by Gregory Ashe
Except for the cold needling my toes.
Except for the rash of heat on the inside of my leg.
Except for the very, very real fact that I needed to pee.
So I got up, and I stubbed my toe, but I made it to the toilet and peed like a race horse. In the dark. Because the fluorescents still weren’t working, and only a gray scum of third-hand light—filtered first by the blinds and then by distance—reached the bathroom. And while I peed, I laid out my plans. I was going. I was leaving. I was out of here.
In the dark, I couldn’t see all the scrapes and bruises that Krystal’s vines had left on me, but I sure felt them. I should have felt guilty for what I had done to her. I did feel guilty, I guess, but it was an intellectualized guilt—it was only in my head, not in my heart. In my heart, nothing. I’d felt absolutely nothing when I was on the other side and ripped Krystal apart. And that should have made me feel guiltier.
That reflected light in the bathroom made me just a pair of blue eyes floating in the mirror. And then those blue eyes weren’t mine anymore. They looked a lot like someone else’s. A lot like they belonged to a boy who had told me I looked like Thor. Or maybe like they fit the face of a girl who had seen too many bad things in her short life. I splashed water on the glass, arcing a big handful of it across the reflection, and then there wasn’t really anything to see anymore, and that was better.
I went back to the bedroom, gathered up my clothes—shirt and coat still soggy—and tried to get my boxers on again. They were too tight. Austin liked them tight. He liked to work his fingers up the back of my thigh and let the red fabric snap back into place. He liked to tug on the elastic until he was halfway to giving me a wedgie, until I was on my tiptoes and grunting, and then he’d laugh and let both of us fall back onto the bed. The boxers were so tight that they rubbed like hell on the burn I’d given myself, and I wasn’t ever going to see Austin again, so I hooked my thumbs in the waistband to take the damn things off. But after a moment, I left them on. And I dragged on the jeans after them.
You’re making this too easy—
I crushed that thought underfoot and ground it out.
Picking through Dad’s clothes, I found a pair of long-sleeved tees, and I dragged one on and then pulled on the sweater again. Until my coat dried, I needed layers. With a shiver, I worked my wet socks into place; the cotton bunched and pulled, and then one of them ripped and my big toe shot out the front. I sighed and laced up my sneakers. It was just going to be one of those days.
I packed the paperwork, including that strange newspaper, into Dad’s bag. Then, after filling Dad’s bag with the rest of his stuff—maybe I’d sell it, maybe I’d use it, maybe I’d toss it out the window when I was going ninety miles an hour—I grabbed my backpack and stepped out onto the cement pad that ran in front of the apartments. The day was cold. The sky was a fuzzy blue-gray, the texture of pilled wool, without a sun. Maybe somewhere it was going to be a good day, but in Vehpese, it was going to be another slog. The only good thing I could tell myself was that I was leaving.
He said I looked like Thor.
Flannel-guy, who I’d tangled with the night before, was gone. In the bleak, muted light, Slippers’ empty parking lot looked worse than ever: slabs of asphalt buckled and split, weeds—damn, I’d never look at a weed the same again—a streamer of wet toilet paper running for almost twenty yards like someone had tried to throw a ticker-tape parade last night. I’d been in this town almost a year, and the parking lot hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed.
I hadn’t changed. I marched across the parking lot to Mr. Spencer’s car, worked the key in the trunk until it creaked open, and dropped Dad’s bag inside. I was still me, the beaten-down, fucked-up, cut-and-burn version of me that had come here. Even after things had gotten good, even after things were good, really good, even after things had gotten great with Austin, with Sara, with life, even after life had been better than I ever thought it could be, even after all that, I couldn’t be happy. I was the kid with the hole in his brain, that black hole swallowing everything else. And if I couldn’t be happy here, if I couldn’t be happy with Austin, if I couldn’t be happy with Sara, if I couldn’t be happy now, then that was on me. That was just how fucked-up I was. So I couldn’t blame Austin for wanting me gone. I couldn’t blame the rest of them. They were being smart. They were cutting me out before I ruined their lives too. They still had a chance.
