Dark Child

by Jo Raven

  “I think I was washed downstream. I have this sensation of drowning and panic.”

  My hold on him becomes frantic. If his family weren’t here, I’d climb on top of the bed, sit on his lap and fold around him like an octopus. The thought of little Merc almost drowning in the river, all alone, has me all twisted up inside.

  “I made it out, obviously.” Merc drops a kiss on top of my head. “I’m here. Okay, Mom? I’m here.”

  But she looks stricken. “Oh Lord,” she whispers and wipes at her eyes.

  “Mom, do you want to go out?” Gigi asks, though it’s obvious she wants to stay and hear everything Merc has to say.

  But Maggie shakes her head. “I’m staying.”

  “It’s all my fault,” Gigi whispers.

  “No, no.” Her mom squeezes her hand. “You were just a tiny thing, barely older than him. It’s my fault. I should never have left you two alone, even for an hour, with that neighbor.”

  Gigi turns and wraps her arms around her mom, and this reunion has turned as much into a family healing session as a telling of what happened to a little boy many years ago.

  Which is cool, though my focus is on Merc, the rest background noise. I’m both dying to know what happened next in his tale and dread it. It’s one thing to drown in a suspenseful story, and quite another to know it happened to someone you love.

  “So you got out okay?” Octavia says, with some effort, it seems. She’s holding on to Matt, as if for dear life. I get a feeling she feels as responsible for what happened to Merc as Gigi and their mom. “You must have been so cold.”

  “I remember crawling out onto the bank, and there was a house. The stream didn’t take me very far. It’s very shallow.” His hand resumes stroking my hair. “There was a house, and I saw the ax.”

  I press my face to the soft cotton of his T-shirt.

  “Where was it? Why did you notice it?” This is Jarett who’s sitting next to Gigi and looks absolutely absorbed by the narrative.

  “The ax was propped on a tree log. Then that guy came out, grabbed it, and then saw me. The guy who was bent over the body earlier.”

  “Oh boy, Merc. Are you making this up to scare us?” Gigi mutters.

  He shrugs. “You wanted to know what happened after.”

  “Good God,” Octavia says. “Mary and Baby Jesus.”

  That makes me snicker. Totally inappropriate, and not muffled enough.

  God. Just nerves.

  Merc takes a deep breath. “He came after me, and I went back into the stream. I crossed it and ran. I did run, you see. In the end, I did.”

  A silence falls on the room after this last bit.

  Eventually, I say, “Did you see who the man was?”

  He hesitates. “No.” His muscles tense, his arm tightens around me. “I couldn’t see his face.”

  I don’t move, don’t say a thing.

  One thing is for sure. Merc has told the truth about what he remembers all along. He believes everything he’s told us is true—apart from this last thing.

  Right now, he’s lying.

  But why?

  Nobody else seems to notice, though, nobody comments, and the matter ends there.

  Making me wonder if I imagined it, if I imagined the tensing in his body, the uncertain tone of his voice as he delivered that last line, the denial.

  The family disbands afterward, going home to their beds. Nothing more to do at this point except wait for the police to finish their search and tell Matt what’s what.

  JC makes an appearance after the family has gone to ask how Merc is, if he needs anything. He seems distracted, and I have to keep reminding myself he knows nothing of the latest developments. I wonder if Merc will tell him.

  Before I give him a reply, he leaves once more, and I crawl into bed with Merc, exhausted, prepared for a sleepless night.

  However, I sleep like the dead, not waking up all night, not even for the obligatory pee break. How did he fail to wake me up with his nightmares?

  The mystery is solved when I wake up in a Merc-less bed to the sound of my phone ringing. I pat his side of the mattress and find it ice-cold.

  When did he get up?

  Locating my phone, I hit answer only to find out I landed a job interview in the midst of this mess. I’d forgotten I applied for it, with everything happening. And though I couldn’t care less about that right now, it’s a job I could see myself doing, and it would mean…

  It’d mean I’ve really moved here, seriously, properly, to this town.

