Incubus

by Carol Goodman

  “I found this place before the blizzard and thought it would look perfect in the snow. Look …”

  He pointed toward the opening in the trees and for a moment I thought, Something is coming.

  Something was coming through the door. The gap between the trees filled with white light, cold and pure as the moonlight that had carried the incubus across my bedroom floor to me. I suddenly felt afraid, but more for Liam than myself. I turned to him. His face was so still and white that for a moment I had a presentiment of his death. This is what he’d look like dead, I thought, and felt a pain that seemed to cleave me in two. I reached for him … and saw that my hands were white, too.

  I turned back and saw that something had come through the door. The full moon was rising directly in the gap between the trees, spilling its light into the clearing and turning the circle of snow into a silver disk – a mirror into which the moon gazed and fell in love with its own reflection.

  “It’s beautiful …” I said, turning back to Liam, but fell silent when I saw his face. “Liam, what is it?”

  “I wanted to bring you here because I knew how beautiful it would be tonight with the snow and the full moon … that it would be perfect, just as this last week has been … or at least until I acted so stupidly today. But I know it’s all going to change once the new year starts and we go back to work and everyone comes back to Fairwick. It won’t be the same.”

  I started to tell him that it would, that nothing had to change, but I knew he was right. “I’ve been afraid of that, too,” I said instead.

  He took my hand. “You have?”

  I nodded and he put his arm around me – as best as he could with both of us standing still in our skis.

  “This sucks,” he said.

  I laughed … and was startled at how the sound echoed in the round glade. “Yeah, poor us. We’ve had amazing sex for a week and now we have to go back to the real world. How will we survive?”

  I’d meant it as a joke, but he answered gravely, “By remembering. That’s why I wanted to bring you here. So we’d have something perfect to picture when we thought about this week.”

  I looked at the glade. The moon had risen to the center of the gap now, so large and full that it looked as if it would burst through the trees and come rolling toward us. I had a sense of other things – strange and unfriendly things – waiting on the other side of that door for their chance to come through. I recalled my vision of Faerie and the diaphanous host who had pleaded with me to release them. Were they there waiting for me now? Would they pull me through the door if I strayed too close to it?

  “It is beautiful,” I said, wanting now to go, but not wanting to alarm Liam. How could I explain what I was afraid of? “But it’s also frigging cold. Let’s go home.”

  “Home?” he asked, the light of the moon in his eyes.

  I understood that he was asking if it was his home too, and in that moment I realized I wanted it to be, that Honeysuckle House had never felt so much like my home as it had this week with Liam there. Should I ask him to move in right now? But when I remembered the way he’d acted earlier about Paul’s email, I hesitated. A shadow fell across Liam’s face. He looked away and then he started turning his skis around, pleating the once perfect snow into a wide fan. We fitted our skis back into our own tracks, which the cold air had turned icy in the few minutes we had stood in the clearing. Liam went first, his skis shooting away on the slicked tracks. Although I didn’t like the idea of being left behind, I took one look back over my shoulder. The clearing was still empty, but the moon had risen high enough now that it cast the shadows of the trees onto the white snow. I thought I saw other shapes among the shadow branches – shapes with horns and wings and spiked tails. Creatures from the other side of the door trying to come through. Otherworlders, my grandmother had called them. She had also said there wasn’t any difference between a fairy and a demon. These shadow creatures certainly looked more like demons than fairies.

  I turned and followed Liam, skiing as fast as I could in the iced tracks. As the moon rose higher the shadows stretched out longer in the woods on either side of the narrow track. I had the impression that the shadows were chasing us back to the house and if they overtook us we’d never make it back. I skied faster, trying not to look to either side, but unable to resist. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw one of the shadows break free and skitter across the snow, scuttling sideways like a crab, its claws scraping against the crusted snow. I pushed my skis faster in their grooves. The shadows fell across the path now, like leaves tossed by the wind, but there was no wind. One shadow landed right in front of me, fat as a toad. Without thinking twice I speared it with my ski pole while reciting the anti-pest spell that I’d heard Justin Plean use.

