Amity

by Micol Ostow

  Webb, who has acknowledged responsibility for conceiving and overseeing the project (despite White’s protests), devised an experiment wherein White was blindfolded and given several substances to smell, ranging from the innocuous to the pungent to the noxious. White was then asked which substances he was willing to drink based on scent alone.

  The next stage of the experiment involved blocking off White’s nose (with cotton balls in the nostrils or a fabric sash tied around his head, White was unable to clarify) and charting his willingness to drink a second set of substances without the aid of sense of smell.

  The second sample set contained only noxious substances. ER doctors were able to pinpoint three: laundry detergent, shampoo, and turpentine.

  It is unclear to what extent White was coerced into ingesting the products; his teacher (Harper) reports that his desire for acceptance by, and approval of, his peers often leads to a complacent and easily suggestible personality. Regardless, when questioned in the emergency room after his stomach was pumped and his condition deemed stable, White insisted that he had been a willing participant in the experiment.

  EMTs on site were able to determine that a 911 call had been placed from White’s residence within 30 minutes of his ingesting the toxins. Webb was the caller; he was the only person at the house, other than White, when paramedics arrived. Medics described Webb’s affect as “flat” and “detached,” claiming that he seemed either unable to, or uninterested in, providing details necessary to aid their treatment of White. His responses to all questions were strictly cursory.

  In my subsequent evaluation session with Webb, though reluctant to discuss the particulars of the science fair incident, he expressed coherence and awareness that his actions were “wrong,” or unacceptable by external terms. He did not, however, convey any sense of guilt over the physical harm and mental anguish he had caused White and his mother. Webb is quick to disassociate from others’ experiences, and shows acute, increasing difficulty in feeling empathy.

  As the White incident represents an escalation in Webb’s behavioral and social difficulties at school, it is my opinion that the boy is well on his way to demonstrating full-blown sociopathic tendencies. The only emotional reaction I witnessed from Webb was upon the arrival of his father to take him home; Mr. Webb’s presence caused Webb to retreat, physically and emotionally. Though not confirmed in our session, this reaction suggests abusive behavior in the household that will surely exacerbate any antisocial tendencies in the boy, in addition to the obvious threat it poses to the entirety of the household.

  Mr. and Mrs. Webb have ignored requests for a meeting or further sessions with Webb despite strong urgings.

  It is recommended that a sharp eye be kept on the boy, that his teachers be made aware of his possible condition, and that he be required to undergo regular monthly evaluations, parental consent notwithstanding.

  To the extent that constant adult supervision is possible given the typical student-teacher ratio, it is suggested that Connor Webb not be left unsupervised with others his age.

  LAUREL VALLEY PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL INTAKE PROCESSING FORM

  Patient: Hall, Gwendolyn T.

  Age: 12

  Admitting Physician: R. Wood, MD/PhD

  Preliminary Intake Details: Patient admitted at parents’ mutual request. Presented at the time with mild hysteria (most likely trauma induced by the prospect of commitment, not official psychotic episode). Treated immediately with 4 mg Ativan and taken, restrained, to her room.

  Consultation with parents revealed a history of mood swings, anxiety, and borderline delusional behavior, including the creation of elaborate narratives featuring a varied cast of imaginary friends. Hall has also presented with minor anger management issues, displaying a history of destructive, physical outbursts when agitated, which the patient insists are beyond her control. Parents determined to seek professional, in-patient care for Hall after a recent incident outside of school.

  Hall attended a birthday party for a fellow classmate, which her parents note is unusual in itself (the patient is a pathological introvert). The party was held at a classmate’s home, and the children were engaged in a reportedly “typical” game of Truth or Dare. Hall, “dared” to retrieve an item from the basement, pushed another girl down the stairs.

  Her reluctance to participate in the game evidently stemmed from fear of ghosts in the basement, which Hall claimed were speaking to her, “trying to get into the house. They needed to get in through me, and I didn’t want to let them.”