  Into this man’s life.

  Merc.

  I used to have a teacher at school who kept telling us that if we smiled too much we’d get wrinkles. Well, I’ve been smiling so much since I met Merc I’ll probably look like a raisin a few years down the line.

  I picture his face when I impart this tidbit with him later on and end up laughing to myself. Because he’d get it. He’d laugh with me, not at me.

  This boy…

  JC is in the kitchen, cooking something that vaguely resembles a pancake—if pancakes are dark brown, irregular and give off black smoke.

  “Hey… morning. Have you seen Merc?”

  He nods at me, then frowns at the brown lump in the pan. “I’m trying to make pancakes. Merc showed me how. But it’s not until you try to do something yourself that you realize how hard it is, have you noticed that?”

  I give him a long look and decide this beginning to the day doesn’t seem promising. “Merc,” I repeat. “Have you seen him? He was real sick yesterday.”

  Among other things.

  “He was on the phone earlier.” JC nods at the living room door. “He was in there when I got up.”

  Did he stay in bed through the night at all?

  I walk into the living room with its leather furniture and huge TV screen, and find Merc fast asleep on the sofa, his earphones around his neck. His cell phone is resting on his chest, as if he got tired in the middle of calling and dozed off—and Hiccup is asleep curled on his thigh, a ginger smudge.

  Aw.

  Ignoring the urge to touch him, I watch him for a few moments, noting how much better he looks than he did last night, face relaxed, color healthy, breathing regular.

  I smile.

  He needs his sleep. Again I wonder if he slept last night or if he wandered the apartment, thinking and listening to music.

  So I tiptoe out and go grab a shower. Standing under the hot spray, inside the bathtub where he made love to me, I have to fight the tactile memory of his hands, his lips on me, his cock in me, to focus on the day ahead.

  Still smiling, I dry myself, and hurry to the bedroom to get dressed. I grab the least wrinkled items I spot in my suitcase, then try to close it again, but no such luck. I should sit on it.

  Or leave it open, like a statement. I’m here. I’m staying with Merc. We’re together. He wants me here.

  So it’s okay if my suitcase won’t close.

  Like my heart. It used to fit in my chest, but now it feels too big, too full. I think of Merc again and it just about bursts.

  I’ll get this job, or the next, and show him that I’m serious about this, about staying. That I’m no longer a shadow of my sister, but a real girl who loves him.

  Still it’s reluctantly that I walk out ten minutes later, still tugging on my hair, trying to wrestle it into a semblance of classiness. My heels click on the floor as I slip outside into the gray morning and ask for an Uber.

  Nothing feels real, I notice as the car stops at the curb, and I climb inside, smoothing my black pants over my legs. Yesterday I was in Destiny, hunting clues to an old murder gathered from dreams, last night I heard a dark fairytale of how a little boy was almost captured and killed by said murderer, and almost drowned in the stream—my boy, my love—when today I’m rolling through a smog-covered city on my way to an interview I haven’t prepared for.

  I feel unprepared for everyday life, and that’s the truth. There’s this unresolved riddle back at the ap
artment—back home, where Merc is lying asleep with kitty in his lap. An unresolved crime—against the unknown woman, against Merc, and who knows who else.

  Yeah, I’m convinced his dreams aren’t just dreams, and now it’s as if I’ve dreamed them with him, images from the stream and the blackened trees torturing my thoughts.

  The company people make me wait long enough to be just on this side of uneasy, then usher me in and ask me about my background and my thoughts about the future.

  I want to be with Merc, I think, and stumble over my words, but at least I have worked in such companies before, done this sort of work, and reply on autopilot. My smile feels pasted on, kind of plastic, but they seem pleased as they release me back into the wild.

  Unreal. This should feel more important than it does. Eventually it will hit me hard if I am left without money and a job, knowing I could have done much better at the interview, but it’s like brain fog.

  Maybe it’s the tension of the past days hitting me.

  Or is this love?

