by Phil Tucker
“Now, my services cost $225 for the first consultation, and the price is negotiated thereafter,” said Ms. Silestra. “Each session usually lasts about half an hour, but there is no guarantee of that duration, nor is it unheard of for one to last much longer. I never know quite what to expect. I accept all major credit cards, but don’t like checks. Okay?”
Maribel lowered herself into the seat opposite her, and set her purse on the table. “That’s fine,” she said.
“Good. All right.” Ms. Silestra leaned forward slightly, forearms resting on the table edge, brows raising as she gazed frankly at Maribel. “Now, please, tell me your name, and how I can help.”
“My name is Maribel Martel,” she said, and it was as if the voice were coming from another throat. She felt pinned by Ms. Silestra’s eyes which gleamed dark and hard like buttons. “My baby was stolen from me by a thing that appeared in the air and disappeared in the same way. Everybody says I’m crazy, but I’m not.”
Ms. Silestra held her gaze, and then shook her head. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” she finally said. “I’ve never had a child, so I can’t imagine how much it must hurt.”
“I didn’t come here for your pity,” said Maribel. “If you can tell me something that can help, say it. Otherwise I’m going to leave.”
The psychic didn’t seem to take offense. “Of course. I’ll see if I can help. Give me your hands, please.”
Maribel reached across the table cloth, encircling the large plate, and Ms. Silestra took her hands once more and then closed her eyes. She took a sudden breath, held it, and then exhaled slowly, slumping down in her seat. Sat still, with no air in her lungs, and then took another sudden breath, rising up with it, released it quickly, and then sat still again. Maribel watched her dispassionately, curious about what theatrics might now ensue. But Ms. Silestra simply sat there. There were no knocks, no thuds. No calling out to the spirits, no dimming of the lights. There was in fact a disconcerting lack of atmosphere altogether. Only a look of fierce concentration on the psychic’s face.
Several minutes went by. Ms. Silestra suddenly frowned, as if she had heard a piercing and unpleasant sound. Her frown remained, eased away, and then came back, her brow growing furrowed, her mouth hard, pinched. Her grip on Maribel’s hands grew tighter.
Maribel opened her mouth to ask something, but then closed it. Slowly Ms. Silestra forced her eyes open, but where before she had met Maribel’s eyes, now she stared down at the plate of water, and what she saw seemed to scare her, repulse her, for her face became a mask of fear and disgust.
“Ms. Silestra?” asked Maribel. This was part of a rehearsed act. This was how she gulled her customers, part of her stammered. “Ms. Silestra?”
“I can hear you,” said the psychic. “I can hear you, Maribel, but I can’t see you. Hold my hands. If you let go, I’ll lose my way.”
“What… what do you see?” asked Maribel. Her hands were beginning to ache where Ms. Silestra was holding them with the strength of a vise.
“Darkness. A tunnel, perhaps. There are pipes. They’re going by—no, I’m moving past them. Like I’m running, or floating quickly through the tunnel. It’s very dark. I can only make out some details. It feels heavy, deep. Underground, perhaps.”
Sweat was beginning to bead on the psychic’s upper lip, across her forehead. Her face had grown pale. “This place—it’s under the city. Or, no, a place under the city leads here. A land of death. And. Something is down here. No—there are many things down here, but one thing, one thing. That I am being drawn to. It’s pulling me in.”
Maribel tore her eyes away from Ms. Silestra’s blank eyes, and looked about the room. So normal, so plain. The solid red plate, the pure water, the smell of incense. The shelves, the candles. Nothing here beyond the normal. But her face. The intensity of her expression.
“Wait. The tunnel is opening up. A large room. It’s here. It’s here.” Her voice was growing taut, fierce. Her lips began to pull back from her teeth as if she were a dog snarling. “Oh shit, it knows I’m here. It sees me.”
“Ms. Silestra?” Her grip was hurting her. Fingers buried into the back of her hands, digging down between her tendons. Twisting and crushing the joints of her fingers. “What? What is down there? Sofia?”
