Putting his glasses on and tying his wet hair back with a shoelace, Nik headed out the front door and bounded down the steps. He was thinking of the ways in which he and Alice complemented each other when she was happy and things were going well, which only contributed to the glum feeling that a lot of what he enjoyed about their being together had been quietly eroding. Things weren’t right, but he was at a loss as to how to fix whatever it was.
He knew that Alice fit most of the things his parents would wish for him: she was attractive, intelligent, educated, professional. But maybe not young enough; they would want grandchildren that were Nik's own blood, not adopted from a former marriage. Of course, they would never say that to his face, but the thought would be there.
Some of this was bound to come to a head when he graduated, which wasn’t that far away now. He had already started sending out employment query letters both in the U.S. and abroad, with the help of Stuart Eisner, his major professor, and if he got a good offer in Sweden, chances were that he would take it. He had his own fantasies of how he wanted that to play out, but without Alice’s cooperation, making it happen was questionable. If she chose to stay here because of job or friends or whatever reason, it wouldn’t deter him from taking an offer if it seemed good enough. That would likely mean seasonal visits to keep their relationship going.
He walked around the corner of the house to the back yard. Dawg burst out of the woods, ran circles around his master, and made a few perfunctory leaps in the air in front of Nik to be sure he had his human’s full attention.
“Lägg av, cut it out already!” Dawg sat down, but it was clear he could barely contain himself.
Nik surveyed the perimeter of the clearing and the opening into the trees where the path began. “So, what’s this thing you want so much to show me, eh?”
He reached down and scratched Dawg around the ears and under the chin. A small round object fell off into his hand: it was a tick, bloated with blood. In late summer, that was to be expected; they were everywhere.
“Time to get you a new flea and tick collar, I see,” he said to Dawg. “Another reason I can’t let you in the house, old pal.”
Nik held his palm open, dispassionately observing the unwieldy creature trundling slowly across his hand, its body so swollen that the head was all but invisible. He fully intended to kill it because he didn’t want more of them proliferating in the grass around the house, but it was interesting to him from a purely biological standpoint to identify what type of tick it was and observe how it moved.
Finally, Dawg could restrain himself no longer and leaped up, dashing down the trail. Nik crushed the tick between his shoe and a rock at the edge of Alice’s butterfly garden and followed. He could see Dawg crouched down in the leaf litter just off the path, clearly pointing at something in a hole under the fallen beech. The massive trunk had been there for several seasons and its gray skin was peeling up, making a home for beetles and other things on the raccoon menu, like the row of Pluteus cervinus, the deer mushroom, marching in a neat row along the eastern-facing side of the tree. The sizeable excavation underneath the trunk suggested armadillos.
“What do we have here?” Nik said aloud. He whistled and called Dawg to him, holding him in check, and squatted down, not too close, to see if he could glimpse what was under there. If a rattler or a moccasin, he certainly didn’t want to be within its strike range.
Balanced on his haunches, Nik waited, perfectly still, for some minutes just watching and listening. And then whatever was under the log made a distinctly animal sound.
“Not a snake,” he said. It was probably some hapless raccoon or opossum that had sought a place safe from Dawg’s chasing instincts.
He stood up, pulling Dawg away from the tree. “Follow with me. Let’s just leave the poor creature in peace.” But then, it made a distinctly feline sound, a sort of mewing that sounded quite pitiful. Nik stopped in his tracks.
Going back to the hole, he got down on his hands and knees and tried to get a better look. It was impossible—the creature was wedged in too far to see.
Nik stood up and went quickly back down the path to the house. Opening his truck, he retrieved a flashlight and shut Dawg in the laundry room. Dawg protested, whimpering and scratching at the door, but Nik was unmoved. “Back in a minute, old pal. I just need to see what you’ve got cornered.”
He ran up the steps and went to the kitchen. In the refrigerator, he found the leftover grilled grouper from last night’s supper wrapped in plastic. Breaking off a small piece, he hurried back downstairs.
Crouching in front of the hole, he put the fish on the ground and waited. Before long, he saw movement and heard a scrabbling as the creature maneuvered itself out of its hiding place and into the daylight. It was a cat, so thin as to be skeletal, with long matted gray-white fur. It began to gnaw the piece of fish with a fury, by which Nik could tell it was starving. Then he observed that one of its front legs dangled limp from the shoulder as it hunkered over the food.
Looking more closely, he also saw that part of an ear was missing and there were other healed scars on its body. A dog had probably mauled it. And then, when he finally realized what he was looking at, he could not believe his eyes.
“Satan och helvete,” he whispered, “Holy Hell.”
Alice pulled up under the house just after sundown and was surprised to find Nik’s truck gone. Usually he was home every evening unless there was some university function he needed to attend. His dissertation deadline was looming, and she’d pretty much let him take over the spare bedroom, turning it into his study. He often worked late into the night, sorting through slides for his field guide and writing up the ones selected. He still taught a few classes as a graduate assistant to keep his university stipend, but he was in writing mode now and rarely had time for anything else. Since this was Thursday, she knew his classes were over at noon and that he should have been home this late in the day.