I turned out onto the state highway, heading south. In a couple of hours, I’d hit I-80, and then I’d have a straight shot wherever I wanted to go. Salt Lake. Sure, why not? It was spring here, even if it didn’t look like spring. And spring was the time to be hopeful. It was spring, so I was going to be hopeful. It was spring even if the sky was just a rumbling mass of black and gray. It was spring even if I was so cold my teeth were chattering while the car warmed up. It was spring even if the only things growing on this stretch of road were flattened styrofoam cups and skid marks and the brown glass of broken beer bottles. It was spring, and I was starting the newest, next, best part of my life.
He said I looked like Thor.
The apartments slipped away, and the Slippers sign blinked once in my rear window, and then a swell of the low, rolling ground swallowed it all up, and there was only miles and miles of buffalo grass and sage and tumbleweed and fencing and snow, still goddamn snow, shrinking along the fence posts. I’d come running this way. My very first day in Wyoming, I’d come out this way running. And I realized, with a sense of déjà vu, that I’d been thinking the exact same thing then that I was thinking now: this is a fresh start, this is a new place, this is when life is going to be good and I am going to be happy.
He said I looked like Thor.
I jammed on the radio, and Metallica crashed over the speakers. I rolled down the window, and the cold air whipped my hair behind me and stung my eyes. Cowshit came in on the wind. I spat, and all there was was more cowshit.
Because I’d been wrong. I punched the radio, and Metallica whined off into silence. I’d been wrong about the most important part. Yes, coming here had been a fresh start. Yes, coming here had given me a chance at happiness. Life had gotten better. It had gotten better than I’d ever hoped it could get. And it still hadn’t been enough. Whatever was in the back of my head, eating away at my brain, that was the reason. That was always going to be there. And no matter where I went, no matter how good things got, that was going to be there: swallowing light and hope and energy until there wasn’t anything left of me. I wanted to close my eyes. In contrast to that emptiness, in contrast to the darkness, I could see the round, white glow of the table saw. I could hear the metal purring.
There was one place I could go where that black hole couldn’t follow me. There was one door I’d never gone through. Not all the way. There was one place I could be . . . well, not happy. But nothing. And it sounded pretty damn good to be nothing.
He said I looked like Thor.
I jerked the wheel so hard that the Impala skipped along the shoulder, throwing up a cloud of gravel and dust. I grabbed two handfuls of hair so hard that my eyes filled with tears, and then I coughed and choked on the dust, and I let go of my hair and let my forehead rest on the steering wheel. Molded plastic bumps bit into the thin skin.
River’s voice came back to me, speaking Urho’s words. His threats. Defy me again, and I will take everything from you. The children you cared for. The boys that you love. The woman who shelters you. Your teachers, your friends, anyone your shadow falls upon. These things I will take from you. And when you have nothing left, I will leave you with your pain, and I will raise up new tools.
For one moment, with my eyes closed, the world seemed to spin too fast. That black hole irised open at the back of my head. The glow of the saw, the perfect hum of steel, were so close. All I would have to do was drive to Sara’s house and—
. . . The children you cared for . . .
The words hit me with such clarity and fo
rce that my head came up off the steering wheel and I stared out the windshield. A mule deer was picking its way along the highway’s shoulder, and when my head shot up, the deer froze. Then its black tail twitched. And then it bolted, its legs carrying it in long, graceful leaps, the buffalo grass swishing beneath it, and I didn’t move, didn’t breathe, didn’t blink.
. . . The children you cared for . . .
I had been so busy bitching and whining and moaning that I hadn’t even thought about the dream. I’d been busy letting my heart bleed out because one boy, one stupid boy—ok, maybe two—didn’t want me. Jesus Christ. I was such an idiot.
I checked the Impala; I was well onto the shoulder and clear of the highway, so I killed the engine. The car shuddered, the vents gasped, and everything went silent. Then the tick of cooling metal worked its way up the frame. I barely heard it.