“No. No.” She was breathing hard now. Sweat had sprung out across her brow. “The thing that took your baby. Let go of my hands. Maribel, break the connection, let go of my hands. ”
“I can’t,” said Maribel, shaking them, trying to dislodge the psychic’s fingers. “I can’t! Let go!”
“Maribel,” said Ms. Silestra, her voice rippling with terror as she fought for control. “Please let go of my hands. Please let go.”
“I can’t!” Standing, Maribel began to smack her hands down against the table top, smashing the psychic’s wrists hard against the wood. Pain was lancing through her fingers where they twisted sideways against the joints, gnarling in Silestra’s iron grip. “Stop it! Let go!”
Then, as if a light switch had been hit, Ms. Silestra slumped over to one side, eyes rolling up just as they closed, hands turning nerveless and letting go. Maribel stepped back, knocking her chair over, panting in the sudden silence, the candle flames rising still and calm, the silence thick and cloying. “Ms. Silestra?” She massaged her hands, which were pale and clotted with red splotches where deep bruises were surely going to surface.
The psychic was still seated, but only arrested from falling by the table’s edge. Rounding it, Maribel approached her slowly. Crouched down next to her. Ms. Silestra was breathing in short hitches which smoothed out even as Maribel watched. Her eyes were fluttering behind the closed lids. Reaching out, Maribel pushed Ms. Silestra back into her seat. Placed her hands on the table. Should she call for help? Get her a glass of water? Standing, she began to stride around the table for the door.
“Holy shit,” said Ms. Silestra, her voice shaky, low. “My god.” Turning, Maribel saw her passing her hands over her face, and then stare at them, as if noticing them for the first time. She glanced up at Maribel, but then her gaze skittered away as if she were afraid of meeting her eyes. “My hands feel broken. Did you—or was that me..?”
“That was you,” said Maribel, drawing herself up. “You almost broke my hands.”
“Oh,” said the psychic softly, blinking again. “Dear god. Please, could you get me some… some tea? In the kitchen, second door to the left. I need… I need to gather myself.”
Maribel nodded, and stepped out and into the kitchen. It was small, painted a faded yellow with ornate porcelain plates set against the wall, each depicting scenes of woods and animals. The kitchen itself was old fashioned, and clearly much used; taking the kettle, she set it on the stove top. Turned on the burner, and then simply stood there, watching it, staring through it. Underground. Something calling her. What had the psychic seen? Being here, in Ms. Silestra’s shop, had caused all kinds of misgivings to arise despite her earlier certainty. But now, here in the kitchen, she felt her doubts fall away. Ms. Silestra had seen something. She believed that with a dull certainty. But what?
Two minutes later, she returned with two paper thin cups of green tea. Ms. Silestra was still in the same seat, and staring abstractedly at nothing as she entered. “Thank you,” she said as Maribel set the cup before her. Taking the tea in both hands, she raised it to her lips, and inhaled the steam, still staring at the table’s surface.
“Ms. Silestra,” began Maribel.
“Call me Isobel,” she said. “After that, I think we can dispense with formalities.”
“Isobel,” said Maribel, “What did you see?”
Isobel tilted the cup of tea to her lips, and took a sip. She pursed her lips behind the liquid, and looked into the cup’s depths. Then, with a sigh, she set the cup down and looked up to meet Maribel’s eyes. Her gaze was at once piercing and filled with such compassion that Maribel had trouble holding it.
“Look. Most people who come here want to talk t
o somebody who’s passed away, or find something they lost, or just chat with a friend. I’m pretty good at making people happy without actually doing much. Occasionally I do see something, but, well. I’ve only twice had an experience like that, and honestly, I don’t want to repeat it ever again.”
“Yes,” said Maribel, “Okay, I understand, but what did you see?”
Isobel shook her head slowly. The earlier confidence that had allowed her to take Maribel’s hands, cup her face, that had seemed to buoy her up was gone. She seemed delicate, though her face remained strong boned, her mouth generous. As if she had spent a night alone, out in the cold, and only just now come in.
