Intersections

by Megan Hart

  The baby peeped again. Tori kissed her head. She got to her feet. She took a step. Then another. The snow came up to her hip with one of them, and she struggled free, but after that she reached the line of trees where the drifts were smaller.

  The light had not gotten any closer, but it still shone bright enough that she could follow it, and Tori started toward it.

  4

  "You're not like other girls." The boy who says this is pale, face spotted with pimples, his black hair long enough to cover one eye. The eye that shows is lined with black. The black gloss on his lips has rubbed off long ago, because he's been kissing her for an hour.

  "You just met me," Tori says. "You have no idea."

  They've already compared scars. His are on his wrists, faint white lines crossing horizontally and hashmarked from the stitches. She's seen worse, but doesn't say so. It would seem rude.

  Hers is on her side, a long and curving mark. Ragged. No doctor had stitched her, and the wound healed ugly. This boy in front of her traced it with his fingertips, reverent. Possibly it aroused him more than the sight of her bare breasts. He kissed it with more passion than he'd kissed her lips.

  He asked her what’d happened. She told him the truth. When she was three, a dog tore itself free of its leash and bit deep into her side. Her mother had cleaned and bandaged the wound, and even as a toddler Tori had been aware that somehow, Mom had always blamed her for what happened.

  Since then she's been terrified of dogs, something they must be able to sense, because every dog she has ever encountered insists on trying to bite her. They always bark and snarl at her, even the ones whose owners assure her would never bite. They leap against their leashes or chase her down the street.

  She has other scars in other places, fainter, and from other things, but the one on her side is the only one that anyone ever seems to notice.

  "You're not like any of the other girls I've ever been with," he says.

  Tori smiles, thinking that by the way he fucked, he can't have been with many other girls at all. "Huh. Okay."

  "There's something really dark in you, I mean."

  "...Like how?" Tori has never been Goth or Emo or anything like that. She'd been wearing black when she met this kid, but that was her wait staff uniform, not her personal fashion choice.

  He shakes his head so the hair falls again over his face. He brushes it away. "I don't know. But it's there inside you. I could feel it. You know. When we were..."

  “Fucking,” she finishes for him.

  He touches his lip. There’s a mark there, hidden beneath the streaks of black. “Yeah. Then. When you bit me….”

  “I’m sorry.” Embarrassed, Tori shakes her head. Turns away. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “No,” he says, hastily. His hand on her arm. Fingers stroking her skin. “I liked it. Can you do it again?”

  “You…want…me to bite you?”

  He is eager. Shining eyes. Open mouth, offering his tongue. “Yeah. Please.”

  “You want me to…hurt you,” Tori clarifies, something blooming inside her that is definitely dark.

  That is what he wants. As it turns out, yes, she can give that to him. All of it, maybe more than he was even looking for, but when she leaves him bruised and bleeding in the pale cavern of his tangled sheets, he is sleeping with a smile on his scarred face.

  In his kitchen, she raids the cupboard and the fridge, desperate to fill her aching, empty belly, but scavenges nothing but a few packages of saltines and the barest scrapings from a peanut butter jar. It is not enough. She is weak and shaking. Her hunger gnaws at her. Inevitable. Undeniable.

  Dark.

  5

  It was this dark thing, whatever it was, inside her that Tori called on now to keep herself moving through the trees. The food she’d glutted herself with only hours before had felt like a rock in her gut until now, when she was starving again. Each step took several minutes to complete, since she sank up over her knees every time and had to carefully pull her feet out of the snow to take another. Toes that had been broken a long time ago complained at the cold. The wind blew up, harder and fiercer, finding all the gaps in her clothes. The bag on her back had become so heavy she thought longingly of letting it drop, but to do that, she'd have to unhook the straps from her shoulders, and she was afraid she'd lose her balance and fall over.

  The light didn't seem to be getting any closer. Wind whipped the tree branches so violently that the house ahead of her shimmered in and out of view. Several times the stinging snaps of branches whacked her in the face. Her hair, torn free of the simple elastic band she'd used to tie it back, snagged and tangled, then slapped across her face and blinded her.

