by Emily Temple
I knew where she was going. I should have closed my eyes and nestled under the covers to furiously masturbate or cry or sleep, whichever came to me first. But instead, I threw off the blanket. The feeling I’d gotten from seeing them together had already started to dissipate. I could barely remember what her breasts had looked like, or where he had laid his hands. The bruise had already begun to heal. I wanted to press down, to repurple it. I wanted to see more.
Outside, I almost tripped over Ava. There was only one kitten with her. It looked up at me, the moonlight turning its two blue eyes to mirrors. I wondered, briefly, if the others had been drowned. Wasn’t that what you did with eyeless kittens? Or maybe they’d simply wandered off when their mother wasn’t looking, and fallen down one of the mountain’s cracks. Maybe they’d been snatched up by a hawk; maybe they’d flown for a moment before the end.
I leaned down to stroke the final kitten. (But who—? And who—?) Before I could touch him, he swiped, scratched me. Beauty, it hurts us. I swore, stood. I put my finger in my mouth and started across the grounds.
My very earliest conception of sex was this: my mother systematically placing my father inside her body, one bit at a time. First his hand, then elbow, then shoulder. Inserting each part evenly, carefully, and holding it there—there being an undefined opening in the stomach region—for a moment before removing it and inserting the next piece.
I could still feel Luke’s hand between my legs, hot and enormous. I had wanted to let him leave it there. I had wanted him to press harder. I had let him grin at me, knowing I had lost.
But then he had moved, just a little, a stroke, that thumb, and I thought of Serena, of Janet. I had pushed him away, both of my hands on his. Not because I felt guilty. Not because I was loyal. Because I wasn’t the only one, and I hated myself and him for this. He had shrugged and gone back to his work. I had run from the garden. He had stood and laughed at me, at my ineffectual fleeing form. For some, the only thing more alluring than sex is self-righteousness.
When I arrived at his cabin, it was dark. I hurried forward to press my face into the window, but his bed was empty. No Luke. No Janet. I took a step back, confused. A wolf howled somewhere on the mountain. My long-lost sailor.
Then I heard something moving, much closer, from the trail behind me. Janet—had she been detained? Was Luke inside after all, waiting for her in the dark? There was nowhere for me to hide now. But it was Laurel who stepped out of the woods. She looked at the empty cabin, and then at me.
“Did you tell her?” she said.
“Are you following me?” I said.
“Did you tell Serena about Janet and Luke?” she said, enunciating as if to a child.
“You knew?”
“You don’t think I know when people are fucking?” She laughed bitterly. “It’s been going on for weeks. I tried to make her stop, trust me, but she’s goddamn stubborn.”
I lost my breath for a moment. “She lied to me,” I said at last.
“So what?” Laurel said. “Everyone lies to everyone.”
I couldn’t explain my reasoning to her. I dropped my arms helplessly to my sides.
“Did you know,” Laurel said slowly, “that Serena has somehow gotten rid of every woman Luke’s ever been with? From the time she was eleven years old, I’m saying. He used to be with Dominique, did you know that? They were going to get married. And Serena ended it. No, let’s be precise: Serena made Dominique end it. Janet knows all this, of course. But she’s as much of an idiot as you, apparently.”
“I hope she does end it,” I said. “I think that would be best for everyone.”
But then I had a vision of Serena straddling Janet, her knees bruising into the rock, her fingers around her neck. Serena, who knew everything. Serena, who didn’t love us. There was only one other place they could be. I pushed past Laurel and started toward the rock palm.
“I talked to him too,” Laurel said, following me. “I tried to tell him. Maybe she saw me, and that’s why—” I heard her inhale. That night on the ledge still scared her. “But he’s so caught up in himself, in his own holy fucking ego trip, that he didn’t even think it was wrong.”
I said nothing. We kept walking.
“How did you even know?” she asked. “I can’t imagine he told you, despite your hot little make-out session.”
“I saw them,” I said.
