When Darkness Loves Us

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  “It was louder yesterday,” Cora said. “I just can’t for the life of me figure what it might be.”

  Justin stopped in front of the old well. “What’s this, Grandma?”

  “Just an old well, Justin. It went dry years ago and your Grandpa put that cover on it to keep you young’uns from falling in and killing yourselves. There isn’t anything down there.”

  He walked over to it and knocked on the domed iron lid. It rang solid. A moment later, the tapping began, furiously.

  “It is coming from here! Listen!” They all heard it.

  Justin examined the bolts that held the lid on. “I’m going to get the crowbar and get this lid off here, Momma. There’s something in there that wants out.”

  The two women looked at each other.

  An hour later, the last bolt broke. Cora stepped back out of the way while Maggie went to help her son slide the heavy lid off the well. A putrid odor assaulted them as the top grated open. They stopped, caught their breaths, and gave a final heave, and the lid slid off the opening and one edge fell to the ground.

  “Good God!” Justin’s hand covered his mouth. Maggie screamed and backed away. A moan escaped Sally Ann’s black and swollen lips as she tried to shield her blind, jerking eyes with a forearm that had lost its muscular control. “Momma, help me!” Justin shouted. Maggie shook her head, eyes riveted on the apparition from the well, and backed farther away. “Grandma?” Cora moved in quickly and, fighting the reaction from the terrible smell, grabbed the thin brittle wrist and stilled its flailing about.

  “Grab her ankles, Justin, and we’ll ease her out of there.” Sally Ann had wedged herself into a niche four inches high by three inches deep, between the cover and the top lip of the well. Working carefully, pulling gently, one leg at a time, the hips, then the shoulders were eased out. They set her down on the grass and Cora sent Justin for a bucket of cool water.

  It was the body of a little girl, but it was as light as a paper bag. Breasts were sunken into the ribs, and the toes were worn down, leaving raw wounds on her feet. Strands of blond hair remained, but most of the head was bald and raw, and her shoulder bones were laid bare where the flesh had been scraped off. Eyes were sunk deep into their sockets and as Cora washed away the blood and grime from her face, the girl became semiconscious and started sucking the cloth. “Easy, girl. Not too much to drink at first.” She removed the cloth, and immediately the girl tried to speak.

  The swollen tongue wagged through toothless gums as clicking noises came gagging from deep in her throat. Cora turned to Justin who was gaping at the sight. “Justin, get your mother and cover up this hole, then help me get this poor thing into the house.”

  Maggie stepped forward. “No!”

  Cora turned and looked up at her, a puzzled frown asking the question.

  “She’s come back to haunt me, Momma. It’s Sally Ann, back from the grave!”

  Cora looked down at the frail creature and she caught her breath. “Great Mother of God,” she breathed quietly. She scooped the girl up in her arms and carried her into the cool house, the bent baby spoon still dangling from one finger.

  4

  After a brief knock on the door, Cora entered the room. “Are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I brought you some breakfast.”

  “I’m not very hungry.”

  “If you don’t eat, girl, you won’t be able to keep up your strength.” Cora set the tray down on the dresser. “Here. At least have some toast.”

  Sally Ann sat up in bed and took the plate of wheat toast from her mother. “Thanks.”

  “And after you eat, I’ll take another look at those toes. You should be up and walking about now. That’ll bring back your appetite.”

  “I want to see Michael.”

  Cora sighed. She drew up a chair from the desk and sat down. “I guess it’s time we talked the truth to each other, Sally Ann. Michael doesn’t know you’re here.”

  “Well, tell him. I’m well enough to see him now.”

  “It isn’t that simple. You see, when you disappeared, Michael mourned you for a long, long time. We all did. We didn’t know if you’d run off or been kidnapped or what. But there was never any word, and so we finally had to get over it and get on with living our lives. I know your Papa prayed for you every day of his life. And Michael . . . well, he had to get on with his life, too. Once you were declared dead, he remarried. So now he has a family, and we don’t want anything to interfere with his happiness.”

