by Alex Gordon
—and stopped.
A woman stood in the middle of the river. She was short. A little heavy. Middle-aged, with straight salt-and-pepper hair that grazed her shoulders. She stood bent, hands shoved in the pockets of an old brown barn coat. The water reached her knees, and had soaked the legs of her jeans so that they darkened from blue to black to a point midway up her thighs.
Her gaze held Lauren, even from the distance, piercing eyes set in a broad face, the skin pale, the expression so, so sad.
Lauren took a step forward, but stopped when the woman backed away. “Are you Connie Petersbury?”
The woman cocked her head. “Did I know you?” A soft voice, kind, but tired.
“No, we never—” Lauren hesitated as the word “did” snagged her ear. “We’ve never met.” She pointed to the woman’s jeans. “You should get out of the water. It must be cold.”
“It’s all the same to me.” Petersbury tugged at the sodden cloth with a bare hand. “You have to take care where you walk here. This is the borderland. The space between. The worlds blend here, ours and theirs.”
“Theirs?” Lauren asked a question for which she already knew the answer. “Who are they?”
“The dead. The corrupted dead.” Petersbury’s voice cracked. “Some folks call them demons, but they’re worse than that. They’re us, gone bad.” She dipped her cupped hand in the river, brought up some water, then let it drip through her fingers. “There are still places that aren’t as awful as others, but you have to be careful. Like when you put the flour and milk and eggs in a bowl and give them that first stir. They’re together for good—you won’t never be able to separate them. But there are places where it’s still all one thing or the other. And those places are right next to one another, so you think you’re safe in the flour, and the next thing you know you’re in the eggs.” She turned back to Lauren. “Am I making sense?”
Lauren nodded, eventually. “A little.”
“Because I’ve tried to figure out ways to explain it, and that’s the only thing I can come up with.” Petersbury looked toward the bushes that had rustled a few minutes before. “Who are you?”
“My name’s Lauren. Reardon.” Lauren followed Petersbury’s stare. She still saw nothing—the foliage remained still, and quiet. “I was passing through. My car broke down.”
Petersbury tsked. “Shouldn’t have come here. The stranger passing through town always gets it first—don’t you watch the movies?”
“My dad wouldn’t let me, when I was little.” A memory flashed in Lauren’s mind. Her father turning off the television. The anger in his voice. “He said they were a waste of time. I had to watch them at friends’ homes.”
“I used to like them, back in the day.” Petersbury switched her attention from the bushes back to the water swirling around her—she dipped her bare hand up to the wrist, pulled it out, then rubbed her fingers together as though feeling for something. “If you find your way out of here, look for a tall, skinny woman with iron-gray hair, and tell her—” She fell silent, then sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “Her name’s Virginia. She was my best friend. Tell her I’m sorry about the horses. Tell her that Connie said that she was wrong, and she’s so sorry.”
“Please.” Lauren reached out. “Take my hand and—” She spotted something on the ground at her feet, and picked it up. A leather work glove, well worn, and small enough to fit a child. “Is this yours?”
Petersbury looked at the glove, then down at her bare hand. “Keep it. Won’t do me no good now.”
“There’s nothing wrong with it. It just needs to dry out a little—see?” Lauren pointed to a rock in a shallow pool near the river’s edge. “I’ll set it atop that rock, and you can come and get it—”
“No.” Petersbury waved her back. “Don’t come any closer. I’ve come about as close as I can to you. And you’ve come about as close as you can to me.” Her hands fluttered, moving from her hair to the front of her jacket, in and out of her pockets, before finally stilling. “Closer than I thought anyone in your condition could come, I’ll give you that.”
Lauren brushed dirt off the glove and tucked it in a side pocket of the backpack. “My condition?”