“And you ran right off and told Serena? What made you think you should do that? Don’t you realize what she’s capable of?”
“Yes,” I said, and we were silent for a while.
It was late. Those small hours, between three and five: the hour of the wolf. As the legends and Ingmar Bergman would have it, it is in this liminal time, this uneasy transition between dark and dawn, that most people die, and that most babies are born, and that the demons have their best access to your heart. (It’s not true, you know: most people die at 11 a.m. Eleven! It surprises me that such a sweet hour can claim so many. Babies actually tend to arrive between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., at least in America. The demon thing, though, could well be true.)
We arrived once again, for what would be the last time, at the rock palm, and they were there, all three of them; it was as though they had been waiting for us. I remember even then having the impression of theater. Serena and Luke were in a spot of moonlight, center stage. Janet stood separate, holding a lantern that gave her a ghostly affect, her hair glowing at the edges. Even their clothes, the same clothes they had worn all summer, seemed like costuming now: one girl in long white, one in cropped black. I can’t remember what Luke was wearing. Gray, maybe. Gray would be appropriate here. They stopped talking as we approached.
“I thought you might find us,” Serena said. “You two can never get enough.” She reminded me of Puck at the end of the play. If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended—
“What’s going on?” I said.
“Serena said she wanted to show me something,” said Janet. “But now I don’t think that’s true.” I was surprised at the tenor of her voice. She sounded angry, defiant. I had been expecting something else: shame, maybe. She had been caught, after all. She had been confronted. She had broken the rules. But she was standing straight as a pike, downstage, her hands on her hips.
“I don’t understand,” Serena said, turning back to Janet. “We had a plan.”
“I’m sorry,” Janet said. “It wasn’t about you. Shocking as that may seem.”
“We are what we think,” Serena said, almost to herself.
“Serena,” Luke said. He took a step toward her, looking menacing or amorous, who’s to say, either one, both. “It’s not what you’re imagining. You know how I feel about you.”
Next to me, Laurel covered her eyes, and I thought of my father, who always covered his eyes at the disturbing parts of the movies we saw together, only to peek through his fingers. He did the same thing when my mother and I would argue: he covered his face, he peeked. I think he peeked less at the real world, though. He could keep his fingers safely closed there. There was nothing to miss; he’d seen it all before.
Serena ignored him, spoke only to Janet. “I thought you understood what we were trying to do. I thought you wanted the same thing we did.” Her tone was cool, controlled, but her hands were in fists at her sides.
“Levitation isn’t real,” Janet said. “Or if it is, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I let you convince me it did.”
“This wasn’t how it was supposed to be,” Serena said.
“This is how it is,” Janet said.
“Don’t you see who he is?” Serena said. She sounded almost sad. “Don’t you understand? He’s a bad person, Janet. He doesn’t deserve you. He doesn’t deserve anything good.”
“Hang on,” Luke said.
“Everyone has desire,” Janet said. “You’re the only one who thinks it’s wrong. We would all just be enjoying our lives if you weren’t here.”
“Oh, would you?” Serena snapped.
“Is that what you’ve been doing with Luke, enjoying your life? Or were you measuring yourself by what some man wants, like you always do? Or were you trying to win at everything, no matter the cost, like you always do?”
“At least I’m not delusional,” Janet said.
“Just admit that you’re jealous, Serena,” Luke said.
There was a beat of silence. Someone in the audience coughed.
“Jesus Christ,” Serena said.
“Then why do you knock on my door?” Luke said. He looked like a stranger to me now, harder, older. “Why do you beg me to come to your tent? To touch you?” I admit to being shocked by this. But of course, I knew nothing about any of them.
“You know why,” she said quietly.
“You’re a tease,” Luke said. “That’s the truth. You offer and offer and take your goddamn clothes off and twirl, but you never go through with it. You can see how a guy would get tired.”
