She was certainly up to something. You should have seen her getup! Lying to me only makes me more suspicious. She thinks I can’t tell when she’s lying but it’s actually pretty easy. She has a “tell” as Penn, my on again off again boyfriend gambler, would say. She widens her eyes like she’s trying to hypnotize you. Works wonders on men – if she’s appropriately suited up. Maybe not so much in granny guise.
Could this be the result of my anonymous letter? I certainly didn’t expect a reaction this extreme! I was just laying groundwork, so to speak. Trying to master my frustration.
I pretended to drive away, listening to the mix CD (title: “I Hate My StepMom”) that I made for myself. First up: Scars of Life’s Bullet With Your Name On It. Ha ha. Always makes me feel better. Parked at the boat launch and walked back to the house up the beach. A few hours when I can be certain she won’t be home is too precious an opportunity to pass up. I love sneaking around in her house – my house – the house she bought with our money –the thrill is downright sexual. Probably something like what Penn feels when he looks at Internet porn. They expect you to look: it’s all for show. An addictive frisson composed of loneliness and unseen participation.
You can’t call it “breaking and entering” when it’s your own house. I never had difficulty with the security system. There’s one codeword – six letters, none repeated. Anyone with a brain could figure that out. She sees herself as the High Priestess of her own little tarot card, fortune-telling cult – she’s a nut about palmistry and astrology, too. She makes such a fuss about her symbol as the “Queen of Swords” She even wears a little golden dagger around her neck. (Bought with our money.) But Queen doesn’t fit and Swords has a repeat letter. Same with dagger. So what would you do if – let’s say – you were massively undereducated? I tried “SWORDZ” — worked the first time! I can’t tell you what a boost that gave my confidence. Now I know I can outthink her.
Of course she could change the word. She could install cameras. Knowing she’s overconfident, I can’t afford to make the same mistake. I have to strike fast and invisibly. I call it “spelunking”. You never know what you might find.
I look for anything different. Recent acquisitions. How has she been spending our money? I try not to touch things but sometimes I just can’t help myself. Snooping makes me need to pee and when I use her private bathroom I fantasize that the electrically warmed toilet seat is heated from her touch. She left it nice and warm – for yours truly. “Queen of Swords” – bullshit! More like queen of the wolves. Better look out, there’s always some other big mean bitch coming up behind you.
Peering through the floor to ceiling glass windows along the deck I saw the book right away. It’s so big it looks like a freakin’ briefcase. Mauve suede with gold-deckle leaves. Laid out so appetizingly on her faux-Empire writing desk – that must have cost a pretty penny – along with my father’s Art Deco desk accessories. But I couldn’t be so lucky that she would actually write anything there. It’s probably a scrapbook or some such thing. Maybe she bought it to record my anonymous letters! In spite of a fancy vocabulary acquired from my father she’s basically illiterate. All her books are just for show; you know the kind: “Castles of Ireland”, “English Country Houses”, “Japanese Gardens”. Here I am, scrawling my every idea in a dollar-fifty steno book, because that’s the way I was raised. Planning. First draft, second draft, third draft, show! Give your ideas the best presentation possible before you send them out begging.
I wondered if that “knitting bag” of hers contained the anonymous letter. Who was she gong to consult? The police? A private detective? Someone she wanted to view her as a victim. Someone she had never seen before, obviously. Thrilling! Who knew I had so much power?
I was ready to run around front and let myself in when my cell phone went off. Office. Needs me Stat. I’d have to save Charmian’s Big Book for another time. This earning-a-living-business sucks ass.
On the morning I was under mandate to show up at the courthouse I routinely pulled a card. Justice. This is the balance card, the card of the Midnight Court. In the Midnight Court, women weigh men in the balances. On the face of my card the Goddess pulls down her blindfold to peek out at the man she assesses. As we all know, Justice requires assistance. It is built on the bodies of those who must submit. The Goddess herself calls me to sit on that jury.
Carefully I assembled my disguise. Any well-appointed home has just the thing. I went upstairs to the second bedroom to see what I could pull together.
Of course I don’t call it a “bedroom” around anyone else. They might get ideas. It doesn’t even contain a bed. Officially, it’s The Boxroom.
I live in the most beautiful house on the lake. Everything about it is perfect except its rather silly name – “Topside”. Some sailing expression. I was happy to wash my hands of Dr. Quantreau’s hideous house in Colorado Springs. Vast, dark, creaky and vaguely Japanoid. “Modern” back in the fifties. Ugh. Topside is too perfect even to allow a housekeeper, or maid, like the ones I had back in Colorado Spring. It would be too intimate, having another person here. I relish caring for all my beautiful objects. It doesn’t take up too much of my time to stroke my own beast.
Boulder is a much more happening place than poor old Colorado Springs. Here, we are all making ourselves up as we go along out here. How you were born is no comment whatever on how you will end up. Life on the lake combines the best of both worlds; the power, tradition and beauty of the status quo with the fiery challenge, the imaginative power of the self-made.
Whenever I step inside my door I hug myself. All this space is just for me. Three bathrooms and a massive two storey living room whose glass wall overlooks the lake, a pro chef’s kitchen (in case I entertain); even “a media room.” Plus underground storage for my current “baby”, a gold convertible Mercedes SL.
I sigh as I tell my stepdaughters that it is not a good house for children. Too full of treasures. And the lake is so dangerous. That’s why all family parties need to be at McKenzie’s house. She has a pool. I try not to visibly smirk as I watch five dirty children struggling to exhaustion in the chlorinated water. Then I finish my drink – McKenzie’s wine is as good as anybody’s – I know because I bring it myself – and leave. As I disarm and rearm the security system the house itself seems to sigh with pleasure. “I have been waiting for you.”
The Boxroom is where ill-advised gifts come to die. Who can know me well enough to actually give me anything? Not a soul on this planet, sister. On this morning I was looking for a specific sweatshirt given to me by McKenzie’s youngest. It’s pink, it’s covered with strange-looking cotton balls and it says Best Granma Ever!
Wig? I thought of that already – my sex club wigs certainly won’t do. Do they even sell gray wigs? Baby, they sell everything. Gray wig, check. No makeup. Ouch. Reading glasses. Big-bottomed elastic waisted Mom jeans. Am I shameless enough to pad them? Why not? Could be amusing. A couple pairs of the boys’ jams that form my usual lakeside attire ought to thicken me up nicely. Wow. If I had long brunette hair I’d look just like Whitney.
Add a tapestry bag full of yarn and canvas and there she is, the Widow Quantreau. Fair, balanced, but so easily swayed. Inexperienced – deliberately — in the ways of the world. The Widow Quantreau has kept her mind pristine. She tries to think only the best of people. In her life unpleasantness has always been taken care of by someone else. She hasn’t had to fight her way up, the way I have. The status quo is God-given and naturally right, and all who breach it should be punished. Unless they have a particularly alluring sob story, and then I guarantee my eyes will glisten and my lower lip will droop – droop – droop.
Talk show television, that’s what the Widow Quantreau favors. And non-abrasive cooking shows. You know, the helpful as opposed to the competitive kind. That’s what I told the questionnaire anyway. As I looked at myself delightedly in the mirror I almost wished I was going to the sex club. This was a new disguise for sure! Sadist or masochist? Because you better believe it, you’ve gotta be one or the other. Top or bottom; lion or lamb. I take my lamb rare, thank you. Very rare. But they don’t let lions sit on juries, if they can sniff them out in advance. They might enjoy themselves too much, and as we’ve all had dinned into our ears since grade school, it’s not “work” if you enjoy it.
Judge Sugarman made his call; I made sure of that. He owes me. So I probably have a fairly high interview number. Still, he assures me they will have a list of questions already prepared to ask me. (Sometimes designed by an expensive jury consultant.) Under “religious affiliation” I did not put Wiccan, as I sometimes do just to scarify and tease. Nor did I put down my mother’s church, the complex name of which I’m sure I can’t recall correctly. The Church of Christ Crucified and Unforgiving. Something along those lines.