  “Any thing? You mean me! But if he waited so long, he can’t have much of a family yet. Oh, Momma, the only thing that kept me going down there was thinking of Michael. I’ve really got to see him. I’ve got something to tell him.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time, Sally Ann. Michael and Maggie have four children . . .

  “Maggie? Maggie? Michael married Maggie?” Sally threw the covers off her legs and started to get up. “You’ve no right to keep me here. I want to see my husband.”

  Cora pushed her back to bed with one hand. Still so frail, she thought. “He’s not your husband any longer, Sally Ann. He and Maggie have four children; did you hear me?”

  Sally stopped struggling against her mother and lay her head back on the pillow. She closed her eyes, feeling faint from the exertion. She couldn’t possibly have heard what she thought she heard.

  “You’ve been gone twenty years, Sally Ann.”

  The room started spinning. She heard a voice from far off saying “Clinton! Wait for me, Clint.” It was her own voice, but her head seemed stuffed with cotton. She felt a cool cloth on her forehead, and she waited until the buzzing in her ears died away. Twenty years. Twenty years of her life wasted in an underground hole. She was now thirty-six years old. And scarred and ugly and Michael was lost to her forever. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes and she reached for her mother’s hand.

  5

  Cora was cleaning up the luncheon dishes in the kitchen while Sally Ann did her daily exercises on the living-room floor. Her body had healed well, and though the scarred skin was pulled taut over her back, the muscles were starting to come back. She had gained weight and walked with barely a trace of a limp. Her eyes had stopped that incessant jerking, and her sight was returning rapidly.

  “Momma?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  The problem, as she viewed herself in the mirror, was the face. Her parchment skin showed blue veins as it clung to her bones. Over her sunken cheeks were patches of scaly skin that itched and turned red and white when she scratched them. Her head was still bald and scarred, even though the hair was growing back in spots. A scarf hid most of that. Her lips and what teeth were left were black as tar. She looked like a living skull.

  She thought constantly of Clint—she missed him almost more than she could bear—but there were things she needed to do before she could go back to him. He would be all right. He was in his element, he was twenty years old, and—the darkness loved him.

  “I want to go to town.”

  “I think that’s a very good idea if you’re feeling up to it.”

  “I want to see the dentist.”

  Cora stood in the doorway and dried her hands on a dish towel. Sally Ann looked up at her and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll use a fake name.”

  Pain crossed Cora’s face, and she turned and went back to the kitchen. It is so unfair, Sally thought. She was supposed to pick up the pieces of her life. But where was she to start, when her own family wouldn’t even support her? Well, at least the situation was clear.

  Cora walked to the bedroom and returned with a simple housedress that might fit Sally’s slim frame. “Here. Try this on and I’ll call Dr. Green for an appointment.”

  The trip to town was traumatic for both of them. Cora didn’t like lying to the doctor, and there wasn’t much he could do about Sally Ann’s teeth anyway. He filled two cavities, gave her a prescription for vitamins and calcium, and tried to get her to come back for den
tures. Sally Ann knew he was trying to be kind, and he was more than curious about her appearance. She thanked him and they were on their way.

  She bought a new pair of jeans, tennis shoes, socks, several T-shirts, and a jacket. Clothes felt so binding. She also bought a child’s sweater, size ten, light blue and soft. Cora asked no questions. The worst of the trip was the way everyone stared. Cora introduced her as a friend from the city who had come to recuperate in the good country air, and people were nice, but they still stared. They stared at her face, her teeth, at the way she walked, and they kept their distance. By the time Cora and Sally got home, both were exhausted.

  The next day, the inevitable happened. After two months, Michael finally came over, to ask about Cora’s friend visiting from the city. He had heard from someone at church, and was hoping to get some information about a man he was working with on a land deal. Cora told him her friend was resting, and she was, but she was listening from the bedroom.

