by Patrick Ness
My phone is still pinned in the wreckage of Henna’s car, so Mel calls me at home with the info she gathers: Jared’s not in school either, maybe still recuperating from the healing and/or still trying to sneak into Henna’s hospital room, which of course is where Henna still is.
“And don’t freak out,” Mel says. “Another indie kid is dead. Kerouac Buchanan. That’s whose dad we saw in the ER.”
“Shit,” I say. “Kerouac was in my American Lit class.”
“We’re definitely into another wave of something. I hope it’s not as bad as last time.”
“You be careful.”
“I don’t think careful has much to do with it. You’re the most careful person I know and you were nearly killed by a deer.”
“I’m not the most careful–”
“Dad still home?”
“Nah, he sneaked off to work about eight.”
“You have to admire his willpower.”
“Willpower? I thought drinking too much was a lack of it.”
“The opposite. Trust me. You’re helpless to the behaviour but the effort involved is just unbelievable.”
After we hang up, I call Jared but his phone goes straight to voicemail and no one answers at home. That’s kind of the limit of the numbers I know by heart. I wonder if I ever will get my phone back. Then I wonder what will happen to the poor, dead deer. Will someone eat it? Then I wonder if Henna’s arm will completely heal again. Then I wonder the same about the scar on my face. Then I wonder what Henna meant when she said my name as the last thing before unconsciousness. Then I wonder what she meant by saying she didn’t think I loved her.
It’s occurred to me more than once to ask myself if I was gay, too, deep-down. My best friend is, after all, and we’ve fooled around. I wasn’t exactly lying back with my eyes closed either. It was fun. I feel so safe around Jared, it seems only natural that we’d help each other let off some steam once in a while. He thinks it’s because Gods, apparently, are irresistible to humans in the literal sense. Maybe. I think it’s just because he’s a good guy.
I’m also sure he doesn’t like me that way. He said so once because he was afraid I thought that way about him and didn’t want me to get hurt. Which I didn’t and won’t. So, okay, it’s all a little complicated but I’d have been crazy not to at least ask myself the question.
But I dream about girls. In that way. And when I, you know, have the occasional … intimate conversation with myself, girls again. It’s what I look at online, and it’s who I’ve dated in the past. I’ve had sex with two girls, too. Vanessa Wright and I lost our straight virginity together in tenth grade. We went out for a while and are still friends. And last year, I dated a girl called Darlene who was a waitress at Grillers. She was really funny and really pretty and so embarrassed when she gave me her ex-boyfriend’s crabs that she actually quit her job. I would have been okay with it; a cream cleared them right up, and my mom couldn’t even be all that mad because I’d otherwise been really safe. She was a bit more upset that Darlene was twenty-seven and I was sixteen, but I don’t know, maybe I’m just stupid sometimes.
And then of course Henna. I’ve imagined us for years. Living together. Kids and homes and travel. I’ve imagined, you know, personal things, too, but always really respectfully. Well … you know what I mean. You do it, too, and when I do, she and I are always in it together, like we’re on the same team and it’s us against everybody else and there’s nowhere else either of us would rather be.
I imagine her as my friend.
And if I don’t understand what she means about the desire in her stomach, well, so what? People are different.
I love her. I do.
Don’t I?
I spend nearly an hour counting and re-counting all the different pieces of wood-panelling in the living room, then I’ve just got to get the hell out of the house.
The nurse – actually, I’m not sure he is a nurse, I’m not even sure this old people’s home has nurses or doctors or what, but he’s dressed like a nurse – leads me down the hall to my grandma’s room. I don’t come here very often and I think I can feel nursey judging me for that.
“Maggie?” he says, gently at first, then more loudly. “Maggie.”
My grandma turns to look at us, no sign of recognition at all.
“Maggie, your grandson is here to see you,” says the nurse.
My grandma stares at me. “Phillip?”
You’d think “Phillip” would be her dead husband or father or something, but no one has any idea who he is or was. We’re not especially convinced Grandma does either.