  She wasn't going to make it.

  Another squall of wind stole Tori's breath and seared her lungs. Against her chest, the baby struggled as though she meant to scream but either nothing came out, or the wind blocked the sound. The step Tori had been taking faltered. She went into snow up to her hip again and only managed to keep her balance by wrenching herself upright. Something low in her back shrieked in agony before the pain settled into an immediate dull throb.

  Something dark inside her. Something different than the other girls. Something hard, something sharp, something fierce. It reared up, forcing her shoulders to straighten. She took another step toward the light.

  The snow here wasn't as deep. The trees thinned. At last, the house seemed closer, one bright light in a lower window but the others dimly gleaming. Someone was still awake, thank God.

  Here in this small clearing, the snow had been carefully shoveled away from around a small pile of stones that looked as though they'd been deliberately piled. The single red blossom stuck into the pile gave away its purpose, and Tori paused in the knee-deep snow just beyond it. Something about the rocks kept her from moving closer.

  The wind growled, or something did. Shadows coalesced and moved low to the ground. With her hair slapping at her face, the darkness looked like more than shrubbery or trees being tossed by the wind. It didn't feel like bushes.

  It felt alive.

  She had no weapons, and her hands had grown so numb she could barely curl them into fists, but she did as she forced another step. Her foot slid through the snow and off what had been rocky, uneven ground, to find a smoother landing. Grass, she thought as she whirled, trying to keep whatever it was in her sight. A lawn. She was close to the house. Almost there.

  Another step. Another swirling set of shadows. The sound of breathing whistled in her ear, along with an animal stink. Heat. She couldn't see anything but creeping darkness, now stretching out long and black from the house itself. She was going to make it if she had to get there on her hands and knees. If she tore herself to shreds, she was going to make it. She was going to keep her baby safe.

  The darkness reached for her, but Tori reached back.

  6

  The dog growls.

  Snapping, snarling. Teeth. The stench of wet fur. Blood.

  The dog lunges.

  The collar and chain attached to it choke the dog off its paws, and with a yelp it lunges again. There's a wooden picket fence between them, so even if the chain breaks, Tori is safe. Her heart pounds and her palms sweat every time she passes this yard, though. Many days she'll take the long way home after school, but tonight Mom is making tacos, and if she doesn't get her homework finished on time, John won't allow her to have more than one. Food as a reward is Tori's motivation, worth even the terror.

  This dog’s teeth have ached to get into her flesh for years. He's old, gray-muzzled and won't leave the shade of his doghouse for anyone else. Not the mailman or delivery people, not the paper boy or kids selling magazines or cookies. Only Tori makes him rage this way.

  Earlier this morning, her backpack straps came loose on the way to school. The pack is old and worn enough that she can no longer fix the buckles. She's been carrying it by the top loop all the way home, switching the pack from hand to hand when her fingers begin to cram
p. She's doing this now when the snarling dog once more launches his fury toward her.

  Tori drops the pack. Her books spill out. The dog's chain at last gives way, and it hurtles itself against the wooden fence. She's on her knees, scrambling for her books, papers, her pencils rolling all over the place. One rolls toward the fence and she grabs at it.

  Too close. The dog’s hot breath brushes her hand. He slams into the fence hard enough to make the wood shiver. One flat picket, once white but now gone a faded beige, cracks. On her hands and knees, Tori watches the dog hit the same spot.

  The picket breaks.

  The dog's nose and snapping jaws thrust through it. Tori isn't close enough for him to bite her, but he's trying, oh, that dog is going to get to her if he has to bust the whole fence down, and she is paralyzed with fright. Cannot get to her feet. Can't move.

  The dog crashes into the fence once more, the hole now big enough for the front half of his body. Tori is still on her hands and knees. Her fingers clutch at the lumpy pavement, breaking two nails to the quick with a pain so sharp and fierce she cries out.

  "Come on then." Her voice is low and harsh and rasping. It is not her own. It comes from someplace deep inside her. Grinding. She bares her teeth.