  I’m still wondering when my sister calls me, says she wants to see me and that she has news. I wonder if good or bad. She wants to tell me in person, she says, but sounds torn over it.

  So I direct the Uber to her place, pay and climb up the stairs, taking some time to mull over everything.

  To think about the lie Merc told us last night.

  About knowing who the murderer was. Ergo, he knows who it is. Why? Why would he hide the identity of the bogeyman? This makes no sense.

  I stop on a random landing and call him, but the call goes to voice mail.

  Frowning, I continue up the steps. Maybe it was my impression. He was very tired. All of us were.

  Unless he knows the killer, a little voice whispers at the back of my mind, and I almost swat at it, like an annoying buzzing insect.

  Yeah, right. That’s crazier than crazy. Cuckoo.

  My sister has the door already open, waiting for me when I reach the third landing, out of breath and brooding.

  Me. Not her. She only looks… ready to go out?

  “Come on, let’s grab a coffee,” she says and grabs my hand, leading me to the elevator.

  “You could have said we were going out. I came up all these stairs.”

  “There’s an elevator.” She waves her hand up and down the steel doors to demonstrate. “Why did you take the stairs?”

  Yeah. Long story, though I’m not sure I can share it yet, not without asking Merc first if it’s okay, and not before hearing from the police.

  Whatever the outcome.

  Besides, my sister seems to be lost in her own thoughts.

  “So what’s up?” I ask as she steers me across the street and down the sidewalk to a small coffee shop with Christmas lights hung inside the windows and small round tables and uncomfortable metal chairs.

  She still won’t tell me what this is about as she goes to order us some strong sweet coffee and muffins, while I fret about why Merc isn’t answering his phone, and then scold myself for it. He may still be asleep, or in the bathroom. Maybe his battery died.

  Why did he lie?

  My sister returns with the food and drinks and I bite into my blueberry muffin and sip at my coffee even though I’m not hungry or thirsty. I can’t taste anything. It’s like eating air and pretending it’s food.

  After a few minutes of this, I have to stop and ask again. “Soph. What happened?”

  Because sorry, sis, I want to hurry back home to my man who’s in the middle of something—in the middle of excavating his dreams and finding more blood, so much blood it’s spilling to the floor, and he may be onto something and not telling us, and why isn’t he answering his phone?

  Jesus.

  “It’s Mom.” Sophie’s mouth does a sort of weird twisty thing, like a smile that doesn’t form completely before it crumbles.

  “What did she do? Soph, what the hell did she say to you?”

  “Nothing. I mean…”

  “You mean what?”

  “She… sent me money.”

  I stare at her. “She did? Is this an alternate universe? An episode from Fringe?”

  My sister laughs, relaxing. “Right?”

  I mean, I asked her for that. Tried to shame her into being a mother. Our mother. I never in a thousand years thought it might work.

  “Did she send a lot?”

  My sister does a shrug-shake thing. Even her body is unsure of how she feels about it all. “Let me put it like this: It’ll cover a big part of Griff’s expenses. It’s a huge relief, I won’t deny it.”

  “Good.” I nod. “Good.”

  “You did this, didn’t you?” she says, hushed. “You convinced her to do this. She’d never have helped me.”

  “No, she did this. I told her how wonderful you are, and how wrong she was, and she realized it was true. That’s what happened.”

  She takes my hand across the table, like she often does, and squeezes. “Thank you, sis. You’ve been my only real family for as long as I can remember.”

  “And you’ve been mine.” I look at her shining eyes and have to ask. “What about Griffin? Is he family? Does he make you happy?”

  She pulls her hand away. “I love him, Cos.”

  I remember the look in Griffin’s eyes when he looked at her and have to hope that I didn’t imagine it.

  Besides, what can I say to that, after I’ve tasted the feeling myself, and I’m hooked on my guy, come what may?

  We leave the coffee shop, and I watch my sister cross the street to return to her taciturn man—the man she loves, I remind myself.

  Then I ring Merc’s number again, and this time he answers.

  “Hey.” He sounds out of breath, and there’s a hint of smile in his voice. “Cosie.”

