In the Blood

by Lisa Unger

  Our parents hold an awesome power over us, Dr. Cooper said. The child of abuse will do almost anything to protect the injuring parent.

  I jumped to his defense (sad, pathetic): He didn’t abuse me.

  He was absent and often angry with you, by your own account, all your life. He was violent with your mother. You and a jury of twelve believe that he killed her. That’s abuse, my dear, even if he never laid a hand on you.

  They came to get me on the third afternoon, Aunt Bridgette and my grandmother. My father had been taken in for questioning, and I was under my bed again. Because that was the only place in the house that I could stand to be.

  They helped me pack a bag and took me back to my grandmother’s house. And there, in her old-lady living room complete with floral-patterned furniture, varnished dark wood, and doilies and a baby grand piano, I told them everything I had seen. I told them how we drove and drove, and finally I helped him carry the dining room carpet through a swampy, treed area until we came to a small clearing. And I wept and moaned as he started digging in the moonlight.

  She wouldn’t want me to go to prison. Thud. You know that. She’d want me to take care of you. Thud. Whatever happened, he said. He paused, breathless and sweating in the blanket of humidity that hung in the air. It was an accident. You have to believe me.

  And, oh, I so very badly wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe him so bad that I saw my mother’s ghost hovering in the air, blue and saintly. She was nodding her agreement, and I knew that she wanted me to protect myself since she couldn’t protect me anymore. She’d want me to go along with him until I figured out what the hell to do now that my whole universe had broken into a million little pieces.

  Mom, don’t leave me, I called to her. Don’t go. And my voice rang out, as young and desperate and terrified as I was.

  Shut up, he said. Stop saying that.

  And I did stop. Because, from the look on his face, I had to wonder: if I didn’t do what he asked, would he be digging a grave for me, too?

  For three days I kept his secret, told the police that I had come home to an empty house that day. And no, I had no idea where my mother was. But I was a shaking, miserable wreck, and that detective never let up. She saw my fear, my pain. She knew that I was playing a game I didn’t want to play. It was her idea to bring my father in for questioning again, to let my grandmother and aunt take me away with them. With my mother’s people, in their safe and normal camp, I could tell the truth.

  When I finally told my grandmother and aunt, we went straight to the police. And the second phase of our nightmare kicked in. But at least we’ll have her body, my grandmother kept saying. She clearly derived some comfort from this. At least we’ll be able to lay her to rest. I don’t have to tell you that it killed her. My grandmother never recovered from her grief. I’m not a parent, but I don’t think you can lose a child like that and go on with your day-to-day. It’s hard enough already, as it is.

  No one blames me for what happened to my mother. No one blamed me for being afraid, for keeping my father’s secret, for lying. No, no one could blame the disturbed child, the mentally ill, gender-confused young person that I was.

  Back in the woods, I needed to think, but I couldn’t think. Panic was running the show. So I found the hollow of a tree and sank into its moist embrace. I let the silence wash over me, the wind in the leaves. Who was that man in the door? I kept seeing him there, just a shadow. Not my father, of course. He was on death row in Florida. News of his release would have reached me by now. Or had there been anyone there at all? I fished around in my bag for my medication and the bottle of water I always carried. I took my pills right there. Better late than never.

  I felt better after a minute of just sitting and catching my breath. I had the book I’d found in Luke’s attic, and I had the GPS on my cell phone which I knew might not get a signal. But really, who has a compass? I fished the envelope out of the bag, removed Beck’s necklace. I was going to find her. That had to be where she was, right? The location I had found in the book? That was the next clue that he hadn’t had a chance to leave me. It had to be.

  How Luke could have gotten her out there, I didn’t even consider. But I was sure that she was there, and I was going to rescue her. That’s where I was in my mind. I’d hurt her. I was responsible for this. I would save her. Obviously, I wasn’t operating at top capacity.

  Then I heard a sound. At first I thought it was the calling of a bird, distant and strange. Then I realized, it was the sound of someone calling my name. It was far off in the distance. I strapped my bag around my body and looked up the location of the site on my phone. I studied the aerial map, the bird’s-eye view of The Hollows Wood. It wasn’t that far, maybe three miles. If I could find the state-maintained trail, I could get there faster.

  I was used to this kind of terrain, comfortable in the silence of the trees. I heard the voice again, faint and distant, so I started to hoof it. Man, woman, or child, I couldn’t tell. Was it the police? My aunt? Luke? I had no idea. I just started to run.

  There’s murder in my blood. A twisting rope of psychosis from my father and maternal grandfather, and probably others before them. From father to son, from father to son, it travels down the chain, a poison in the blood. Only it doesn’t kill you. I have often wished it did. I hate the thought of who I am. I despise my origins. I have done everything in my power to shed that person. And yet that person is with me always.

  It was after my grandmother died and my father was convicted that I informed my aunt of my desire to be called Lana. I took my grandmother’s maiden name, Granger, as my own. I had a thought that I could bury myself this way, by taking my grandmother’s name before she was touched by my grandfather’s evil. The gene for violence, for murder, is one that travels through only the male DNA, as far as they know at this time. If I could hide from that, too, maybe I could escape my father and my grandfather’s legacy.

