Creatures of Want and Ruin

by Molly Tanzer

The old farmhouse was indeed remote—or at least as remote as things got in Amityville. She came upon it suddenly, for the ancient-looking house with a sharp and uneven roof was tucked away behind a thick copse, down a bumpy, twisty country road that made Fin worry for the Ford’s suspension.

  It had a half-finished look about it; the yard was full of old bits of metal and curling wood shavings. Mrs. West had said Fin’s husband was restoring and modernizing the place for their life together. Apparently that meant some pretty heavy carpentry, not just clearing out the basement and replacing the fixtures.

  It was not Gabriel who answered the door—at least, Fin didn’t think it could possibly be him. He was too young, for one, and she didn’t think he’d be able to haul much lumber with those slender legs and arms characteristic of polio survivors. No, this must be Ellie’s brother whom Mrs. West had spoken about.

  “Hello,” she said. “My name is Delphine Coulthead. I’m looking for Ellie West . . . Is she home?”

  He looked her over with his large, intelligent eyes. “I’m sorry, but Ellie’s not here.”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “I really don’t,” he said, and seemed a bit troubled.

  Ellie was more slippery than an eel. “Do you know where I might find her? I just came from town . . . Her mother sent me here. Said to give her love to Ellie and her brother Lester, too.”

  “I’m Lester.” And then, to Fin’s surprise, he said, “I’m not inclined to tell strangers where she is, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mrs. Coulthead.”

  It made sense, in a way—the extra attention from the article in the paper surely wasn’t making it easy for Ellie to keep a low profile.

  Lester was being polite, but Fin was just about done with being obstructed. She tried a winning smile—if that didn’t work, she’d chain herself to the front porch until her demands were met.

  “I really just need to talk to her about a personal matter. She’s the only one who can help me.”

  This softened Lester a bit. “Well . . . you can come in and wait for Gabriel, if you like. Not sure when he’ll be back, though; he’s working.”

  “Gabriel is . . .”

  “Ellie’s fiancé.” Ah, so that was why Mrs. West had hesitated; they were living together without really being married yet. “He knows where she is. I do too, in theory, but it’s not on Long Island. She’s across the bay. You can’t get there by car.”

  “Oh my.” Fin hadn’t anticipated a complication of that nature. Of course it would be no problem for Ellie to get back and forth, but Fin? She could go home and get The Bee’s Knees, but she’d not yet taken a turn at the wheel, and she’d be dipped before she asked Jimmy to take her across.

  “There’s a ferry,” said Lester. “But once you’re over there, I’m not sure. I’ve never been.”

  No telling how late the ferry would run. Resigning herself to yet more delays, Fin was just about to ask where to find Gabriel when she heard the sound of a pickup.

  It rattled to a stop beside her Ford. Two men jumped out—a brawny-looking, fair, blond man with a broad chest and long legs that seemed at odds with the taped-up horn-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and a wiry black man in coveralls. The latter hung back to look at her car while the one in the glasses strode over.

  “Hi,” he said. He and his glasses were even worse-off than she’d thought—he had one hell of a shiner beneath a cracked lens. Other than that, he was one of the handsomest men Fin had ever seen outside of a movie theater. “Can I help you?”

  “She’s looking for Ellie,” said Lester. The man’s full-lipped mouth tightened at this.

  “I really need her help,” said Fin, after introducing herself. “I hear she’s across the bay somewhere, but I’m not from Long Island . . . I know it’s a bother, but I just need a bit of direction figuring out what ferry and all.”

  Gabriel hesitated, then nodded once. “It is a bit complicated. I’ll just take you there.”

  The ferry was in some other village called Babylon; Aaron offered to take them as far as the train station in the pickup. She sat between them on what proved to be a chatty drive. Aaron was mechanically minded, and had lots of questions about her car. She answered them as best she could, wishing she’d paid more attention to Jimmy when he’d brought it home. Apparently, it was quite a fancy machine.

