“It’s fine,” she said. “No harm done. I’ll take you to your room. Your bed might not have sheets—”
Back in the foyer, Benjamin was standing among all of my things—my suitcases, the hamper, even my car’s emergency-supply backpack, which was not supposed to leave my trunk.
“Did I leave my car unlocked?” I said.
“Why would you lock it here?” he asked cheerfully. “Here you go.” He bent down and lifted my suitcases. I picked up the hamper. Edna bent toward the backpack, but I said, “No need,” and she straightened back up. We mounted the stairs.
I woke up after the sun had set, as the last dregs of light were pulling away from the sky. I felt disoriented, like a child who has fallen asleep at a party and woken up clothed in a spare bedroom. I reached out, instinctively, for my wife, and met only high-thread-count sheets and a perfectly fluffed pillow.
I sat up. The wallpaper was dark, and dappled with hydrangeas. I could hear sounds coming from the first floor—murmuring chatter, the kiss of silverware and porcelain. My mouth tasted terrible, and my bladder was full. If I could sit up, I could use the toilet. If I used the toilet, I could then turn on the light. If I turned on the light, I could locate the mouthwash in my suitcase and get rid of this musty feel. If I could get rid of the musty feel, I could go downstairs and have supper with the others.
As I swung one leg from the bed, I had a monstrous vision of a hand darting from beneath the bed’s skirt, grasping my ankle, and dragging me beneath while the sound of delighted banter in the dining room drowned out my horrified screams, but it passed. I swung my other leg down, stood, and stumbled to the bathroom in the dark.
As I voided my bladder, I considered my novel, such as it was—that is, piles of notes and papers wedged into a notebook. I thought about Lucille and her predicaments. They were so many.
I came downstairs, the residue of mouthwash burning between my teeth. A long table of dark wood—cherry, perhaps, or chestnut; either way, it was stained a rich crimson—was set for seven people. My fellow residents clustered in the corners of the room, chatting and holding glasses of wine.
Benjamin called out my name and gestured to me with his glass. Anele looked up and smiled. Lydia remained deep in conversation with a slender, pretty man whose fingers were smudged with something dark—ink, I imagined. He smiled shyly at me but said nothing.
Benjamin handed me a glass of red wine before I could tell him that I do not drink.
“Thank you,” I said, instead of “No, thank you.” I heard my wife’s warm voice as if she were next to me, whispering into my ear. Be a sport. I believed that my wife loved me as I was, but I had also become certain that she’d love a more relaxed version of me even better.
“Are you set up?” he asked. “Or were you resting?”
“Resting,” I said, and took a sip of the wine. It soured against the spearmint, and I swallowed quickly. “I suppose I was tired from the drive.”
“That drive is horrible, no matter where you come from,” Anele agreed.
The kitchen door swung open, and Edna emerged, carrying a platter of sliced ham. She set the plate down on the table, and on cue everyone left their conversations and began to gather around their chairs.
“Are you settled?” she asked me.
I nodded. We all sat. The man with smudged fingers reached across the table and shook my hand limply. “I’m Diego.”
“How is everyone’s work going?” asked Lydia.
Every head dipped down as if to avoid answering. I took a piece of ham, a scoop of potatoes.
“I’m heading out tomorrow morning,” Edna said, “and I’ll be back at the end of the week. Groceries are in the fridge, of course. Does anyone need anything from civilization?”
A smattering of noes rose from the table. I reached into my back pocket and produced a prestamped, preaddressed, prewritten letter to be sent to my wife, confirming that I had arrived safely. “Can you mail this for me?” I asked. Edna nodded and took it to her handbag in the hall.
Lydia chewed with her mouth open. She dug something out from between her molars—gristle—then ran her tongue over her teeth and took another sip of wine.
Benjamin refilled my glass. I didn’t remember finishing but I had, somehow. My teeth felt soft in my gums, as if they were lined with velvet.
