Madapple

by Christina Meldrum

  I pull the cushions from the sofa, stack them. I stretch my skinny legs and torso high, and my hands lie flat against the wall; the sofa cushions beneath me cradle the balls of my feet.

  The mirror I’m straining to reach is tiny—no larger than my outstretched hand—and I see from below that its glass is speckled, yellow and gray, as if diseased, like the infected skin of an animal turned hairless and crusted. But to me it is another world, hope of another world: it is beautiful.

  I’ve never seen my face before, not in a mirror. There were no mirrors in this house as I grew up. And Mother destroyed the mirrors in the car long before I realized what those mirrors might have meant to me. I must have been little more than a toddler when I watched Mother crouch near the car’s passenger door, rotate its mirror outward. I saw her grip the hammer like she did the switch used to punish me—praying hands, folded neatly, but separated, then stacked—and I was awash in the already-familiar deluge of incomprehension and dread. I closed my eyes: I saw neither the swing nor the slam. But I heard the high-pitched burst as the glass splintered, and the thump as the hammer dropped to the ground. I opened my eyes to discover Mother assessing the mirror, the absence of mirror: this mosaic of angled light. I was relieved. Confused, too, certainly, but more than anything I was relieved. She hadn’t struck me. The mirror, yes. But what did that matter? I’d no appreciation then of what her conduct signified, of what it might portend.

  Discreetly I stepped back from the car, from her, as she collected the hammer from the dirt, opened the squealing door, slipped inside. She left the door ajar, and I could see her spider-like legs awkwardly curled beneath her. With effort, she repositioned the rearview mirror, angled it toward her. This time I watched as she whacked it, once and again, before she unraveled herself from the car.

  I don’t believe she’d intended initially to destroy the remaining mirror, the mirror on the driver’s side. She’d ordered me back in the house and was following behind me, heading inside. But I paused, I glanced back at her. And it was as if someone behind had gripped the fabric of her gown. Her torso stiffened, pulled back, even as her neck stretched forward and her head plunged; her airborne foot slammed into the ground, stuttered.

  I could almost feel her cold-ocean eyes scrutinizing: my young face, my wrinkled dress, my scrawny arms and legs. “I huset,” she said. “I told you, get in the house.” Then she pivoted away, walked to the car. She struck the remaining mirror with too much force, too many times. Its base cracked, then broke, and it spilled to the ground.

  I had a vague idea what I looked like before this moment in the green room. I’d seen a semblance of my face rippling in a muddy pool in the drive and in a sun-bathed window in Bethan and in a gully, as today. But the images I’d seen were fleeting and vague. I’d tried to find out; I’d tried to see myself. I’d studied my face in the curved bed of a spoon, the flat spread of a knife, the body of a pot, the base of a pan. But our utensils and cauldrons are tarnished; my image was barely decipherable. I was tempted to pull out a line of tacks, draw back a drape, find my face reflected in one of our hidden windows. But I never did—I never dared. Yet I would have if I thought Mother wouldn’t find out. I would have done so in a breath.

  Now I close my eyes before my face reaches the mirror’s surface. I teeter on the cushions and wait: five seconds, ten. I count my breaths; I count the time. I know I should hurry—that every second I tarry risks Mother’s wrath. But I want to savor the pulsing and pumping in my body, the rushing heat, the slippery vitality of my palms. How long have I awaited this moment?

  Yet it is not my own reflection I’ve so longed to see.

  It is my father’s.

  I feel certain I will open my eyes and he will be born there for me, in the features of my face. I’ve come to believe that Mother’s fear of this—of my discovering Father in myself—is her rationale for preventing my seeing my reflection.

  But when I open my eyes, I see Mother.

  Mother.

  In reality I’m certain I look far younger than Mother, but this difference is masked in the mirror’s age. What I do see is colorless, almost translucent skin; her broad, high forehead; hair that frames the face like dangling shards of bone. And eyes that swirl in gray and green and the palest blue. The only aspect of my face that seems my own is the freckles that spot my nose and cheeks.

  Then I remember the wartwort.

  I want to scream, to obliterate Mother from my mind, from my face.

  She’d not been hiding my father from me; she’d been hiding herself. But why, I wonder. Why? I know the features of Mother’s face, know them like I know the musty smell of our house, the creaking of the floorboards. Mother’s face was an ever-present in my life, long before I saw that her face is mine.

  I return to my bedroom and try to sleep, but it seems I hear the passing of every second, the mundane sticking, straining, ticking of the alarm clock’s second hand. Ever since I’d learned about sex—since I’d learned someone had fathered me—I’d been buoyed by the knowledge there was part of me independent of Mother, part of me she could never touch. Each time Mother had punished me since then, and when she’d scorned me, I’d thought of Father. I imagined he loved in me all she hated, that he took pride in all she found alien, that each time she rejected me, he pulled me closer. But after seeing my reflection, I’m no longer certain of my separateness from Mother: I’m no longer certain Father exists. Intellectually, I understand that to have come into existence, I had to have had a father, but this knowledge no longer seems enough.

