“It seems like you’ve spent a lot of time not remembering.” Halley looked around the dimly lit room. “Is this how you want your life to be, living all alone in this house, starving to death?”
Hope’s face flushed. “What do you mean, ‘…starving to death’”? I eat, I do. I’m okay. I’m better here alone.”
“Better than what?”
Hope looked away from the window, and stared at Halley with open hostility. “Better than I was when I was with Nick.”
“What do you mean?” Halley leaned forward. “What was it like with Nick? You said you loved him. That he loved you. That he wrote you those nice love poems on soft, baby-blue paper.”
Hope turned and walked out of the room, leaving Halley alone at the pinewood table. The kitchen door continued swinging for several seconds. Halley listened to the mournful sound it made. Moments later, Hope came back. She held a piece of paper. Sitting down in the other chair, she passed it over to Halley. In the dim light it was hard to tell the color, but it might have once been baby-blue. It was covered in fine handwriting, long cursive letters, written carefully. But there were spots on the paper, whitish spots of mildew, and when Halley held the paper between her fingers it felt damp and insubstantial.
“That was one of the love poems. He stopped writing them a long time ago. Now it’s like they were written by someone else, someone long gone.”
Halley breathed out hard. “That can’t be all, Hope. That’s not a reason to think about leaving him for this pretty boy with the great abs. A lot of people stop writing love poems when they’ve been together a while. It doesn’t mean they’ve stopped loving each other.” Halley thought about something Hope had said earlier. “You said you love Nick, present tense.” She held the love poem out to Hope, who didn’t take it. “This can’t be all. This can’t be the reason.”
Hope looked down at the table. “It’s not. It’s just…the things seemed to have meaning when they happened, but I…maybe it wasn’t deliberate…maybe I just imagined it all.”
“What? What things?”
Hope hesitated, and looked around the kitchen, as if for evidence. Her eyes lit on the knife block. “Like that,” she said, pointing at it. Nick and I would make dinner together. I’d do the vegetables and he’d do the meat. I didn’t like handling meat. But when he did it, I’d actually have to leave the room. He lifted the knife this little bit too high before cutting up the meat. Like he was relishing the moment of stabbing. I didn’t want to see it. It made me nervous.”
Halley could not take her gaze off the knife block. “Were there other things besides that?”
“I don’t know. He started picking on me, I guess. He called me names sometimes, “Hope, the Dope” or “Ugly Duckling”. He said the names like he was joking, but it wasn’t funny. I was afraid to tell him to stop.”
“What were you afraid of?”
Hope looked down at the old bit of blue paper on the table, and ran her fingers back and forth across the words, as if crossing them out. “I’d take him to my brother’s sometimes. I have this adorable niece – Amy – she’s just turned four – and Nick would play with her, throw her in the air and catch her and make her giggle. Only Amy stopped giggling after a while, and Nick didn’t stop throwing her right away.” Hope turned the bit of paper over and they both stared at the white spots of mildew on its back. “Amy started to hide in the closet when we came to visit. My brother and his wife thought it best if we stopped going for a while.”
Hope stood up suddenly, and walked to the basement door. She checked that the door was locked. Twice. She rattled it back and forth in its frame, three times, as if to make sure it would hold. The door made a reassuring knocking sound. Her eye twitched again when she sat back down at the table.
Halley’s eyes remained on the door. The moonlight shimmered on its glossy black paint, on the mock crystal doorknob. It’s just like the door in my house with Fernando, Halley thought, with a chill. She didn’t like the door; in fact, she hated it with a sudden passion. It made her think about how often she’d checked the door at home – it was never often enough. She took her eyes from it and focused on Hope instead. “Why don’t you just leave him? Go with Andy?” Halley fingered the silver bracelet.
“I don’t feel like I have a good enough reason. Just impressions. He hasn’t done anything bad. And like you said, I still love him…”
“You still love him,” Halley said, like this fact was of little consequence. She stared hard at Hope’s thin arms. “How do you know he hasn’t done anything bad?”
With a startling pop, the light bulb over the kitchen table burnt out.
Halley gripped the edge of the table. Through the kitchen window, the moon shone, glimmering off the glossy black paint of the basement door.
I should’ve checked it again. Once is never enough!
Hope had the same thought. She jumped to her feet, her eyes wide with fear. “Hurry!” she shouted. “We’ve got to make sure!”
Even as she was speaking, she was running across the room. Halley raced after her.
But it was too late. Light was already slipping between the edge of the door and its frame. Grabbing at the doorknob, Hope fought to hold it closed. Desperately, she tried to turn the dead-lock. But the door wouldn’t lock. The lock was misaligned. Even as she turned it, it spun uselessly.
There was a pull from the other side of the door. Something was trying to get out! Hope held the knob in a death grip, her face white.
“No! No!” she screamed.
Halley was breathless with terror.
Hope lost her grip. The door yanked open. She screamed, stumbling backwards.
Halley stepped forward. She blocked the doorway, wide-stanced, arms up. Something was trying to come into the kitchen. It was featureless in the dark. Then the moonlight hit it. She could finally see. This was no monster – no dream.
It was Nick!