  Once Aaron dropped them off, however, it grew quiet and awkward. Fin was grateful it wasn’t a long ride, for Gabriel said only what was necessary while they rode the rickety train as it clattered along to a town nearly indistinguishable from Amityville, save for it having a higher proportion of hotels close to the station and streets thronged with tourists, and then walked to the ferry.

  He didn’t seem surly or unpleasant—just pensive. Nervous, maybe, which set Fin to wondering if he and Ellie had had a falling-out. Surely not, if he’d agreed to accompany her and not just send her with directions.

  Fin had taken the ferry across to Jones Beach a few times with and without Jimmy and the rest of them; this one was similar. It had just returned, but Gabriel talked to the captain, and for a fee the old man agreed to take them over in his personal craft if they’d come back by the ferry on its next run.

  It was a clear, hot afternoon, and the cool breeze was welcome when they got out on the bay. Gabriel’s meditative silence was less burdensome, as Fin could chat with the captain. Shading her eyes from the glare with one hand as she hung onto her hat with the other, Fin listened to him talk about fishing, the tourist season, and the weather as she watched the flat shore of Long Island recede and then turned her eyes to the almost identical flat shore before them. The only difference between Jones Beach Island and Long Island was that as far as she could see there were no signs of human presence beyond the little dock where they tied up and the sand-caked wooden boardwalk that snaked into the thicker forest beyond.

  The captain waved goodbye, leaving them alone. Fin eyed the path.

  “It’s not a long walk,” Gabriel said. “The ocean is just on the other side; that’s where all the tourists go. We’ll head north along the beach a bit. Ellie ties up in a different place, to keep her boat hidden. You’re not really supposed to live over here year round, but Rocky’s crazy enough to do it.”

  “Rocky?”

  “Todd Rockmeteller.”

  Fin was quite surprised to hear this. “The poet?”

  “Mm-hmm,” said Gabriel. There was a tightness in his voice that made Fin wonder if she’d been right, and something had gone wrong between him and Ellie. She just hoped there wouldn’t be a scene—Gabriel didn’t seem like the type, but you never did know when matters of the heart were involved.

  She must have had a funny look on her face, because Gabriel asked, “Do you know his work?”

  “Oh yes,” she said.

  Gabriel couldn’t have known how dearly Fin would have liked to have known this information before their windy crossing; she guessed her hair was a mess, and she was sweaty from her long day of running around all over town. Oh well; it couldn’t be helped. At least when Gabriel stopped to take off his shoes when they reached the ocean side she was able to surreptitiously check her face in her compact mirror and wasn’t too displeased by what she saw. A bit of fresh lipstick and she was at least presentable.

  “So you’re a fan,” said Gabriel wryly, and Fin blushed to be noticed primping. “I’d suggest you take those heels off, though . . . they won’t be much use on the beach.”

  Fin ended up shedding not only her heels but also her stockings, which quickly became caked with the smoother sand on the ocean side of the island.

  “I guess his stuff is all right,” said Gabriel as they trudged along. “That one poem about the demons I liked okay. He probably could have gotten that into Strange Tales or even The Argosy.”

  “The pulp magazines?”

  “Yeah, they run poetry sometimes. Good stuff, too.”

  He started to tell her about some of it. Fin was amazed; he
didn’t seem like the sort who’d go on about wizards in outer space or horrors from beyond the grave. She didn’t think she wanted to read about fictional sinister forces while she investigated some that were all too real, but to be friendly she promised she’d check out some of his favorite periodicals.

  Long after they’d left behind the final sunbather they came upon a small and shabby dwelling, really more of a vacationer’s bungalow than a proper house. It was certainly remote and picturesque, but Fin couldn’t imagine living there in the winter—she wondered if it even had modern plumbing or running water.

  “This is the place,” said Gabriel, a bit of skepticism creeping into his tone. Fin could understand why. She was baffled by the idea that Ellie would come here when that snug little house outside of Amityville was waiting for her.

  She half expected yet another unfamiliar man to answer the door when they knocked, but no. At last it was Ellie, in a loose men’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows and trousers rolled up to her ankles. Her bob had grown out even more, hanging shaggily below her chin.

  “Oh,” she said, when she saw Gabriel, and then her eyes slid to Fin. “Oh!”