  Is Mother like the short-lived daylily? I wonder. Capable of producing without fertile seed? Did I just sprout up from some piece of her that fell away? From a strand of her hair? A scrape of her skin? A torn nail?

  I think back to a year or so earlier, to the one time I garnered courage to ask Mother about Father. I sat across from her, the morning light slipping through a gap in the drapes, stretching across the dining table like a diaphanous shield.

  “You have no father, Aslaug.”

  She was lying. It seemed she was lying. Her ashen skin transformed to scarlet, her limbs to tense cords. And her gray to green to blue eyes focused intently upon the white, the blank, of the wall.

  At that moment I knew—I felt—that I did have a father. That I had had a father, for I sensed he was no longer alive. There was longing in Mother’s face, and mourning. Her eyes, normally so dry she blinks almost incessantly, softened with moisture, as if waves had stirred those cold-ocean colors and warmed them. Her lips, usually tucked stingily, fell open and round, so I could almost imagine her kiss.

  It had never before occurred to me Mother loved my father, lost him. I’d not known she had the capacity for this type of love.

  Later that day I began to speculate how Father died. It became almost obsessive for me, this speculation: I imagined scenario after scenario. Eventually one overshadowed all others.

  I could see my newborn body, tinged crimson and viscid, still throbbing with dry cold and fluorescent light, as if Mother had given birth to her own pumping heart. The doctor and nurses swarmed about me like gluttonous mosquitoes, sucking and sucking. Then wiping, for several seconds. Several seconds. More than enough time for his racing vehicle to lose control.

  I envisioned Father driving a diminutive white car with burgundy interior. The traffic light before him turned yellow, then red, but he accelerated, desperate to reach the gasps and screams of the woman, his wife, my mother, as she labored. The truck that struck left little but rent steel, rent vinyl, stirred into a pinkish morass. Father’s head lay like that of a dandelion, thrust from a child reciting a rhyme.

  Had Father actually died this way, my life would make some sense. That Mother raised me as if I were a bastard would be unremarkable. That she locks me away like one would a psychopath might even be expected, for in a sense I’d be a no-conscience killer, my very existence bound with death. And her clothing, black and shapeless, her body buried there as if with his. What
else might she wear? Her life would be one of mourning. Her brooding, tortured eyes watch me like an obsessed, obsessive lover because I’d be a reminder, a remnant, of what she had lost.

  SOLOMON’S SEAL

  2007

  —Please state your name for the record.

  —Detective Edith Fenris.

  —Where do you work, Detective?

  —I’ve worked for the Hartswell Police Department for nearly ten years.

  —What do you do for the police department?—I’m a forensic detective, but I also patrol, respond to calls.

  —As a forensic detective, you investigate crime scenes?

  —Yes.

  —Were you or were you not on duty when Mr. Grumset made the 911 call concerning the situation at the Helligs’ house?

  —I was on duty. I was one of the investigators who went to the house after dispatch received the call from Mr. Grumset.

  —Describe what you saw when you arrived at the Helligs’ house.

  —Well, it was four years ago…. I remember seeing ayoung woman in a nightgown in the backyard digging. There was something big wrapped up in a sheet lying next to her. Her hands and gown were soiled with what appeared to be blood, but…

  —Do you see that woman you saw digging in this courtroom?

  —Yes.

  —Would you please point her out to the jury and describe how she’s dressed.

  —She’s sitting next to defense counsel there, wearing a gray skirt, a gray blouse.

  —May the record reflect the witness has identified the defendant, Aslaug Hellig?

  —It may.

  —Thank you, Your Honor. Did you examine the wrapped object, Detective?

  —Yes.

  —What was it?

  —Maren Hellig’s dead body.

  —What, if anything, did you find unusual about the body?

  —The body was naked, and there was an image painted on the torso.

  —Please describe the image.

  —It looked like a star, only upside down.

  —When you say a star, do you mean a five-pointed star? A pentagram?

  —I think so.

  —So the image was an inverted pentagram?

  —Yes.

  —Thank you. Now, you said the defendant was digging. What was she digging?

  —A hole.

  —A grave?

  —Objection. Leading.

  —Sustained.

  —Did you ask the defendant why she was digging a hole, Detective?

  —I think so.

  —What did she say?

  —I don’t think she answered. She was pretty messed up.

  —What do you mean by “messed up”? Was she intoxicated?

  —Objection. Leading.

  —I’ll withdraw that. What do you mean by “messed up”?

  —She didn’t seem to get why we were there. She seemed confused.

  —How large was the hole?

  —Pretty big.

  —Big enough for a body?

  —Objection. Leading.

  —Sustained.

  —How wide was the hole?

  —A foot or so, I think.

  —How long was it?

  —Maybe five or six feet.

  —What did the defendant do when you and the other investigators entered the yard?

  —She stopped digging.

  —And then what happened?

  —Officer Halvard and I arrested her.

  —Did the defendant offer any resistance?

  —It was a long time ago. I really don’t remember.

  —Why did you arrest her?

  —Because it looked like she was about to bury a corpse in the backyard of her house. It’s a criminal offense to abuse a corpse—

  —You suspected the defendant killed her mother, did you not?