“It’s down there, the thing that took Sofia. Not, well, not like sitting in a corner, waiting. It’s down there, but more like a presence, a spirit that’s like steam in a kitchen. I mean, it doesn’t have a body, I don’t think, it’s more like—god. I can’t put this into words. But yes, it’s down there. I didn’t get a sense of Sofia—I’m sorry—but this thing.” Isobel shook her head. “Look, I don’t want to sound melodramatic, and I know you’re going to go after your daughter no matter what I say, but please, be careful. This thing is very old. But it’s also very young.”
Maribel opened her mouth, her confusion becoming laced with need and anger, but Isobel forestalled her with a raised hand. “No, let me try to explain better. It’s very young, but it’s been around for a very, very long time. Like a child that’s a thousand years old. It’s been around for a long time, but never… changed. Grown. And its need. I felt… I felt this hunger. Terrible, I’ve never felt anything… like it.” Frustration lit her face, “I’m sorry if this all sounds so confusing. I’m just very rattled.”
She raised the tea cup to her lips again, and took a long sip, scowling at the tea’s heat. “It’s hungry. Not for food, but for a sense of… identity. For a sense of self. It’s like it wants to become something, be something that it’s not. That’s all it is. A need. There’s nothing else there, nothing to negotiate with, or talk to. When it sensed me. When it realized I was looking upon… where it was—it momentarily directed that need upon me. Like it was sizing me up, seeing if I had what it wanted. I didn’t. But Maribel.”
She leaned forward, and placed her hand over Maribel’s. “It would have completely consumed me if it had. I’m worried, I’m worried that if Sofia had what it wanted…”
“That it would have consumed her,” said Maribel. She stared stonily at Isobel, who nodded weakly.
“I felt my sense of self, my… spirit, my soul, my identity, sort of waver before it. If… if Sofia, your baby, was attacked by that kind of attention, then… I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, but how could a baby fight something like that?”
Maribel stood up. Her heart was thudding in her chest painfully, but she schooled her features into utter impassivity. “Sofia would have fought it off,” she said, but her words were lies. Were they? She couldn’t think about it. “Sofia needs me. You said underground. If that’s where it is, that’s where I’m going to go.”
Isobel rose, eyes wide with alarm, but the look on Maribel’s face stopped her protestations. “All right. I can’t stop you. But please, please be careful. I don’t know what you can do, but. I got a name from it. It was in a different language. Something I didn’t recognize, nothing like German or Chinese. But it thought of itself as ‘Kubu’. That’s… that’s all I can tell you.”
“I’ll pay you now,” said Maribel. “Thank you.” She reached painfully into her purse. Drew forth her wallet, and trying not to wince as she used her fingers, pulled out her credit card. Isobel was still staring at her, trying to find a way to bridge the distance between the two of them. To build on the fragile connection that had been wrought. But Maribel raised her credit card, and the sight of it cut that connection as if it were a knife.
Chapter 6
Maya’s heart was beating hard and adrenaline was coursing through her veins. She felt lightheaded, both with crushing fatigue and shock, and was having trouble focusing on the locked door, on the barred windows, on the trouble that was barreling her way. Alone in the small guest bedroom, she hugged herself and tried to think.
She had to escape. Mr. Donahue had been on the phone with Senora Mercedes as she had been bundled into the bedroom, and his excited tones had chilled her. The way he had looked at her had made her skin want to crawl off and slide under a couch. She much preferred the normal looks of lust and creepy desire he normally sent her way; this hunger that her crazy productivity had kindled in his eyes was a completely different and predatory animal.
Shivering, Maya turned around once more, trying to formulate a plan. They had taken her cell phone, left her only her purse. She wished with sudden, fierce desperation that she had watched more movies featuring prison breaks. How did the good guys always escape from their jail cells? Pretend to be sick? She thought of lying down, clutching her belly, but how could she call for a doctor?
The small room had once been a baby’s nursery. The walls were painted a faded and now badly scuffed pink, and a peeling border of dancing ducks and teddy bears ran around the baseboard. A white chest of drawers stood against one wall, but the drawers were empty. She had already checked. A small closet contained only a few cheap wire hangers and an empty shoe box filled with scrunched white paper. Nothing she could turn into a weapon, or hide behind.