  Saliva slides from the corners of her lips. In her terror she is unable to swallow. She blinks against the rush and surge of red tingeing the edges of her vision. If she faints, the dog will be on top of her in seconds. He will do more than bite her. He will eat her.

  "Come on then," she says again, as though from far away. "Come and get me."

  She's conscious enough to feel the thud of her forehead on the concrete as she pitches forward. She's aware of the sound of wood cracking. The scrabble of paws and claws on the sidewalk. She braces herself for the bite, but it doesn't come.

  Later. She's not sure how long she's out, but when she pushes herself up onto her hands and then one knee, the dog is gone. Back inside his house, nothing but his shaking rump visible from the shadows. Tori spits the taste of copper and bile from her mouth. Her fingertips are bleeding where the nails split. Her knees are scraped above the white school socks. A lump on her forehead throbs.

  "Hey. Kid."

  A man bends over her. He wears a suit, a tie, a white shirt. A briefcase squats on the sidewalk next to him. He is a well-to-do businessman, that's what her mother would say, but Tori can only stare up at him.

  "You okay?" he asks. "What happened? You trip? Are you sick?"

  She wants to tell him about the dog, about the biting, but the businessman looks eager to leave her. When she gets on her feet, he seems glad for the chance to escape without having to do anything for her, grateful he doesn't have to get involved.

  Tori collects her stuff and stumbles home, tosses her pack onto her bed and lurches into the kitchen where the scent of tacos starts her stomach rumbling.

  She doesn't wait for her mother or John to sit. She slides into her chair and ladles a scoop of seasoned beef onto her plate. No shredded lettuce, no tomatoes, no cheese. Just meat. She begins to eat. Methodically. Quickly. John will be angry, but Tori does not care and could not stop herself even if she did.

  By the time her mother's husband gets to the table, Tori has polished off half the pan of taco meat. Her stomach groans. Her tongue burns. The lump on her forehead aches. When she dabs a napkin to it, the white paper comes away spotted with blood.

  "What the hell happened to you?" John demands and slaps a hand down on the slotted spoon Tori is using to scoop up more meat. "Jesus, leave some for the rest of us. Did you finish your homework?"

  "I fell. No. Hungry." Tori jerks at the spoon but relinquishes it when John pulls it from her grip. She's no longer hungry, actually. She's exhausted.

  "Fucking little pig," John says. "Marlene, do you see what your kid did?"

  Mom has been leaning against the stove, silent, watching her daughter gorge. "I saw. You should put some ice on that bump, Tori."

  Tori doesn't want to deal with ice. Her stomach gurgles again. She needs to sleep. Without excusing herself from the table, she goes to her room and closes the door. Shouting follows, but for once John doesn't come after her. She pushes her books and papers aside and falls face first onto the bed, where she buries herself in the pillow.

  Her stomach is so hard and round it looks like she swallowed a cantaloupe. Her guts are protesting, too. Mom's tacos always exit in a rapid and spectacular fashion, although usually not quite so soon, and generally from the back door.

  Swallowing a rush of saliva, Tori remembers the dog. Waves of nausea rush over her. Her throat convulses. She has barely enough time to stumble to the bathroom and kneel in front of the toilet, heaving. The sound of snarling rushes through her head as her dinner comes up so fast it scorches her throat. Water and vomit splash her face and, disgusted, she retches again.

  When her stomach is emptied, she staggers to the sink to wash her mouth. In her reflection, she is hollow-cheeked and pale, her eyes red-rimmed. Puke speckles the corners of her mouth. The lump on her head is dark and bruised.

  She bares her teeth, lined with red grease. After rinsing, she spits again and wipes her face. She is so tired she can barely stand, but food still lurks in her stomach.

  Again, she kneels, but this time nothing comes up until she uses a finger to force herself to gag. Over and over, Tori makes herself puke until finally, all the last bits of her stomach's contents hurtle into the toilet. Emptied, clean, she presses her fingers to her stomach in relief.

  That dog never barks at her again, but she spends the rest of her life binging and purging with the sound of snarling in the back of her mind.