Everyone began talking in that loose, floppy way wine encourages. Diego was a professional illustrator of children’s books, I learned, and was currently working on a graphic novel. He was from Spain, he said, though he had lived in South Africa and the United States for much of his adult life. He then flirted a little with Lydia, which lowered my estimation of them both. Anele told a funny story about an awkward encounter with an award-winning novelist whose name I did not recognize. Benjamin described his most recent sculpture: Icarus with wings made of broken glass. Lydia said that she’d spent all day “banging on the piano.” “I didn’t bother any of you, did I?” she said in a voice that suggested that she didn’t give a whit one way or the other. She went on to explain that she was composing a “poem-song” and was currently in the “song” part of the process.
The walls were soundproof, Edna assured her. You could be murdered in there and no one would ever know.
Lydia leaned toward me with an expression of deep satisfaction. “Do you know what the richie riches used to call this place, before they lost it?”
“Angel’s Mouth,” I said. “I was in scouting as a girl, and we came here every year. I always remember seeing the sign.”
“Angel’s Mouth,” she half shouted, as if I hadn’t spoken. She slapped the table and laughed uproariously. Her teeth looked rotten—stained plum. I hated her, I realized with a start. I’d never hated anyone before. Certainly people had given me discomfort, made me wish I could blink and disappear, but hate felt new and acidic. It rankled. Also, I was drunk.
“What do they do at Girl Scout camp?” Benjamin asked. “Swim, hike?”
“Fuck each other?” suggested Diego. Lydia slapped him playfully on the arm.
I took a sip of wine, which I could no longer taste. “We made crafts and earned badges. Cooked over the fire. Told stories.” That had been my favorite part. “We usually were there in autumn, so it was too cold to swim,” I said. “But we did walk along the shoreline and play chicken on the pier sometimes.”
“Is that why you’re at this particular residency?” Anele asked. “Because you know the area?”
“No,” I said. “Just a coincidence.” I set my glass down and almost missed the table.
Then there was Lydia’s hideous barking laugh. Diego’s face was buried in her long hair, dropping some secret observation into her ear. She looked at me and laughed again. I blushed and busied myself with my meal.
Anele finished her wine and placed a hand over the glass when Diego lifted the bottle. She turned to me. “While I’m here I’m working on a project that I’m calling ‘The Artists,’” she said. “Would you be willing to spend an afternoon doing a portrait session with me? No pressure, of course.”
The pressure felt real, but I was drowsy and also I already liked Anele in the way that I liked some people—she seemed overwhelmingly well intentioned and was, it could not be denied, strikingly beautiful. I saw she was watching me expectantly, and I realized I was smiling for no apparent reason. I rubbed my numb face with my palms.
“Happily,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. My mouth went to metal.
By the next morning a chill had descended upon the P—— Mountains, and the grounds outside the window of the kitchen were shrouded in mist.
“Do you drink coffee?” Anele said behind me. I had barely nodded when she placed into my hand a warm and heavy mug, which I sipped from without examining it.
“I can walk you down to the studios,” she said. “I’d be happy to. It’s hard to get there if you don’t know the way, even when everything isn’t obscured in fog. Did you sleep well?”
I nodded again. A small an
imal in my brain stirred with intent—to vocalize and thank Anele for her many kindnesses—but I could not remove my eyes from the whiteness beyond the window, how easily it obliterated everything.
When the front doors shut behind us, I jumped. From the steps I could just see the outline of trees, which we had to pass through to reach the lakeside. Anele set off through them, finding the path. She hopped effortlessly over a fallen log and swerved around a patch of fat, glistening mushrooms. At some point we passed a narrow white bench, whose design and dimensions suggested it was not meant for resting. Without turning, she gestured toward it. “The bench is about halfway between the lake and the hotel, just for reference.”
When the trees were behind us, I saw the faintest impressions of buildings. One loomed directly in front of me. For the first time I broke from Anele’s wake and stepped toward it, hoping for clarity with proximity.
“Jesus!” Anele grabbed the strap of my bag and pulled me back. “Be careful. You almost just walked into the lake.” In front of me the air was like milk—no building in sight.