“They used to hold official ostracisms in ancient Greece,” Serena said evenly. “Every year, the assembly voted on whether or not they needed one. If things were going badly, or if the crops were dying, or if someone was causing trouble, people would vote yes. Then they’d hold a meeting in the Agora. Every citizen would carve a name into a rock or a piece of pottery, and put it in a pile, and whoever got the most votes was exiled for ten years. Sometimes people need a scapegoat. One person to get sacrificed for the good of the group.” Her face was blank, as if she were reporting a list of figures. “If we did it now,” she said, “I wonder who would win?”
She moved toward the edge of the rock palm. There was a small boulder there. She climbed up on it and lifted a foot, like a dancer.
“Nothing has changed,” Luke said, his eyes on her raised foot. “I still want to help you. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“See, Serena,” Janet said. “Your plan worked after all. What do you care what I do in my spare time?”
Then I couldn’t help myself. “He can’t do it,” I said, from the back. “He never could. He told me he doesn’t know how.” I didn’t know whether Serena already knew this or not. I still don’t know. She might have invented the memory of Luke’s levitation to manipulate us. Or she might have wanted it so badly, imagined it so much, that slowly, slowly, over the motherless years, she began to believe it was true.
“I want you to know that I hate you,” Serena said. I assumed she was talking to Luke, but it was hard to tell. “Everything I may have said or done to the contrary was a lie. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need you anymore.” She looked over the edge. She spread her arms wide. She turned her back to us. The threat was obvious.
Luke caught my eye. The question on his face was plain: Will she do it?
Would she?
I would personally never kill myself, she had said, weeks ago. I’m telling you that now. Even then, she had known it would come to this. The grand finale. Smoke, mirrors. Coupled resonant wireless power transfer. I was never going to let you jump. The boy, the bee. Had this been her plan all along? She had wanted us to be here for this. She had known I would follow Janet; she had known Laurel would follow me. She had set this up, clever girl. But I didn’t understand my role. She had forgotten to feed me my lines.
I should have shaken my head, or smiled. I should have given Luke some indication that she wouldn’t jump, not her. Else the Puck a liar call. But I gave him no sign. He looked at me, and I looked back. He didn’t deserve my help. He didn’t deserve to know anything. The wolves were howling again, somewhere on the mountain, like hungry ghosts. I wondered if they had been howling this whole time.
“What do you think, Olivia?” Serena said.
I raised my head to look straight into Luke’s eyes, hating him and her and all of us, and whatever was in my face made him run toward her, even before I opened my mouth. I wanted to end this. I wanted to end everything. Car, cliff.
“Do it,” I said.
After that, it was too fast. I couldn’t see. He rushed toward her and grabbed her and his own momentum threw them both out over the edge. He rushed toward her and pushed her with two hands and then couldn’t help but follow. He rushed toward her but didn’t make it, and she jumped, and so he jumped after her. He rushed toward her, and she jumped, and she grabbed him by the throat and pulled him down with her.
What I did see: Serena’s body twisting away from Luke’s. What I did see: the smile on her face as she fell.
Then they were gone.
Curtain.
But no, because we were still there. In life, scenes don’t end, they only bleed and bleed. Laurel and I were still standing dumbly at the center of the rock palm. Janet was still lit by the lantern. We were all staring, now, at nothing. Dead air.
“We have to go,” Laurel said. “We have to go right now.”
“No,” I said.
“Do you want to explain this to Dominique? To the police?”
“No,” I said again. My brain wasn’t working. I was looking at Janet. Her face was so pale her birthmark seemed to glow. She was still staring off the edge of the cliff, into the abyss.
“Look,” she said, her voice clear.
Laurel took a step toward her. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”
“Look,” she said again.
