“And there you were, alone with him in the dark. And he had a knife.”
“Yes.” Hope looked up, pleading in her eyes. “But he never said he’d hurt me. He was talking about those other people. He’s a good man.” Hope rubbed her hands on her arms, as if to warm herself. “I did it to myself. I hurt myself.”
Halley noticed again how little there was left of her flesh.
The memory was eating Hope up from the inside out. “You were afraid if you told the truth – that you were afraid of him – that he’d kill you,” Halley said.
“That’s right.”
“So you lied,” Halley said flatly.
Hope looked startled, and took a moment before answering. “I guess so. Yes. I did lie. I told him I wasn’t afraid. That I was just cold…that I was shaking because I was cold. It started to rain harder. The raindrops were huge – they exploded when they hit the ground. I just wanted to get out of there. He stared at me for so long I thought my heart was going to burst. He didn’t believe me. He couldn’t have believed me.”
“Did he hurt you?” Halley asked quietly.
Hope shook her head. “No.” She shook her head again. “No. He just reached across me and put the knife back, without saying a word. The rain stopped, and we walked home and we never talked about that night again.”
Halley stared at her, and then shifted her gaze to the glossy blackness of the basement door.
“So, when did you try to kill yourself?” she asked.
Hope sat on the floor in front of the basement door, her head in her hands. Halley sat across from her at the pinewood table, turning her empty brown mug around and around, looking at the patterns in the glaze, at the slight indentations and uprisings around the edges, at the tiny air bubbles that had not burst when it had been fired. She put the mug to one side, and rested both hands on the tabletop, palms down. She sat upright and looked at Hope. “The lie you told him,” she said, finally. “You believed it, didn’t you?”
Hope looked up sharply.
“What? What did you say?”
“When you said you weren’t afraid of him.” Halley pressed her palms into the tabletop. “You didn’t believe it that night. That night, you knew you were afraid – you just said so. You knew something was wrong with him. But you had to convince yourself your lie was true. You had to convince yourself that you weren’t scared of him.”
“I don’t understand. Why would I do that?”
Halley leaned forward. She spoke gently. “You couldn’t love him and think he was a monster. You had to rub out that night from your mind. You had to convince yourself all those other frightening moments were just ‘coincidence’.”
“I don’t know what you mean. He didn’t actually do anything, hurt anyone. He’s not a monster. It was all talk.”
“Come on, Hope. You’re lying to me now. He hurt you. I know.”
“He didn’t. I hurt myself.”
Hope stood up.
“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. You’re confusing me.”
She moved towards the kitchen door.
Halley stood too.
“Finish the story. Tell me what else happened that night. It’s the only way out.”
Hope’s body tensed. “I already told you. He put the knife away. We got up. We went home.”
The basement door began to bang behind her, bang bang bang. Hope didn’t even look.
“We went home,” she repeated, more loudly.
“No. That’s not what happened.”
Halley sat down at the table and held her own wrist tightly, wrapping her fingers around the silver bracelet; the bracelet dug into the palm of her hand. “Tell me how it ended. Tell me about trying to kill yourself.”
Hope stood a little straighter. “Nick moved away after my riding accident,” she said. “I didn’t see him much. I met Andy and slept with him. I betrayed Nick. That’s all. That’s it.”
“That’s not it. Tell me how the night under the tree ended. Stay with what happened that night.”
“I can’t. I won’t,” Hope sobbed, and ran out of the kitchen, leaving the door swinging behind her.
Halley let her go. She wouldn’t go far, not until this was over. Staring down at the pinewood table, Halley’s eyes moved restlessly over the worn-out love-poem, the empty brown mug, and the notebook Hope had left behind. If only there was a clue. If only it didn’t depend on Hope having to remember this way.
The notebook!
Halley quickly pulled it towards her. It was spiral-bound, just like ones she’d used for taking notes during college. She stared at the cover a moment before flipping it open. Notes from Bio-chemistry; Psychology 101; Animal Science. Each in their own section, and all neatly written with different color pens. Each section of notes ended abruptly – the last lectures were dated early November. But that didn’t make sense – the term didn’t end till mid-December.