“Being alive and all.” Petersbury felt the water again. “I’m trying to stay in the space between, but it keeps shrinking. Shifting. Getting harder and harder to find a safe place.” She took a step back, then moved a little to one side. “Water’s always running. Never stands still. They can’t catch it all at one time, them that live here, so some of it always remains free.” She studied Lauren for a moment, then sighed. “You’re looking at me like they all do. Did.”
“No.” Lauren caught movement from the corner of her eye, shadows flickering in the woods on the other side of the river, moving closer to the shore. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me, but I want to learn.”
“How much time you got?” Petersbury looked up toward the sky, which had darkened to charcoal tinged with red. “Not as much as you think.” She took another step back, then edged sideways. “Find Virginia and tell her that the space between is getting thinner and there’s nothing she can do. Tell her he’s back.”
“Mr. Lumpy?” Lauren blurted the name.
“How do you know about him?” Petersbury stared. “What did you say your name was?”
Damn. “Lauren Reardon.”
“Got family in Gideon?”
“I think I did. Once.”
“Who? Odds are I know—knew—them.”
Past tense again. Lauren studied the sad, pale face. I’m talking to a dead woman. Was it even possible to lie to the dead? Even if you could, was it the right thing to do? “I think Matthew Mullin was my father.”
“You think?” Petersbury looked her up and down. “Age is about right. Is your mama’s name Emma?”
Lauren hesitated. “No.”
“Huh. He come with you? Your daddy?”
“He died about a week and a half ago.”
“Well, that explains some. Not a lot, but some.” Petersbury nodded. “You need to go to Virginia. You better start walking now.” She pointed downriver. “That way. Stay on the side you’re on—don’t cross for nothing. If you go on that side”—she pointed toward the opposite bank, the bushes and the woods and the gathering shadows—“you’ll never get back out.”
Lauren took a few steps, then stopped. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“I appreciate the thought, but there’s nothing you can do for me.” Petersbury offered the barest smile. “How did you wind up here?”
“I don’t know. They’re all looking for you, and I went to see if I could help. But they can’t see me.”
“They can’t see me either. Not no more. We’re not in the same place as them.”
“We’re flour, and they’re milk.” Lauren walked a little farther, stopped again. “They sent a light to find you. I saw it. Why didn’t it work?”
“It’s light. This ain’t the place for it.” Petersbury folded her arms, hugged herself. “It’s not the place for you either. Go. Now.”
“I’m going to tell them I saw you.”
“They won’t believe you.”
“Can’t you follow me? I won’t try to touch you or anything.”
“I wish I could. Now get going.”
“All right.” Lauren raised her hands in surrender. “Good-bye.”
The path ahead looked as inviting as a noir alley, tree limbs overhead interlocked in a gnarled canopy, the fading light hazy. Lauren put a hand to her belt, felt for the knife, wondered if it would make any difference. When she reached a spot where the land sloped down, she looked back, and saw Connie Petersbury watching her. She waved, waited for some response. When none came, she finally gave up, and resumed walking.
CONNIE WATCHED THE woman until she vanished into the gloom. She still has the look of life about her. She shouldn’t have been able to survive, not here.
“She’s yours all right, Matt.” Co
nnie traced a circle and an X on her forehead with her thumb, and asked the Lady to lead Lauren Reardon out safe. “Hope you did better by her than you did by us.” But why Reardon? Maybe because there had never been a Reardon in Gideon. “Oh, Matt. Did you really think changing your name would help?”
“Who you talkin’ to, Nana?” The thing that had been her great-niece stepped out of the bushes and tottered to the edge of the opposite bank. “Please, Nana. I love you.”
“Hello, Baby Bella. They sell mushrooms named after you, you know that? Seen ’em in a store once. Spawn of dark and dirt, just like you.” Connie backed away as much as she dared. The river had already changed so much in the short time since she had taken refuge in it. A step in the wrong spot and the water would sweep her into the depths of the wilderness. She had escaped Nicholas Blaine once. He wouldn’t let her get away again. “You’re not my baby girl. You’re a thing. A dead thing.”