No, I claimed Episcopalian, just like dear old Dr. Quantreau himself, the old atheist. Not that he bothered with a priest when he decided to get hitched. He was in too big a hurry, since I wasn’t prepared to get naked without suitable guarantees. Read: no pre-nup. But that Matterhorn proved amazingly easy to climb! I thought it was going to be the biggest challenge of the campaign. I didn’t know about “ux”. That’s what Latinists call “wife” apparently. He had all the trust documents set up – whoever was married to him at the time would step right in. Easy-peazey.
Dr. Quantreau showed up at church only twice a year, and then only if he thought someone was looking. He spurned what he cynically described the “comforts” of religion for himself, describing them as the province only for “females of both sexes”. Knowing that, I didn’t bother with last rites. There was nothing and nobody to protect him at the end.
Knitting bag in hand, I hurried out to the rental car. What kind of vehicle does the ideal juror drive? I wasn’t taking chances. You never know who you’ll meet in the parking lot. Each time – prosecution and defense – has a universe of hangers-on. Mid-size, mid-expense, nondescript seemed my safest bet. That’s what I ordered and that’s what they brought me. A gray Buick. One yawns at the sight of it.
No gardener today, and if I hurry, no Judge Sugarman, but it’s hard not to pause just long enough to survey my plot with pride. Spring is my season! I feel the blood fermenting in my ripening veins. The carefully hand-scattered daffodils have sprung up beside the stone wall; the weeping cherry trails kimono sleeves across the Buick’s roof. Beneath the thundercloud plum a slate birdbath vaunts a tall metal sculpture of feasting heron and dancing frogs. Frogs dance when they are about to be eaten. It’s an old Cajun joke. I’m Cajun on my stepfather’s side. Didn’t you know that? You acquire the powers of anyone you kill.
I shouldn’t be surprised to see Whitney’s jalopy. Fortunately she’d turned the engine off – she’s always playing the most God-awful, brain jangling music. No wonder kids can’t think if this is the stuff they listen to.
I pulled her card yesterday so I knew she must be lurking. In the Tarot universe she’s the Princess of Wands; a girl-woman whose weapon is the fire wand. Naturally she doesn’t know how to use it; she has yet to come into her power. Fire wands may have their place, but a sword will cut a fire-wand in half. A true Queen will not be burned even by a shower of sparks. The Princess’ only hope is to catch a Sword Queen napping, but…
Aging Dr. Quantreau didn’t do Whitney any favors, making her into his “ideal companion” while he was waiting for me to arrive. A teenage girl who is half seventy-five year old man is most certainly fated to struggle to find her place in the world. She should be out clubbing with her friends, daring the rituals of sex and drunken exaltation.
Instead, she’s hanging around me. I used to think she nourished quite a charming little passion for me; it’s the man-woman in her. Her sisters and I have mastered the language of femininity; but she refuses. My Empress (whose powers I also acquired) also risked mannishness. And look how she ended up.
Yes, I had high hopes of Whitney, before she set herself against me. She is an Archer, just like myself, born under a full moon at the exact time of the Winter Solstice. Mercury and Neptune hung above her cradle. Mercury is the Mind, Neptune the Imagination; it is a fatal double blend. She will over-think all her choices and frequently suffer paralysis between competing options. Her questioning sarcasm might remind me of myself. But I corral and empower my thoughts; spitting out an endlessly empty hostility is a mark of cowardice.
Her father spoiled her rotten. Her sisters – Princesses of Cups (so zodiacally impoverished they must share identity) at least understand that a family trust that pays all education and health expenses is extremely generous. I can feel Whitney wanting more. She is too wily (or fearful) of my power to come right out and claim what she desires, and I have no incentive to make it easy for her. Let her come to me, if she ever thinks she can summon up the power.
I realize I went about befriending her in completely the wrong way. I was unsure of my sway over the doctor –what if he got well before I could get rid of her? Plenty of men recover from stroke. Luckily she opposed me so obviously he took my side. Plus, he yearned to be alone with me. Ah, the naked nights and the drunken days! He should have been suspicious of upselling at his age. But we all are victims of our hopes, are we not? I didn’t have time to break Whitney’s spirit; I had my hands full with her father. Respect once lost can never be regained.
Whitney lacks self-pride. She never seems to care how grungy she looks. She shops at thrift stores. If she’s ever had a boyfriend, I’ve never met him. She insists on remaining a club that even she doesn’t want to join.
The Princess of Wands would be a proud archetype for anyone but Whitney, who refuses to so much as acknowledge its existence. Her fire throne (Fire is Whitney’s element) is guarded by a pair of lions and a single black cat, reminding us of the Egyptian goddess she once was. Her flower is the Sunflower, her star the Sun. In my deck she has long dark hair, just like Whitney. Whitney may come into her own someday; but she’s not going to do it on my dime. With no husband or children, a studio apartment and the merest hint of an excuse for a job, Whitney seems to have plenty of time to gad about; which she uses poorly. Hovering around me. The helicopter stepdaughter is always up for getting into trouble. I’ll never make it easy for her, why should I instruct her in her powers? I zip my lip. Intimacy with her ilk – even the kind obtained through criticism – is to be shunned. I certainly hated her unwelcome appearance on this morning; seeing my disguise. But it could play out to my advantage. “Might could” as my mother used to say. Let’s keep her guessing.
“New car?” She studied my rental curiously. She’s all about the moolah. Let her think it’s mine. “You don’t like it?” I asked airily. Always answer a question with a question; never give out free information. Make them pay for it. What she’s really worried about is my spending of her father’s money. Because she thinks she gets what’s left. That’s if there’s any left! I lean as hard as I can on Trustee Nicholas Rudoff’s investment decisions to keep them out of the “blue chip” category. That is, when I have nothing better to do.
She continued to stare. “It doesn’t seem like you, somehow.”
So now I’m obligated to live up to her fantasies, whatever those might be? I tried not to manifest my annoyance. “I contain legions,” I teased. Somebody famous said that once. Goddess knows what the real quote is.
Whitney’s “job” is selling advertising. Her Mazda Protégé is slapped with stickers. Beats me how a person so deliberately unpleasant can survive on commissions but she says she loves the excuse to be out in the open air. She must rely on her garrulous nature. She loves “chewing the fat.” Today she wore white pants, too early for the season, a brilliantly colored op-art blouse and a short pink suede jacket emphasizing her girth. Why does she insist on wearing belts as if she had a waist? But what can you do? I’d tried and failed. Built for comfort, not for speed, as my stepfather used to say. She fastened her eyes on my knitting bag. “Late for class?”
“That’s it. I’ve got to run.”
Of course I had to lie. If I got on the jury she’d find out eventually. Let her. But while I wove my spell I required a decent darkness.
“Sure is a new look,” she remarked, her eyes sliding about inside the glop she decorates them with. Brunettes don’t need so much makeup. Someone should tell her.
Pointedly I unlocked the Buick door. I seriously doubted I was even the target of this visit. It’s spring, after all. She, too, had probably noticed Brainerd’s Beautiful Assistant. She must have sap – or something – running through her veins.
“I’d offer you coffee but I’ve already set the alarm,” I climbed right into the front seat. Buh-bye! No need to stand on ceremony with family members!
She leaned right in the driver’s window so I found myself staring right into her somewhat bulgy pale blue eyes. She has worn the same makeup ever since high school; black eyeliner, turquoise mascara, rose blush and a sweep of pink lipstick. Just like an American girl doll. Sacrificial offering to the Lost Daddy.
“Wow, do you look different,” she emphasized.
“I’m in disguise,” I hissed conspiratorially. “Charitable works.” Keep her guessing. I tried not to seem too impatient as I pointed to her car blocking my path. She hurried to accommodate me. Do her good to run. She can use the exercise.
I know what Henry Kissinger said about power being an aphrodisiac, but I was caught off guard when Charmian’s and my father’s relationship turned romantic. Surely my elderly parent, who couldn’t button his own shirt, was finished with sex. Who could be attracted to a geezer male with uncertain or explosive plumbing? I guess it’s money, that makes the juices really flow. Lie back and think of Vail, or Cabo.