  Hall’s parents report that the patient insists it was “the ghosts,” not she, who caused her classmate’s fall, which resulted in a shattered patella. Hall herself was unharmed physically at the time, though she has since lapsed in and out of consciousness, and her grasp on reality appears more tenuous than ever. Speech has regressed to the point of near muteness.

  Also of note for her treatment is the fact that Hall’s older brother, present at the time of intake, supports the patient’s version of the event, agreeing that his sister did not push her classmate, claiming, “It was like with the stones. Just like the time with the stones.” When pressed, he refused to clarify what he meant. Though not at the party, he believes his sister to be telling the truth. Mr. and Mrs. Hall assert no knowledge of the “stones” incident to which he refers.

  Since the party (two weeks ago), Hall has not been well enough to return to school. Parents report that she alternates between near catatonia and extreme agitation. The family physician (A. Merrill) deemed the case beyond his scope and recommended treatment at Laurel Valley (*note reference form 46B, dated 11/2).

  Preliminary diagnosis: Catatonic schizophrenia. Suggest possible treatment course (pending intake interview) consisting of (but not limited to):

  individual counseling

  group counseling

  occupational therapy

  electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

  medications:

  benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers,

  antipsychotics

  [EXCERPTED FROM

  An Occultists’ Guide to New England, 2nd ed.: The Concord River Region, Part I]

  (p. 86)

  “… though English settlement of the region in the early 1600s forced the dominant Memigassett population to Canada, it is believed that a small subsect of the tribe remained, mostly in hiding. Local folklore tells of the remnant tribe’s discovery of stony underground terrain by the banks of the Concord River, bizarrely inconsistent with topographical maps of the area. They are rumored to have excavated improvised shelter within the stone outcroppings, (cave-like underground dwellings), despite a lack of recorded tools suitable for such masonry.

  The survival of these tribesmen under such unfavorable conditions is often cited as evidence of their command of the black arts. Regional occultists specializing in shamanism claim to have unearthed bone fragments, artifacts, and other remains suggestive of Memigassett religious objects, leading to speculation that the cave dwellers used the surrounding area as a burial ground for their magic makers and spiritual guides.

  It has been argued, most recently by Bennett47, that the ground itself where the tribe relocated was possessed of a great power or energy, and that the Memigassett who stayed behind channeled that power for their own purposes, appeasing whatever “original evil” lay dormant with the bodies—and the souls—of their own shamans. This theory certainly supports further reports of occult activity corresponding to the location of the underground stone caves.…”

  (p. 103)

  “… Of course, the Wicca practitioners of the region either dispersed to safer areas, or went to great lengths to continue their practice in secret, leading to holes in our historic accounts of this period.

  Many who were found guilty during the Salem Witch Trials did not, we understand, in fact possess any true magical powers, but this was not the case for all. Some, who perhaps saw the writing on the wall most keenly, are documented as having disappeared into a netw
ork of “safe houses” that cropped up intermittently along the westernmost stretch of the Concord River, the most widely accounted of which sat above a onetime Memigassett burial ground [see p. 86]. Letters collected from that area confirm the existence of this particularly well-trafficked stop on the “Salem Exodus” trail, though correspondence ceases abruptly in late 1693, with reference to a cave-in, possibly on, or nearby, the alleged burial grounds.…”

  (p. 268)

  “… Graham Asylum, established in 1908, was one such institution, shut down in 1948 for unethical medical practices.

  The more exhaustive of the contemporary occult scholars include Graham in modern lists of supernatural locales due to its geographic situation; verified area maps confirm that the original Eastern Wing rested directly above the “Salem Exodus” cave-in, believed itself to have been housed on Memigassett grounds. Blueprints show the “treatment room” as corresponding roughly to the Exodus hideout cave, leading to speculation93 that an energy “hot spot,” or nexus of negative power, might be said to originate (and, in fact, continue to reside) there.…”

  TEN YEARS EARLIER

  DAY 11

  THE DREAM IS ALWAYS THE SAME NOW.

