“Was it you?”
“I don’t understand.”
His hand squeezes harder. Leans in more, eyes wider. He suddenly seems more familiar than ever.
“Was…it…you?”
“Was what me?”
I’m waiting for him to ask me the question again, but he doesn’t. He’s locked in tight, focused intently on my eyes, looking for a tell, a giveaway, some proof I’m lying. But I can’t be lying when I don’t even understand what he’s talking about.
His right hand balls into a fist, then uncurls. Balls, uncurls.
“We went to school together,” he says. “Do you remember that?”
“Yes,” I lie. “Yes, I remember.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes.” Take another chance, put the pieces together based on what Elle told me. Might be my only way out of this. “Clara was there too. Raymond. Kate. We were all in school together.”
Now his eyes widen further. “Yes. Yes, that’s right.”
I remember none of this, and he’s so desperate to believe me. Landis’s edge is softening.
“You don’t remember, do you?” I say. “You don’t remember any of the school, and that’s what you want more than anything, isn’t it? I think your father was one sick bastard who had some theories, and now you’re taking over his work. I think you believe whatever this fucking program is, it will restore our memories and maybe…I don’t know…maybe mess with our minds enough so we feel enlightened. But you’re too chickenshit to take the damn drugs yourself, so you’re trying them out on us first. Tell me I’m right, you coward. Tell me I’m right.”
His lower lip trembles. Almost imperceptible, but I see it.
“Was…it…you?”
Evade, Jake.
“The program doesn’t help us, does it?” I say. “It makes us do horrible things. Is that intentional, or just an unfortunate side effect?”
Landis returns to his chair, crosses his legs, considers my question. He never answers. Instead, he asks me something that is terrifying mostly because I don’t know the answer.
“Did you kill my parents, Jake?”
Part II
Final page from Clara’s copy of The Responsibility of Death
Thirty-Six
Clara
Saturday, October 13
It’s a beautiful morning. I am minutes from death.
Earlier, I checked out. Hardly said a word to the clerk. Didn’t even look at the total on the bill.
My next stop was a nearby supermarket, where I found the aisle with the household goods. Light bulbs. Tape. Screwdrivers. Then, there. Box cutter.
I paid and left.
After that, an Italian café. Expensive, as you would expect in Aspen. It was quiet, and I told the hostess I wanted to have some breakfast.
I wasn’t hungry, but it seemed at least ceremonial to treat myself. I ordered an omelet, which ended up just cooling in front of me as I picked around the edges. The waiter was very concerned I didn’t enjoy my food, but I assured him the problem wasn’t the food. He must have read something on my face, because he asked if I was okay.
I told him that was an impossible question to answer and then ordered champagne. He asked if I meant a mimosa, but I said no. Just champagne.
And there I sipped and considered my life, such as I could remember. The culmination of all I’d become, the hours learning, experiencing, and forgetting. The moments of laughter and pleasure, which were too few. The relationships, the people, even the pets I’d once had. All the living things that had floated around in my world, all for different lengths of time, plunging to various depths within me. Some leaving marks, others not. Everything I experienced that added up to what became Clara Stowe, the thirty-four-year-old woman who sat in an Italian restaurant alone, not even eating her last meal.
I’m back in the car, making the short drive to the Maroon Bells, my final stop. My journal rests on the passenger seat. I had this romantic image of leaving it on the rock where I will slit my wrists, but it has a better chance of being read if I leave it in the car. I don’t know why the book being read is important to me. I think I’m ready to be dead, but not yet forgotten.
It’s almost Halloween, a holiday I haven’t celebrated in years. Halloween, promptly followed by the Day of the Dead.
The mountain trees are a blaze of yellow, with evergreens spotted throughout, unchanging. I open the moon roof. Crisp air swirls around me, sun beats down. I navigate the hairpin turns cautiously, because plunging off the road is not the plan.
Finally, I arrive, and the Maroon Bells don’t even look real. They are a Disney photo, airbrushed perfection, streaks of snow and rock against the bluest of skies. I pull into a gravel lot, which is occupied by three other cars.
I get out and survey the scene. The lake is calm, not a hint of a breeze. Small ripples erupt here and there, little creatures coming up from beneath. Or insects landing for a drink.
Though I can barely make him out, on the far side of the lake, a man is fishing.
I had hoped to be alone.
I locate my rock, the one where I’ll be standing when I do it. I have it perfectly planned. Slice my right wrist, lengthwise, not across, then quickly switch hands and do the other. Shouldn’t take longer than ten seconds, if I do it right. Then all I have to do is fall forward, into the lake, and breathe in the depth of it all.
Then I will be at the next stage. The stage of existence I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. I’ll have accomplished my greatest achievement.
The responsibility of my death.
Suddenly, two children scurry from the hidden side of the rock, up and over. Siblings, perhaps. Blond and joyous, girls. One of them, the larger of the two, stands on the top, the place where I’m supposed to stand. The other scampers, tries to get to the top, but is denied by her sister’s stomping feet. Squeals of laughter. Shouts of life.