For a while I had the weird thought that she might be a lesbian. Of all the people in my life she was the most interested in my body. She was always giving me diet advice and begging me to try on clothes. I found her the whole situation distinctly unwholesome. What would she have done if I suddenly lunged at her, grabbing and kissing? We’ll never know. I turned down all gifts, visible and in.
My father and I had always enjoyed eating together. We relished prime rib, mashed potatoes, lasagna, sauerbraten. The one dish I learned to cook was sweet and sour pork. We loved trying new restaurants; it was our “thing”. But Charmian says the way to a man’s heart is not through his stomach, but his eyes.
I recall one diet tip in particular: drink a glass of hot lemon juice and eat an apple before every meal. Guess what? It absolutely works. Totally ruins the meal. Kills your appetite dead. You get to sit there and watch other people eat. But the question she never answered was, why should I want my appetite killed? My father always said the purpose of education is the cultivation of the appetites. If you wear blinders you won’t be distracted. But you also won’t see anything. Like a cart horse. What’s the good of that?
My father used to praise the fact that I was “substantial”, unlike those “modern girls competing to disappear”. Until she got hold of him, convincing him that our diet gave him a stroke and made me “unpopular”.
Everyone was on her side. I was thirteen years old for Chrissake. Plenty of time to be disappointed by men. I’m not convinced becoming a Cultural Icon has all these advantages, anyway. Don’ supermodels end up selling their eggs over the Internet? The prettiest girls in our high school class seem the saddest now, like somehow they got cheated. To me they seem to have less personal freedom, not more. Take my sisters for example, always acknowledged to be pretty, pretty girls. They’re perfectly willing to let Charmian rip them off. They say it was “his” money and there’s nothing we can do. Hells, no. Our mother is spinning in her grave.
Dad made lots of bad decisions, especially when his mind started to go. He expected me to stand up to him. To challenge him. Darby said I was the son he never had. He used to stand at the top of the old Colorado Springs house – it had a turret and he knew I loved that – and say, “Someday all this will be yours.” I know he said it metaphorically. I know he said it humorously. But you simply don’t leave the kingdom to the wicked stepmother. Gag me with a spoon.
What do you give the woman who has everything? It’s a problem. By definition, femininity is yearning for a never-to-arrive completion. Queens, of course, are different. Power is what we yearn for. One thing I’ve learned, if it’s masculine “approval” you’re waiting for; you’ll never get that! Men call us “insatiable” in self- excuse. So what new toy could tempt me?
I hesitated a little as I opened the mailbox. Usually it’s a pleasure to stand in my immaculately groomed garden looking through trust and bank statements, but last week, for the first tie in my life I received an anonymous letter. It was postmarked Colorado Springs, the old neighborhood, but the address had been made by label and the return address was “Suite 7, Flatirons Office Park”. So even though the envelope said “Hallmark” I opened it with a distinct lack of excitement. Almost certain to be begging disguised as an invitation. Strangely enough, it was both.
Inside were cut out letters assembled to form the words:
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID.
A chill ran through me and I looked up hastily, but as far as one can see through woods and leaves, I was alone. Things that seem very unpleasant at first conceal hidden delights; there’s a life lesson for you. Emotions first repelled as shocks to the system can even become addictive. So I thought hard about it. In fact, I had been thinking about it all week.
A new game. I used to love games. A hazard of wealth is a lack of surprises, since you control everything. I usually visit the sex club as a corrective. Plenty of surprises there. Here’s a game with a new disguised player. Someone jealous, obviously. Someone who feared coming out from behind the mask; someone who hoped to upset me from a distance.
I’ve done some terrible things in my life, that’s for certain. A Queenship that’s routinely handed over isn’t worth having. On the other hand, it’s literally impossible for anyone to know what those were. So here’s a person – a disguised person, a gameplayer – trying to manipulate me into acting in some way I wouldn’t have acted without this incitement. Now what could that be?
Criminal psychology says it’s a woman, an older woman (what junior would ever choose this mode of communication?) but it might be a man. A man-woman. I know plenty of those. That’s the reason that I put my hand slowly into the mailbox as if a second coachwhip waited in the dark to pounce. But no Colorado Springs Hallmark card. Instead, a summons to jury duty!
What could be more intriguingly amusing than a power of life or death? In Colorado, death sentences are decided by the jury. My whole life has been about deciding when to cut the cord. I might have to share it with eleven others, but most people are easily manipulateable, and our jury system is such that one holdout is all it takes to derail a prosecution.
KDVR has been screaming at me for weeks about the Sivarro-Haymaker case. Did pretty Karen Sivarro, dragged back from Europe in chains, really ask her boyfriend to hire a hitman? Is she as responsible as said hitman or perhaps even more so? The murder of Rafe Zanelli – we had all seen pictures of his bullet-ridden body sprawled in the roadway – wouldn’t have occurred without her, that’s for certain.
I became aware of someone creeping up behind me. It could only be my neighbor, Judge Sugarman, who has lately been stalking me. I steeled myself to face him with a smile. The Judge came lumbering at me with such speed he must have been spying from his kitchen window with binoculars. Judge Sugarman has a sort of a wife – what is left of her. She’s already been outsourced to a nursing home so he is frantically shopping for a replacement. He has a fine pool to select from – literally vans of women arrive carrying electric brooms and casseroles and baskets of flowers — but in the most ancient tradition of romance, he doesn’t want anyone who wants him.
He wants me. His only love affair at present is with the internal combustion engine, so a racket of clippers or weed whacking usually precedes him as he angles towards the privet separating our lawns. I tried not to gag at the love light in his eyes. After all, this summons I held in my hand could give him an opportunity to be useful. Quid pro quo makes the world go round, as my dear, late, late husband used to say.
I could have told him that being alone these days is no reason to go without sex. As a local potentate he probably knows about the sex club. I see plenty like him on my nights there – suited up and eager for excitement. But they don’t last. They soon discover that anonymity removes their sole attraction. Suddenly they experience the kind of catastrophic fall in status it used to be their professional obligation to inflict on the rest of us. They find themselves subject to a new order – the rule of beauty. If they expect to dance, they had better bring a partner. Judge Sugarman has big shoes that need filling.
He is looking to purchase, not rent. His clothes say Nieman Marcus but his jowls say prenup. Someone patient with him in bed, supportive at public events, self-effacing at parties and ready to memorize the birthdays and anniversaries of children and grandchildren. Been there, done that. This man doesn’t need a beginner, he needs an immigrant. Off the boat, or under the fence. An indentured servant with a huge bill hanging over her head. He had better look elsewhere. Now I please only myself.
I made a magnanimous effort to pretend I’m not automatically repulsed by wandering nasal hair and a gym-free torso – Goddess knows I’ve had worse. His needs and my needs do not match up. Yet he possessed a small capability to be of service. The judge took my hand and as I touched his Mount of Venus I could read that he is an ungenerous lover. Failure to achieve paradise is your own damn fault. I relinquished his hand by the simple stratagem of spewing my mail at his feet. He half bent – half knelt – to pick it up, allowing my eyes to stray to a more delectable sight – the arrival of Brainerd’s assistant.
Brainerd is my gardener, and there is nothing attractive about him. He is slowly becoming skeletally thin – Paris Hilton would be jealous – but on him it’s not attractive and suggests some terminal condition unresponsive to modern meds. Lately he has started bringing an assistant – his heir, one supposes – who is as radiant as sunrise. I don’t know his name, but I have stood at my bathroom window many times watching the muscles slide around under his tattoos. He’s probably gay, but I can play male. One has the obligation to explore all appetites, creating new ones as necessary.
Only the dead don’t hunger. Nostalgie de la boue, as my late husband used to say. We all suffer from an atavistic longing for the primeval mud. I admit, I’ve even been tempted to slide a guest card to the sex club underneath the bent windshield wipers of the ramshackle steamship he uses for transportation, but frankly, I’m too lazy.
Brainerd’s assistant acknowledged my presence shyly and began unloading a collection of rakes and sprays. I favored him with a luxurious smile while Judge Sugarman staggered red-faced to his feet. “You certainly get a lot of catalogs,” he puffed.
