December's Thorn

by Phillip DePoy

  Dr. Nelson sat back. “That’s really scary.”

  “Which is why I’m scared. Because it’s scary.”

  Dr. Nelson held her breath for a moment, and then gave out with the grandest and, quite possibly, most dramatic sigh I’d ever heard.

  “Look. Fever.” She bit her lip. “Don’t you think it’s about time you stopped using folklore and mythology to explain things in your life? Don’t you think it’s time to actually look at reality? I mean, square in the eye.”

  I let her accusation sink into the molecules of air that surrounded us both, just so there would be no uncertainty regarding their import. I folded my arms. I set my jaw. I took in a slow, long breath.

  “First,” I began, “let us imagine that I had said to you, ‘Look, Ceri, isn’t it about time you stopped using psychology to explain everything?’ Let that take hold of you for a second.”

  To her credit, it appeared as if she might be doing just that.

  “Next,” I continued, “folklore and mythology are reality. A million years before the Viennese mama’s boy invented your so-called science, human beings told each other stories to explain—well, to explain everything. Myth is at the foundation of everything: art, literature, medicine, government—even psychology. In fact, the prime function of mythology is to reconcile the conscious with the unconscious mind. Of course, I paraphrase Joseph Campbell.”

  She folded her arms in front of her. “Of course you do.”

  “And finally, I will bet you anything you care to wager that in the end, some great strain or strand of mythology runs through this entire matter. Anything.”

  “It is tempting to take advantage of you in your obviously deluded condition.”

  “Money?” I suggested.

  “All right, if you insist, but not money,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. “If some major bit of mythology has important bearing on anything central to this situation, I will provide you with an entirely clean certificate of sanity, suitable for framing, that you can show to all and sundry, signed by me, a licensed and highly regarded psychiatric professional. You can show it to anyone who says you’re nuts.”

  “Thus completely invalidating your professional standing,” I goaded. “I like it.”

  “But if you lose,” she went on.

  “Which I will not.”

  “But if you do,” she insisted, “you will come with me to the Rhine Center and get a battery of tests that will prove to one and all that you are, in fact, a certifiable spook magnet, esquire.”

  I was, in spite of myself, greatly amused by her overwhelmingly jolly tone.

  “Do you ever take anything seriously?” I asked.

  “Try not to,” she told me, smiling her smile—not exactly the Mona Lisa, but still guarding secrets. “I don’t see the point.”

  I nodded. “Sometimes— sometimes I don’t either.”

  At that point we both became aware that the ambulance and squad cars were leaving. Their lights moved weirdly outside my windows, and the sound of the engines rumbled and then began to fade down the road. It seemed odd that neither of us had the impulse to go outside, check on Skid or Melissa, ask what was happening. But then, Dr. Nelson and I were obviously bone-tired and maybe a little in shock.

  When the lights and sounds of official vehicles were finally gone, so was the last of our stamina. We looked at each other, wordlessly calling it a day.

  “I think I’ll just— should I head upstairs? I can only assume that you— what? Slept down here last night? The guest room is in a bit of a shambles, but it always is. So.”

  “A second ago?” she said sweetly. “You called me by my first name.”

  “I did?”

  “You did,” she affirmed. “It was nice. Earlier you included me in your group of friends, and finally you’ve called me by my first name. We’re making real progress I think. Plus, yes, I’ve slept on your couch, so there’s that.”

  “I— I don’t think— I didn’t call you by your first name,” I stammered, actually taking a step away from her, “and let’s quit talking about where you’re sleeping.”

  “Because of the unacknowledged sexual tension between us, you mean?” She cocked her head slightly.

  “What?” I took a few clumsy steps toward the banister.

  She took off her rust-colored jacket and stretched. “Did it occur to you that I really want to go to sleep now and, since I’m actually a pretty good psychiatrist, I might have figured out that talking about sex was the quickest way of making you go upstairs so I could get some sack time?”

  “No,” I protested. “Because if you knew anything about me at all, you’d know that the quickest and simplest way to get me to go upstairs and let you get to sleep would have been to say, ‘Could you please go upstairs so I can get some sleep!’”

  She stopped moving for a second. “That would have been more direct—and probably would have worked better. Hm. I wonder why I said what I said. Well.” She gave me an earnest glance. “That one’s on me. Sorry. I’ll think about it. Good night.”

  “Christ,” I muttered, turning away from her and ascending the stairs.

  I could hear her shuffling the several quilts that were strewn about the living room. Then I heard her sigh, very contentedly, as I hit the top step.