  —Objection. Leading. Argumentative.

  —Sustained.

  —Detective, did you discover anything on the premises indicating someone may have attempted to destroy evidence before you arrived at the scene?

  —I don’t remember.

  —Would you say your memory is exhausted as to this point?

  —Yes.

  —Perhaps I can refresh your memory. I’d like you to review Exhibit E, the police report concerning the incident at the Hellig household. Are you familiar with this document?

  —Yes.

  —Who prepared the report?

  —I did.

  —Okay, please read the first two lines of the third paragraph on page five of the report.

  —“Damp, washed-out nightgown found inside house. Deceased’s body found cleansed postmortem.”

  —Does the report refresh your memory of finding the nightgown and cleansed corpse?

  —Yes.

  —In your experience, was finding a washed-out nightgown and a washed corpse consistent with an attempt to destroy evidence?

  —I found it strange the girl may have washed out her mother’s nightgown, if that’s what you’re getting at. I found it strange she’d washed the body.

  —Objection. Move to strike. The detective’s testimony lacks foundation. There’s been no evidence submitted that Aslaug did either of these things. The officer is speculating.

  —Sustained.

  —Did you find any evidence indicating anyone other than the defendant and her mother had been in the Helligs’ house, Detective?

  —No.

  —Did you find anything on the defendant’s person indicating the defendant may have poisoned her mother?

  —Objection. Leading. Argumentative.

  —I’ll rephrase. Detective, what, if anything, did you find on the defendant’s person?

  —The only thing we found on the defendant was a small jar containing a little liquid.

  —Did you test the liquid to determine its contents?

  —Yes.

  —What was it composed of?

  —It’s in the report here. It was part alcohol, I remember. And the report here says it was part something called saponins, found in some local plants like—let’s see—soapwort and adder’s eyes, which is another name for scarlet pimpernel, I guess.

  —Was the liquid poisonous?

  —Yes, it was, but only if someone were to take in a lot.

  —So your answer is yes?

  —Yes.

  —Thank you. Detective Fenris, based on your professional experience, what else, if anything, did you find on the Helligs’ property that was inconsistent with Mrs. Hellig’s having died of natural causes?

  —Objection. Relevance. Lack of foundation. There’s no evidence Mrs. Hellig died of anything but natural causes.

  —Overruled. Counsel is trying to lay that foundation right now, I believe. I’ll allow the question.

  —I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.

  —Why don’t you look at the report for a minute? Refresh your memory again.

  —Yes. Okay. It says here we found some nightshade. I guess the berries can be poisonous. And adder’s eyes, like I said. We found some of that. Let me see. Some Indian tobacco. Some homemade wine. A few petals of meadowsweet and some bloodroot, both of which can be poisonous, but only in large doses. A cream that contained a plant called shinleaf. And another cream that contained nightshade and jimsonweed.

  —Did you say jimsonweed?

  —Yes.

  —Is jimsonweed poisonous?

  —Yes.

  —Can it be deadly?

  —Usually only children—

  —Detective, please just answer yes or no. Can it be deadly?

  —According to the Field Guide to Poisonous Plants in North America, it can, yes, but—

  —Objection. Move to strike. The witness is not an expert on local flora.

  —But she’s a forensic detective, Counsel. Objection overruled.

  —I have just a few more questions, Detective Fenris. You mention in your report that the defendant, Aslaug Hellig, had a rash on her arms and hands. Please describe tha
t rash.

  —I just remember it looked like her skin was irritated.

  —How so?

  —It was red. Inflamed. Had small blister-like spots, I think.

  —Thank you. You also mention in your report that you found a large stone near the hole the defendant was digging. Please describe that stone.

  —It was big. A rock, really.

  —Did it look like it could be used as a gravestone?

  —Objection. Leading. Calls for speculation.

  —I’ll withdraw that, Your Honor. Detective, you describe in your report some carvings in the stone. Please describe what you found carved in the stone.

  —On one side there was an hourglass-type shape. On the other side there were carvings that looked somewhat like letters, but not exactly.

  —Did those letters form a word?

  —Objection. Speculation.

  —Answer only what you know.

  —I don’t really know. I’d have to guess. Like I said, the carvings didn’t look exactly like letters.

  —Detective Fenris, please read page seven of the report to yourself. Does the report refresh your recollection of what you saw?

  —Yes, but—

  —Read the first sentence of the first full paragraph aloud, please.

  —“Etching on rock appears to be the letters ‘HCTIB’—that is, ‘BITCH’ spelled backward.”

  —Why did you write this in your report?

  —At the time, that’s what I thought it said.

  —Thank you. I have no further questions.

  DOLL’S-EYES

  2003

  Morning comes; I realize I’ve slept.

  I step from my room; the weight of sleep still slows my thoughts. The hallway seems strange, its muted tones disturbed by a pinkish glow. I reach the stairwell: I can see too much. No candles light the passage, yet I see the nail in the third stair down that I’d pounded askew after ripping my heel, and the parallel, smoothed indentations from wear that mark the near center of each step, and the velvet-like paisleys of the wallpaper, hued the lightest eggshell blue, normally detectable only by feel.