I dazzled him with a leftover lip-pleat. “Oh, you know how it is,” I told him, “So much money, so little time. Why should my stepdaughters get spoiled? We must prevent the heirs from plundering the estate.” He laughed gamely. He loves it when I flirt with him, but I like to go beyond flirtation into actual discomfort. Because it’s fun.
“Here’s my latest acquisition,” I said, dangling the jury notice in front of his yellow-orbed irises. “The Sivarro-Haymaker case is the one I want.”
“That’s the one everybody wants,” he said, and I saw his mind struggling with the realization that I was asking for something in his power to grant.
He backpedalled. “They usually divide the pool randomly between civil and criminal.” I pouted. “I don’t want to waste my time on a civil case.”
Still, he hesitated. “I could make a call but…even if you had a very high number and were interviewed late the prosecution might use a strike against you.”
“Why the prosecution?” I was annoyed. Dr. Quantreau’s widow was a celebrant of the status quo, why should anyone assume I automatically identify with the accused? I have personal reason to know, where there’s smoke there’s usually a smoldering ember someplace. I felt insulted by the ugly film muddying his eyes. I could hear what he was thinking – yes, I read minds when it’s worth my while. Isn’t he thinking the trophy second wife is just the kind of predatory adventuress poor Karen Sivarro is accused of being? Yet it’s a damned poor adventuress who ends up on a murder rap. They had to drag her back from England in chains.
Cut to the chase. “So who’s their ideal juror?” No false pride here. I can play anything. Pick his brains since that’s what he’s here for.
“The different sides want different things. They’ll give you a questionnaire. The trick is to appeal to both of them.”
“And how would I do that?”
“You’re uninterested in gossip. Never read “bad” news or watch frightening television. No relatives in prison or law enforcement. No crime victims in the family tree.” He leaned forward to whisper in my ear, “Easily swayed.”
I laughed out loud. “Why that old thing!” I exclaimed in my best Southern accent. “I can fake that twice a day!”
I rapped him on the shoulder with my invisible fan. “Don’t forget to make that phone call! I’m counting on you now!” And then I was sprinting for the house, leaving him standing there as if he had forgotten why he had come, as, given his advanced age, quite possibly he had. Bastard! He owed me that phone call! The more I thought about it, the more it seemed likely that he himself was my anonymous correspondent. It was just the kind of thing an elderly law-saturated geezer would get up to.
He’d probably had plenty of cases like this, when he was on the bench. Why should a beautiful, rich young woman with all of life as her plaything have anything to do with the likes of him, unless she required his counsel, expertise, and a professional shoulder to lean on? It certainly would explain why he hovered for the “trigger” of me at my mailbox. Men are so transparent.
I always knew she murdered my father. Does evil have a smell? Only eleven percent of people can detect the odor of cyanide. Almonds. But I am one of the eleven percent. I guess I have a nose for evil. Something about Charmian twitched my nostrils from the beginning. Charmian! That name is fake like everything else about her – nails, hair, eyes, breasts; fake, fake, fake. And my poor idiot father, who raised me to know quality and to seek it out, to insist on value, to treasure worth and reward effort – said he didn’t give a damn about Charmian’s past – who or where she had been.
Didn’t care that she was forty years younger! Or was it what was left of his dick that didn’t care? My older sisters were much more pragmatic about his dick of clay. They had husbands, children, they were grown and gone. Out of the house. In fact they said all men had clay dicks. McKenzie says every man’s ideal woman is a Vegas stripper. Darby says hookers work hard and earn their money just like everyone else. McKenzie says old men are a lot of work, and Darby says Dad treated Mom like crap and karma is a bitch.
I don’t remember. I was still little when she died. I took his side, always. He was the fun parent, giver of candy and prizes. He pointed out to me how logical he was and how stupid she was; why should I ever join her team? Dad and I read hero books; Beowulf, the Iliad, Genji, Gilgamesh. He encouraged the highest aspirations. I was the son he never had and didn’t need, because he had me. Then came the stroke. He needed help. No biggie, basic assistance. He didn’t want to help from me; he said I had my own life to live. I should have worried more when he hired Charmian. She was totally unqualified.
She was dangerous. Anyone could see. Every layer I’ve peeled back is perfidious and I don’t think I’ve hit bottom yet. I learned it from you, dad. You were so demanding, such a skeptic. My father was a doctor, a teacher, a diagnostician. Whenever I say my last name everyone asks, any relation to Dr. Quantreau? His whole ethos was to look beneath the surface – never settle for the obvious – take full note of signs and portents. Intelligent people have the obligation to educate themselves until they understand what they’re up against.
So that’s what I’m doing. I’m going t catch her and expose her. After they married he kicked me out of the house – she kicked me out – and he had no protections. I thought I had more time. When nobody was looking she finished him off.
I didn’t tell my sisters. I should have seen it coming. felt too guilty. So it’s up to me to do the dirty work. But is it really “dirty work” when it concerns someone you love? Dad, the raging unbeliever who taught me how to make the most of every second we are given, was tricked into lapsing gently into the dark night. How could you have disappeared so completely from the lovely earth you taught me how to savor? Exactly as if you had never been here at all.
Duel between a stepmother and stepdaughter turns deadly.
Charmian: Chapter I – The Knight of Swords
My mother was bitten by a coachwhip while carrying me; that’s how I got my second sight. My stepfather, not a witness to the event but someone who always had the be the smartest person in any room he was in and the greatest living authority on everything, said it wasn’t a coachwhip but a blue runner and it never would have killed her anyhow. It wasn’t until I left home that I discovered they’re the same snake. So that argument, like most they had, was entirely pointless.
She would have killed me deader than any snakebite but she was too fat to even realize she was pregnant. So that was the first lucky thing in my lifetime string of magical good fortune, the second being that I didn’t drown in the toilet. Let’s say my “home birth” was quite a surprise.
To those blessed with second sight time is circular. There I was: an old soul born to pawns of fate just up from rats. When they come back it will be as cockroaches. I was seventeen when I came into my royal nature as Queen of Swords. The Queen ‘s blood is power, intuition is her oxygen, action is her throne. I am the only one who recognizes truth. My sword cauterizes like a laser. You might as well submit; you’ll feel better after. All living creatures, whether they know it or not, draw breath in fealty. I grant consciousness and unconsciousness; just as I choose.
This morning, I pulled a card, as is my daily custom. And there you were, my Knight of Swords, leaning down from your horse to penetrate a dragon’s proffered belly. I must have need of you because when I summoned; you came. My late husband used to say, “When the servant is ready, the master will appear.” He thought he knew who was the servant and who the master — a dangerous assumption to make when I’m around.
In my beautiful Doré deck this Knight is teen-mag handsome, with a carved-marble face, blocky jaw and a panther’s square nose. Luxuriant blonde hair, rippling into curls, is tied back for battle. His quiver contains a multitude of arrows unlike the poorly-equipped King of Swords. A “suicide king”; his blade is turned against himself.
This knight is also slightly cross-eyed, like a Siamese cat. Does it mean that, like me, you see forward and back? I almost feel I’m looking at an echo of my double-eyed face – one eye green and one eye blue. He is ready to launch himself on his heroic quest; but one eye still looks behind him.
There’s fate for you. Even when you don’t believe in it, it believes in you. Let this card inaugurate my new life. I have been feeling something missing. My ideal lover is out there waiting for me to find him. In a way, I feel I have invented you. Or perhaps you, lonely as only gods are lonely, have invented me. I rose up out of one of your nocturnal emissions in my most seductive guise. Blonde (of course), full-breasted (of course), boy-hipped, five feet eleven in stilettos. Come and get me. Since I can recall eternity I must have always been here. We are primal elements: archetypes. We are fated to meet maskless. History itself evolves to smooth my path. I will teach you mastery of the future. I inserted your card in a gilt display box and left exposed it to the consideration of the universe on my mother-of-pearl dressing table.
I live surrounded by beautiful objects, such as this suede book in which I write with my ivory pen. I too lived my early life as a beautiful object, much sought after by collectors. Beauty is my birthright, but conquest has leaves me lonely. Until now.