She gestured to her right, where a series of steps ascended toward shadow. “This is you. Mourning Dove, right?”
“Yes,” I said forcefully. “Thank you for showing me the way.”
“Be careful,” she said. “And if you need to get back—” She pointed to where we’d come from. A ball of light glinted, even through the mist. “That’s the hotel. That light is illuminated at night and during bad weather. So you can always find your way home. Happy writing!”
Anele vanished into the mist, though I heard her feet displacing pebbles long after she had gone.
My cabin was a generously sized building with an office that overlooked the rim of the lake—or would, when the fog abated. There was even a small deck, for work on the days without too much sun or rain, or for relaxation or observation. Despite its age, the building was reassuringly sturdy. I walked around, taking hold of various joints and railings, shaking them to see if anything was rotting or came off in my hand like a leprous limb. All seemed solid.
Inside, a series of wooden boards sat on a shelf above my desk. At first glance they resembled Moses’s tablets, but when I stood on a chair and examined them I saw they were lists and lists of names—some clear, some illegible—of previous residents. The names and dates and jokes ran together like a Dadaist poem.
Solomon Sayer—Fiction Writer. Undine Le Forge, Painter, June 19—. Ella Smythe “Summer of Love!” C——
I frowned. Someone with my name—another resident—had occupied this cabin many years ago. I ran my finger over my name—over her name—and then rubbed it on my jeans.
A curious term, resident. It seemed at first glance incidental, like a stone, but then if you turned it over, it teemed with life. A resident lived somewhere. You were a resident of a town or a house. Here, you were a resident of this space, yes—not really, of course; you were a visitor, but whereas visitor suggests leaving at the end of the night and driving out in the darkness, resident means that you set up your electric kettle and will be staying for a while—but also that you are a resident of your own thoughts. You had to find them, be aware of them, but once you located your thoughts you never had to drive away.
A letter on my desk welcomed me to Mourning Dove Cabin and encouraged me to add my name to the newest tablet. From my desk I could see half of my porch, and then the opacity of the fog consumed the railing and all beyond it.
I unpacked my bag and then placed my notebook next to the computer, where it fairly hummed with portent. The novel. My novel.
I began to work. I decided to outline my novel on index cards, so that they would be easy to move around. The entire wall was made of corkboard, and so I thumbtacked the cards in a grid, pinning up Lucille’s trials and triumphs in a way that could be easily manipulated.
A centipede crawled along the wall, and I killed it with the card that said Lucille realizes her entire childhood has been a terrible lie, from the first sentence to the last. Its legs still twitched after I painted the plaster with its innards. I made a new card and threw that one away. The one that said Lucille discovers her sexuality at the edge of an autumn lake was pinned in the middle, which is where my plot abruptly stopped. My eyes scanned the cards. Baxter escapes and is struck by a car. Lucille’s girlfriend breaks up with her because she is “difficult at parties.” Lucille enters the art festival. I felt pleased with my progress, though a little concerned that I wasn’t entirely positive how I was going to maximize Lucille’s suffering. Losing the art festival’s grand prize wasn’t enough, probably. I made a cup of tea and sat down, where I remained staring at the cards until dinnertime.
Just before dawn I woke up with a soapy taste gathering around my molars. My body lurched from the bed. I fell to my knees before the toilet, still shoving away wisps of dreams as a hot burp signaled what was to come.
I had been sick before, but never like this. I vomited so hard that I wrenched the toilet seat from its hinges with a terrible crack and rested my head on the cool tile until it seemed clean, and the best of things. I sat up again, and still more, impossibly more, emerged from my body. To cool down, I crawled into the bathtub. When I looked up at the showerhead in the seconds before it belched icy relief, it was dark and ringed with calcified lime, like the parasitic mouth of a lamprey. I vomited again. When I was certain that nothing remained inside me, I crawled back to the bed, where I pulled the heavy duvet over my body and receded inside myself.