  Pestis sprengja!

  It popped like a swollen blister and then turned into two shadow crabs. Shit, maybe Justin’s spell didn’t work on these creatures or maybe my grandmother was right about my lack of magical talent. One landed in my left track. I lifted my ski up, slammed down hard, and heard it splatter. Something sticky dragged at my left ski and I nearly stumbled, but then I was back in the icy groove moving faster than ever. I could see Liam up ahead, standing beyond the path in the yard behind Honeysuckle House. Should I call out to him? What would he see if he looked back? Me batting at shadows? Would he be able to help me – or would the shadow-crabs turn on him?

  I felt a sudden conviction that the latter would happen. I whacked one of the shadow-crabs with my right pole and raced to reach Liam and the open shadowless lawn he stood in. Just as I reached the end of the path, a prickly ball launched itself at my feet and latched onto my ankle. I lifted my leg to shake it off – and froze in my tracks. There was nothing on my ankle … because I had no right ankle. Where the thing had attached itself there was a blank hole where my ankle should have been, as if the shadow had swallowed my flesh.

  I could feel myself falling, but I knew that if I did the shadow crabs would devour me. I used the right pole to balance myself and the left to pry the shadow thing off my ankle before it ate my whole leg. But before I could accomplish that rather complicated maneuver, something else flew out of the woods. I thought it was another shadow crab, but then I noticed that this one looked more like a flying squirrel.

  “Ralph!” I screamed.

  He landed on the shadow crab attached to my ankle and sank his teeth into it. The thing squealed and fell off, my ankle taking shape again, and the two of them rolled onto the snow and into a snowdrift.

  “Callie?” I heard Liam calling me. I couldn’t let him come back into the woods for me – and I couldn’t leave Ralph.

  “I’ll be right there,” I called.

  I released my boots from the skis and knelt down, plunging my hands into the drift, knowing full well that I might pull out stumps. But instead I pulled out Ralph. He was limp in my hand. I didn’t have time to see if he was breathing. I stuck him in my pocket and ran for the moonlight, out of the shadows, stumbling straight into Liam’s arms.

  “What are you doing?”

  I looked around us. The shadows didn’t reach to where we were standing. In fact, they seemed to be shrinking back into the woods.

  “I saw Ralph,” I said, pulling him out of my pocket. “He was attacked by … an owl.”

  “Poor little guy.” Liam peered closer at him, but didn’t touch him. “He seems to be breathing. Let’s get him inside – and you, too. You’re limping.”

  “I think I twisted my ankle,” I said, leaning on Liam’s arm.

  “Should I go back and get your skis?”

  “No!” I said much too loudly. “I’ll get them tomorrow. Let’s get in before poor Ralph freezes to death.”

  I put Ralph in his old basket, wrapped up in a blanket, and put the basket near the fireplace in the library. He was breathing but still unconscious. Maybe the shadow-crab had done something to him. My ankle was swollen and bruised. It didn’t hurt, though; it felt completely numb, as if it
wasn’t even there. Liam propped it up on a pile of pillows on the couch and put an ice pack on it.

  “Some New Year’s Eve,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to cancel the dancing. At least we’ve got champagne.”

  He produced a bottle of Moët et Chandon and two glasses and then, even more magically, a picnic of bread, cheese and fruit which he fed me as if my hands were injured and not just my ankle. I downed two glasses of champagne before I could stop shivering – from the cold, Liam thought, but I knew it was from the fear of fending off those nasty shadow-crabs. My grandmother had been right when she said that sooner or later I’d be in danger in Fairwick. I hated when my grandmother was right.