“Jazz, Jazz, Jazz,” Corso shook his head. His voice turned silky. “I am your advisor. It is my job – I think I can say my calling – to step in when you’ve gone astray. And what have you done to your hair? I’m not sure I like it. You look quite a different person. It’s as if you’re attempting a disguise. As Mr. Quinn how that works out. You really require professional intervention at this point, but hasn’t that always been the truth about you?” He turned to Chase.
“I see you have been hanging around with quite a bad element, Mr. Quinn the housebreaker. Mr. Quinn the burglar. Mr. Quinn who lives – rather tragically I must confess – on the edges of other people’s lives with other people’s things on other people’s money. When will you learn that you are a free agent, Mr. Quinn and not my shadow-doppelganger? Jazz, it grieves me that you are so impressionable.
“Put down your fists, Mr. Quinn. Did you wish to duke it out? Never let your mouth write checks your body cannot cash. Why don’t you let me explain my proposition before you land yourself in the slammer? I’maware that you can be bought; you’ll see my plan is lucrative. I’ve prepared a spreadsheet for your delectation. If you’ll sit down — and calm down — I’ll show it to you.
“Do I look dangerous here? Trust me that I’ve come in peace. Now as for you, Jazz, I’m aware that cash can’t sway you or you’d actually have some of it. No, you are motivated by – “ he paused delicately, “I think we’ll call it love. Love, love, love, love, love. Who am I to say it can’t exist? Sit down, Mr. Quinn.”
To my astonishment Chase sat down. I hesitated, unsure of what to do. I wanted to believe Chase was playing a deeper game – collecting evidence as he had the first time I’d seen him with Corso – but there was a crushed look on his face that hadn’t even showed around his father. Could anyone be that good an actor?
“This is win, win, children.” To emphasize, Corso leaned forward and Chase flinched as though the other man’s penumbra touched him. Observing his advantage, Corso threw out his arms. “I will lay my life wide open for you, since that’s what you so desire. Tell you all my secrets.” He thumped his chest. “Here’s the first; I am the master key that opens all the doors.” Behind the saturated silk of his voice I heard the scorpion hiss with a sting in its tail.
“You have no right to be here,” I challenged. “Get out!” Took every ounce of my non-existent courage, I have to say.
His face assumed a sorrowful mien. “I was so afraid you would start without me,” he sighed. “What can I say to persuade you that I am the multiplier in this equation?” “I can take you,” asserted Chase, his voice rough and gravelly as an unpaved road.
“That would be lovely,” soothed Corso. “By all means let us bench- press each other for the delectation of the fair maiden.” He gestured at my poster. “This is so quaint, Jazz. I’m hoping once you’ve memorized it you’ll loan it to me. If only I had known, every time you said “Oh, Bosch” that you meant Bosch with a “c”. We would have gotten on much faster.” “Go to hell,” I returned. Feebly, alas.
“Jazz, we’re already there,” croaked Chase. Oh God, I thought. He’s still set on killing him. Throwing him out the window, like Howk’s body in my vision? I’ve got to do something. But what?
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Quinn,” snapped Corso, exactly as if we were still in class. “You are just a beginner. Give me a child at the age of seven…then give me another. I’ve plumbed your depths.” He laughed dismissively. “Frankly, Jazz deserves better than you.” “We know what you’ve been up to, murdering Miss Howk,” said Chase. “Did she kill your wife for you?”
A smile broke over Corso’s face. “What fun this game has been,” he sighed. “You advance a pawn, I advance a rook. Rook kills pawn. If I’d had any idea what a pleasure it is having stalkers I’d have tried it long ago. So gratifying to see the pair of you so aroused by my spoor.” ““You made all sorts of mistakes,” I said angrily, out of control and aware I shouldn’t be doing this. Should we show him our hand? But the temperature in the room was just too high. I wanted to throw every weapon I could find.
“I don’t think so,” said Corso. “That doesn’t sound like something I would do. On the other hand, one likes to leave a signature behind. You know Jazz, there’s always more than one suspect. Can you think of anyone who wants to show off for you and thus secure your trust? Is there no one you can think of?” He spoke loudly, as iffor a hidden recording device. “Poor Miss Howk disappeared wearing your scarf, after all. They told me at the Health Center that you seemed angry at her for some reason. Did you take her for a rival?”
What a master of smoke and mirrors! As if Chase and I didn’t recognize truth when we tripped over it! “You are ridiculous,” I challenged, flinging out the biggest insult I could think of. “What will the dean say about the way you exploit your students? Don’t tell me there isn’t plenty of evidence.” “I’m going to tell you something very shocking,” Corso admitted lazily, rising to his feet and peering out my eighth-floor window. He turned his back upon the world to perch upon my ledge. “The internet is full of porn. It’s hard to tell one slave from another. So really, only the slaves can testify they were present at their own comeuppances! Does that sound likely to you? The compensations of continuing just as we are, are enormous. I do wish you’d let me show you. Isn’t there anything you desire? Mr. Quinn has a nice shiny car. What do women want? Let me see…hmm…women want men!” He laughed out loud. “I think we’ll guarantee you that! This poor slave, if you require him. Don’t you see yet, you won’t catch flies with threats, adorable little Jazz? Time to try your famous honey instead.” He sighed luxuriously. “Infamous honey, perhaps I should say. Enjoyed by all.”
I knew the urge to physically attack was just what Corso wanted, so instead of advancing, I retreated, wondering how I could prevent Chase from wrestling with his demon. I walked to the door and turned on the lights. Because right then I saw it all. I had something Corso never had, or if he had, he’d willingly surrendered it. The connection Chase and I had forged to the infinite answered all our questions. With my room’s fluorescent lights lit, the room became a stage. I knew that Bex and his rifle were out there somewhere.
“You are such a bastard,” spat Chase, staggering to his feet. His face was so drained of blood his freckles stood out like plague spots. Separate, we couldn’t fight him. How could we come together?
“Oh, come, come,” said Corso, throwing his arms out to embrace the universe, “I gave you what you wanted. I brought her to you, didn’t I? I brought all of them. Turn about is fair play. I’ve upheld my part of the bargain. Now it’s your turn to share.”
I shouted at Chase, “Transitional objects!” and threw him to the floor in a flying tackle. Chase’s eyes met mine in a suddenly full comprehension. I saw the Corso-induced glaze disappearing from his brain as I mouthed, “Window.”
Was that crack the window breaking? Crack-crack-crack. Firecrackers. Or bullets. Eight shots, or four shots and four echoes? Who can say? We were face down on the floor in that hug that was our gateway to the universe. We felt, rather than saw, Corso stagger, looked up to see his face express astonishment at his own mortality. He was not immortal, lilies blossomed redly on his naked chest.
His power sucked out of the room along with his body. Chase leaped to his feet and when I rose to stop him from following the cascade of shattered glass I saw on the library roof what I expected to see; the glittering motorcycle jacket, the gleaming long gun.
I pulled Chase down and held him as hard as I could. “What a monster,” said Chase. “Hold me.”
I held him. “You’re mine,” I told him. “And I’m yours. You have to stay with me.” I felt the tension in his body ebb as we both awakened from our long sleep. We had never been able to fight him separately but together we were invincible.
The sound of sirens gave us courage to lean out and look out upon the new world. The snow had started falling, and snowflakes gathered on Corso’s naked chest where he lay shattered below us in the parking lot. He was human after all. The flickering lights came closer; a symphony of color and music playing in our honor. A few distant walkers huddled around the dead man, taking cell phone pictures and shouting.
“It’s great to dream,” said Chase, “And it’s wonderful to be awake.”
I kissed him hard and he kissed back. “Come on,” said Chase. “It’s time to free the others.” The skin crinkled around his blue eyes as the spirit – my spirit — danced within him.
We awoke cuddled together at the foot of Chase’s bed, wrapped in his comforter. Chase was moaning.
“Too late,” he said, “too late.” I kissed him and ran to the kitchen for coffee. Caffeine and aspirin. When I came back he was holding his head. “Bad one,” he said.