My illness persisted for some time. My fever spiked and the air around me shimmered like heat over blacktop. I thought to myself that I should get to a hospital, that my mind was, like the rest of my body, baking, but the thought was a twig bobbing along through Noah’s deluge. I was freezing and buried myself in my blankets; I was roasting alive and stripped naked, the sweat crystallizing on my skin. At the very worst of it, I reached to the other side of the bed to feel for the contours of my own face. I believe that I cried out for my wife many times, though how loudly (or if I did so at all) is something I will never know. I believe it rained, because outside the window something wet smacked the glass in waves. In the height of my fever, I believed that this was the sound of the tide, and I was sinking beneath the ocean’s surface, dropping out of sight of heat and light and air. I was thirsty, but when I tried to sip water from my trembling palm, I vomited again, my muscles aching from the heaving. I am dying, I thought to myself, and that is that.
I woke up in the thin strains of morning, with a person gently rapping on my door, calling my name. Anele.
“Are you all right?” she asked through the wood. “We’re all really worried about you. You’ve missed dinner for two nights.”
I could not move. “Come in,” I said.
The door swung open, and I heard Anele suck in a sharp breath. I appreciated later what caused this: the room was hot and sour. It smelled of fever and stale sweat, of vomit and weeping.
“I have,” I said, “been ill.”
She came over to the bed, which I thought was kind considering the nuances of contagion. “Do you—should I call Edna?” she said.
“If you could bring me a glass of water,” I said, “it would be much appreciated.”
It felt as if she had dissolved, but then she was back with a glass. I took a sip, but for the first time in days my stomach did not move, except to growl with hunger. I downed the entire glass, and though it did not slake my thirst, I felt my humanity climb back into me.
“Another, please,” I said, and she refilled the glass.
I finished it, and felt renewed.
“There’s no need to call Edna,” I said.
“If you’re sure,” she said. “Let me know if you need anything?”
“Has any mail come for me?” I asked. A letter from my wife would be comforting.
“No, nothing,” she said.
I began to write that afternoon. My legs felt shaky and there was a strange rasping sensation in my chest, but I wrote in
short bursts and felt mostly fine. The Painter came by my cabin and knocked on my door. I started at the intrusion, but she said something and offered me a small box of medicine. I did not reach for it. What was it that my mind kept from me, when forgetting her words?
She said something else and shook the box at me again. I took it. Then she reached up and touched my face; I flinched, but her fingers were cool and dry. She walked down the stairs and went to the lake’s edge, where she reached down, picked up something from the grass, and flung it into the water.
I pushed one of the pills through the blister pack’s foil and examined it. It was oblong, with no numbers or letters, and it was a reddish orange, except also a little purple and blue, and greenish if you turned it, and if I held it in the light it went white as an aspirin. I tossed the box into the trash and the pills into the toilet; they drifted around the bowl like tadpoles before zooming out of sight when I flushed.
As I felt stronger, I began to take walks around the lake. It was bigger than it appeared, and even when I walked for an hour I covered only a fraction of its perimeter. On the third day of these journeys I walked for two hours and discovered a beach with a partially submerged canoe lounging in the tide. The gentle motion of the water caused the canoe to rock ever so slightly and reminded me of the way the canopies of the trees had undulated in the wind during camp. Thum-thum-thum-thum.
The Girl Scout camp of my youth had been on a lake as well. Could it be on the other side of this same lake? If I hiked long and far enough, would I come upon that dock where my own predilections were solidified and mocked on that crisp autumn evening? Would I locate that romantic, terrible idyll? The idea had not occurred to me before—I’d always assumed it was some other lake, up here in the mountains—but the rhythm of the water and the memory of the trees seemed to confirm that I had returned to a place from my past.
It was then I remembered that I had once been sick at camp. How had I forgotten? This was the unspoken pleasure of the residency: the sudden permission of memory to come upon you. I remembered one of the leaders taking my temperature and clucking her tongue at the number. I remembered a sense of despair. Here on the beach, the despair felt clear, as if I’d been seeking its signal for decades and had just now come in range of a cell tower.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018 Page 17