Halley flipped to the last section of the notebook. This section hadn’t been used for class notes; this was personal. It began with love letters to Nick, which must have been written during some of the duller lectures, but the later writing seemed to be more self-reflective. Lists and lists of pros and cons of each man. This must have been what Hope was writing here in this house, about choosing between Andy and Nick. Halley read a bit of it, but it was too repetitive to stay with for long.
She flipped the pages, and something caught her eye – it was a bold sketch, slammed in among all the tiny writing. She flipped through the pages more slowly. Hope hadn’t drawn the sketch just once. She’d drawn it ten, twenty, maybe thirty times. Halley flattened the notebook open on the pinewood table with both hands, as if it would get away. She looked closely at one of the more detailed sketches. It made her head hurt.
It was a drawing of a nightmare forest of tangled trees, their branches crossing one another in thick wavy pencil lines. At the very center of the forest, Hope had drawn a fortress, shading its thick, grey stone darkly with the side of the pencil. She’d drawn winding paths through the woods – they all led to the fortress, but on each path, she had drawn a black, snarling dog. She was a good artist; the picture made Halley look up quickly to make sure she was still alone.
Halley placed her finger on one of the paths, and moved it towards the fortress. Her finger was shaking. There were doors on the fortress; Hope had drawn them as if they were open. Inside the fortress, right at the center, Hope had drawn a box. It could be a tomb. There was something written on it, not words, but a symbol. Three parallel lines. Like bars in a prison window.
Halley flipped through the notebook again, taking care to bookmark the detailed drawing with one finger. This time she noticed the three parallel lines everywhere. Small etchings and larger ones. Some horizontal to the page and others vertical. She went back to the bookmarked drawing and looked again.
Halley opened the kitchen door, and saw Hope slumped on the floor of the living room. She held the notebook out towards Hope, opened to the most detailed image of the fortress. “Did you draw this?”
Hope looked up. “What?”
Halley walked over to her and extended a hand, helping Hope to her feet. “This…”
“No…I don’t…but who could have…it’s my notebook…”
Halley led her slowly back into the kitchen and helped her into a chair.
“Oh, Halley…” Hope said. She rested her head in her hands.
“Something’s hidden there, isn’t it?” Halley pointed to the place on the sketch with her forefinger. Behind those bars. What is it Hope? Is it the truth?”
Hope looked at the sketch, and quickly looked away. “I…” Her hands had fallen to the table. Halley was mesmerized by what she did. Hope spread the fingers wide, keeping three fingers slightly closer together. She pressed hard on these fingers, so they lifted off the table at the second knuckle, flattening the fingertip and first knuckle onto the table. Then she drew the hand towards herself on the pinewood table. The movement looked awkward and pain
ful.
“Stop that,” Halley said.
“What?”
“What you’re doing with your hand. Stop it.”
It bothered Halley in a way she didn’t understand.
Hope folded her hands tightly together, as if this were the only way she could control them.
Halley stared at Hope’s folded hands. It had become difficult to speak. “Try this. Something bad happened that night. Something you couldn’t face. You can’t face. But you didn’t do it. It’s okay, Hope. Stay. Please…sit back down.” Halley reached out and placed a gentle hand on Hope’s arm. “It’s over now. I’m here.” She breathed in deeply and waited until Hope resumed her seat. “We can take off the bars; we can open the tomb. Together. Nick can’t hurt you anymore.” Halley took her hand. It was cold. She placed her other hand over it, to try to warm her. “Did you draw this?” she asked again.
Hope placed her thin finger on the sketch, on the tomb that lay in the center of the fortress. “Yes.” She sighed heavily. “I built it…I mean drew it. Years ago. I drew it so well that it took on a life of its own. Even when I wanted to open it, when I needed to remember what I’d put in that tomb, I couldn’t. I can’t.”
“I guess you did build it. In your mind.”
“I guess so.”