Then she heard Dawg barking and whining, but didn’t see him anywhere. It took her a moment to realize he was shut up in the laundry room.
“Dawg! Who put you in here? Did Nik go off and leave you? Bad man!” she exclaimed as Dawg embraced his liberator with a wet sloppy kiss.
“Yuckkk! Stop that!” Alice wiped dog drool off her cheek. “But really, where’s your sorry master, eh?” Dawg bounded away to the edge of the woods, nose to the ground, but then came trotting back, apparently not finding what he was after.
Alice was shaking her head. “I don’t get it,” she said as Dawg galloped up the steps ahead of her.
Reaching the landing, she was surprised to find the front door unlocked and a note written in haste taped above the doorknob: GONE TO VET. RAINE’S CAT IS FOUND!
How was that possible? She couldn’t even begin to imagine. Late last year, on Christmas Day to be exact, Nik had discovered the grisly remains of Raine’s other cat, Tux, mauled by a wild dog, the same one, it was assumed, that had attacked Alice on the stairs of her house one dark night a few weeks later. When Sesshomaru, Raine’s white Persian, disappeared, they assumed he’d met the same end, and although they’d all searched the surrounding woods for months, the body never turned up.
“Well, I guess that explains that,” she said to Dawg.
Alice was about to give Raine a call to see what she could find out when Dawg’s head went up and his tail went into action. Then she heard Nik’s old truck chugging down the drive. She went out onto the landing and waited for him.
“Hey, I found your note,” she said, as he came up the stairs. “Sesshomaru’s still alive? That’s amazing!”
“Ja, I thought so too. When I first saw him, I wasn’t so sure it was a cat, even, he was so emaciated. I called Raine and went straight to the vet. She met me there.”
Alice followed Nik inside. “What did the vet say?”
“She thinks they can save him. He had a lot of old wounds on him, and one leg had been dislocated and broken. He’s been dragging it around usele
ss. It’s anybody’s guess how he’s been able to catch or find enough food to stay alive. One would think he would have gone home when they were looking for him all that time.”
“I’ve heard about that kind of thing,” Alice said. “Cats aren’t like dogs, y’know. Injured or highly frightened cats will hide out and not come to anybody, not even their owners. They can get in such a state that they actually forget where they once lived. Cats that have been missing for months are often found not far from their owner’s home.”
Alice pulled a bowl of tuna salad out of the fridge and set about making sandwiches. “Are you hungry?”
“Ravenous.”
“Me, too. This won’t take a second.”
“How was your historical meeting?”
“Very interesting. I’ll tell you after we eat.”
Nik slid into his usual chair at the breakfast nook. Alice noted that he sat quietly, just watching her. Finally, she could stand it no longer. “Something on your mind?”
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“What will we do, you and I, at the end of the year, when I graduate?”
Alice stopped painting mustard on bread slices and turned to face him. “I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far.” Which was a lie, but one she hoped would fend off a discussion she’d been dreading. Change was always unsettling to her, and this impending shift in their arrangement made her queasy.
“I have,” he said, “and the fact is, the only option that lets me stay here in town is to get funded for a post-doc.”
Alice glued the pieces of bread together with a wide swath of tuna salad. “How likely is that?”
“About zero. Not that the department wouldn’t like to keep me around, but there’s no money available, at least in my field. I might finagle something in Microbiology since it was my undergraduate major, but again, it’s a long shot.”
She put a plate in front of Nik and sat down with one of her own. Suddenly, she didn’t feel much like eating, but took a perfunctory nibble. “I assume you’re sending out query letters. Where to?”
“In the U.S., to Penn State, University of Wisconsin, Oregon State University, Washington State University.”
“All cold places.”
“Well, that wasn’t a criterion for choosing.”
Alice could feel her good mood evaporating. She wanted to share the fascinating lead she’d gotten from Milton and the historical society people about the Tanner family and their connection to the old church, but now it seemed unimportant. “What about places abroad?”
Nik shifted in his chair. “There are strong mycological programs at the University of Tübingen in Germany, the University of Oslo, and the University of Copenhagen’s Botanical Institute. I might also try for the CBS—that’s an important center for mycological research in The Netherlands.”
“What about Sweden?”
“I’ve written to the University of Göteborg, and the Department of Forest Mycology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala. And, of course, the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm.”
“Your parents would love that.”
He nodded. “So they would.”
“What about you? What would make you happy?”
“I—”
The phone rang, cutting off whatever he might have said. Alice cursed to herself and caught it on the next ring. “Maybe it’s Raine.”
“Hi, Mom.” Margaret’s voice was upbeat.
“Oh, it’s you, Munchkin! How’s camp?” She smiled at Nik and mouthed ‘Margaret’ at him. “Hey, you won’t believe this, Nik found Sesshomaru!”
Margaret whooped through the receiver. “Wow, that’s the bomb!”