His height, his physique – even his clothing – was just the same. But his face! It was heavy, weighty with rage. His eyes were strangely translucent, staring. They were the eyes of a madman.
She couldn’t let him in! There were knives there. She stepped forward, hitting him hard in the chest, shoving him backwards. It was like punching ice. He stumbled on the stairs, falling backwards a few steps. Her knuckles throbbed.
But he came back quickly.
She wanted to flee. But she stayed where she was. She watched.
He climbed the stairs. His smell was rank, unwashed. His hair tangled, filthy. His empty eyes held her. His arms reached for her. For a moment, his eyes seemed tender. Then the look vanished, replaced by a look of murderous intent.
Quickly, she struck, a back-fist snapped hard into his forehead. The blow stunned him. Her front kick slammed hard into his stomach. He fell, tumbling to the bottom of the staircase. She took a breath. But he was up quickly. He took the stairs two at a time.
“Stop!”
He just kept coming.
“I said stop!”
Nick climbed the stairs and she felt a sharp pain in her right arm that made her flinch. He came faster.
She took a step backwards.
Hope cried “No!”
The man stormed into the kitchen, into the cold moonlight. His eyes found the knife block.
Halley swung her leg in a sweeping kick. She hit him just above his knees. The force threw him against the wall of the stairwell. His head snapped to the side. He slid to the bottom of the stairs.
Quickly, Halley slammed the door. The lock caught on the first turn. Sliding the extra bolts across the top and the bottom of the door, relief flooded through her. She checked the door one more time, shaking it back and forth in the doorframe, and then looked behind her. Hope had sunk to the floor.
Halley moved to her. She took her in her arms. “It’s okay… it’s okay…it’s okay.” She gently rocked Hope in rhythm with the words. Slowly, calm filled the kitchen. She held Hope gently, trying to send her strength through
the warmth of her body.
When Hope finally spoke, it was with the voice of someone broken. “It’s not okay. It will never be okay. That man…that Nick-that’s-not-Nick…he keeps coming back,” she said. “I can’t fight him anymore. I just can’t…”
Holding Hope, Halley felt her knuckles throb.
From the basement, all was quiet.
Eden watched through the kitchen window. She’d seen the whole thing. Now Halley and Hope were sitting on the floor in the dark, Halley holding Hope in her arms. The moonlight glistened on Halley’s wide-open eyes. They weren’t speaking.
“It’s like they’re waiting for something,” Eden said.
The horse lifted its head and neck, and looked over at the house. A sudden beating of wings made the horse snort. Eden watched as the eagle landed in the maple tree, on the branch just above the kitchen window.
“What should we do?” Eden asked it, staring upwards.
“Leave them a while longer,” the eagle replied. “Halley will find the answer.”
“But that man from the basement! What if he comes back?”
“Did you see him too?”
Eden nodded. “Of course – it was that man you told me about, the one in the red shirt. Halley fought him.”
“Ah, moonlight is strange,” the eagle replied. It held the branch tightly with sharp talons.
Eden wondered why the eagle sounded sad.
After a pause, it continued. “Halley was fighting. But there was no one else there. She was fighting all by herself.”
Eden went quiet. This would take some time to understand.
Halley drew in a deep breath. She got up and switched on a small lamp that stood in the corner then sat down again.
“Okay. Let’s try some more. You said could see dark green and you could smell the woods. That it was cold, like night or winter. What else can you feel?”
“Do you think it’s a good idea, to try for more? I mean…”
“You mean the man from the basement.”
Hope nodded.
“He’ll come back anyway, won’t he?” Halley said. Her voice betrayed no emotion.
Hope didn’t answer.
“Won’t he?” Halley repeated.
Hope nodded and wrung her hands.
“So…what else can you feel?”
“You mean with my body?” Hope said.
“Yes.”
“I feel…I think…the ground. Like I’m sitting on the ground, and it’s hard underneath me.” Hope shifted on the kitchen floor. “Hard…but soft. I’ve got something in my hand, crinkly sort of – I think maybe leaves. Wait…I’m…we’re under a…tree…under the canopy of a gigantic tree.” Hope’s chin tilted up and she looked at a place on the ceiling, off to the left. “I can see the stars. There are thousands of them out tonight. And Nick’s here – he has his arm around me. It’s heavy, his arm, but I like it. It feels reassuring.”
“What else is happening?”
“He’s talking. Oh, I love the sound of his voice. Its like a soft summer rain in the treetops.” Halley felt Hope relax in her arms for a moment, and then suddenly tense again. “Wait…it…his voice…it sounds different tonight. It has an edge to it. I don’t like it…”
Halley was breathing faster. “The moonlight? Is it fading? I think it’s fading,” she said.
“Yes, you’re right.” Hope paused. She turned around to look at Halley, the gap between her eyebrows narrowed. “How did you know?”
Halley didn’t answer.
Hope turned back. “There’s a cloud over the moon. I can see it. It’s just a little one. Oh…it’s getting more solid, it’s blocking the moonlight.” Her hand covered her mouth.
“What?”