  “She said she needed to talk to you,” he said, affecting a careless tone that Fin instantly saw through.

  “You do, huh?” said Ellie, addressing Fin. The skepticism in her voice was withering, but Fin would not be deterred.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “About what happened, I am. And I’m sorry to barge in on you, but I needed to see you . . .”

  Shyness claimed Fin for the first time that day. She had only thought about locating Ellie, not how to ask whether the alcohol she had sold them was capable of bestowing visions upon those who drank it.

  “You’d better come in, then,” said Ellie as Fin hesitated. “Will you come in too?” she asked Gabriel, somewhat hopefully.

  “I don’t want to miss the ferry back,” he said.

  Ellie glanced inside, presumably at a clock. “It’s not due for another hour.”

  “Sure, but I figured Mrs. Coulthead here would be going back on it, too . . . It’s the last one tonight. I’d better give the two of you your privacy.”

  Fin felt horribly guilty now, as from Ellie’s expression it was clear she’d really prefer for Gabriel to stay.

  “I can always take her back over if it gets late,” protested Ellie. “You’ve come all this way. Won’t you have a drink at least before you . . .” She trailed off.

  “Ellie, I hate to interrupt, but my hair was blown every which way on the boat over. Do you have a powder room?”

  Ellie stepped aside. “Of course, I’m sorry. Go through the house and out the back door . . . the little shed . . .”

  “Thank you.”

  Fin took her time, not out of any need, but to give Ellie and Gabriel what privacy she could. When she returned, Ellie was sitting on the rough porch, dirty bare feet dangling above the sand. She was alone, and staring out at the sea beyond.

  “He left?” asked Fin.

  “He left.”

  Feeling even more awkward, Fin sat down beside Ellie. “How long have you two been . . .”

  “I came out here two—no, three nights ago.”

  Fin didn’t know what to say next, so she sat silently beside Ellie and watched the tide go out.

  “So,” said Ellie, after a bit. It seemed her ire had departed with her fiancé. “You needed to talk to me?”

  “I’m sorry, I did—I mean, I do . . .”

  “Go on, then. Don’t worry about—” Ellie waved her hand at the footsteps that retreated into the distance. Her anxiety over whatever had happened with Gabriel had softened her up a bit.

  Fin took a moment to gather her thoughts. She wanted to present the best case possible for the vision being real, especially after Jimmy and Bobbie hadn’t believed a word of what she’d said about that night. Stalling more, Fin reached into her purse and withdrew her cigarette case. She only had two left.

  “Do you mind?” she asked. Ellie shook her head, and Fin lit it and took a pull. The smoke curled into her lungs and gave her the energy and strength she needed to speak.

  “Like I told you, I didn’t even want to have that stupid party,” she began. “It was all Bobbie’s idea—Bobbie’s one of my husband’s friends. She used to be my friend, too, but recently . . . things have changed.”

  For the next few minutes Fin poured her heart out about what had been happening over on Ocean Avenue. Once she’d started she couldn’t seem to stop, and so she told Ellie about her growing estrangement from Jimmy and her feelings of dissatisfaction with her life; how she wasn’t sure how she’d become the person she was, and didn’t know how to change.

  She took a final drag on her cigarette and realized she’d smoked the whole thing while talking without even mentioning the worst part of all of this mess. She’d spilled her guts but not the beans about her worry over having had some sort of vision or supernatural experience.

  “Anyway, I drank that booze you sold me, and . . . Ellie, something happened.”

  “Something happened, huh?” Fin wasn’t expecting her to sound so hostile. “Do go on, isn’t that the favored expression of your sort?”

  “I’m sorry. I know took my time getting to my point . . .”

  “You have a point?”

  It had been wrong to bare her soul to this woman instead of getting right to brass tacks. Ellie hadn’t invited Fin’s confidence, after all; she’d only agreed to hear out her business.

  “Yes, but it’s just hard—”

  “What’s hard is listening to you going on and on about your petty problems!” Fin had yet again unintentionally frustrated Ellie, and she recoiled from the woman’s tone. “You have money; you can get a divorce from your husband. I mean, it doesn’t even sound like you like him. Same goes for your situation. Don’t like it? Leave it!”