  Beck was the first person to make me feel like a man. I had been hiding among women, dwelling in the persona of my female self. Living as Lana Granger allowed me to hide from my past, cloister myself from any sexual contact. But since my night with Beck, I was coming alive in ways I’d never experienced.

  Still, I’m not sure I feel what others feel. I see people laugh and cry. I see Beck with all her rampaging emotions—her passion, her anger, her joy. I am aware of distant stirrings that might approximate what I see in other people. But have I been swept away in love, overcome by joy? No. I have felt sorrow, remorse, and fear. That’s how I know I am not a monster.

  Does the psychopath know himself ? I have often wondered this. Do you know if you are evil, devoid of normal human emotion? There are people, doctors at Fieldcrest and at the crazy school I attended in Florida, who believe that a child psychopath (for lack of a better term—no one wants to diagnose a child that way) can be taught to display empathy, or to understand feeling.

  Because above all else, the psychopath is a mimic. He learns to display emotions he doesn’t feel. He seeks to blend into his group, whatever that is. He will shape-shift and mold himself into whatever he needs to be to survive and thrive. The United States is excellent at breeding psychopaths—a country where we reward the individual with a hyperfocus on success at any cost. We reward narcissism—with our social networks and hideous reality television programs. We laud business leaders, even as they abuse workers, rape the environment. In other cultures, where the individual subordinates himself more freely to the needs of family and society, we see fewer psychopaths. So some forward-thinking doctors believe that if you interfere early in the budding psyche of a disturbed individual, he can be taught to think of others. He can be taught to see others not only as instruments of his desires.

  What am I? The truth is that I don’t know. I know that I have truly loved and cared for people—my mother, my father, my aunt, Beck. I have regretted things that I have done, hurting people that I hurt when I was a child. So I do have feelings. It’s just that
they’re muted and strange. Dr. Cooper thinks it’s a kind of arrested development, partly hormonal, partly psychological, partly related to the traumas of my life. Some of it has to do with the cocktail of medications I take, a antipsychotic, antidepressant cocktail. She thinks I will grow into myself someday. She doesn’t think I’m evil, or a monster, or a bad seed. She doesn’t believe in those things. And neither do I. I am buried beneath layers and layers of genetic and pharmaceutical debris. But I can feel myself, ever since my night with Beck. I can feel myself breaking through.

  The miles were hard and the cold winter sun was high in the sky by the time I finally found the trail. It must have been going on noon. But the light was dimming. A thick gray cloud cover was blanketing the sky and I could smell snow. I glanced at my phone; the compass app showed that I was headed in the right direction, due north. Another mile and I’d be at the site marked in Luke’s book. But I started to slow my pace, wondering if I was making a mistake. Maybe it would be better for Beck if I went to the police and told them what I knew. Maybe this was just wasting time. What if I got to the site and there was nothing there?

  My phone was constantly buzzing. I’d turned the ringer off, but I could feel it vibrating in my pocket. My aunt, Sky, Dr. Cooper, another number I didn’t recognize.

  I decided I should listen to the messages:

  “This is a bad move,” Sky warned. “Just come back and we’ll figure all of this out. That lawyer, whom you obviously are going to need, is on her way. Come back, meet with her, and we’ll go talk to the police. They don’t know you’re gone yet, but it won’t be long before they figure it out. I can’t hold them off forever.”

  “Please, sweetie,” begged my aunt. I could hear the tears in her voice. “I promised your mom that I would take care of you if she couldn’t. You need to let me do that. I know you. I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “Running away might seem like a good choice,” said Dr. Cooper. “It might seem like the only choice. But we have lots of options that we can explore together. Call me. Or just come to my office. I’m here for you.”

  Why couldn’t I ever let anyone help me?

  There was one more message.

  “You don’t know me,” he said. “But I know you. My name is Peter Jacobs, and you might be familiar with me as the man who has been leading the initiative for your father’s release. Some new information has come to light and I want to discuss it with you. Give me five minutes of your time.”

  All famous killers have their followers, and my father was no exception. And this guy was his number one fan boy, the journalist who always believed that there was another man at the scene of the crime, my mother’s lover. It was my initial testimony that encouraged this idea. I said that I had seen a strange pair of shoes at the door. But I wasn’t sure of that anymore. I couldn’t swear to it now. In my memory, there is a pair of simple black walking shoes. But was it that afternoon, or another afternoon—I couldn’t be sure. Even so, it had been enough on which to hang years of defense, appeals, and investigations. Who is S? This initial that was scrawled into my mother’s calendar with a little heart beside it that everyone seemed to think was evidence of an affair. Personally, I had no idea who it was. My mother, as far as I saw, only worked and cared for me.