King of the mountain.
I turn my head and locate the parents standing nearby, hand in hand, facing the Bells. Look at this, I imagine them saying. Look at where we are. Isn’t this beautiful?
Now, I have to wait.
Strange that this fills me with a flush of impatience. What’s the rush, Clara? What do you really think will be on the other side?
The father turns his head and sees me, offers the slightest nod. I smile and nod back. He doesn’t notice the box cutter in my hand, because I’m palming it out of view. Don’t want to alarm him. His children are closer to me than they are to him, after all.
So I walk, taking a nearby path that extends from a trailhead and winds to the south. A half hour should do it, most likely. I’ll check back then, see if I have the rock to myself.
It only takes minutes before I’m deep in the trees, and the shade brings on a sharp chill. But the cold feels good, making my senses more acute. Leaves crunch beneath me. Bare branches rustle in a sudden light wind above.
Deeper into these woods.
The smell of soil. The musk of moist, decomposing vegetation.
And then something else. A new scent, so deeply familiar.
Citronella.
My pulse quickens, and I push deeper still, yanking aside branches and stepping over the bodies of trees fallen long ago. I don’t know what I’m looking for, or if I’m even looking at all. I’m following this smell, and it’s almost as if it exists as a single line of direction, a trail of bread crumbs left for me to follow.
The woods draw tighter around me, closing in.
I’m no longer on the path. No sense of how much time has passed. Maybe ten minutes. Perhaps much longer.
Darker now. Colder.
I stop and listen. Something moves near me, little paws springing along the ground. Not a squirrel. Bigger.
Flashes of my book. Not my journal, but the other book. The one
sitting along with my journal in the front seat of my rental car. The children’s book first given to me a long time ago.
A little boy and his grandfather, taking a walk in the woods, with forest creatures portending death for the old man. At the end of the story, the grandfather speaks for the first time, looking down at his wide-eyed grandson and saying, “I’ll never come out of these woods, boy.” On the final page, the old man sits stoop-shouldered on top of a tree stump, alone, the background peppered with the eyes of animals. Watching and waiting.
There.
A tree stump.
Not unusual, certainly. But there it is. Just like in the book.
I’m drawn to this stump. Compelled to sit on top of it, its rough surface scraping against my jeans. My feet just touch the ground. I wrap my arms around me as I scan the surrounding trees, waiting for a creature to reveal itself. Maybe this is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe I’m not supposed to be in the water, but in these woods. Just as in the book.
I’ll never come out of these woods.
More rustling somewhere out of view. I picture a wolf. Though unlikely, it sticks in my mind. An animal with impressive teeth and a hunger to use them.
The box cutter feels reassuring, and I thumb the blade from its casing. A small triangle of perfect steel, the razor polished and smooth. So sharp I might not even feel it as I pierce my skin, slice upward, and ribbon my arteries.
The scent of citronella hits me again, bringing with it a wave of familiarity. A déjà vu that overwhelms, that feeling of I’ve been here before. Right here.
I push it away, just as I pushed Jake away.
Then I place the tip of the razor against my left wrist, deciding.
Until this visceral moment, the idea of suicide has been nothing but a desire, an overwhelming sense of purpose. But here, blade against skin, it’s very real and humbling. All my years, over in seconds. An affront to life. A spit in the face of whatever it was that created us. Is this really what I’m supposed to do?
An image. From a movie, I think. Years ago. A girl in a hotel room on LSD. She walks barefoot to the balcony, a dozen stories up. Climbs the railing and stands on the edge, arms out, wearing nothing but a loose T-shirt that ripples in the city breeze. The hum of traffic down below. She is smiling because she is happy. And she is happy because she thinks she can fly, that if she just launches herself off the balcony, she will soar like Peter Pan, swooping over London. She doesn’t want to die. She just wants to fly, and the LSD tells her she can. And so she plummets, arms still spread, until her flight of fancy is brought to an end by a concrete sidewalk.
A voice asks me a question from deep within my own mind.
Is that you, Clara?
No. I’m not her.
But you’ve actually taken mind-altering drugs, containing who-knows-what.
It’s different. It’s not a drug. It’s a substance my body needed. A vital element. Just like the book.
You’re delusional.
I’ve never had such clarity in my life.
My stomach knots as I apply the faintest pressure against my wrist, and seconds later, a single drop of blood snakes down. Maybe this will change my mind, seeing the blood. The reality of it all.
But it doesn’t.
I want to do this.
No.
I need to do this.
I don’t know why, but that part is losing its importance. I’m not depressed. I don’t hate my life, meager and isolated as it is. And this world…I do love it. Life is a gift, a cosmically improbable fortune, and it should be cherished.
But death.
Death is a reward. My death is meaningful. In some way, I’m helping the world by dying.
My entire core becomes a rock as I draw the blade a quarter inch along the inside of my wrist. I haven’t hit the artery…yet. Blood trickles but doesn’t spray.
Tears form, filling my eyes, blurring my vision. They are a mix of happy and sad. Beauty and loss.
