maps? Is that what they’re called? They were penciled inside one of my books. But this is the wrong volume. And it’s all going now . . .” He pressed his eyes clo
sed and shook his head. “They’re only going to grab what they want and be gone, so how can I ever find my way back now? There’s smoke on the air already . . .”

  Donald looked up at them. He squinted into the light before his eyes went wide and his jaw slackened. Returning his glasses to his face, he stood and covered his mouth. He was staring directly at Elisa, framed in the light of the doorway. “Barbara?” he said, his voice aquiver.

  He reached out to her, hand trembling. The dog barked and darted across the floorboards, unsettling a frayed throw rug. “You’re back,” Donald said. “They sent you back for me . . .”

  “Oh. No. I’m—” Elisa tried to back away, but was trapped against Blue and Gabe on either side of her.

  Donald’s shoulders heaved, and he withdrew his hand as if he’d touched it to a hot stove. “Don’t!” he shouted, and let out an anguished moan as he lurched toward her. “Don’t leave me here!”

  Elisa swallowed hard, then went to him, taking Donald in her arms. He fell against her, and the two of them slid to the ground. He sobbed as she rubbed his back. She shushed him, rocked him like a child with night terrors. Blue thought of the word sundowning.

  “It’s okay,” Elisa said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’m here.”

  The dog, hungry for inclusion in their circle of two, nuzzled against Elisa, and settled its snout on her calves. They remained in place until Maureen, frantic and soaking wet in a towel, came hurtling across the lawn. “Where is he?” she cried. “Did you see him?” She crossed the threshold and froze at the sight of Elisa and Donald in their tender pietà.

  After an uncomfortable silence, she stepped inside and helped Donald up and out of Elisa’s arms. “Darling, we’re going to take a bath now,” she said firmly. “Come with me to the house.” Donald nodded, a reluctant acceptance.

  As she walked him out with her arm around his bony frame, she peered at Elisa over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Blue and the others left the cabin in a ghostly silence. The sun had fully set and it was immeasurably darker, as if a curtain had been drawn across the sky. Halfway up the hill Elisa sneezed, then lagged behind; closer to the house she wavered and pressed a closed fist to her chest.

  “Shit,” she said. “The dog . . .”

  Blue moved toward her, as did Jason, who knocked into Blue in his haste. “Are you all right?” Jason asked her.

  “I’m fine.” But then Elisa sneezed again, so hard that she began to cough.

  Jason placed a hand on her back. “Why don’t you just take a minute to catch your breath.”

  “Because I don’t want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes?” she snapped, and shrugged him off. “I said I’m fine. Let’s just go inside.”

  But she wasn’t fine. It was clear an hour later that close proximity to Donald’s dog had cost her. Elisa curled up with a week-old gossip magazine, prone beneath a quilt on the couch. Blue put a pot on the stove and assembled the makings of a broth, something he could brew with garlic and herbs as a restorative, Elisa’s wheezing audible from the kitchen.

  It helped to keep busy: as long as he was at the stove, Blue needn’t think about anything else, and could at least feign a sense of calm. Jason, on the other hand, was visibly restive and at a total loss for what to do, having already foisted tea and Benadryl upon Elisa; it was as if Donald’s manic agitation had gone airborne. Elisa, for her part, seemed to refuse Jason’s care with an almost perverse sense of withholding, until his level veneer began to blister and crack.

  “You swore to me you were going to get an EpiPen.” It occurred to Blue that he’d never heard Jason raise his voice in anger before, and certainly not toward Elisa. “If it’s not too late, maybe I can find you one in—”

  “I don’t need you to find me one!” she shouted between long wheezes; the sickly sound of her voice reminded Blue of his mother and their thwarted conversation. “Stop infantilizing me,” Elisa rasped. “I can take care of myself.”

  “But you can’t!” And there Jason was, authentically shouting, his soothing therapeutic disposition evaporated. Welcome to the other side, Blue thought, but quickly admonished himself. Gabe emptied the dishwasher, gathered wood for a fire, borrowed Blue’s lighter to hide out on the porch so he could smoke the end of a joint, all to avoid the mounting tension. Blue wanted desperately to join him, but was too wary of risking the crossfire in the living room.

  “I wish you could take care of yourself,” Jason muttered.

  “Leave me alone already.” She waved him away. With a groan and an exasperated thrash of his arms, Jason stormed upstairs, his indecipherable grumblings scarcely audible before he slammed a door somewhere overhead.

  After another minute of wheeze-tinged silence, Elisa sat up. “Too mean?”

  “What?” Blue said. “You? Never.” She smiled and winced, slid her small frame down the couch. “How are you feeling?”