  Always a nightmare.

  And always the same.

  Each night, Jules comes to me, her hair a bloody, blazing halo, flaming nuclear in the dark. She holds one finger to her lips and with the other, she points.

  She shows—she knows—what needs to be done.

  It’s our father, she says.

  He’s the source of the danger in the house, in my blood. He’s the reason for what I am, for what I’ve always been. He is the evil.

  He must be destroyed.

  I sit up straight. “Destroyed?”

  But now that she’s said the word out loud, I know she’s right. I know it’s the only choice, the way to free us all.

  Also—and most important, I think—

  I know it’s what Amity wants.

  Jules lowers herself onto the bed, the sheets leaking dark, clotted blood around her outline. She kisses me firm, her mouth against mine, her lips cold and slick. You can possess it, she says. You can be the rage. Free us.

  You can own Amity, even as she owns you.

  She guides me to my bedroom window. The moon glows through the splintered frames of the panes, lighting the Concord River.

  I gag. The river runs red again, like it always does in these dreams—these visions, are what I think they are, really. It churns, dotted with gleaming stone chips that I think are bones, remains, decaying, diseased bodies, poisoning the water and the earth Amity was built on. The surface of the river bubbles, and my father’s face appears in profile, damaged. Fractured. Ravaged.

  In the dream, I know I’m the reason why.

  I turn to Jules.

  “I will.” I swear it to her.

  In the dream, Jules’s body is whisper thin, traces of starlight peeking through her nightclothes. Her toes and lips are tinged blue-gray, and when she moves through the dream halls of the house, her feet don’t touch the floor.

  Jules guides us down the hallways, her eyes empty as she hovers at the cellar door. She holds a finger to her lips again, quiet again, as solid wood swings open, and we go down.

  We’re in the cellar then, but past the cellar, and deeper, sucked into the belly of Amity. We’re on the other side of that stone wall, we’ve finally passed right through those enormous, round stones. Hunched in a hideaway, tucked up and sealed off, the earth-lined walls reek of vile, buried things. And even though I’ve never been here in my waking life, I recognize the space right away. I’d always recognize it, I think. It calls to me.

  This is the red room.

  Amity unrolls a reel of images to me, a bloody movie of her secret history:

  A shriveled old man in a tall feather headdress. His face is lined with dark, oily war paint. He holds his arm up, shakes a stick at me.

  I blink.

  Not a stick, Jules says, her breath sticky and too sweet against my cheek.

  I look again.

  A human bone.

  Bone. Crusted over with crumbling dirt that, I know by the tingle in the soles of my feet, lies right under me, right underneath the red room.

  I reach to touch the bone, want to feel its muddy surface with my own fingers, and the image vanishes like a soap bubble.

  This was a burial ground, I know. It was where the witches hid, and where the crazies were locked away. It was lots of things, and Amity shows me them all. But the truth is, this space—it’s more than any of those stories. It’s the rotted, black heart of Amity herself. I can feel that truth buzzing in my ears, ringing in my blood. The heart, the power of the red room—it was here before any of those specific moments, and it’s been here ever since.

  The red room will always be here. And right now it’s here for me. Me and Amity, that is.

  The movie unwinds: These are the faces—the souls—that Amity’s claimed.

  Their eyes droop. Their mouths gape. And somehow, I know them all. Witches, yeah. And inmates, sickos beyond help, tossed underground like garbage, chained up in this hidden cave to rot, if they were lucky.

  Used for … other things, if they weren’t.

  The red room housed witches, yeah. And also sickos, crazies, and criminals … And also others, I think, watching a stray feather float past. Jules catches it in her palm, closes her fingers around it, and smiles at me.

  They could channel the elements, Jules says. They were here, even before Amity, and they claimed this land as their own.

  And when they died, their magic poisoned the ground below, right to its core.

