Entangled Moon

by E. C. Frey

  Fiona lifts herself from the floor and clings to the edge of the bed. Her eyes, half closed, peer at us. “Mariah needs us. Actually, I think my family needs me. It feels so good to be needed.” Sobbing, she blows her nose into the hotel comforter.

  Eve puts her back to the wall. “God, Fiona. All of our families need us. This is not how this is supposed to go. I left my boyfriend to come here. We have to focus on Mariah and Heather, not on running away. We have to fix this.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “But what?”

  Fiona sobs. “Yes, but he’s leaving me.”

  “Who’s leaving you?” I ask.

  “Gavin.” Fiona cries. “Gavin is.”

  “Did he tell you that? Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Eve asks.

  “I didn’t want to think about it. And no, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.”

  “I’m sorry, Fiona,” Eve says. “I truly am.”

  Fiona wipes her tears. “I’m scared.”

  I kneel next to her, as much to comfort myself as to comfort her. “Chica, I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

  “I’m not just scared for my marriage. What if none of us returns home to our loved ones? What if . . . ?”

  Eve sits on the corner of the bed. Her shoulders slump wearily as her resolve melts into the cushions. “Don’t say that. I’m scared too.” She straightens her shoulders. “But we have to do something. We can’t sit here. There are only three of us left. Right now, we don’t have any answers.” She sighs. “Fiona, Gavin may leave you and Jerome may leave me. Heather and Mariah may not survive. But I can’t see any alternative but to move toward this problem. We’ve always been moving toward it, even as we ran as fast and as hard as we could to elude it. We have to go. There’s nothing else to do.” She rises from the bed and waits for us.

  There are no more choices. We will go.

  The airport is choked with travelers. I face the wave of humanity that threatens to swallow or break me. The feeling of abandonment I experienced those long years ago on the Yucatan haunt me. It was the same then as it is now, loneliness and destitution in the midst of many and plenty. The incongruity of it makes me cry. And now I’m abandoning Mariah. Mariah, who has been everyone’s rock.

  “We have to keep it together, Espy,” Eve says.

  “We shouldn’t leave Mariah alone.”

  “We already talked about this. We don’t have a choice.”

  “One of us could stay.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “Well, we don’t know if we can even get out of here. There may not be a flight for a while.”

  We watch Fiona as she moves slowly through the reservations line.

  Eve hooks her arm in mine. “It’s not too late. You can still stay. Fiona and I will be fine. We’ll find Heather. I think Mariah is safe in the hospital, and you would be too if you decided to stay.”

  Yes. If I stay, I will be alone watching Mariah, with her perpetrator still out there. Fiona and Eve will have one less person with them to deal with whatever is happening or soon to happen in Connecticut. I don’t like either option. Whether I stay or go, I will be as bereft as that moment I made the same decision in Yucatan. The wave carried me then. But then waves are like that. They smash against the coast and leave with a piece of it. Nothing is ever the same afterwards. Bit by bit, the action whittles away the land. There is no defense great enough to prevent it. The sea always has the final say. Gentle and enigmatic in calm, she is fierce and unwavering in her retribution during storms. She is the final say of life and death, both at sea and on shore. Man is nothing more than a gnat, an ego-driven gnat, on the ass of life. I snicker.

  Eve glances at me.

  I could still run. Like I should’ve run on the Yucatan. I should have found Gabriel and run with him, for him. I should have been stronger. But I always come back to the same thing I’ve always known: I could never run from my family. Without them I would be storm-tossed, bereft of the roots that bind me to my life. No love can sustain such a loss of moorings. Without our native land, family is all we have to define ourselves, our culture. Without native land and without family, we are nothing. No love can withstand such a stripping of the soul. I chose to relinquish love. The wave broke me.

  But then a greater love washed ashore. If I had run, Tomas, my children, my life would’ve been but a dream. No. I made the right choice. Now I need to make the right choice again, even if it means the wave will break over me.