“I don’t know the specifics, Nik was still at the vet with him when I got home. I can call you back or e-mail you once I get the details from Raine. It’s the best news I’ve heard all week. So, is everything okay there?”
“Killer. Would you tell Nik that our butterfly project got an Honorable Mention in the camp-wide competition?”
“That’s great, Munch—eh, sorry. I really am trying to break myself of the habit. I know you hate to be called that now. Anyway, I’ll let you tell him yourself. Hang on.” She handed the phone to Nik. “She’s got something cool to tell you.”
Nik took the phone. “Vad?”
“Hej, Nikster! Our neighborhood butterflies catalog got Honorable Mention. Isn’t that great?”
“Ja, det var kul. Very nice.”
“And my roomie Tom got Third Place for her thing on America’s Top Ten Worst Hurricanes. And guess what, Mom’s birthday is on the same day as the Galveston Hurricane of nineteen-hundred—September the eighth. The Galveston hurricane is number one, at the top of the list. It’s the all-time worst.”
“That’s auspicious, in a disturbing sort of way.”
Margaret started laughing. “Yeah, kind of suits her.”
“I’ll be sure to tell her.”
“Tell me what?” Alice cut in.
“Your upcoming birthday coincides with the most devastating hurricane in U.S. history.”
Alice groaned. “Figures.”
“Have you made some good friends, then?” Nik said.
“Oh god, the best. Well, anyhoo, I just wanted to tell you about the science project. Tack så mycket. Did I say that right?”
Nik smiled. “Perfect.”
“Okay, then. Laters. Say bye to Mom for me.”
“Right. Margaret says ‘bye.’” He handed the phone back.
Alice hung up the receiver. “You’re really good with her.”
He shrugged. “She has a lot of potential, you should be proud of her.”
“I am. But …”
“But what?” Nik was looking at her with that passive ice-blue stare she found sometimes intriguing but mostly squirm-inducing.
Alice looked away. “I worry about her. I worry that I may somehow be the cause of that thing that turns her dreams into nightmares. I worry that … forget it. The whole thing just makes my head hurt.”
“What were you going to say?”
“You really want to know?” Alice could feel the blood draining from her face. She’d vowed never to have this conversation again, yet here she was, diving in. “I’m afraid for her safety, and mine, and anybody who’s close to us, like you.”
“You don’t need to worry about me—”
“But I do! Nik, I would die if anything happened to you!” Alice bit her lip and waited. If that didn’t get a reaction, nothing would.
Nik leaned across the table. “I’m not worried for myself. But I don’t want you, or Margaret, to live in fear. Wouldn’t you like to live somewhere different, someplace completely removed from all this history that causes you so much angst? Stockholm is beautiful, winter or summer.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that, if I can get a good position early next year, we should all move together. Just consider the idea, will you?”
“Move together, how?”
“As a married couple with a child.”
“Nikolas Thorens, was that a proposal you just sailed past me?”
Finally, he smiled with his whole face. “Yes, it was.”
Alice licked her lips. “I have a lot of ifs … like, if I didn’t have a kid in school, and if I weren’t well-employed in a job I love, I’d say let’s do it tomorrow. Elope and get the hell out of here. But—”
“Shh. Just give it some thought.”
“I will. I promise.”
Chapter 22
August 12, Friday—Present Day
Alice woke just after dark from a nap she’d only intended to take for ten minutes before confronting the task of making Friday night supper for herself and Nik. Instead, she’d been asleep for nearly an hour, which wasn’t surprising, really. She’d been walking around for days with that numb, sleep-deprived feeling that typically set in when she couldn’t get through the night without waking up
every five minutes. It was as if some virus security system in her brain went into action whenever something potentially harmful tried to load itself, blocking the dream and waking her up. Some nights she couldn’t fall asleep at all.
Feeling groggy and out of sorts, she sat up and hung her feet over the side of the bed, trying to get the cobwebs out of her brain. Maybe if she got in the shower, it would wake her up properly. Then she might be more willing to go stand in front of the pantry waiting for inspiration to strike.
She pulled off her shirt and shorts and shuffled out into the hallway, and then noticed the light was on in the bathroom. The door was open, and she saw that Nik stood naked, staring at his face in the mirror over the sink. In one hand, he held his ponytail in a tight wad and in the other he adjusted his grip on a pair of scissors.
Alice bolted down the hall, as it dawned on her what he was about to do. “Stop! What the hell are you doing?”
Nik lowered the scissors, turning toward her voice.
“It’s getting long. I thought maybe I would cut it before getting in the shower.”
Alice crammed herself into the tiny bathroom behind him. “Good God, don’t do that!”
He looked at her sideways. “Why not?”
“Because … long hair on men is sexy, that’s why!” she said, blushing, her secret fetish revealed.
“Ah. If I cut my hair, I lose my sexual prowess, eh? How biblical.” He was almost smiling.
Alice put her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his back. “Please don’t cut it.”
“Just for you, then.” He put the scissors back in the medicine cabinet and let his hair fall loose. It brushed across Alice’s face.
“Mmm.” She squeezed him and slid her hands down.
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