  I drank another glass of champagne and let Liam feed me strawberries and whipped cream. Somehow a dab of the whipped cream ended up on my nose. Liam leaned forward and licked it off. I laughed and drew a mustache over his mouth with two swipes of cream. He retaliated by burying his damp, whipped-cream covered mouth between my breasts. Then he unbuttoned my shirt and drew a line of whipped cream from my solar plexus to the waistband of my ski pants. When his tongue reached my navel I conceded defeat with a long moan. I tried to pull him to me, but instead he gathered me in his arms and picked me up. He rolled his eyes toward Ralph’s basket on the hearth

  “Sorry,” he said, “I’d feel like your friend was watching.”

  He carried me to the stairs.

  “You know, I can walk,” I said hoarsely.

  “Nope, sorry, I don’t believe you can. In fact, I believe you’re utterly and completely helpless. At my mercy, to do with what I please.”

  “And what do you please?” I asked when he laid me down on the bed.

  He showed me.

  Hours later I startled out of a delicious post-coital languor. “Hey, did we miss New Year’s?” I asked.

  But Liam was already asleep. I got up and limped to my desk to reach the clock. It was 11:58. I should wake him for a New Year’s kiss, but he looked so peaceful that I didn’t want to disturb him. And he certainly had kissed me plenty in the last few hours. Yes, indeedy, I felt pretty thoroughly kissed.

  I sat down at my desk and leaned forward to see out the window. The moon had crossed over the top of my house and was in the western half of the sky, throwing all the shadows east, back toward the woods. I thought I could see some of those shadows moving through the woods, skulking between the trees, flitting through the branches, scurrying back before the door closed at midnight. Would they all make it? Or would some be stranded on this side? I shuddered thinking of those shadow-crabs and hoped that they, at least, had made it back. Fairwick already had enough monsters, I thought, climbing back into bed beside Liam. I spooned myself against his back, burrowing into the warmth of his body, but it was a long time before I stopped shaking.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  LIAM WAS RIGHT that things were different in the New Year. Even though classes didn’t start until the second week of January, the town started coming back to life in that first week. I heard it in the scrape of shovels and the cheery shouts of “Happy New Year” as my vacationing neighbors returned to find their driveways blocked by snow. I saw it in the CLOSED FOR THE HOLIDAYS! signs removed and replaced with NEW YEAR’S SPECIALS! signs in the stores downtown. Our idyll was coming to an end.

  I also sensed a change in Liam. At first I thought he was trying to make up for his display of possessiveness by giving me the space I’d asked for, but then I saw that he was the one who’d become restless and in need of that space. Seemingly whole woods full of it. He went out for long walks by himself in the morning – searching, he told me, for the inspiration to write a poem – but he came back looking more agitated than when he’d left. Once when I watched him from my desk window crossing the yard, I saw him look back over his shoulder with a scowl as if he were angry at the woods for failing to give him the material for a poem. And another time I greeted him when he came into the kitchen and he looked up at me with the startled eyes of a fox caught snatching a chicken. It occurred to me that he probably needed a little time to himself. I started spending more time at my desk and in the “Dahlia LaMotte room,” trying to get back on track with my own writing, but I found myself too distracted. Maybe it was because Ralph was still unconscious and I’d begun to fear that he’d never wake up. I’d shown him to Brock when he brought my car back from his cousin’s repair shop.

  “If he was still made of iron I could solder him back together,” Brock told me regretfully. “I’m not so good with things made of flesh and bone. You should take him to Soheila. She’s better with things of the spirit.”

  I promised Brock I would.

  Toward the end of that first week I got emails from both Soheila Lilly and Frank Delmarco announcing that they were holding office hours on Friday. I decided to take Ralph to Soheila and then go confront Frank with what I had learned and find out somehow if Abigail Fisk was responsible for the curse. After breakfast on Friday I told Liam I had to go pick up some papers from my office. I was afraid that he’d offer to go with me, but he said he felt like doing some writing. Did I mind if he used my desk? He liked the view from the window and he’d be careful not to disturb any of my things. I said of course I didn’t mind and he gave me a kiss before going upstairs, but the exchange left me feeling uneasy. It seemed silly that he should have to ask to use a corner of space in a huge house – and silly that he always had to go back to the inn for a change of clothes when there were three or four empty closets upstairs. But if I told him to move some of his things over, would he think I was asking him to move in? Did he want to move in? Did I want him to? I promised myself that we’d at least talk about the issue that night and left the house.