“So are you, Nana.” Bella’s voice had altered from that of a toddler into something older, deeper. “Dead as dead can be.”
“Maybe. But I’m not like you.”
“Not yet.”
“Go away. You’re trying to wear me down. You’re him, for all I know.”
“We all are. He is great.”
“He’s a man.”
“Was a man.”
“Is. Was. Man is man. He can be had.” Connie looked downriver again, toward the last place she had seen Lauren Reardon, just before the woman disappeared from view. “Yes. He can be had.”
Not-Bella reached out, tiny claws colored red by the light. “I could touch you, Nana.”
“I would like to see you try.” Connie felt the water again, the current that sheltered her and kept her safe. It had grown colder, narrower. She would have to find another one soon. “You go back and tell your grampy that it’s still milk, eggs, and flour here, and I ain’t moving. Tell ’im I loved him once but he’s not that person anymore and all bets are off.”
“He’s your brother.”
“He killed me.” Connie sniffed. “Mostly, anyway.”
“You’re going to lose.”
“You’re trying to distract me. Shut up and go away.” Connie watched the little figure toddle off—for all her voice had aged, Bella still walked like a baby. For the time being, at least.
Connie felt the current again, sensed another thread of warmer water, and stepped into it. The darkness pressed closer, and she stuffed her hands in her pockets and huddled against the chill.
Matt’s girl is here. Poor woman. Did she have any idea what she had gotten herself into?
Lauren followed the path along the river, stopping every so often to check her surroundings. The river had widened, the water lightened to the same silt brown she had seen from Corey’s deck. The sky had also grown brighter, the red haze vanished, and the trees had gone back to just being trees.
Almost there. She felt a cold, damp breeze on her face, smelled wood smoke, and almost cried in relief. She broke into a trot, then quickened to a run when she caught sight of the edge of the woods.
Out of the trees and into watercolor light, gold and silver and gray, pale and clear. She stumbled, almost fell, caught herself in time. Staggered to a fresh-cut stump and sat, breathed in the green wood scents that lingered in the air. Buried her head in her hands and tried to slow her racing heart.
Did you enjoy your walk?
Lauren raised her head and opened her eyes.
He stood near the edge of the woods, beneath the shelter of an old oak. Tall and slim, he wore a long, fitted coat, and held something in one hand, a furled umbrella or cane. Shadows obscured his face, muddied the details and colors of his clothes.
But the voice. Something about the voice. Rich and deep and familiar, like the memory of a song heard long ago. Oh, let me in . . . let me in . . . The same dark words she had heard that last day at her condo, filling her head.
“What are you?” Lauren pressed her hands to her ears. “Your voice is in my head. Get the hell out of my head.”
I mean you no harm. He pushed away from the tree and paced slowly back and forth. You do know me. I’ve been following you for some time.
Lauren watched him move, felt the tension, the undercurrent of power. “Parking-Lot Man.”
I waited for you outside your door, yes. Followed you through the streets. But I sought only to comfort. You must believe that. It proved to be a cane he held, the narrow lines sharpening in the light. I understand loss. You must feel quite overwhelmed by it all. His face remained hidden, veiled by darkness and the brim of a tall hat. Old-style clothing. Dickens and Jane Austen and old Victorians.
“I’m fine.” Lauren hugged her knees to her chest. She felt the sudden urge to protect herself, followed by the fear that nothing she did would matter.
I think we both know that’s not true. He stopped in front of a tumbled pile of branches, and plucked dead leaves like flower petals. You’re confused. Frightened. Leaf fragments drifted to the ground. Let me help you.
Lauren watched him. Not solid, no. Not an actual person. A shade. An image formed from fog and smoke. “I don’t need your help.”
Even without a face, you could tell he smiled. You could hear the change in his voice, like chocolate melting. You need my help, and much, much more. He crumpled one last leaf to dust, brushed off his fingers, then turned to her. You know why you’re here. It wasn’t a question. You know why you’ve been called.