  As I came into the clearing, I saw it: a mine-shaft entrance, built into the swell of a small hill. The splintered wood frame was bent and sagging, and the hole was boarded shut. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, the hole in which a troll or hobbit might live, and I stood looking at it for a second. Was she in there? The sky had grown darker, and the air ever colder. I was so far from everything now, a three-mile trek in either direction to safety. It was then that I realized how stupid I was. I needed to call the police, or someone, and I was going to do that right away. I took the phone from my pocket and was about to dial when I heard something that I was sure came from inside the mine.

  I dropped my bag, moved in close, and listened. I laid my head against the wood for a moment. The boards were nailed in tight, no amount of prying with my bare fingers was going to pull them out. And the nails were rusty, as if they’d been there for a hundred years. A big red sign warned people away—DANGER: CAVERS, SPELUNKERS, HIKERS AND ALL, DO NOT ENTER THIS MINE SHAFT. IT IS TREACHEROUS AND UNSTABLE AND NOT FIT FOR ENTRY!

  I tried to pull at the boards anyway, and then started yelling: “Beck, Beck, it’s me. Are you in there? Answer me! I’m sorry!”

  My voice rang out, strident and panicked. A flock of blackbirds fluttered away, squawking into the sky.

  “Have you completely lost your mind?”

  The voice rocketed through me, a blast of adrenaline nearly shot me into the air. I turned around to see Langdon standing there. He was red-faced and sweating from exertion, in spite of the cold. I leaned against the wood and slid down to the ground, wrapping up and burying my head in my arms.

  “How many times am I going to have to ask you this question?” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “I thought she was out here,” I said.

  I fished the book from my bag and tossed it over to him. He was bent over, leaning on his knees. He was still trying to catch his breath. But he picked it up and looked at the page I had marked.

  “Was that you calling me?” I asked. “All those miles ago.”

  “Who else?” he asked.

  He walked over and inspected the shaft. He ran his fingers over the rough surface, touched the nail heads. “No one’s been in this mine for a hundred years,” he said. “These nails are so rusted they’re practically fused to the wood.”

  “I heard something,” I said. I was still listening, but there was nothing. It could have been that all I’d heard was Langdon’s approach. I was so confused and so tired now, I couldn’t trust any of my perceptions. She’s dead, a voice whispered in my head. She’s dead because you left her alone in the woods. It’s your fault.

  Langdon put his head to the wood. “No,” he said. “I don’t hear anything.”

  I was spent, completely and utterly done. I felt myself shutting down, going blank, all feeling draining down that hole in my center.

  Langdon reached down a hand and lifted me to my feet.

  “We have to get you back, Lana,” he said. “This doesn’t look good. Everyone’s going crazy. Your aunt … she’s a wreck.”

  “That’s not my name.”

  The gray daylight seemed to deepen, and the whispering of the leaves all around us swelled to a chorus of voices.

  “I know,” he said. All the color had left his face, and his features had fallen slack. He was a black tower against the gray behind him. And something in my body was responding—a hollow in my gut, a tightness in my throat.

  “I know that,” he said again.

  A universe of understanding passed between us. I ticked back through the last few months, remembered him pulling Rachel’s ad from the board, turning up places he had no reason being, climbing down into that grave after the last scavenger hunt clue. Impossibly, he was part of this. But how? Why? I couldn’t even think of the right things to ask.

  “Was that you in the house today?” I asked. There were a million other, more important questions. But that’s the only one that came to mind.

  He smiled, but it was not the warm and reassuring smile that I expected and needed from him. He offered a slow nod, and he didn’t seem like the person I knew at all.

  Run, said the voice in my head. Get away from him.

  But I was frozen where I stood. I couldn’t get my head around the idea that this man … my mentor, my adviser, my professor … was anything other than my trusted friend.

  This was always my Waterloo, that I’d stand around trying to figure out the things that confused me—like that day on the playground after I pushed the boy who’d been bullying me off the jungle gym. The world was so impossibly complicated, so many factors at play in any circumstance—physics, psychology, chemistry. That boy and I hadn’t liked each othe
r, that was the first thing. Bad blood. He’d teased me, so I pushed him. Cause and effect. He was too close to the edge to save himself with a step back, too heavy to stop his own backward momentum. Physics.

  Such a delicate interplay of forces; and I had always been fascinated by how things wove together. I got lost in contemplating it. It always unsettled people, made me seem like a freak—just standing there and thinking like I did.

  I saw Langdon bend down and pick something up.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him. “What do you want?”

  “I’m here for you,” he said. “Just like I’ve always been.”

  He moved closer, reaching out a hand for mine. I let him take it and realized how little physical contact we’d had over the years. His palm was cool and soft.

  “I’ve been waiting for you to tell me who you are,” he said. “To let me in.”

  His nearness unsettled me; he didn’t even look like himself. There was a strange yearning gleam to his gaze. He kept moving toward me and I realized too late that he was leaning in to kiss me. I pulled back quickly, shrank from him, really. It might have seemed like disgust, but it wasn’t that. I don’t know what I was feeling, other than a desire to get away. Certainly, under other circumstances I’d have been more gentle with him. I watched that yearning turn to anger, dark and petulant.