“No, Grandma,” I say. “It’s Michael.”
“Where’ve you been, Phillip?” she says, and her eyes fill with tears.
“You want me to stay?” the nurse asks me, which is nice of him.
“Nah, I’m good, thanks.”
He waits another second, then leaves. My grandma shares her room with two other women. Mrs Richardson never gets any visitors, so my mom sometimes brings her flowers. Mrs Richardson never notices, just keeps talking under her breath about how she was wronged by someone called Rosalie. Over by the window is Mrs Choi, who never says a word in English though she’ll wave back if you wave at her first. Not today, though. Her adult son is visiting, so she positions herself in a wheelchair with her back to him, pretending he’s not there. He seems to take this as his due punishment, and they just sit there, silently, not saying a thing.
“I took them back, Phillip,” my grandma says. “Put them away.”
I sit down next to her bed. “Put what away, Grandma?”
“There’s a…” She frowns. “Red.” Then she stares off into space.
Kooky Alzheimer’s in movies really pisses me off. You know, where Grandma is sweet and funny and says hilarious-but-wise things right on cue? Real Alzheimer’s is nothing like that. Nothing. It’s terrifying and annoying and so sad you want to kill yourself. My parents finally put Grandma in a home after she poured boiling water down her whole left side because she couldn’t identify what a pot was. She burnt herself so badly she can still barely walk.
“Well, let’s see,” I say. “Graduation is four weeks away. I’m doing really well in my classes and I’m not too worried about finals. Most of my hard stuff was last semester anyway, and it’s really only Calc and English that I’m going to have to study for–”
“Phillip?”
“Got my tux for prom. I’ll bring you pictures. Though the girl I was hoping to go with is trying to back out of our stupid plan–”
“Phillip, there’s–”
“Meredith seems to be wearing Mom down about this Bolts of Fire concert, so me and Mel may end up having to take her–”
“Your nose, Phillip.”
She’s staring at the bandages on my face. Both of my eyes are still black, too, and I suddenly wonder if I look too gruesome to visit, if I’m frightening her. Nursey should have said something. Maybe that’s why he offered to stay.
“I got into a car accident, Grandma,” I say, “but it’s okay. I’m all right. I even drove myself here.”
Which I did. Flinching at every sudden movement in the corner of my eye.
“In fact,” I say, touching her arm. She looks at my hand, but doesn’t pull away. “Things aren’t actually too bad. I mean, you know, I still haven’t gotten anywhere with Henna, but she said my name. Which has got to mean something. And we’re graduating soon and Jared and I will be in the same city, which is cool. And Mel’s looking good, healthier than ever–”
I stop her from pulling her nightgown off over her head. She takes the correction easily and even drinks from a glass of water when I offer it.
“So,” I say. “What I can’t figure out is, why am I so worried all the time? If I stop and look, things are okay. They could be better – there’s this guy in school that Henna likes, your daughter-in-law is running for office again – but I’m almost in a new life, one I’m looking forward to, I think.”
Grandma just stares at me.
“But I’m going to have a scar on my face. Everyone says it’ll look cool, but how can they know? And … and I’m counting things again. I’m getting trapped. I feel like something awful is going to happen if I don’t do these insane things over and over again. Actually, I feel like something awful’s going to happen anyway. I feel that all the time. Even when I’m happy.”
“Happy,” Grandma repeats. Then she screams three times in a row, loud enough for Mrs Richardson, Mrs Choi and her son to all turn and look. But my grandma goes silent again, confused-looking, her eyes wandering around the room, trying to find something to focus on.
“What if…” I say, quietly. “What if I am going crazy? What if I get trapped in a loop and there’s no one to get me out?”
Grandma’s eyes find mine, rest briefly, then keep wandering.
“What if I get trapped,” I say, “like you are?”
“Phillip,” she says, almost pleading. “Phillip?”