Stay calm, she thought. Think. Tears kept prickling her eyes, but she refused to succumb to the urge to cry, to curl up in a ball in the corner and wrap her arms around her shins and bury her face in her knees. She raised her chin, and a small flame of anger began to burn a little brighter in her chest. Why was she locked in this room? Because she had sewn over four hundred belts. How had she done that? She had no idea. It was as impossible as leaving this small, cramped room currently seemed to be. Therefore, perhaps she had a chance of doing just that.
There was a crack in the window through which a cold air insinuated itself and forced her to shiver and shake. Perhaps she could scream for help. No, she couldn’t speak, much less scream. Break the window then, climb out onto the ledge, escape to the apartment next door, call the police—no, no voice, so instead flee to Grand Central, sneak onto a train headed to Florida, get work at a swimming pool, teach little children how to swim and receive a post card from her parents that they were finally coming to find her.
Maya felt tears burning her eyes again. Rubbing her arm against her eyes, she strode over to the window and tested the lower frame. It was designed to lift up, but had been painted and sealed closed years ago. So perhaps she could break it, shatter it?
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” drawled a voice from behind her. Maya spun around to see a large black fox sitting on top of the chest of drawers. It was staring right at her with a disconcertingly lucid gaze and an expression that was at once predatory and amused. There was nobody else in the room. Maya thought to edge to her right so as to be able to peer into the closet, but the fox’s eyes held her fast.
There was a long, blank moment as reality seemed to press in around her, and then she took a deep breath and straightened her back. “Hello.”
“Hi,” he said, and removed all doubt as to his ability to speak. Maya simply stared. He seemed more real than the room around them, made the walls and floor and ceiling seem insubstantial. His fur was engrossing, beautiful: smooth black under his belly, down the length of his legs and around his muzzle; luxuriously thick and ash gray over his back and across his forehead and cheeks; tufted orange over the scruff of his neck and around the base of his pointed ears. His tail was thickly furred, black like a coal brush except for the tip which was ivory white as if dipped in paint.
“You’re a fox,” she said, and a look of long-suffering condescension crossed his surprisingly articulate features.
“Indeed. And you are in quite a bind, and without much time remaining in which to extricate yourself from it. I’d suggest we skip the part where you marvel over my ability to speak, your
ability to respond, and cut to the escape… but you’re going to want to gape for a moment longer. Aren’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“My--?” She stopped, and her hands flew to her throat. She could speak! The fox watched her. It was a talking fox. How had it entered the room? How could it speak? Did it have something to do with the man in green? A flurry of thoughts like thick snow against a window pane blanketed her mind, and then she locked in on the one key word.
“Escape? What do you mean? How?”
The fox sprang down lightly to the floor, “Escape. Delicious word, is it not? Follow me.” He moved quickly to the closet door, and then paused to look over his shoulder. “Or don’t. It’s your call.” Then he slipped around the door frame and was gone.
The room was immediately normal once more, sane. Faded pink walls. Cracked window. Dancing ducks and teddy bears along the baseboard. The sound of muted voices through the door. The chest of drawers, devoid of all things fox. Maya’s heart was pounding in her chest, a dull thumping that made it hard to catch her breath.
The voices from beyond the door rose in volume. Maya took a large step to her right, and saw that the fox was still within the closet, but that the closet had grown in size. Or, more accurately, lengthened; as if the back wall had been pushed some three yards deeper, extending it, impossibly, through the wall.
“The path I’m going to lead you on is dangerous,” said the fox. He was sitting on his haunches once more, white tufted tail extending to his left. “Listen to me, Maya.” His amber eyes seemed to cut through the cloud of shifting thoughts in her head and still her mind. “Do not step off the path. It should be quiet, and I doubt anything of danger has manifested yet that would bother us. But no matter what you see, or what might beckon you, no matter what is promised or threatened, do not. Step off. The path.”
Maya nodded, and stepped up to the door. “Where does this path take us?”
The fox stood up once again with a lazy grace and turned to face the back of the closet. “To safety,” he said, and padded forward. The expansion of the closet had drawn into view, not only more of the coat hanger pole, but a small, white cupboard set against the wall, a cheap plywood affair that would have the doors listing off its cheap hinges within a few weeks. The fox opened the small cupboard door with one paw. “Through here,” he said.