  I didn’t bother to turn on the lights when I stepped into my room. It seemed like too much effort. I sat on the bed, eyes already closed, struggled with my boots and socks, wrestled myself out of my shirt and jeans, and fell back onto the pillow in no time at all. I drew the blankets and quilts to my chin, and was lifted, in a sudden dream, out of my bed by a giant swan, and into the open arms of the night.

  19

  I awoke in terror. I had no idea what time it was. The sky was black, the moon was hidden, the stars were gone, I couldn’t see, and there was a body in my bed with me.

  I twisted away from the embrace of its cold arms, fell hard on the floor, and tumbled toward the light switch.

  I leapt up and turned on the overhead light, momentarily blinded by the glare. After a second I could make out her naked form. My heart hammered in my chest so violently that it thundered and shook my entire frame.

  Issie sat up. She was pale as snow, her body a cadaver stuffed with crawling spiders. I could see them churning, boiling under her translucent skin.

  When my eyes cleared a bit, I realized that the skin was so pale I could see her blood veins—not spiders. Still, her nakedness revolted me beyond all reason, and I felt an immediate wrenching in the pit of my stomach.

  She reached out her arms, and her eyes were hollow.

  I couldn’t move. I tried.

  “Come back to our bed, my sweetheart,” she whispered. “Come back to our wedding bed, Mark.”

  I started to correct her, or to ask her why she kept calling me Mark, but I knew I was about to throw up, and my mind seemed to tear away at my skull, attempting to escape. I tried to tell myself that I was dreaming, or hallucinating. My back was against the door frame. I could feel the wood and the cold glass doorknob.

  She stood. I wanted to avert my eyes but I was ragingly horrified by what she might do if I looked away. I opened my mouth twice to speak, but no sound would come out. No air, try as I might, would force itself from my lungs. I realized I wasn’t breathing and that I might pass out.

  She took a step in my direction. “Mark? What’s the matter?”

  “No!” I growled, pointing my index finger at the center of her forehead. I thought it might make her disappear. It didn’t.

  But she did stop coming toward me. “What is it? Are you still angry with me? After all this time? How can that be?”

  She looked away, seemed to stumble or lose her balance, and sat back on the bed, her hands folded demurely in her lap.

  “I thought,” she said, sighing heavily, “that if I just let time go by, let the river of days wash away what happened, you would— you’d forgive me. I thought.”

  I just stared.

 
; “Tristan and me,” she said, even softer, looking down, “it wasn’t on purpose. It was a horrible accident. Horrible. But now it’s done and there’s nothing in this world to break the spell. I’m sorry. Is all I can say is: I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t sob or choke or change in any way, but tears began to eke slowly down her face, past her lips and chin, and onto her bare white thighs.

  “The water was harsh, Mark.” She began to wring her hands. “You know how it can get. The water was wild and high, and we were both like to die, we thought. I went to my things. I got the powders that my mother had given me. I was so sick, Mark, you don’t know. I got confused. I picked out the wrong ones, don’t you understand? I picked out the wrong powders—it was a mistake. I didn’t mean to do it!”

  Slowly her voice was rising again, the way it had in the cave, to a higher, hysterical pitch. I had an odd impulse to try to quiet her, and then realized that if we made enough noise, Dr. Nelson might wake up and come upstairs. I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to understand what I thought Dr. Nelson might do, exactly; maybe she would tell me I was hallucinating, maybe she would see the specter, too. I only knew that if she were there, I would be more stable.

  Just as I was about to call out for Dr. Nelson, Issie stood. I realized that if I did call out Dr. Nelson’s name, there was no telling what further madness Issie might visit upon the already incoherent moment. I was still trying to decide what to do when Issie continued her rant.

  “We took the powders,” she said, breathing strangely, “and they were a wonder. My body flushed and my mind gave way. I felt a pain I’d never known before, but it wasn’t in my body, it was in my spirit. My body was alive and miraculous, and every sensation was a revelation. The pain in my spirit was want, raw want, desire of the flesh so splendid and fine that no force on earth could stop it. No force on earth. I took the wrong powder, Mark. I didn’t take the medicine for sea distress. I took the love-philtre. Do you understand?”