So we looked. And this is what we saw: Serena standing above us, in a space between the branches, where a moment before there had been only sky. The darkness around her was latticed with oak leaves. She was standing in the air, in that white dress, her hands stretched out beside her, her toes pointed downward. One rope of black hair cut across her body like a sash, letting in the night. Her eyes were closed, her face as flat and remote as the moon, a closed system that needed nothing, that could expose itself to you completely, without tremor, because you’d never get close to reaching it. Levitation is good for the soul, she had told me once. She drifted a little higher. I watched her, sure that if I blinked, she’d disappear, reveal herself as a dream, an illusion, a fata morgana. But her dress was flapping in the breeze, a soft slap slap slap against her legs. Was she dizzy, up there, higher than any of us had ever gone? Was her stomach churning? Did the altitude make a difference when you were no longer tethered to the earth?
“Serena,” I whispered, and she looked down at me, though she couldn’t have heard me. She tipped slightly in the air, and held up a small white hand, a miraculous hand, like a bird. Her wrists shone bare, almost blue. Her protection cords were gone. When had she cut them? She looked so quiet there in the sky, not angry or hurt or sad at all.
This is the thing. This is the thing I need to see, to understand. This is the crux of it all; I should not look away. And yet I want to tell you that the fata morgana is a complex superior mirage that occurs when light passes through a series of slices of air of different temperatures. Different temperatures mean different densities, and so an atmospheric duct is created, and so as the light comes through, it bends: refraction. The mirage appears when our eye-brain sees the kinked light and assumes it’s coming on a straight path. In a fata morgana, the light reflecting from a distant object bends downward, but your eye doesn’t know that, and so your brain raises the object in question into the air. It happens most often over water—sailors have seen floating cities, upside-down ghost ships (the Flying Dutchman is a famous fata morgana), mountain ranges, spaceships—but it can appear anywhere.
I also need to tell you that the phenomenon is named after the Arthurian sorceress and shapeshifter Morgan le Fay, the deathless nymph, who is capable of flight, who has something of the siren in her, who is said by some to live in a levitating castle above Mount Etna, from whence she beckons travelers. Morgan, who sought Lancelot’s bed even as she sought his undoing, who was both healer and destroyer.
Except look, look at her bare feet, and the way they point, as if she’s standing on tiptoe on an invisible platform far above mine, which used to be ours. Look at the moonlight hit them. Those feet: I am close enough that I
can see the bones and tendons suspended, straining. Now I want to tell you how my father always told me that a girl’s happiness was directly proportional to the amount of sunlight that hit the back of her knees, and how it was only at this moment, as I was writing it down, that I thought about it enough to realize that it wasn’t, couldn’t be, true.
I was watching her hair, the tips floating upward, as though she were suspended in water, when I heard her laugh. I laughed too, because I could never keep myself from laughing when she laughed. And when she threw back her head, I threw back mine, thinking about how wrong I’d been. She’d been telling the truth about levitation all along. Look, look: she had done it, and just at the moment she had needed to. Maybe we all should have jumped when we had the chance. Maybe the ending would be different if we had. But when I lifted my head to tell her, to apologize, to pledge myself to her forever, to follow her off the edge at last, she was gone. I closed my eyes and saw only the echo of her existence, shine-seared into the backs of my eyelids.
16
I don’t remember how we got back to the dormitory. I don’t remember the climb down the mountain, or taking off my clothes, or getting into bed. But I must have, because when I woke, I was curled around my pillow, and it was bright. Everyone else was gone.
I had no idea what time it was. The grounds were silent. I walked to the empty garden and sat on the bench. My fingers felt cold, despite the sun. Exhaustion, perhaps. It was August. I stretched them, pulled them to pop the knuckles, the way Luke had once done. Maybe he would come. I would wait for him to come. The sun would warm me, bring back the feeling. The Feeling. I may have fallen asleep. But if I did, my dreams were the same texture as the world: I was lying on the bench in the garden, face turned to the infinite sky, dreaming about lying on the bench in the garden, face turned to the infinite sky. They say we’re constantly dreaming, not only during sleep. It’s only that during the day our conscious minds overrule our dream minds, so sure are they of the rightness of their reality.