He said I looked like Thor. I could still remember it. I could still remember the repressed excitement in his voice, the trill at the end of it, and the uncertainty too. It was the first thing he had ever said to me. I had walked past them; I hadn’t wanted anything to do with them. Not because I was cruel but because they were kids and I was sixteen. But then he had said those four words, and there had been something so open and vulnerable about his innocence, his wonder and excitement, that I had stopped. They had become Tyler and Hannah to me. And after that, nothing had been the same.
My skin pebbled, and my next breath was unsteady. Nothing had been the same. I’d watched over those kids. I’d fed those kids. I’d stayed up nights so that they could sleep. I’d let Tyler take a bullet instead of me, and seeing him hurt had almost killed me. Nothing had been the same in my life after those four words, and if I could lie to myself and hide from myself and pretend everything else had stayed the same, I couldn’t lie about what Tyler and Hannah meant to me. What they had done to me. And for me.
And they were missing.
. . . I will take everything from you. The children you cared for . . . Those were Urho’s words as River reported them to me. And I parsed them as carefully as I could. Mr. Spencer might not think I paid much attention in class, but I wasn’t totally oblivious. Something was strange about the words. Something that I should have noticed earlier.
Cared for. Past tense. Not care for, present. What did that mean? Did Urho believe I didn’t care for them anymore because they were living with their mother and grandmother? Did he believe I didn’t care for them anymore because they weren’t my neighbors, because I didn’t see them every day, because I wasn’t feeding them dinner and making up a bed for them on the sofa?
That seemed sophistical. So what were the other options? That the kids were dead?
A semi roared past, the blast of air from its passage rocking the Impala. I jumped and banged my head against the headrest. Then I wiped my face and shouted a fuck you into the truck’s wake. I wiped my face again. The kids weren’t dead. They weren’t. That was a non-starter. I wasn’t even going to consider it. I wasn’t even going to let it be possibly true.
So what did it mean, the children you cared for? I ran through the rest of River’s message. The boys that you love. The woman who shelters you. Something about my shadow. It was all present tense. Just the part about Tyler and Hannah was in the past.
. . . I will take everything from you . . .
Their dad had taken them. That’s what Shay wanted me to believe. But Shay had also told me that she had heard Hannah calling her name. And I had heard something too, hadn’t I? Not my name. Laughter. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled. If Shay were right, and if Cribbs had taken them, then why was she hearing Hannah’s cries? Why had Cribbs kidnapped his children? Why take Hannah and Tyler when someone higher up than just the local police might notice their disappearance because Mather County—
Because Mather County had too high a rate of missing people. Missing kids, in particular. And even if the government didn’t know and the sheriff didn’t know and nobody else knew, I knew why those kids were disappearing. And that meant I knew why Hannah and Tyler were gone. For the same reason all the other kids had vanished, and only some had returned: for the Lady to wake them from the mortal sleep, in hopes of producing a psychic.
. . . I will raise up new tools . . .
Shay had shown me the guest book from that shitty motel, the Kane Motor Court. Kane was thirty miles away, give or take, and I’d never seen the motor court, but it wasn’t hard to imagine. It would be like a thousand other roadside flops: run-down, ill-used, an easy place to stay cheap and to stay discreetly.
I tried to remember the rest of what Shay had told me. March 30th. That was the day Cribbs had signed the Kane Motor Court’s guest-book. And March 31st, the next day, Hannah and Tyler had disappeared while their mom finished her shift at the restaurant and was off trading blowjobs for coke or for cash or maybe just for companionship.
I will take everything from you.
No, I thought, cranking the key and hitting the gas so hard that the Impala sputtered and choked before lurching forward. I spun the wheel hard, cutting a U across the highway and heading the opposite direction. No, you won’t.
THE DRIVE THROUGH RURAL Wyoming gave me time to think. On either side of the car, the buffalo grass rolled toward the horizon. With the exception of the Bighorn Mountains, where Cloud Peak hid among its namesakes, the land rolled and swelled and dipped but kept more or less on the same plane. Some of the sage was already greening up. When I crossed the Bighorn River, the water was clear, and huge slabs of turquoise-colored stones showed at the bottom, where trout darted between patches of shadow. It was hard to believe that this place was coming alive. Hard to believe I hadn’t seen it an hour before. Hadn’t seen it ten minutes before.