A terrible smell knocks me back. My grandma is softly weeping as I go to find the nurse.
Yeah, kooky Alzheimer’s really pisses me off.
Henna’s car is still in the ditch. I drove past it on my way to see my grandma. Someone’s covered it with a tarp, but otherwise, it’s just sitting there. It’s Monday, so maybe they were waiting for the weekend to finish. Maybe they’ll tow it away today. And that’s what makes me stop on my way back from the nursing home.
I want my phone.
I park and get out. The weather’s warmed up to normal May sunshine, and you can smell the deer even though it’s only been a couple days. Nothing too rank yet, nothing as bad as it will get. We once had a possum die under the living room. You wouldn’t believe how bad something that small can stink.
I look around. We really do live out in the boonies. There’s no one, just the ends of driveways leading into thickets of trees. And why should I feel like I’m trespassing anyway? It’s my phone.
The tarp’s tied on pretty tight with a nylon rope. I walk around the wreck, trying to find a weak spot. The driver’s side door wouldn’t close properly after they pried it open, and the ropes are looser there. A flap of the tarp lifts right up. I duck down and look inside. The roof is sheared nearly all the way off, so it’s like looking into a convertible with the top down. Covered in a tarp.
The deer smell is much stronger here, and the trapped heat makes it even worse. There’s a kind of tunnel across the driver’s seat past the broken steering wheel. I can’t fit to crawl all the way in, but I think I can lean in far enough to feel around.
I start to worm my way in, breathing through my mouth, trying not to inhale hot rotting deer. My ribs ache at the tight fit, but I make it far enough to reach down to the passenger’s side floor. It’s not the same shape it used to be; it’s shorter, rounder, no longer any places to put your feet.
“Hah!” I say, my fingertips finding my phone. I pull it out between two fingers and look at it there, still stretched across the seat. The glass on the front is cracked, but I manage to turn it on and get a few seconds of display out of it before the battery dies. At least it worked.
The smell of deer is getting worse, so I start to pull myself gently out of the car–
Which is when everything lights up. The sun is shining, but this is way more than that. Every shadow under the tarp disappears, bathed in blue. I can see the head of the deer pressing on the back of the passenger’s seat. I can see the metallic eyes of the flies crawling over the deer’s skin. Then the light gets even brighter, so much I actually have to squint against it.
All I can think of is the pillar of light we saw from the Field right after indie kid Finn ran past us.
Indie kid Finn who turned up dead.
I’m afraid to get out from under the tarp.
I’m afraid to not get out from under the tarp.
But then it stops. The light drops so fast I’m blinded for a second and have to blink to see again in the normal shadowy, tarp-covered sunlight.
I listen. It’s silent.
And then it’s not silent.
There’s a sound. Nearby. One that wasn’t there before.
Something’s breathing.
It’s the deer. It’s the freakin’ deer. I see its head move and a wet, disgusting snuffle of breath comes out the end of its nose.
I pretty much throw myself out of the car, tumbling back into the ditch, as the deer starts butting its short antlers against the tarp. The same antlers that scarred my cheek as the deer was flying to its death. It bucks and jumps, until most of the tarp slips off the back.
And there it is. Standing in Henna’s car.
Its neck is obviously broken, so are its legs, but it stands on them, seemingly without pain. It shakes the flies from its hide, and I can hear a horrible snap as its neck, mostly, rights itself. Then it looks down at me.
Its eyes glow blue, actually glow, and on my back in a soggy ditch as it stands over me, it’s pretty much all I can do not to wet myself.
Then it looks past me, into the woods from where all the deer came that night. It leaps gingerly, gracefully, out of the car, over the ditch, and onto the ground. Its legs are nightmarish, no way they should be able to support its weight.