A single breath, held in my lungs.
Go, Clara. An inch more, then you’ll hit it. Then the other wrist.
Then just lie down. Let the forest take you. Do your duty.
Then, a rustle.
I look over to my right.
There’s a creature in the woods after all.
Thirty-Seven
Ten feet away, a crow stares at me from the ground. Black, glimmering feathers. Graphite eyes.
He jumps in place, and something is clearly wrong. One wing is neatly tucked behind him, and the other juts out at an unnatural angle.
Broken.
More hopping. Then a feeble caw.
He is old. Old and wounded.
Ready to die, but fighting against it.
I try to ignore him but can’t. He hops around more, this time inching toward me. Then a screech. An awful screech.
I stand from the stump, lightly bleeding.
I walk in his direction, wondering what I would do if he let me reach him. Put him out of his misery? What an improbable scene. A murder-suicide with a crow.
The old crow turns and scrambles away from me, but he cannot fly. All he can do is hop, three or four bursts at a time before having to rest. But maybe he’s not resting. Maybe he’s waiting for me to catch up.
I get closer, my steps small and cautious. Trying to make myself as nonthreatening as I can, because I want to help. But really, what can I do? Fixing broken creatures is not something I do.
The box cutter warms as my hand starts to sweat. I imagine the razor glowing with heat. I can help this poor, old bird.
Another caw. Harsh, urgent. Three more hops.
Up a path, a narrow and uneven dirt trail partially obstructed by overgrown trees. If I didn’t really focus on it, I could hardly say it was a path at all. But it is. A path not taken in some time.
The crow shuffles under branches and directly along the trail, which itself is no more than a few feet wide. To follow him any more would take effort. And will I really kill this creature? Even if I caught up to him, could I really take him in my hands and slice through his throat, or twist his neck until it cracks?
The idea of his suffering is suddenly unbearable.
I crouch, the only way through the branches. Sharp wooden fingers scratch my neck and back, grasping at me like greedy witches. The crow keeps moving forward, squawking at me, a few feet away but forever out of reach.
This is beyond reason, but of course, beyond reason is by now an old and familiar place.
Closer, until the crow makes a last-gasp effort and hops frantically forward without stopping. Going and going, up the path, calling out as if summoning every creature of the woods to its aid.
I don’t want to hurt you, crow. I only want to kill you.
Blood from my small nick drips over my jeans. Drops fall to the ground.
I move faster, trying to keep up, pushing branch after branch out of my way. Some are dead, snapping like brittle bones. Others bend unwillingly. I scramble over a stump teeming with ants.
Finally, after what seems an eternity lost in the bramble, I see it. A small clearing. Fifteen more feet, maybe twenty. The crow stands under a shaft of light that has found its way through the towering trees. The bird turns to me, good wing flapping. Caws at me yet again, raspy enough to sound like a hiss. Jumps in place, up and down, five or six times. Then, like a drunk realizing the night has finally caught up to him, stumbles on its feet before falling onto its side.
I push a branch out of my face and stare at it. So disconcerting, the sight of a bird on its side.
I push past into the clearing, and one final broken branch catches my cheek, tearing at me. Pain sears my skin, and I reach up and feel the blood seeping from the fresh wound. It’s not deep; at least I don’t think so. I suppose it doesn’t really matter anyway.
I reac
h the crow and sit next to it.
It’s alive. Puffed chest heaving in rapid bursts. One eye fixed on me. Maybe it’s scared; maybe it’s past that point. A drop of my blood falls from my cheek into the dirt next to the bird.
The animal is dying. He doesn’t need my help.
As I look down and as he looks up, I consider that we will likely be each other’s last creature.
I reach. He doesn’t resist as I use one finger to stroke the top of his head. So smooth. Silky and perfect.
And then the bird seizes, a death rattle. Not a sound in its final seconds. The old crow stops moving entirely, now and for all time, and in its death, I see myself, lifeless on the forest floor, another piece of carbon returned to the land, no more or less significant than the thousands of those before and after, just a collection of bones from a transient passenger.
I look up, as if perhaps I can catch a glimpse of the crow’s ghost as it slips away. Yet I see something else entirely. Something quite real.
Windowless with rusted-steel siding. A storage facility, or a maintenance shed.
There is a single door, secured with a padlock.
I know this place.
As much as I’ve ever remembered anything with my unreliable mind, I know this place.
My fingers graze the side of the shed, feeling the cool of the metal. Motes of rusted dust flake off, float to the ground. I walk around to the back, seeing nothing remarkable, but sensing something extraordinary. The scent of citronella is so powerful, it threatens to make me gag.
I feel both scared and excited, and for a second, I wonder if I’m dead after all. I look down at my wrist. The wound is small, the bleeding stopped.
No. I’m alive. This is real.
I complete my loop of the shed, passing around the one side I haven’t yet seen, and this is where everything changes.
This side of the shed is identical to the other, with one exception. There’s lettering painted on it, still visible through the rust.
Industrial lettering, like army stencils.
The Dead Girl in 2A Page 15