“Can we open it now?”
There was a long silence. Hope stared down at the drawing. When she looked up at Halley, her face was ashen. She took a quick glance at the basement door, then drew in a deep breath and sat up straight.
“Okay. But stay with me…please, stay with me.”
“I’m right here.”
Hope breathed in like it hurt.
“What really happened that night?” Halley said. She pressed Hope’s hand between her own.
Hope looked down at her sketch. She swallowed. With one fingertip, she pressed hard on the sketch, on the tomb. The tip of her finger turned red from the pressure. “What I told you before was all true. All up to the last bit, where he put the knife back under the leaves.” Her eyes filled with tears. “He didn’t put the knife back, Halley, he didn’t.”
Halley felt her own hands grow cold. Together, they looked down at the sketch.
“I couldn’t move, like I said. He had his arm around me. He pulled me in tight, like he used to when we were first dating and he couldn’t get me close enough. But he still had the knife.” She stopped speaking and removed her finger from the drawing. “I was wearing this lovely filmy shirt. It had long, white sleeves. I remember the sleeves. They flared out at the ends by my wrists. It was something like a princess might wear. It made me feel pretty, feminine.” She hit the table with her fist suddenly, making Halley’s empty mug jump. “He ruined my beautiful shirt.”
“Ruined the shirt? What a strange thing to care about,” Halley said.
“You think so? Dad gave me that shirt,” Hope said with real anger. “I thought of it like armor, like he’d magicked some special powers onto the shirt to protect me when he wasn’t there. But it didn’t, did it? It didn’t protect me at all.” She looked up into Halley’s eyes, her pupils enormous in the dark room. “Nick grabbed my wrist. Tight. It hurt. I tried to pull away – I could feel the fabric of my shirt digging into my wrist. He wouldn’t let go, even when I cried out. He wouldn’t let go.”
Halley looked at Hope’s thin, down-covered arms. “What did he do?”
“He put the knife between his teeth. I can still see the white of his teeth on the knife.” Hope closed her eyes. “He rolled back my sleeve. I looked down, and my skin was so white. I remember being surprised that even in the dark my skin could look pale. It made it feel like it wasn’t even my arm. But it had to be, because I could see it had my bracelet on it, the silver bracelet I won riding Sampson over fences.”
Halley looked down at her wrist. The silver bracelet encircled it accusingly.
“He took it off, my bracelet. I remember the sound of it, the little click the catch made. The sound seemed significant.” Hope’s words came from far away, like she was talking underwater. “He threw it into the dark. I didn’t see it fall. It just disappeared. I remember wondering how I’d ever find it again.”
A long silence followed, and Halley realized Hope was waiting for her to say something. She didn’t want to. She wanted to get up and run away. She bit the inside of her cheek, and tried to think of something to say. “Did you fight him?”
Hope looked immediately ashamed. “I didn’t know what he was doing. I kept thinking maybe I was wrong. He was moving so slow, in almost…a…loving way…But when he started to move the knife towards my arm… God…I panicked…” Hope’s hands began to shake, and Halley held them tighter. She was shaking her head back and forth quickly, her face flushed. “I began to scream. But there was no one there to hear.”
She was talking faster now, as if she couldn’t stop the torrent of words. “But I kept screaming – I couldn’t help myself. Then I hit him – I hit him as hard as I could, but we were sitting too close for it to work. I tried to get my arm away. But he was too strong…” Hope’s eyes darted back and forth, as if she were seeing the scene all over again. Her breath came fast.
Halley didn’t say a word.
“I heard another sound. I heard his knife click – he’d closed it – he’d put the blade away. For a second, I thought it was okay, that I’d just over-reacted. Then I heard it click again. Open.”
Halley tasted bile in the back of her throat.
Hope’s voice flattened. It was like she was telling a story that had happened to someone else. “He lifted the knife. He placed the blade against my arm, up by that little hollow on the inside of my elbow.”
A tear ran down Halley’s cheek.