“Except we found her!” And I felt fine. I was beginning to see the psychic pain engendered by our flights was different according to what we went in with and how we could process what we learned. See? If there’s always progress, there’s always hope. “Maybe Bex will loan me his gun,” moaned Chase.
I made him drink bitter instant coffee. Our roles were reversed from my “spontaneous combustion” at Hadleigh. As log as there were two of us, we could help each other through anything. “W don’t need Bex for anything and we certainly don’t need guns,” I insisted.
Chase rolled coffee around his mouth as if was a fine wine; then ruined the effect by gargling. “Well then what the hell are we going to do?”
“Maybe we can’t get Corso for everything,” I asserted, acting brave for Chase’s benefit, “But we can make a start. The sex thing is bad. He’s involved with his students, so even if he tries to blame us, they’ll do something to him. Maybe they’ll lock him up.” “You’re willing to have the world…see that?”
“I think the world may be already seeing it.” Although it would be just like Corso to play gatekeeper so he could make money. Off of us. Besides, we owed the others something; at the very least to make sure “dream lab” never happened again. “We’ll go to the Dean. Remember, he said dream lab was recorded. He has to show them something. ”
“He’ll just say the equipment malfunctioned,” sighed Chase, rubbing his jaw as if soul flight dislocated it. “How about this, I promise we’ll do whatever you think is right.”
“First, walk me back to my room so I can get my things.” It would only take moments to pack it up and never return to that “sick building”. I admitted the unmentionable. “I’m scared of Bex.” “Let’s go.” He struggled to his feet, rolling a bit as we came together. Steadying each other. “And then I’ll fix that window.”
Darkness was just settling on an ordinary – to everyone else — Sunday afternoon. Students strolling, linking, hailing one another and hooking up. It looked safe. It looked as if all we had to fear was each other. That’s what the maze-master wants the mice to think.
“Let’s don’t wait until it gets too dark,” I angsted in full Foreboding Mode. “I’m ready. Thanks for the “to go”. He flourished at me his plastic cup.
We crossed the quad without a problem, though I felt people looked at us strangely. Because we walked so close together, marching hip to thigh in a solitary unit? Inside Hadleigh, I allowed myself to unravel a bit as the hiss of automatic doors closed us in. “One down,” I said aloud.
I might sigh with relief, but my inner bell was gonging, and I’ve learned to ignore that at my peril. Something was wrong but I couldn’t tell what. Still, here at Hadleigh we were surrounded by students; the night security guy had even taken over the desk. Phones in every room, cell phones in every pocket.
First warning: elevator out of order. That was the first bad thing. And the freight elevator was in service. We waited for it quite awhile.
“Eight floors is not so bad,” said Chase. “No pain, no gain.” Tossed his coffee cup into the trash. He said that so lightly, then saw me wince.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s just that we’re fighters now. Can’t afford to ditch training just when you’re approaching Final Contest. “ He took my hand. “Come on, I’ll race you.” As we chased up the stairwell he shouted. Facilis descensus averno!”
“You got that right,“ I puffed. Going up is so darn hard! It’s so much easier to let your muscles go limp and slide. But…better up than down.
At every floor the fire doors were propped open – illegally, but it lent me confidence. Heartening scraps of music could be heard at every floor; Snow Patrol, Hands Down, Vampire Weekend.
Speaking of Vampire Weekend, there were so many people around. Nothing can go wrong in a big crowd. Right? Unfortunately most of them were hollow-eyed revenants fleeing Saturday night crime scenes for parietals. With their piss- stained hair and their bile-stained clothing they were not good advertisements for the party-hearty lifestyle. Somehow we never get to see the “after” photos. Corso’s zombies. I imagined the mark of Corso on every forehead.
I believe they shuddered as much at the sight of us as we shuddered at the sight of them. Because we were going up, like fireman, while they fled the burning building? Maybe we are all just ghosts to each other anyway.
When I exercise I can’t talk. So I have to think. If shame is felt only by the haunted, that’s damned unfair. Gives the thin edge of the wedge to those like Dr. Corso who applaud a guiltless super-race. Confidence and entitlement – those most envied of attributes — shine out around him like a magical light. At least two corpses in his wake plus a genocidal wave of shame. And what of bodies unrecovered?
“We’re dead to him already,” I gasped aloud.
Chase knew exactly what I meant. “If so, he’s wrong,” said Chase, hardly showing the effects of an eight-storey climb, “I was dead but you brought me back to life.”
“He’s the dead one”, tolled my inner bell. I took off my shoes for the last three flights. I think now I can say I’ve officially had it with stiletto heels. It’s kitten heels from here on out, unless Chase begs. I wished I could say something light, to conceal the fact that I was puffing too hard, but I was puffing too hard.
“And I don’t even smoke,” I said, unlocking my door. Chase proclaimed our new mantra “Facilis descensus–,”
“Avernum!” Corso finished triumphantly. He lay stretched at full length upon my bed, shirtless and exposing his perfect six-pack. “So glad you’ve been keeping up with your Virgil, Stevie. You’ve got to be careful to get the declensions right. Excuse me, I mean Chase, of course.”
How was he able to suck every scrap of power out of a room and use it to fuel his own personal generator? Reading glasses perched upon his nose and my laptop perched upon his thighs. He turned his shining face to me and said, “I must apologize for checking your work, Jazz but it did get a bit dull waiting for you. Unfortunately, there’s no work here. There are, however, lots of other interesting things. JazzOne makes a terrible password. How’s the chemistry going?” No, no, don’t close the door; don’t lock us in with the monster. But these damned heavy, soundproof, fireproof doors – so unlike poor Miss Howk’s – close by themselves.
I was still holding my shoes; should Ithrow them at him as if he was a dartboard? I flushed; feeling him effortlessly read my every thought. I could flee down the stairs, but I’d never leave Chase alone to face the dragon. I saw his shoulders set in that familiar wrestling stance; but Corso wouldn’t crumble like Bex; this was real-time, and my room is deficient in vases to throw. And besides, if we marked him it put us further in the wrong. My brain seemed frozen. I was long past having clever things to say. All I managed was, “How did you get in?”
“Look hard at the picture,” said Chase, waving his phone before my face. I closed my eyes. I don’t work that way. I sheltered in Chase’s arms with a sigh, summoning up the vision shot into my mind when Zane recounted his dream-lab experience. Didn’t he say the tunnel had ribs? Like a tin can? That was distinctive. I felt my restless spirit lifting, pulling away, like a pony urgent to run. Chase’s voice cried, “Take me along,” and I kissed him hard. We lifted off together.
We were standing outside a gate plastered with weather-spotted Danger, Hazardous Conditions, No Trespassing, Condemned, and Bio- Hazard Warning signs. Not a good place for a living victim, since the factory appeared to be missing a roof. But what a great place to hide a body! A long concrete walkway connected the two collapsed buildings with the parking lot. “Police take notice,” read Chase.
“Don’t you think our spirits could have gotten us inside?” I carped, shaking the padlocked fence. “We came to the very place pictured,” said Chase. “I call that a ten point landing.”
“It’s huge,” I complained. “We’ll be like, overcome with fumes before we find her.” “We would…if we still had bodies,” Chase reminded me. “You’ve got to admire the genius of the man.”
I would never praise heinous Corso’s genius but I did recall that Know Your Enemy slogan. Chase had been dragged into the abyss he studied. Now he was climbing out.
“These signs would discourage daytrippers, that’s for sure,” Chase told me. “An anonymous 911 call would hardly cut it here. The police can’t search without “probable cause” and the probable cause is inside. See? It’s the perfect crime and the perfect victim. When they finally clean this place up and find her–”
“Why’s poor Howk the perfect victim?” “Because no one reported her missing! A lot of people, their first project on growing up is getting rid of everyone they used to know,” said Chase. “I speak as one who did it. Corso specializes in people like that.”
I shivered. I was trying to leave my family behind, but not forever. Aspirations weren’t a crime, just an opportunity for you-know-who.