Thinking felt good. Thinking felt like breaking the surface of quicksand and gasping in air, a sudden, reflexive easiness that I hadn’t even imagined was possible a short time ago. Part of my brain registered all this; part of my brain warned me that this, too, wasn’t normal, that I needed to consider this more carefully, that maybe I should talk to someone. But I didn’t want to talk to anyone. More importantly, I didn’t have time to talk.
I thought about Urho and the Lady. They had taken children before. They had taken lots of children. Mather County had a shockingly high number of missing children relative to national averages. In the reports Becca had unearthed, government officials offered mealy-mouthed suggestions about the unforgiving nature of the environment, the local culture of independence, and the town’s lack of road services. In other words, the same old excuses: it’s your fault they wandered off, and either that desolate wilderness killed them or a stranger did.
Those weren’t answers, not really, and my experiences at Belshazzar’s Feast, where I had met the Lady and glimpsed, at the edge of my mind, Urho, had convinced me that most of those missing children, maybe all of them, had been taken by the Lady—or, more precisely, had been taken at her orders. She had been taking children for decades, maybe centuries, using her abilities to awaken powers in the children, at least, in those who survived the experience. Luke had gotten his powers that way. So had Mr. Spencer. And Kaden. And Temple Mae. And Makayla, and Mrs. Troutt, and Hailey. And I was willing to guess that this new crop—Krystal and Leo and Kyle and the Crow boy, even Ms. Meehan—all had connections to this part of the world. They had come through here on a family vacation. They had stayed the night on a road trip. They had lived here, or worked here, or visited family here. And then they had disappeared, only to return a few days or weeks later. Alive. But different.
And, with the few exceptions like Mr. Spencer and Kaden and Temple Mae, they had come back as raging psychopaths.
Luke had claimed that the Lady was trying to create a psychic. That she needed a psychic, a real psychic, someone who could cross back and forth to the other side. At the time, when I faced Luke on the other side, I thought I had understood what that meant. She wanted to bring Urho back from the dead. More speci
fically, she wanted me to bring Urho back from the dead.
Ever since my experience at Emmett’s house though, when I had felt myself come apart, I had started to wonder about my conclusions. That experience had been singular; always before, I had crossed over to the other side as a projection, aware of my body behind me, dragging on me like an anchor. But at Emmett’s, when I had come apart, I hadn’t felt anything. And that smooth, perfect numbness, had been . . . invigorating. Empowering. It had been so easy to unravel the threads holding together Krystal’s soul and drag her across to the other side.
Ahead, a flock of quail burst out of the grass, their wings a flurry of shadow against the sky. I followed them with my eyes until they narrowed to dots on the sky, soft little graphite points like the tips of a pencil, and then I studied the road again. I could go back. I could try, anyway. Try to pull myself apart and see if it felt as good as it had the first time. I shivered, and I punched at the heat and then I punched it off again and I wiped one hand on my sweater like my fingers were dirty. They felt dirty; I felt dirty. Because it had felt so good to come apart like that. Because I felt guilty—that’s how good it had felt—and embarrassed. I couldn’t put into words why, not really, but it was there. And so was the urge to jerk the wheel right, thump off the shoulder, let the car roll down into the buffalo grass where no one would see it, not immediately, and try. Just try. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe I’d just sit there, and after fifteen minutes or thirty I’d guide the Impala back up onto the highway and keep driving. But maybe it would work. Maybe I could get there, to the other side, all the way. My face was flushed. My armpits were sticky. I wiped my hands on my chest again.
For another minute I struggled to keep the wheel straight, to keep from turning onto a weed-choked gravel cutoff. Then I rolled down the window and pulled up the sweaty knot of hair at the back of my head and let the air cool my neck.
Fuck. Nothing that felt that nice could be good for you.