  Fin was on her feet now. “It’s not that simple,” she said, getting a bit loud herself. She couldn’t endure this scorn, not after enduring so much of it elsewhere.

  “Isn’t it? I left my fiancé.”

  “You did?” Fin’s empathy won over her curiosity. “Forever?”

  “No. I mean—I don’t know. Maybe!” She bit her lip, and Fin saw clear as day her anger replaced by that quieter, gnawing worry. “You saw how he was.”

  It wasn’t that Ellie was angry at her—not really, Fin realized. She was upset over some other matter, and Fin was rubbing her nose in it accidentally, just like she’d done before.

  “I know I should leave,” said Fin, “but it’s difficult. Jimmy and I are married . . . we even slept together recently. It’s complicated, and he won’t tell me what he really wants, and every time I ask him about what he’s thinking or feeling, he treats me like I’m crazy for even asking.”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “Maybe I am!” Fin didn’t know why she shouted it, but she did. “I had a vision after drinking that booze you sold me—a vision of the end of the world. Or at least, the end of Long Island, in a strange way I can’t describe other than it involves the earth dissolving into puddles of luminous goo and waves of rainbow scales and heaving mounds of fur and all sorts of odd things. And I think it’s real. That’s why I came here and told you all this . . . I told Jimmy, and I told Bobbie and Lily and Duke and Edgar, and every single one of them thinks I’m either lying or insane. But I know what I saw. So . . . there,” she said, finally calming down a bit. “You sold me the booze, so I wanted to know if you think it’s possible that what I saw was real . . . because frankly, Ellie, I have no one else to ask.”

  Ellie stood still for a moment, and then to Fin’s utter relief, she nodded.

  “Yes.” She said it angrily, but in one explosive moment she took Fin’s free hand in hers and squeezed. “I think it’s more than possible. Something strange is going on, and it’s destroying this place . . . figuratively, if not literally, and I’ve been banging my head against the wall—figuratively, not literally
—trying to— Oh!”

  Fin couldn’t help it; she embraced Ellie and buried her face like a child in the other woman’s surprisingly muscled shoulder as sobs erupted from deep within her. It was such a relief to hear Ellie say yes, after being told no again and again; to hear that someone else didn’t think what had happened to her was a joke or a lie.

  The tears wouldn’t stop. Fin was mortified to sob like a child, but there was nothing she could do. Eventually, Ellie pulled away to hand Fin a large men’s handkerchief. That made Fin laugh, which stemmed the flow a bit.

  “Thank you,” she said shakily, dabbing at her eyes and nose. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have popped off at you like that. I know what it’s like to not have anyone to talk to. And I’m sorry for selling you queer booze made by people who—well, we can talk about that later. As you might imagine, it’s turning out to be some pretty complicated stuff. All I mean to say is that I didn’t mean to sell you anything strange, but I did, and—”

  “And here we all are.” Fin took a deep shuddering breath. “Oh, Ellie. I’m sorry too, for everything. I’ve offended you twice now and I never meant to.”

  “I know. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I’m sorry.”

  “Yes, you damn well should have said what you did; I was being an ass. That’s one of the reasons I came here . . . I know far too well that wanting to do good doesn’t amount to much if you’re not actually doing good. That you’d talk to me at all after that, much less believe me . . . it means so much.”

  Ellie peered at her. “Why? I’ve been experiencing strange things, as I said. What if I’ve cracked up too? What if we’re experiencing some kind of . . . mass delusion?”

  “Ellie, you’re the most down-to-earth person I know.” Fin gave Ellie a weak smile. “If you think something’s real, I’m sure it is.”

  7

  Ellie stared at Fin for a moment or two as she puzzled through this remarkable statement. Down-to-earth? Her? Even before the weirdness of the last few weeks she’d felt like she’d barely been keeping it together as she worked herself half to death to send her brother to college. Now that she was seeing and feeling things other people didn’t, all bets were off.