“How do you think he got through here? I can’t picture him searching for a gap in the fence.” Chase stood beside me. “He wouldn’t use his muscles for a problem his brain could solve. That padlock looks awfully new, compared to the chain.”
“So he cut off the old padlock and installed a new one. Then he could drive in.” “The owners are obviously staying away. Who wants to get poisoned? See the grass on the driveway? If they ever try to get in they’ll probably cut it open anyway.”
“Even he couldn’t make the padlock look old,” I reassured – both Chase and myself. “This is a man we’re talking about, not a god. Mistake number 707.”
“I sure hope he’s made enough mistakes.” Chase had found a weakness in the chain link and lifted it. We crawled underneath. The moment my feet touched that ground I knew.”She’s here,” I said, teeth chattering. “I’m certain. She’s in water.”
“See?” he patted me. “Better than a cadaver dog.” Is this the kind of thing you want your boyfriend to say? Too late to quibble – I’m a package with my oddities the way he is with his terrifying past.
Water? We looked at the dry factory and the completely dry land that surrounded it. “Water’s a good idea. He would want her to decompose as fast as possible,” said Chase. “Do you think there’s a well?”
“Or rainwater might collect somewhere,” I suggested.He said, “Let’s not search. We’ll just allow ourselves to be led.” I agreed. “You track him. I’ll track her.”
The doors and windows were boarded up efficiently, but behind a piece of plywood awkwardly placed against the front steps we saw a hole. Walking up the drive I thought I saw faint marks of another vehicle, and Chase gestured to me to stay away from them. Do soul-travelers leave footprints?
The plywood bristled with threats: Danger, Toxic Conditions, Unsafe Building. “Corso’s handwriting?” asked Chase. Mentally I thought, Mistake number 708. I was keeping track.
He pulled aside the piece of plywood and instantly we both saw a shiny new flashlight. “Let there be light,” said Chase, and I said, “Mistake number 709.”
“He’s getting sloppy. Sloppiness for him equals hope for us. “ He flourished a hand. “After you.” “No, after you.” We went in side by side. “Hear that?” hissed Chase.
I did hear it. The sound that haunted all my dreams. Water dripping equals the slow drip of despair. “Be careful,” I said nervously. The subfloor was broken and exposed and the dripping came from underneath us, as if the factory was built over not a well, but a lake. We stepped around the holes, sharing the flashlight, Chase kicking out of our way boards and bricks and lumps of plaster. “Sorry to hang on you so hard,” I apologized, but I didn’t stop doing it. He said, “If we fall, we fall together.”
He shined the flashlight down every hole. I looked and said, “Nope.” “Nope.” Always relieved that she wasn’t there, partly worrying that she had sunk so deep, or was covered with such muck, she’d be invisible anyway. Then I saw something.
“A flower!” I cried out loud. No. Couldn’t be. Something else that shimmered whitely. Arms locked around each others’ waists we looked so closely, holding our joint breath, that what we saw might have been a reflection of our shocked faces were it not for the 3-D effect of suppurating flesh. Decomposing skin shimmering like a water lily in the darkness. A water lily waving its color-blocked tendrils up at me…
“Oh my God,” I panicked, “She’s wearing my scarf. There can’t be another scarf in the world like that.”
And there went the flashlight. We heard the clink and splash. Around us all was darkness. We stood amidst traps and gaps and pools of pullulating puke…even bodiless you’d hate to experience them. Scariest thing ever.
“Goddamit,” I said. Then, “Sorry. How can we get back?”
He held me, nuzzling. “We don’t need the light. We’re soulmates, remember? We have each other. We know where she is and that’s all we wanted. But explain to me why she’s wearing your scarf?” “Corso took it from me. He said he needed something personal of mine.”
Chase snorted. “You should have known better than that!” “But what could I do? I only had the clothes that I walked in with. I wasn’t expecting that…I didn’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry,” said Chase. “I’m stupid to make it sound like your fault. He’s always doing that, looking for ways to make people think he has magical powers over them. Just so he can think he’s caught us.”
“He has caught us.”“Never. I’ll never uncle to him. We have to expose him. Tell the truth is all we can do. If they hear what he’s done, then we hope…” It sounded feeble even to me and I’d said the same thing myself. We needed more than reassurances; we needed a place to stand. I could imagine Corso’s silver tongue eloquence running rings around our confused protestations, “We just kind of knew” “We were there except we weren’t”.
If he was exposed, then so were we, and who looked worse? The eminent psychologist or the hardscrabble, drug-taking, very confused and sexed-up students? From TV I knew enough of police procedure to know that the first thing they would do would be to separate us. I wasn’t a weakling, but I didn’t relish hours without Chase, tying to explain the inside of my brain to a group of skeptical men who looked just like the Fluffernutter dads. And if our challenge collapsed, what was left for us? Corso had invaded not just our minds and bodies, but our futures as well.
“We can’t tell them about the sleep soaring,” I whispered into Chase’s neck. “I don’t want them knowing.” It was too private, too secret, too much our special strength. I feared they might have the ability to take it away. I wanted to keep the knowledge of our bond between us forever, growing as naturally as it needed to, a flexible unseen strength linking us to eternity. “See?” he said gently, reading my thoughts. “You’re coming around to where I am. Don’t you agree it’s easier just to kill him?”
“No,” I protested. “No. Violence is one of the circles of hell. We can’t go there. We can’t…” “I’m in hell already,” he said. Maybe we both were. But intuitively I knew that the very reason we walked harmless through this hell, now, was because we had not accepted Corso’s invitations to rage, spite, deceit, plunder. To all the sick, sick sins.
My lips came closer to Chase’s mouth as I whispered, “We’ve got something he can never have.“ Even if he stole our futures, he could never possess our now. The power parts hadn’t captured. “You’re right.” He sounded so uncertain but he was trying to believe it.
In answer I just kissed him, massaging the back of his neck until he went limp against me, and I fell limp against him and we soared into each other’s minds and spirits, dancing up into the stratosphere with the stars to keep us company. We didn’t need tea, or ocean sounds or candles. We only needed each other. And so home. Because we were exhausted and people have to sleep.
Somehow we had broken the window and we lay tangled up together in venetian blinds and glass. I had cut my face and Chase had cut his arm, but it was nothing serious. Chase helped me get vertical. We were safe in Chase’s room, and we were alive. How ever many lives we were “down”, it seemed we had some left. Life itself seemed an incredible treasure.
We collapsed together on the bed. “Thank God for transitional objects,” I gasped. Chase passed me a water bottle. We blotted each other’s wounds. “Am I the transitional object?” asked Chase, kissing my knuckles. I felt the solidity of the bed with its honeycomb quilt and Spiderman sheets.
“I think everything that’s not us is a transitional object,” I said slowly. “We have to look for the pieces that don’t fit. Remember the vase I hit your father with?” Chase nodded. “That was so weird. My Dad despised what he called “femininities” – he would never have allowed an object like that in his Man- cave. Have we seen it before? ”
I had recognized it. “It was on the terrace at Mrs. Corso’s…full of dead chrysanthemums.” We looked at each other, both saying at once, “Transitional object!”
“It shows our voyages are all connected.” He took the water bottle from me, shuddered as he sipped, threw himself on his back. “You were right there, but I can’t believe we experienced the same thing? Did you go through what I went through?”
That was a good question. Could it ever be answered?
“It was crazy,” I said, drinking. I was so thirsty, but I didn’t have the terrible hangover of the first time. “Celebrating your mother’s birthday in a Norman castle at Christmas.”
Light sprang into his eyes as he leaned forward intensely. He could have been anyone seeking news from home. Then the light failed as he remembered and fell backwards. Rubbed the eyes that had seen too much. “I guess my unfinished baggage derailed us from what we should have done”.
Always with the self-punishment! I shook my head. “No. Because we finally found out the truth.” And then I remembered what the truth was, and the full horror of what we had discovered swarmed over me. Could that be real, that, minds banished, bodies hijacked for indentured servitude? And did I really want to know?
“Do you think she forgave me?” Chase inquired wistfully. I tried following his thought. “Your mother?”He wiped his face, which was wet. With water or tears?