“He slid it down my arm, very slowly. It was almost gentle. I didn’t really feel it – he did it so softly, it didn’t hurt. But I saw the blood. A thin line of it. When I saw it, I heard myself scream again and my hand tried to pull itself away…it was wet with blood, so it nearly got away.” She paused. “I nearly got away…”
Halley couldn’t bring herself to ask what happened next, but it didn’t matter, as Hope continued anyway, without further prompting.
“He shoved me over. He pinned my arm down with his knees. Really fast, he ran the knife down my arm twice more, with more pressure than the first time. Maybe it was because I couldn’t keep still, but that’s when it really started to bleed, these three lines he’d carved in my arm.” Hope looked at her with hollow eyes. “It was like a brand. Like he was saying I was his property, and no one else could ever touch me. No one…no one…kind.”
This time Halley got the question out. “What happened next?”
“Everything turned black. I must have passed out.”
It was nearly dawn. Eden and Athena were asleep on the back lawn. The eagle kept its vigilant watch.
To Halley, it felt like they’d been sitting at the pinewood table forever. Her eyes felt scratchy and her body felt like it had been pummeled by rocks. “Let’s go outside,” she said, breaking their long silence. “Let’s sit on the front porch and watch the sunrise.”
She pushed her chair back. Hope stood as well.
Together, they walked through the kitchen door, which swung back and forth behind them, until settling closed. Opening the front door made the wind chime stir, and it sounded its inappropriately cheerful greeting. Halley reached up to still it.
Carefully, as if wounded, they sat down on the porch steps. The stars were visible, but the moon had set. On the furthest horizon was the slightest hint of dawn. The story wasn’t finished. “What happened when you woke up?” she said. She turned to look at Hope, who was also looking out at the sunrise.
Hope’s gaze moved from the horizon to the dandelions. “Dad was always so careful about this place. He would’ve hated those dandelions.”
Halley nodded. “Remember how mad he’d get when you blew them after they’d gone to seed? You couldn’t help it – ‘angel parachutes’, you called them �
�� that’s why you did it. You thought you were helping the angels get to earth. But you never told him that…”
“Mm. Angel parachutes. But just look what a mess I’ve made of things,” Hope said, gesturing to the lawn.
A long silence sat heavily between them, a massive black rock. Halley put her hand on top of Hope’s. “You don’t think… Hope? You’ve got to know that nothing that happened was your fault. It wasn’t your fault.”
Hope shrugged her off. “Maybe if I’d fought back sooner…”
“He might’ve killed you. You did what you had to do.”
Hope didn’t respond.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Halley prompted. “What happened when you woke up?”
Hope reached over and pulled a stray piece of honeysuckle towards her. “I don’t think I ever have woken up,” she said quietly. “The next day, I couldn’t remember how I got hurt. I didn’t remember what he had done.”
“You didn’t remember? How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. All I know is what Nick told me.”
“Which was?”
“He told me that I’d tried to kill myself.” Her fingers played with a loose strand of honeysuckle, tying it into small knots. “That he’d saved my life.” Without warning, she kicked hard at the porch railing. “I feel so fucking stupid!” There was a cracking sound as a bit of the old wood began to splinter.
Halley stood. The anger was good. She began to kick at the porch railing too.
Hope looked perplexed for a moment, like she’d been expecting Halley to scold her. Then she kicked harder, slamming into the wood again and again. With a crash, a section of the porch railing broke off, falling to the ground below.
Halley put a gentle arm around her and led her back to the steps. She waited until Hope’s breathing had become quiet.
“Tell me…
Hope bit her first finger, then balled her hand into a tight fist. Her voice sounded controlled, but barely. “When I woke up, I had a bandage on my arm. It hurt so much. I didn’t know what had happened. Nick was sitting next to me on the bed, wiping my forehead with a damp washcloth.” She took a deep breath. “It was a lovely navy blue, that washcloth. So soft. It was so comforting to wake with it being swept across my skin.” Hope touched her forehead with her fingertips, as if in remembrance of the feeling.
Out of The Woods Page 19