But they do. And with a snort, it heads off into the trees, disappearing from sight.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH, in which Satchel, Dylan and second indie kid Finn throw themselves into research in the library, trying to find any mention of the Immortals; later that week, at Kerouac’s funeral, Satchel’s parents hug her and give her space to grieve; meanwhile, the Court of the Immortals, unable to live in this world for more than brief periods, begins its search for permanent Vessels in earnest; they find Satchel’s uncle, passed out in his police cruiser on a dark wooded road known for its night-time activities; “Sandra?” he says on waking, just before his head is removed from his shoulders, not entirely painlessly.
“But I’ve got German to study,” Meredith says, still protesting from the back seat, holding up her German worksheets.
“Don’t you like miniature golf?” I say.
“No one likes miniature golf,” she says. “You don’t like it either. You’re just doing it ironically.”
“Well, that’s probably true. Henna can’t even hold a club and it was her idea.”
“I still don’t see why I have to come.”
She has to come because no one goes out alone any more. Ever since the zombie deer, ever since two indie kids died. Me and Jared only do shifts together at Grillers, Mel claims she needs to study for finals so gets out of all her night hours at the drugstore, and Henna’s off work from the Java Shack anyway because of her arm. My mom is down at the capital more and more for her campaign, so Mel and I take over driving Meredith to her nightly lessons. And prom night (under three weeks away now, tick, tock) with all of us going together is now definitely on, Nathan included and Dr Call Me Steve a late addition, because we don’t think it’s safe any other way. Fun, fun, fun.
Mel glances in the rear-view mirror. “Quit complaining or we won’t take you to Bolts of Fire.”
“Mom hasn’t said yes yet, remember?” I say, as Mel pulls onto our little bit of freeway. “And we can still make her say no.”
“She’ll say yes,” Meredith insists. “I’ve already got the tickets– Oh.” She says the last like she’s revealed too much. Which she has.
I turn around in my seat. “You want to say that again?”
Meredith looks panicked, and I can see her brain whirring as she tries to think of an explanation.
“Meredith,” Mel warns.
Meredith sighs in defeat. “I already got the tickets.”
“When?” Mel asks.
“How?” I say.
“My credit card,” Meredith says, quietly.
“Your what?” Mel asks, her voice as sharp as a paper cut. Meredith stays quiet. “Mom got you a credit card, didn’t she?”
“It’s not mine,” Meredith
says. “It’s linked to Mom’s.”
“Does it have your name on it?” I ask.
“Well … yes, but–”
“I don’t believe this,” Mel says with a harsh laugh. “That woman.”
“You both have jobs,” Meredith complains. “I had no way of buying things for myself.”
“You’re ten, Merde Breath,” I say.
“Don’t call me that. She got tired of always having to input the number for my online music courses.”
“So she got you your own card,” Mel says. “Because that’s the most logical solution to that non-problem.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“I wonder why.” Mel’s voice is angrily light. “God knows she treats us all equally so why would there be any problem?”
“I’m being really responsible with it.”
“Bolts of Fire tickets weren’t responsible,” I say.
Meredith looks shifty. “She won’t get the bill until after the concert.”
This actually makes both Mel and me laugh out loud.
“I only had a short time for the fan-club tickets!” Meredith rushes on. “If I didn’t get them then, I’d never have got them. Anyway, they came in the mail yesterday.” She smiles like the sun rising. “Three tickets.”
“Why three?” Mel asks. “You could have just got two. Cheaper. Less trouble later.”
“You said you’d both take me,” Meredith says. “It’s more fun if we’re all there together.”
The simple love in the way she says this makes my heart hurt a little bit. Yeah, my parents are crappy, but you hurt either of my sisters and I will spend my life finding ways to destroy you.
“That’s a pretty big gamble you’re taking on Mom saying yes,” Mel says, already exiting the freeway (told you it was little).
“She always says yes to me eventually,” Meredith says. “I don’t know why.”
The mini-golf place is literally right by the freeway exit, so Mel’s already pulling into the lot. She parks and says, without malice, “It’s because you’re the best of us, Meredith.”
Meredith looks at me. “I don’t think that.”