  Eve continues to look at me. “I’m glad you’re finding some humor in this.”

  “Humor and sadness, chica. It’s a funny thing.”

  Eve puts her arm around my shoulders. We have always been there for each other, been there for Heather. The world is a safer and saner place with my friends breathing the same air. Somewhere in the world, our breath mingles as it crosses the globe. Our stories are different but we share something that transcends that: humanity, sisterhood, and the knowledge of a deeply shared secret. Nothing can diminish us. Our differences are trivial in the face of our commonality. But that is the thing about quantum states of interactions: no one can be fully described, fully articulated, without considering the other. Our lives are entangled at the most basic level.

  Fiona sneaks up and hugs us from behind. For a moment, the wave of people parts and moves around us. Fiona lets go and holds up three tickets. We know where we’re going. It is better to move toward it of our own volition. We have always allowed events to wash over us, but it has never had the desired effect, surety and safety. It is time to seek.

  Fiona smiles. “Do you remember the story of Moirai?”

  “The Fates in Greek mythology. Yes, I do.” Eve smiles.

  “It’s time to meet the bitches.” Fiona laughs hysterically.

  Now is the time to let them know. I cannot go with them. “My fate is here.”

  Eve hugs me. “It’s right. She needs one of us.”

  Fiona’s smile disappears. “What do you mean? Aren’t you going with us?”

  I hug her. “Someone needs to be here with Mariah. No one should be left alone. You need to be strong for Heather and Eve. I’m counting on you.” I kiss her cheek. “I love you both. We’ll all be together soon. I know this in my heart.”

  I turn and head toward the door. No matter what, none of us will be alone.

  31 Paul

  I do not fear death; death is something to be feared in the land of the living.

  When I was little, I was afraid of the monsters that lived in my closet. No one told me monsters lived outside in the world. They walk amongst us. They smell our fear.

  They can no longer smell me.

  Long ago, I learned to tame the beasts. It is an edge when you have to track one.

  All those years ago, Stab lured and caged a beautiful bird, and now the monster I track caged the other. The world has been better off without Stab and the world will be better off without Harold.

  Harold. He does not know I know him. I have been tracking him. Watching him. Waiting.

  Soon, it will be over.

  I follow him as he finds a quiet corner in the airport. Just around the bend, I can hear him. Charleston is loud and open, but there are still corners in the world. Everything must have an edge. Things are clearer without my Asian mistress, but there are moments when I miss her cloak. I stand, exposed, on the other side of the wall.

  “Yes. I have it. Where do you want me to meet you?” He is silent. “No. She’s dead.” Silence. “They weren’t together and she slipped away while I was preoccupied with the journalist. But she’s headed your way. I can take her out when I give you the drive. I can spend a little time with her.”

  I can almost hear and see the man on the other line. The best trench coat cannot hide his hideousness. I can still smell his cologne and the overpowering stench of his piss.

  Harold’s phone clicks shut and I leave my listening post. The security line is ahead and I walk toward it—ten steps ahead
of him.

  We board the same plane.

  I exit ten people behind him.

  I watch as a black car picks him up at the arrivals gate.

  I flag the first taxi. “Follow that car.”

  “Mister, where’s the car going?”

  “I don’t know yet, but follow it.”

  The man looks at me in the rearview mirror. It no longer matters. I no longer dread being caught. Death is already upon me. There is nothing else that can be done for me or to me. There is no greater danger than a man who no longer fears his own death. And the most dangerous of all is the man who has no fear.

  We cross the line into Connecticut. Ah. He seeks home. He seeks his territory. But I, too, know these hunting grounds. He believes he hunts without being hunted. I have spent years in the jungle. No one knows it better than I.

  The black car pulls up in front of a nondescript ranch house in Stamford. It pulls away as Harold puts the strap of his bag over his shoulder and mounts the stairs. I assume the flash drive is in the black car. That will have to wait for another time. This is my mission now.