  “The red room.” It’s the core. And it was meant for me. I was meant to be here. I was meant to be with Amity.

  In the dream, in this room, my father’s true, real face appears. His eyes are blank, his skull fractured, crumbling away. Here, I can see, very clear—he’s a demon. And he’s filled with rage.

  Jules floats up and out, beyond the house again. She rushes me outside, down the slope of our backyard. Her feet leave no marks in the damp grass as she delivers me to the boathouse.

  The boathouse. There are things for me here, by the river. Things for here, where everything rotted and black washes to shore. Real things, even in this dreamscape. Gifts, from Amity.

  A shotgun. An ax. A shovel.

  Jules tells me—Amity tells me—I’ll know exactly how to use them. I will use them. I have to.

  And I want to.

  In the dream, I see: my father is a demon. Boiling with anger. Shriveled as that old, poisoned shaman. It’s the truth. But.

  In the dream, I see: me. Amity. The red room, and all of its energy, rooted and reaching out. To me.

  I have Amity. I am Amity.

  And I know, completely, the truth that’s always been, that’s always there, sticking to me like a shadow:

  The dream, the real, and the real-Real? There isn’t any difference between those things. Not for me.

  Amity has power. Dad is a demon. Jules must be saved. Those are truths, always, wherever I am.

  And there’s another truth, too, that I always carry with me:

  Wherever I am?

  I’m a demon, too.

  NOW

  THE DREAM IS ALWAYS THE SAME NOW.

  Always a nightmare.

  Each night, after I close my eyes, horror overtakes me. It wants me. Amity wants me. And each night, when I close my eyes, she overtakes me like a gale force, showing me just exactly what she is.

  In the dream, I am poised at the dock, the boathouse door banging a steady pulse. A thick, red haze coats the landscape, colors the Concord River a bloody rush.

  I shudder, take a breath.

  And dive.

  Underwater, I open my eyes slowly to discover I’m not alone. The Concord is littered with bloated, pale bodies. They reach for me, these underwater phantoms, wrapping spongy, shriveled hands around me, pulling me beneath,

  down,
down, down,

  and through, into the heart of Amity.

  In the dream, a door swings open, revealing:

  A secret space, not seen in my waking days. A shadowed, earth-lined room, shallow and dark as a coffin. Hard-packed walls laced with glowing, bone-white patterns that dance, hissing, whispering, singing to me. Showing me in flickering, flowing images, the true, wrenching history of Amity, of her poison, of her power.

  This room was once a safe house, the specters murmur. Once, it was a haven for conjurers, sorcerers, and other spirits, masters of the occult.

  Once.

  Waterlogged fingertips brush at my ankles. I choke back a shriek and slap at my skin, my groping hands finding nothing but the pinpoint pricks of my own gooseflesh.

  Once, too, it was a madhouse, an asylum for the diseased, the decaying. The ruined.

  Do these voices surround me? Or are they whistling from within my own thorny, unreliable mind?

  Somehow I know the answer is: both.

  They were locked beneath the floorboards, behind the stone walls of Amity’s cavernous cellar. They were forgotten … or worse.

  A feather materializes, drifting slowly from the ceiling—through the ceiling, how can that be?—tousled by a breeze that doesn’t reach my body, doesn’t touch my skin. I open my hand to it and it settles, weightless, on my palm. Instantly, it melts away.

  It leaves behind a watery, rust-colored stain that speaks to me of aged bloodstains and other dangerous things.

  (she was shot in the head)

  I wipe my hand against my hip and the voices return, somehow inside and outside my head in the same instant.

  Once, this land, Amity’s earthly terrain—once, it was a burial ground, where native spirits spoiled, sour souls seeped earthward, silent and potent, filled with unrest.

  Beneath the house’s baseboards, skeletal remains rattle, clatter, roll. I recognize them—they’re the sounds I hear in my bedroom, in the early witching hours, and they are the figures that reveal themselves to me each night in my dreams. They slither from the walls of the