“Her birthday actually is in August. But she killed herself the Christmas I refused to come home.” So that’s what he’d been living with! Poor Zoya! I was aghast. No wonder he needed to see her again. “She toasted to life,” I recalled. “Don’t you remember? To life…and she said what’s past is past. I recall that distinctly.” I touched his chest, massaging his heavy heart to keep it going. “I know she’s forgiven you. On the other hand, your father…”
Chase shook his head from side to side, tossing away the painful thoughts. “You know we never lived in that house. That was the house they were building when my Dad declared bankruptcy. But you know the Many Worlds theory of quantum mechanics says if more than one outcome of events is possible, all of them occur. Just in different universes.”
“None of the bad stuff is your fault,” I asserted forceful as I knew how. “Your father was a monster.” “Yeah.” agreed Chase hopelessly. “Everything for him is a dominance struggle. And he’ll cheat to win.”
“Those plaster statues of you and your sister…” Deliberately I changed the subject, someone backing away from a raging fire.
“Those were life-casts. Mom made them, but I wrecked mine. It took hours and we had to breathe through straws. It was really unpleasant, being naked in cold plaster and having to hold still, but Mom was very determined. I was so angry that she didn’t have the nerve to make mine anatomically correct. I felt like a Ken doll. It was during the Corso years and she made me look unfinished, like a girl. Dad was already teasing me for singing soprano… I was so full of rage. I smashed it to pieces.”
“Bex shot us,” I said. “Do you think Bex could really have a gun?” “And I wrecked Shelby. Like I wreck everything.”
“But if we’re still here the Shelby must be, too. Where would Bex get a rifle? Maybe he traded in his motorcycle.” That really scared me. He would be giving himself no way out. “And where would Bex get a car?”
I answered my own question. “That’s a no brainer. He’d steal it. He always bragged he could get into any car. Wouldn’t faze him.”
“Maybe he stole a rifle,” said Chase without thinking. We looked at each other. Not cheered up. “Or it’s just symbolic or something,” suggested Chase. “A transitional object.” Yeah…symbolic of learning to judge people and see inside them. Like now I had seen inside Chase. I clutched his hand. “We took a bath together…don’t you remember that?”
He kissed my arm all the way up. “It was like being reborn. Like we were kids together.” “We are kids together. And I learned your real name.”“Don’t say it!” he touched my lips superstitiously as if those secret words had the power to send us back.
I fell back on the bed, looking at the ceiling, trying to clear my mind. Now that Chase had transferred his roiling thoughts to me, my mental crystal ball felt cloudy. “What I don’t understand is how we can experience things that never happened, in places that don’t exist.” He said, “It’s a fractal. A repetitive pattern.”
“From the past?” He shrugged. “You can dip your hand in the same river twice…unless the river doubles back. I think we voyaged in my head. ” He didn’t sound enamored of the idea.
“Or we created a parallel universe together.” I suggested, more confidently. “It’s like a poem, or a symphony. You take the pieces that exist and rearrange them, the better to show off their power.” “Did you hear about the maze worms?”
The threatening wind poured in the broken window so I pulled up the coverlet. “Tell me about the maze worms. Please please please.”
“Well, after these worms got really good at negotiating a maze, they ground them up and fed them to newbie worms. And the newbie worms figured out the maze immediately.” I shuddered. “I don’t want to be ground up and fed to future generations so they can avoid my mistakes!”
He laughed out loud. “You’re missing the point of the story! It proves memories are chemical!” “Well, I want to forget mine,” I said soberly, pulling the covers over my head. He held me. He rocked me. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Can you ever forgive me? I thought the pain would keep me awake. But I guess you can get used to anything.”
So that explained the disgusting sore he’d cultivated. I pulled my covers off abruptly. “Is it true? Did Corso really turn dream lab into internet sex-walking?” Here was the dragon in the room. The question was whether Pandora’s box was smashed forever.
“It makes sense to me.” Chase almost choked. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should have killed him before he could –” He struck his forehead hard with his fist. I pulled his hand down.
“Stop it. We can’t let this tear us apart. You know that’s what he wants — to keep us weak, to keep us from fighting back. We’re closer than ever. That means we’re stronger than ever.” Now I really knew what Chase had been through. Body – stolen – identity – ruined – future — compromised.
We held each other as tightly as we could until our two hearts beat together. “I swear I didn’t know,” said Chase. “But the hell of it is, I could have guessed.”
“Forgive yourself,” I insisted. “I’m trying to forgive myself. He injured us both of us — together.” “If you can do it I can try.” Hipbone to hipbone, chest to chest, knee to knee, we clung together. We’re soulmates, and soulmates are invincible.
““I love it that our dream’s a mix of both of us,” said Chase. “It’s like a child we had. Makes me feel like a creator.” He expelled a long sigh. “My grandmother believed that man and woman form one angel.”
“Sounds like a forward-thinking lady,” I murmured. “Maybe we knew each other in another life?” He kissed my hair. “We know each other in this one. That’s a lot. “ It’s like we’ve climbed the highest mountain there is.
I said, “To defeat a body thief we’ve got to use our brains. The secret’s hidden in our soul-flights. Have to be.” He held me tight. “I love your bravery. But what if there is no answer?”
“But there has to be. You left dream lab before you heard all the stories, but they were full of meaning. Koo’s vision was of unzipping body bags – well, we would have had to unzip those suits. Soliz dreamed of being naked and ashamed. But Zane dreamed he was walking through an abandoned factory—“
“Now you’re talking!” said Chase excitedly. “You dreamed of Mrs. Corso’s body…and then we found it! An abandoned factory would be a great place to hide Howk’s body! These transitional objects are like doors into the next puzzle,” said Chase. “The one we haven’t solved is the Hadleigh one. That was overtly about Howk’s body so the answer must be there. What was the weirdest thing about it? The piece that doesn’t fit?”
He had always possessed this magic ability to fill me with confidence. “You’re right. I can do this. Well, the oddest part is, it wasn’t a thing – it was a person. Officer Blofil, the policeman we spoke to. He was the thing that didn’t belong. I read his nameplate so carefully, thinking at the time it was a funny name, kind of treasuring it. Because it was so memorable.”
He snatched his Smart phone off the coffee table. “So it is. Spell it.” I spelled. He typed.
“No Officer Blofil on the campus force, or the town police. Here goes a general search.” He drummed his fingers impatiently.
I was impatient, too. The ghosts of all the murdered memories banged on my heart; an arrhythmia acquired when our hearts skipped and our bodies unsynched. If we wanted to re-possess ourselves, we needed a way back in. “Let me know what you find.”
I wandered into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. This mugshot face was too familiar. I picked up Chase’s hair scissors and attacked my head. Snip, snip. Without my luxuriant locks, Corso would never have chosen me.
I’ve got it!” shouted Chase from the other room.
I brushed myself off and joined him. “Recognize me?” I challenged. “I don’t want to look like anyone else any more.”
He smiled his most beautiful smile. “I’ll always recognize you.” I threw myself into his strong wrestler’s arms. We fit together perfectly, like interlocking parts.
He rubbed the top of my newly pinked head. “I know the feeling,” he reassured me. “Here’s the dream right here.” I could have wept from gratitude.
“So what did you find?” Now I could face it. Now I wanted to know. “You look,” he said, swiveling the phone towards me.
Headline: “Insulation Factory Closes, 50 Jobs Lost.” The sign on the gate said “Blow-fill”. “Abandoned factory a hundred miles away,” suggested Chase. “”Trust Corso to invent a crime scene that provides its own cleanup.”
“We could get there in the Shelby in a couple of hours.”
“Or…” I murmured. He understood me immediately. “You think it’ll work again?”
“No harm trying. I think we’re getting better at it. The first two times hurt so much I had a hangover. Now it’s not so bad.”
He laughed. “Other than the feeling of being beaten like a rented mule.”
Well, we couldn’t go through what we’d experienced and come off scot-free. I didn’t mention Bex lurking somewhere outside, with or without a gun. If we left our bodies, even though he might pursue he could wreak less damage.
Alysse Aallyn 