  The lights go on in the house. I pay the taxi driver.

  It is easy work to break into the garage, and the van seat will be the most comfortable bed I have had in weeks.

  Harold opens the door from the house into the garage and packs a black satchel in the back of the van. It does not take me long to remove the clip from his gun and return the weapon to the satchel.

  I take my time looking around his house while he sleeps.

  Rest well. It will be your last. The monster is in your closet.

  The man has no imagination. Inside a dehumidified closet, I count twenty-four large locks of hair tied expertly into bundles and attached to key rings. Each one is labeled in code. Moron. His kill trophies are barely hidden in a locked basement room.

  Were they all birds?

  Cold blood pumps through my veins. Ice veins.

  Soon, little ones.

  Soon.

  I will fly you home.

  I lock the door. The police will find it anyway.

  I am back in the van by daylight.

  Harold follows soon after.

  I think I know whom he is hunting. And he will know me soon enough.

  In my hiding place, I lift my shirt and touch my MK-II. She is a steady blade.

  I hunker down for the remainder of the trip.

  Soon, it will all be over.

  32 Mariah

  They come in the darkness. I have been dozing in and out of consciousness. My limbs, battered and heavy, throb through the pain medicine. There are two of them. They flash gold badges. Detectives. So many questions. Veiled words. Pauses and attenuated sentences. Tired. I am so tired. So alone. The ice still flows through my veins. Can they not see? I answer their questions. Or is it a dream? Everything moves through a tunnel. I cannot make any of it real. My memories are cloaked in shadows, and as hard as I might, I cannot make out any details. I am claimed by a world of wraiths.

  The dead are laughing. I will die here. I will die with them. Keep company with them. Such horror. Grandmother. No! I cannot become a shade, an invisible aspect of myself. Grandmother would tell me that. Grandmother would have saved me before I needed saving. I scream but there is no one to hear me. Not even I can hear my scream.

  I do not know when they left me. Did I answer their questions? I am not sure. I cannot even be sure they ever visited. I am aware of a bright light and quiet figure taking my vitals and checking my IV tube, but then the figure recedes and the light goes with her. I reach for the path of energy that trails the figure but it dissipates, evaporates, with the touch of my hand. Maybe that never happened either. Or maybe the wraiths have come to check, waiting patiently for me to give up, to join them.

  All the while, smiling, the bone man watches me. Esperanza sits at my bedside. But she is with Fiona and Eve. It is her shadow-self that keeps the bone man in his corner. Esperanza is like that. She can stay the heaviest heart.

  I am not ready for the bone man. “Make him stay away, Espy.”

  She holds my hand. I drift.

  Time curves in front of me like a scythe. The horizon bends into the future but I cannot see past it. The sun, sharp and unyielding, crosses the boundary of my vision. I wait for something. A high-pitched howl reverberates off the canyon walls, balls of energy ping-pong from one canyon wall to another.

  He is coming.

  I am slipping.

  I cannot bend.

  I move forward. He knows I will fight. He snarls, saliva dripping in long rivulets. Instinctively, I draw back. Yield and I will lose myself, run and I will become nothing.

  “You are mine,” he snarls.

  “No.” My scream rises to the heavens. The sky splits in two and he is gone.

  “Ms. Westerman? Are you awake?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The doctor can’t see you tonight. He’ll be in first thing in the morning. I won’t be here, but the new shift is coming in. If you need anything, press the button.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” But she is looking at Esperanza’s shadow-self.

  Esperanza’s spirit thanks the nurse. The bone man watches her leave before he turns his gaze back. He smiles and winks.

  I drift back out into the light of the canyon. It is warm there.