“Just passing through. My car broke down.”
Ah. Stubborn, like he was. But strong, too. So, so strong. You passed through my domain unscathed. You should be dead, you realize that?
“Maybe I am.”
My dear. He bent at the waist, as though addressing a child. You have never been more alive. The shadows that shaped his face swirled and darkened, hinting at features yet not forming them.
Lauren stared into the haze, tarnished silver and ash and cobwebs. “Why can’t I see what you look like?” She let go her legs and kicked out, driving him back. Then she stood, slipped off the backpack, and left it atop the stump. “Maybe your face is all wrinkled and decrepit? Picture of Dorian Gray?” Took one step forward, then another, until she stood toe-to-toe with him. “I know who you are. You’re Pizza Face.”
He stilled, whatever he was. Ghost. Demon. The Devil His Own Self. Even the shadows of his face ceased movement. A soft rumble followed, as though he cleared his throat. Then came the voice again, the warmth turned to frost. And where did you stumble upon that colorful appellation, Lauren, daughter of Matthew?
“Leave me alone.” Lauren struck out, tried to push him back. But her hands met nothing but a chill that enveloped them to the wrists and held them fast.
So angry. So like your father. I knew him well. He leaned close. And he knew me.
Lauren felt his cheek brush hers, cold as snow.
You hold something of mine in your hand. I want it back.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
My life in your hands, daughter of Matthew, the man who buried me in this place.
“He killed you?”
As good as. But you can make it right. You can give my life back to me.
“I don’t know how.”
You can learn. But there are limits to my patience, my tolerance. I suggest you learn quickly.
Lauren felt the pressure around her wrists ease, then vanish. Then light and dark shifted and she found herself alone, hands blue-white and aching from cold, her mind a tumult of fear and anger.
Then came the barest whisper, here and then gone, like breath on glass.
We will meet again.
Silence followed, for a few moments. Then the voices broke through. Women’s voices. Not from the woods, but from the direction opposite, coming closer.
Lauren ran toward the woods. Felt something missing, stopped and turned, and saw her backpack atop the stump. Shit. She dashed back, was about to grab it and heft it to her shoulder—
—too late.
They bustled into the clearing, five of them, dressed in jeans, jackets, and boots. The glaring orange vests. An older woman, two middle-aged, two younger. Lauren recalled their faces from the circle. One, unfortunately, she already knew too well.
Deena stood hands on hips, and looked Lauren up and down. “What are you doing here?” She had overdressed for a hike—her makeup was obvious even from a distance, and a hefty display of cleavage showed above the open zipper of her jacket.
“I came out to help with the search.” Lauren stepped around the stump so that it stood between her and the women. The looks the four strangers gave her ranged from skeptical to hostile, while Deena radiated the sullen anger of a high school bully. “Did you find her?”
“Who? Connie?” One of the middle-aged women stepped forward. Stark black hair poked out from beneath a puffy pink cap, a match for the puffy pink jacket that made an eye-watering contrast with the orange vest. “No, we haven’t found her.” She gave Lauren the same sour once-over as had Deena. “Is this the one he took home?”
“Yeah. Not even in town five minutes, and he scooped her right up.” Deena fluttered her hands. “‘Oh, oh, my car broke down. Help me, help me.’”
“That’s not what happened, and you know it.” Lauren edged to the other side of the stump, which gave her a clear path past the women. If she left the way they came, she would find the road back to Gideon. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to town.”
“‘If you’ll excuse me,’” Deena singsonged. “In a hurry to get back to your new boyfriend?”
“I haven’t seen Dylan Corey since he left to join the search for Connie.”
“That was three days ago.” That from the older woman, who stood away from the others. “We were searching for you, too.”
“Maybe we should all just go back to town and let him know I’m okay.” Lauren searched the woman’s face, looked for some sign that she could be reasoned with. But she seemed content to stand off to the side and watch things unfold, hands in her pockets, face a blank.