  My ankle was still sore, but it felt good to be out in the air and moving. I went through the southeast gate, which stood wide open now, and up the path to the quad. I saw a couple of students who must have been back early for campus jobs or to get a head start on the semester. One of them was Mara Marinca.

  “Good morning, Professor McFay,” she said in her formal English. “Merry New Year. I see you are walking with a … gimp? Have you injured yourself?”

  “A limp. Yes, I got caught in a wild New Year’s Eve rave.” Mara’s blank, wide-eyed stare made me sorry I’d resorted to sarcasm. “Just kidding, Mara. I twisted it cross-country skiing. How was your vacation?”

  “It was very productive, thank you. I worked in the admissions office, sorting through applications. You would be amazed at how many students want to come here to Fairwick. And such interesting, accomplished young people! It made me feel very lucky to be here.”

  I’d thought waking up in an empty hotel room on Christmas morning was pathetic, but Mara’s holiday sounded even more bereft. “I hope you didn’t work the whole vacation.”

  “Oh no! Dean Book was very kind and invited me to her house for … what did she call it? Wassailing?”

  “Really? What did that entail?”

  “We drank eggnog and decorated her Christmas tree and then sang Christmas carols. It was fun. Dean Book is very kind and Miss Hart makes the most delicious cakes and cookies.” Mara rubbed her stomach. “I am afraid that I gained weight over the holiday.”

  “That’s okay, Mara, you needed it. You look good.”

  Mara did, in fact, look a little plump, bloated even, her skin a shiny pink as if it had been stretched a little too far, too fast. The poor girl had probably never had enough to eat in her whole life. It was little wonder that Diana’s cooking had been an invitation to splurge.

  “You, too, are looking well, Professor McFay,” Mara said, leaning in closer as if trying to get a better look at me. Perhaps the girl needed glasses; she often stood a little too close. Or perhaps the people in her country had a different sense of personal space. “You are glowing. You must have had a very satisfying holiday.”

  I blushed thinking of just how satisfying my holiday had been and where that well-rested glow came from – and also because something in the way
Mara was staring at me made me think that she knew, too. Could word have already gotten around campus that Liam and I were seeing each other? Was Mara deliberately teasing me? But then I dismissed the idea as paranoid. It was just Mara’s awkward English that made her comments sound suggestive. I took a step back. “Well, I have to get something from my office …”

  “Do you need help?” Mara asked, stepping forward and closing the space between us again. “It won’t be easy for you to carry anything with your injury. Dean Book won’t mind if I’m a little late for work …”

  “No, Mara,” I said firmly and perhaps a bit too brusquely. “I’m not picking up anything heavy. I’ll be fine. Go to work. I’m sure the dean needs you more than I do.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right. She hasn’t been feeling very well. But if you ever do need anything …”

  “Thank you, Mara. I’ll remember that.”

  I turned and continued on my way to Fraser Hall, disturbed to hear that Liz still wasn’t feeling well. I should drop by later to see if there was anything I could do for her – or for Diana, who must be worried sick about her. Right after I saw Soheila and Frank.

  Although I’d planned to go to Soheila first, I changed my mind when I got to Fraser. If I saw Soheila first I’d be tempted to tell her what I’d learned about Frank and then I would lose the only bargaining tool I had: the advantage of being the only person who knew his secret.

  I would have liked the advantage of surprise as well, but my limping progress up the four flights of stairs announced me way before I got to Frank’s office.

  “What’d you do, McFay?” I heard him yell as I limped into his office. “Get into a fight down in the mean old city?”

  I stood in the doorway for a moment, looking at him. He had his feet up on his desk, a Jets cap pulled low over his eyes, and a New York Times opened in front of his face so I couldn’t make out his expression. “No,” I answered, “but I was attacked by a lacuna while doing some genealogy research at the public library.”