  The canyon rips in two. I am on one side; he has to be on the other. I turn toward its end. I search the tunnel created by the high canyon walls, but there is no movement. I walk until I approach the opening, where Clay and Chase motion me to them. Where is Grandmother? They do not smile. Lightning streaks the sky. The prairie grass shimmers in the storm-charged sun, the Badlands rises ominously from the blackness of the beyond—death on top of death, layer upon layer of dead animals, fauna, and insects entombed in the land.

  I must move. The barn is far away and my brothers run toward it and the community, my tribe, sequestered inside. The faster I move, the farther the barn is. I yell to them but they can’t hear me. Each pulls the double barn doors closed and the light diminishes to a red laser point. I clutch my chest. The sound of beating drums pounds in my head. Blue ribbons course along the surface of my skin. And then I stumble.

  I try to stand but the ground gives way. As far as I can see, the Badlands stand stark naked against the stormy sky. Nothing lives within its boundaries. I am utterly alone. I try to balance. The land continues to crumble, crumble like grains of sand drying in the sun. I will be trapped on a spire of death.

  Beneath my feet, fossils, animated in a sarcophagus of ancient earth, seethe, but I am not afraid. Life is precarious, no more so for me than for those who swim in their death soup. I cry for them. They are the children of the eons, and they were born, suffered, and died together. We are all born to suffer together. I reach for them as the land disintegrates. In the distance, a great dire wolf, a most ancient of wolves, shakes free from his earthly tomb. He quivers and, turning, winks. I am no longer alone. I wave. He raises his nose, sniffs the air, and, in an instant, bolts for the border. He is gone as quickly as he arrived. My loneliness will kill me.

  Why did my beloved brothers close the doors?

  The distant sound of a ring wakes me and I open my eyes to a semi-dark hospital room. The phone rings again. Esperanza answers it.

  “Hello? . . . No, she’s been sleeping fitfully . . . Yeah, Fiona told me. I’m glad she’s okay. I’m glad they’re okay. That’s horrible . . . She must be horribly upset . . . I know . . . All right. We’ll be here.” Esperanza smiles at me and puts the phone down. “Do you need anything?”

  “Espy?”

  “I’m here.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “All night. Do you want me to get you anything?”

  The clock on the wall says it is midnight. “Have you been able to sleep?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

 
“What happened to Heather?”

  “Mariah. Rest. We can talk about it when you’re stronger.”

  The bone man finds me.

  I struggle to breathe but he tightens his grip around my neck and the lights from the home fires twinkle brilliantly before they are snuffed. He has me this time, and I am completely alone.

  The phone jars me awake. Where is Espy? The phone rings again and I reach for it, but the line is dead.

  I hang up. If I fall asleep again, my dream will swallow me. I pray Espy returns soon.

  The noise of the bustling hospital drifts through the crack of the partially open door. People come and go, passing through the corridors outside my room. I am in a cave, solitary and dispossessed. Maybe I am the living dead and they are keeping my ghost, afraid to release me into an unsuspecting world when I am at my most dangerous. I am wanagi—a confused spirit that should not be allowed back into the world. My eyes are heavy and I look for Espy.

  The bone man wraps his fingers around my neck and secures the gnarly, dirty rope.

  “Dance, my Midnight Dancer. Dance?”

  “I can’t and I won’t.”

  He laughs and spits bones at me. “You won’t? How does your will have anything to do with it? It’s your destiny little one. Now, dance!”

  I begin to dance and the earth is made firm again. I hop and spin and twirl until the drums compel me faster. I am a whirling dervish. From the perimeter, he hisses, but he can no longer stop me. He cannot stop what he has started. I am alive with motion and he is dying to me. His bones, spinning, disintegrate, but still I dance and then the home fires, once confined to the caves, dance with me in the midnight air, fragrant with prairie sage. I dance and collide with life, and there is no reason to define time or space, and I know. There is a place where terra firma and terra infirma, a moment when solitude and community, and a point at which stasis and evolution meet and blend. Where they converge is the point at which the truth peels back upon itself, and love, eternal and unattached to human convention and language, springs forth without restraint or condition.