  Michael’s voice. Deeper now, but just as she remembered it. Could it hurt him all that much to see her? All these years of thinking of him, dreaming of him, wondering how he was faring. What did he look like? What had twenty years done to his face? To his body? Their voices were a murmur now; she assumed they had walked into the kitchen to talk, in order not to disturb Cora’s resting friend.

  Then he laughed. A hearty, resonant laugh, and her chest constricted with brutal force. What has he to laugh about? When was the last time I laughed? Oh, God, I want to laugh with him. Touch him. She got up from bed and put on her jeans and a T-shirt. She wrapped a scarf about her head quickly and put the tennis shoes over the bandages on her feet. She looked in the mirror and her heart fell. I can never let him see me like this. She opened the door a crack and peeked out.

  He was standing by the front door, ready to leave, when he saw the door open. “I believe your friend is awake, Mom. Do you think she’d mind talking to me for a minute?”

  Cora paled as she saw the door ajar. “Well, no, I suppose not, Michael. Let me ask her.” She walked over to the door, knocked, and went in. “What do you think you are doing?” she hissed.

  “Why no, I’d be delighted,” Sally Ann said loudly and pushed past her mother and out the door. She walked directly to Michael who winced as he saw her, then quickly recovered with a smile.

  “How do you do? I’m Michael Hixson. I understand you’re visiting from the city, and I thought you might know of a man by the name of Ralph Lederer. I’m thinking of buying a piece of property that he owns next to my farm and wondered if you had any word of his reputation.”

  He didn’t recognize her. She was lost for words. She was ready for his hurt, his anger, his denial, his love, his passing out and falling on the floor, but she was not ready for this! What to do? Should she say, hello, Michael, I’m Sally Ann and we have a son who is living in underground caverns like a bat? Should she throw her arms around him and kiss him and make him forget all about Maggie? Should she embarrass him and say, Michael, don’t you even recognize your own wife when you see her? Should she sink to the floor and hug his knees and say how long she’d been dreaming of this moment?

  She stared at him, then looked at her feet. “I don’t know, Mr. Hixson. The name is not familiar.”

  “Well, okay. I appreciate your time. You look a little pale. Maybe I shouldn’t have disturbed your rest.”

  “No, it’s quite all right. Please excuse me.” She returned to her room, shut the door, then leaned heavily against it.

  After Michael left, Cora came into the room quietly and sat on the edge of the bed. Sally Ann was strangely quiet. The experiences Sally had gone through had prepared her in some ways for things Cora couldn’t even dream about. “How about some lunch?”

  Sally kept her gaze steady on the ceiling. “That would be nice, Momma.”

  6

  Clint sat on the moss mattress and picked at it while he thought. He missed his mother. His eyes were swollen from crying, and his grief had given way to anger.

  “I don’t care.” The sound of his voice in the Home Cavern was hollow, but comforting. He knew she had made it; he had stayed by the hole in the wall and listened. He heard other voices, and the hole was invaded by a powerful monster, a presence that pierced his brain and knocked him back into the tunnel. It hurt his head. It was like a dream he had when he slept, where images danced around and said silly things and “looked” a funny way. He still didn’t understand “look,” but that’s what his mommy said. He lay there, frightened, until he heard the grating of the lid again and the monster was gone.

  There really was an “up there.” He had known it all along. He pretended he didn’t believe, because he didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to go. He liked it here. There were things to play with and it was comfortable. Up there was strange, and he didn’t much like the stories she told.

  “Why would she go there? What’s up there that she needs? We have everything here. Why would she want to leave me?” Tears of anger again seeped out of his eyes, and he reached down to stroke himself, his only comfort. “I’d like to punish her when she gets back. Oh, yes.” The pleasure was intense. “I’d like to hurt her like she hurt me.” Faster. “I’ll hit her and pinch her and knock her down.” He thought he would burst. “And she’ll beg me.” His orgasm was violent, his whole body stiffened with the release.