  7

  "Hey. Hey, wake up."

  Rough hands chafed hers until she winced from the pain and tugged them away. Tori blinked, clearing her vision. She hadn't dreamed about the dog on Dover Street in years.

  "Huh?"

  Panic swept her. She ran her hands over her chest, then burst into tears at the small bundle still strapped there. Her coat had been opened, but none of the straps had been moved. She squeezed the baby, overjoyed at the answering wail.

  She was in a room papered in red velvet. Heavy dark furniture. She lay on an ornate sofa pushed against one wall and had time to think she must be ruining the upholstery before she shook herself into full consciousness. Her mouth tasted hideous, and she ran her tongue along her teeth, trying to swipe away the sticky, tangy film. She held herself back from spitting by swallowing hard, over and over, until the lump in her throat eased along with the awful flavor.

  The man standing in front of her was tall enough that he blocked out the light from the overhead fixture. Shaggy dark hair hung just past his shoulders. He wore faded jeans and a black-and-red checked flannel shirt, open to reveal a bare chest beneath. Bare feet too, she noticed as she sat up and got control of her surroundings.

  "I found you in the yard," he said. "I brought you inside. You're going to be okay."

  The baby stirred against her, letting out another warbling screech. Tori drew in a hitching breath, relieved at the sound. She kissed the baby's head and caught a whiff of her own foul breath.

  "I need to get out of my wet clothes. Maybe have something hot to drink. I'm sorry, I don't even know where I am, my car went off the road and --"

  "It's a bad road," the man said. "Lots of accidents. Let me show you upstairs. There's a bedroom you can use. You can get some sleep. I'll get you some tea or something."

  She wanted to thwart him, somehow. She should, right? This big man with the huge hands and enormous height, the shaggy hair. The furrowed brow. He ought to intimidate her. She should be more scared, wary, she should not trust him.

  "Luka, did you find Rusty?" An old woman's voice carried across the room, clear and light as a bubble of soap.

  Tori looked past the big man to see a long wooden table surrounded by six upholstered chairs. A feminine figure, white hair brushed into a high bun, sat at the far end. She glanced toward them as Tori paused
. Even from this distance Tori could see the woman's hands resting on a plastic triangle that moved over a piece of wood painted with a few words as well as the alphabet.

  A Ouija board. Tori and her friends had played with one in the seventh grade, asking the spirit world for information about the boys they had crushes on. As she watched, the planchette spun toward the board's upper left corner. From what Tori remembered, there was a smiling sun there, opposite a scowling moon in the other corner. A word, too.

  YES

  The man's voice was a low rumble. "Yeah. Found him."

  "The board said you would." The woman spoke to Tori, clearly to Tori and not the man, her gaze bright and fierce even at this distance and fixed on Tori's own. "You know, the spirit board is an intersection between this world and the next. The spirits speak to us. They guide us. All you have to do is open yourself to their messages."

  The planchette moved in a steady, back and forth pattern, YES YES YES, then stopped.

  Tori had never believed in anything a Ouija board told her. She'd made it spell out things she wanted to say and knew her friends had done the same. It seemed rude to mention that now, even if she'd been able to coherently form the sentences. She was so tired, so drained. Her mouth had been stuffed with marbles; no words could come out.

  "Did you bring him back inside?" the old woman said to the man.

  "No," Luka said. "I couldn't."

  "The board said that, too. Take her upstairs and put her to bed before she falls over."

  Luka looked at Tori, who was indeed feeling as though she might end up on the floor. "Come on. I'll show you a place where you can sleep."

  8

  Tori didn't sleep long in her borrowed bed. Not with the baby muttering and snuffling beside her, hunting for the breast and latching on to nurse. Tori opened her eyes and stroked a hand over the infant's skull, wincing at the chafing in her nipples but grateful that everything else, at least, had stopped hurting so much. When she turned toward the window, a pale light around the edge of the curtains told her that the sun had come up. The mug of tea Luka had given her the night before sat cold and empty on the nightstand. Her stomach told her it was time to eat, even as it pinched and twisted and left her feeling as though she might throw up.