“Nick. He’s talking very quietly. He’s talking about having trouble. Something about enemies and pressure and…”
Hope pushed Halley’s arms from around her and stood up quickly. She faced Halley, breathing fast. ‘But I know every angle of his face, every curve,” she said. “I know the texture of his eyebrows.” She ran a forefinger along her own, as if to demonstrate. “I know that curlicue in his inner ear like I was born to know it.” Her face crumpled in on itself. “How can this be? How can I feel the way I do?”
Halley got to her feet.
“Forget about what you feel. Go on with what you remember. What do you hear?” She tried to keep her voice calm, but was aware of the tightness in her throat – it made the words feel like a huge wave channeled between jetties onto too small a beach. “What do you hear?” she repeated.
“His words…they’re like a floodwater, drowning our love… drowning me…” Hope’s voice cracked. “His eyes…they’re so…”
Hope stepped quickly to the basement door. She took hold of the doorknob, and rattled the door back and forth in its frame, making sure it was still locked. “His arm is too heavy now. I can’t bear the weight of it. I’ve got to get out from under him. The moon…”
“The moon is gone.”
Outside, all was calm. Eden had crept back to Athena, and she slept again in the hollow made by the horse’s legs, curled up tightly.
The eagle kept watch from the maple tree, watching Hope rub her arms as she leaned her back against the basement door. She has never processed this, the eagle thought. She feels the same sensations and emotions that she felt that night with Nick. By now, the memory should be a picture, far removed, not something that can stir her body this way. The eagle gripped the tree with thick talons. It fought its instinctive urge to screech. If only I could have been there that night. I might have saved her.
Inside the kitchen, Halley sat down at the pinewood table, keeping her eyes on Hope.
Hope crossed her arms in front on her chest. “I can’t remember anything else,” she said. “It’s too dark. I can’t see.”
“You mean you won’t,” Halley said flatly.
She thought about Eden, about what she’d said just before she left the house: You’ve got to be brave enough to face the truth, she’d said. What did that mean? What truth was Halley avoiding?
She thought about what had been recalled so far: moonlight; dark green; a tree’s canopy; Nick; floodwater. The series of words felt frozen and impenetrable; they yielded nothing. Halley shifted in the chair – her closed pocketknife was digging into her leg. She stretched out the leg and reached into her pocket, but she couldn’t get to the knife. She stood up, undoing the buttons that held the pocketknife in place. Shifting the knife slightly to the right, she sat down again. Hope was watching her closely.
“What? What’s the matter?” she said.
“What’s that in your pocket?” Hope rose to her feet, her whole body tense.
“In my pocket?” Halley was perplexed. “It’s just my knife.”
Hope covered her face with her hands. A dim light began to emanate from the gaps around the basement door, and Hope began to pound repetitively on the glossy black door with her fists. “I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to remember.” The pounding made the door shake.
“What is it?” Halley said. Her heart felt like it was beating in time with the pounding on the door. “What don’t you want to remember? Hope, what’s the matter? Stop it…Answer me…”
Hope wasn’t listening. She was pounding harder and faster; she’d break the door if she didn’t stop.
“Did Nick have a knife that night?”
Hope shuddered. The pounding stopped.
“No. It was me. I did it. With my knife…I tried to kill myself.”
But something in Hope broke just then. She sank to the floor. “God…no…”
“What?”
“You’re right. He did have a knife.” Hope rubbed her hand back and forth on the kitchen floor, as if trying to erase the memory. “He kept going on and on about these ‘enemies’ of his. About what he was going to do to them…”
Halley’s hands were white, holding the empty mug. “Maybe he was just venting, just getting
it out of his system…”
“No…No.” Hope looked up at Halley. “There was too much detail for just venting. He was talking about knifes and stabbing and blood. Even about how he’d planned to get rid of the bodies…” Hope breathed out hard and wrung her hands together. “I could tell he’d been thinking about it for a long time. He said he was afraid he was going crazy, but the way he said it…he had this glee in his voice…”
“What happened?”
Hope’s body closed up. “He reached across my lap and pushed some leaves aside. He uncovered something,” she said flatly. “The moon came out again, just for a second, and the thing Nick was holding glinted…”
“The knife.”
“Yes. The knife. It was a hunting knife.” She shivered. “He opened and closed it, really smoothly, like he’d been practicing with it. Its edge…I couldn’t take my eyes away from it…it was so jagged and awful.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I couldn’t move. Only I stopped leaning against him. He played with the knife for ages without saying a word. I didn’t know what to do.”
Halley pulled the other chair beside her, and patted it softly. “Come sit here.”
Hope shook her head.
“What happened?”
“When Nick finally spoke, his lips had gone all thin and white. I started to shake – he must’ve felt it. He whispered. He asked me if I was afraid of him. I couldn’t answer. He said it again, “Are you afraid of me?” It was louder this time. Each word seemed so long, like he was speaking in slow motion.”
“God.”
Hope’s fist clenched. “I didn’t know what to say. Of course I was afraid. But I couldn’t say that.”
She looked down.
“Why not?”
“If I admitted I was afraid of him…that would mean there was something to be afraid of. If I believed it, he’d believe it.”
Out of The Woods Page 18