  Afterward, he felt happy and free. He went for a swim.

  Every so often, he returned to the hole in the wall by the square rocks. She was never there. He felt lonely, he missed her, but he never really felt alone. The air of the tunnels, the familiar feel of the rocks under his feet, the cold ponds and their inhabitants were his companions. When he felt sad, or angry, he would think he had chased her away. Then he would stroke himself and feel better again. It gave him intense pleasure until he learned that cutting the fish was better. That was even more intense. He tortured them while they were still alive, and they flopped and writhed and slowly died.

  He took all these fish and bundled them up in moss and carried them past the tunnel that led to the square rock wall to a different cavern, a cavern with a little pond on one side and a huge lake on the other side. He dumped them in the lake, far away from where the stench would bother him. These fish were dirty; he could not eat them.

  But mostly, he waited. He sat in the dark, blind eyes staring into nothingness, thinking about his mother, choosing not to think about the light and the world above. He thought she would be back soon, and they would live forever in the caves. Together.

  7

  Sally diligently worked her body until it was fit. She swam in the old swimming hole she and Jackie used to frequent when they were children. She couldn’t comprehend that she was now middle-aged, that Clint was twenty years old, that her life was thoroughly destroyed. She took long walks through the woods and the fields. The aged and worn boards that covered the stairs to the tunnel were still there, the lock and hinges rusted solid. She would sit with her back to the big trees and stare at the cover, thinking about time, about life, about fairness.

  She’d seen Michael’s children, too. Justin, about thirteen years old, strong, tall, looking much like his father. The twins, eleven years old, with thick red hair like Maggie’s, turned-up noses and freckles; Ellen and Elsie. And Mary. Different from the rest. No more than four, she was small, thin, with hands and feet too big for her size and very, very shy. The children would swim in the pond as she watched, quietly hidden in the woods. She didn’t want to frighten them, and she didn’t want to have to answer any questions.

  Cora was a good woman. They talked sometimes far into the night. But she could never understand. Sally Ann hadn’t told her about Clint, because this was not his world. He didn’t believe in it, and who was she to keep telling him that there was something better? She had survived with the dream that back with her family she would be happy again. She wanted a normal life for him. She wanted him to be surrounded by love and family and all the things she wanted for
herself. But maybe none of that was to be for them. There was no happiness up here.

  Her body was healed. She was gaining weight. Now she had some decisions to make.

  Her mother encouraged her to get out and socialize, but the thought was frightening. She had nothing to say to anyone. Except Michael. She had plenty to say to him, and Maggie as well. But she wouldn’t. There was no point. She sighed.

  On the way back to the house, she saw Michael and Maggie’s home on the hill where once her dream house was to have stood. The sun was going down and lights were on. It looked so homey, so comfortable. As if they had a will of their own, her feet took her closer to the house. She saw the barn off to the side. Michael kept it all painted up nice. The tractor looked fairly new; the grounds were neat, the trees tall and picturesque. Close enough now to see through the window, Sally Ann kept the big tree in the front yard between her and the kitchen window. When she reached it, she leaned against it and tried to talk sense into herself. “What are you hoping to accomplish by spying on them?” Her conscience would not let her alone.

  The temptation however, ruled her actions, and she peered around the tree and into the kitchen. There was Maggie. Fat as always. She didn’t want to see any more, but she couldn’t help herself. She stood next to the tree, eyes riveted on the warm little scene inside, and she was fantasizing that she was the one in there, making dinner for the babies and loving them all. She was so caught up that she didn’t hear Michael come up behind her until he spoke.

  “Hello?”

  Her face burned a bright red, and she was grateful for the fading light. “Oh, hello. I was, uh, just admiring your house.”

  He looked at her carefully. “You’re Cora’s friend, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I was just out walking.”

  “It’s getting late. I think you should be getting back.” His face softened. “Can I give you a lift?”

  “Oh, well . . .” She smiled. “If it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience. I am rather tired.”