  My heart slows down, and I lean back against the coffee shop façade, relieved. “Hey, yourself. How you feeling?”

  “Good.” A pause, then he says, “I know you called before. Sorry I didn’t pick up. There was an emergency in the kitchen, and by that I mean that JC almost burned the place down trying to make pancakes. Or so he says. I think he was building an organic bomb or something, from the smell.”

  A reluctant smile tugs at my lips. I can imagine that so clearly. “Crisis averted?”

  “If you like the new fancy black walls deco, sure.”

  I laugh. “Might be a little to artsy for me.”

  “Then I’ll scrub them clean,” he says, his voice going serious. “Fuck the new deco. As long as you stay.”

  I swallow hard. It’s one of those moments when it feels like every word has a deeper meaning, and I don’t know if I’m imagining it. He said he loves me. Who needs more?

  Not this girl, I decide. This girl is luckier than she thought she’d ever get.

  “I’m on my way home,” I say. “I had an interview.”

  “A what?” He sounds a little distracted, but I guess maybe he’s scrubbing the kitchen walls?

  “An interview for a job. Not sure it went well, but I have a few lined up…” I trail off. Why is it so hard to believe he wants me to stay? He said it so many times. “To get a job here. Settle down.”

  Another, breathless pause—at least on my side—before he says warmly, “You mean it? That would be so fucking good, Cos. Job or not.”

  “I know you barely know me,” I blurt out. “But I like being with you, Merc.”

  “Me too, girl. So damn much.” He hesitates. “I have some news, too. Come home, and I’ll tell you about it.”

  I’m already moving. “I’ll grab a cab, and I’m on my way.”

  The doorbell ring is still echoing when he opens the door, in a plain T-shirt and dark jeans, feet bare, hair wet and ruffled, as if from the shower. “CatGirl.”

  “DreamBoy.”

  His mouth twists, ends up smiling. He pulls me into his arms. “Missed you when I woke up this morning.”

  “Missed you, too.” Crazy, but true. I love smelling his unique scent, listen to his heart be
at, feel his warmth envelop me in the cradle of his arms.

  Does this need to be around him, attached to him, every hour of every day fade over time? Right now it doesn’t seem possible.

  Hiccup winds herself around my legs, meowing way too loud for such a little thing.

  “Don’t believe her,” Merc mutters, pulling back and looking down at the kitten. “I fed her just now. Her belly’s so full she can hardly walk. She’s this little barrel with feet, like a duck waddling about.”

  I snicker. I bend sideways to pick up the kitten, but he stops me, face turning serious.

  “Before I forget.” He takes my hand, turns it palm up and deposits something small and cold in its center, closing my fingers over it.

  I jerk back, alarmed. “Aah what is it? A worm?”

  His brows lift. He takes a moment to speak. “Of course a worm is a sure sign of undying love, but I thought you might want something more concrete.”

  I choke. Open my hand.

  It’s a key.

  I look up and he winks. “To the apartment?”

  “No, to a BDSM club, but if you want the one to the apartment, sure, I can get it for you.”

  I swat at him. “Stop it.” I’m not going to cry. Why am I so emotional with him? Every little thing he does or doesn’t do means so much. “Thank you.”

  “Listen, I’m selfish, Cos. This is what I’ve wanted all along. To have you here, with me.”

  I press myself to him, like I want to crawl under his skin, burrow right into him. He hugs me and turns us slowly in a circle, as if dancing.

  The kitten skitters away with a growl.

  “My dreams will end,” he whispers, and we’re still turning, the walls turning into the streaks of wishing stars. “This mess will clear up, and when it’s done, I’ll have you. Life is good with you, CosieCat. I’m so damn lucky.”

  We come to a stop, breathing hard, and I look up, my arms still locked around his hips.

  “You really think that if you remember everything, the dreams will stop?”

  He stares down at me, his grin faltering, blue eyes going to pale gray. “I have to hope they will. If I’m so lucky, then it should work out, right?”