  “Honestly? Pretty lousy. Consumptive, even.” She took a sip of tea and used the mug to warm her hands. “Goddamn allergies. Can’t take me anywhere.”

  “It was for a good cause, though. You were really sweet with Donald.”

  “Maybe that’s why I’m acting like such a bitch. I must have used up what little charm I had left.”

  “You want some more tea?”

  “No, thanks. But you can run me a hot bath. A good soak might do the trick.”

  “Sure.” A saucepan on the stove began to bubble angrily, and he turned down the flame. “You mind if I ask Jason? He’s begging to be of use.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  After Jason ran the tub, he escorted Elisa to the bathroom and hurried back down to the kitchen. “Blue, listen. I phoned the pharmacy in Baddeck. They have EpiPens there, and we don’t need a prescription. Normally I wouldn’t feel the need to manage her, but she’s just being so stubborn.” Blue looked up at the ceiling, unsure of where this was going. “I’m just going to make a fast run into town and pick it up. That way, if she’s not feeling better in an hour or so . . . Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “No worries. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  Shortly after Jason headed out to the car, Gabe popped in from the porch and placed Blue’s paperwork from the house sale down on the dining room table. “Hey, I’m going to ride into town with him. Is that okay? He looks like he could use the company.”

  “Of course.” Blue was consumed with peeling, chopping, paring; as long as he was at work, nothing could be wrong. Not when he had the cashier’s check in his pocket and could leave this place behind. Tomorrow, he thought. Just hang on until tomorrow. “We’ll be fine. I’ll have dinner ready and waiting.”

  Once Gabe and Jason left, the house fell coolly silent. Donald’s tantrum and Elisa’s subsequent allergy attack had been enough to temporarily forestall the inescapable, but the nauseated feeling that had surfaced in his grandmother’s basement came roaring back. Worst of all, it made some sort of sick sense: Blue remembered so little of his life before leaving Cape Breton that he must have wiped his memory clean, his nightmares the only trace he had failed to extinguish.

  Not even cooking could distract him. He was suddenly alone, and afraid, and above all cold. Gooseflesh raised along his arms, and a chill settled in from an unearthed slab of ice deep inside his chest. He struck a kitchen match and set fire to the pile Gabe had prepped in the woodstove, newspaper and kindling aflame as the bittersweet scent of cedar smoke permeated the room. He thought about calling his mother back, but the prospect seemed too daunting. She would simply lie to him, the way she always had. Anything to keep him tied to her. She had said it best, after all: he was her little angel, and always would be.

  After a few busy minutes of chopping tomatoes and mincing garlic for the sauce, he could no longer take the solitude and headed upstairs to check on Elisa. “Knock knock,” he said, a drumbeat knuckled against the bathroom door. “How are we in there?”


  “Come on in,” she called, faux seductive. “The water’s fine.”

  Suspended in bubbles up to her neck, she appeared dismantled, her hair a fan of eels in the cast-iron claw-foot bathtub, face adrift on a sea of pinkish foam. The head of Orpheus, Blue thought, recalling a painting he’d once seen. He flashed back to his grandmother and the disembodied, Hummel-esque children on her wallpaper, her gnarled fingers on the handle of the slop bucket. And her voice, her baleful, murderous voice . . .

  “Feeling better?” He moved a towel from the chair beside the tub so he could sit.

  “Better, yes. A little regretful is all.” Elisa blew a spray of bubbles from the back of her hand. “Non, rien de rien,” she sang to the heavens, her voice old-vinyl scratchy. “Non, je ne regrette rien . . .” She coughed and stared at the ceiling. “Would you do me a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Could you grab my camera? It’s on the bed.”

  He brought her the old Konica. She dried her hands and began to take pictures from the bathtub of the room’s corners, its slanted ceiling, the patchy topography of the worn terry-cloth bath mat, and the chipped toilet seat; she tried to shoot Blue as well but he pulled the towel over his face.

  “Show yourself,” she implored, and he did, mugging gamely for her as she snapped away. “You have such a pretty face. Don’t hide it.”

  “You’re the one hiding.”

  Elisa peered at him over the top of the camera, and he slowly reached out and took it. She disappeared below the water, only a dark corona of hair visible before she surfaced, the bridge of her nose snaked with foam. Through the camera’s viewfinder, her face looked bisected and veiled, half masked. He shot her face, her breasts, her hand on the lip of the tub. A parting of the bathwater revealed the dark thatch of her pubic hair, and, barely, the small mound of her belly.

  “You’re lingering,” she said.

  “Sorry.” He tried to chuckle. “It’s been a long day.”

  A popping noise downstairs: the crackle of the fire, or the sauce as it ran over the side of the pan. Could he trust her with his secrets, after all this time?

  “Listen,” he said. “We’re still best friends, right?”