  She asked the question with such force that I was compelled to answer, “No. I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”

  “I took the love-philtre,” she repeated, louder than before, “and I gave it to Tristan too. By the time we realized the mistake, it was too late, we were locked in each other’s embrace. Locked. There wasn’t a thing we could do, not a thing in this world. By the time we made land in Cornwall, it was done: we were for each other, mind, body, spirit. It’s a terrible burning, Mark. Few ever know it. There’s not a second of the day goes by that I don’t waste in blood-yearning. But I’m trying, now, don’t you understand, trying to be a good wife, like I was meant to do. Trying to be your wife in spite of the fate that’s spoiled us all.”

  My wits were slowly returning. My heart only bordered on attack, and my mind was beginning to be more than mere timpani and thunder. Presented with Issie’s delirium, my own madness seemed tame.

  I realized that if I just talked to her, perhaps stomping around loudly, or encouraging her to raise her voice, Dr. Nelson might awaken and come upstairs. That was the extent of my mind’s ability in those moments.

  “I think I understand a little,” I said guardedly. “You didn’t take the medicine for seasickness, you took some sort of aphrodisiac.”

  She didn’t seem to hear me.

  “I knew when we got to Cornwall I had to find you, but I had no idea what I would say. I stayed with you and the others there at the fairy stones, but all the while I was longing and burning to go back to him. Do you remember the little stream that ran close to the place you camped out?”

  It took a moment, but I did remember that I’d camped in a tent for a few days, or a week, close to the Crick Stone. There may have been a stream nearby. It would have made sense.

  “I sat by that stream every day,” she said longingly, “waiting for a sign from him. Whenever I wasn’t with the others, I’d sit and hope past hope. And when he thought he could see me, he’d float an apple bough down the stream. That was my sign. I could go to him then, and we could steal precious hours clutching and rending and rolling in desperation. It was a glorious pain. Glorious. And you never knew.”

  I took hold of the doorknob, as if to steady myself. “No. I never knew.”

  “You were too intent on your work. That was good. Good for you to do. And Tristan and me, we’d lie together in the apple orchard upstream, close to the hillocks and the roving sheep.”

  “Stop.” I pretended to lose my balance and stumbled, opening the bedroom door.

  She stood once again, and took a step my way. “Mark!”

  I held up my free hand, as if to tell her I didn’t want or need her assistance. “I’m all right.”

  I slammed the door hard, as hard as I could, but I looked at Issie. I looked her in the eye.

  “I think I understand,” I told her, doing my best to sound simultaneously hurt and noble. “It wasn’t your fault. It was the love potion. You came to Cornwall to be with me, but you mixed up the— wait.”

  My neck snapped around with such a sudden discovery that I actually did lose my balance then. I miscalculated where the wall was when I went to steady myself, and nearly toppled to the floor.

  Issie took another step in my direction. “Mark!” she cried, very loudly.

  “Wait!” I demanded. “Tristan, Mark, love potion, Cornwall—now I know your name!”

  And just at that moment, Dr. Nelson barreled through the bedroom door nearly knocking me over and breathing frantically.

  We stood, the three of us, for a moment like a surreal sideshow tableaux. Then, without a word of warning, Issie bolted. She shot to the window, tore it open, and leapt out, naked, down two stories, into the snowy moonlight.

  I ran to the window, Dr. Nelson close behind, and watched as Issie rolled in the snow, gathered herself up, and ran like a spirit-deer into the woods.

  Dr. Nelson and I stood, I don’t know how long, gaping out the window, the icy air blasting us.

  At length Dr. Nelson seemed to rouse herself and she closed the window. Then she turned to me and stuttered a few meaningless syllables before giving up and sitting down on the bed. Only then did I notice that she was fully clothed, the sturdy sweater, khaki pants, even her Russian-looking army boots.

  I suddenly felt very ill-at-ease in my boxers and T-shirt. I tried not to look at her while I fetched my jeans. As I was clumsily pulling them on, standing to one side of the bed, she finally mustered human speech.

  “What in the hell was that?” she demanded.

  I hopped and zipped and then skittered to the chair, swallowed, and tried to manage a facsimile of coherence.

  “I know who she is,” I began, trying to hold back the excitement at my revelation. “I know what that woman is. I mean, she actually was in this room just now, right?”

  “Fever,” Dr. Nelson exploded, “she was in your bed naked and then she jumped out a two-story window without being hurt and ran away—again, I say: naked—in the snow!”

  “So, she was here,” I said again.

  “Christ!”

  “Good.” I swallowed again. “Good. That means that what she told me, what I found out, what’s going on—it’s real. And it’s really, really great.”

  She shook her head at me, amazed. “Great?”

  “Wait until you hear this.” I was no longer able to contain my excitement. It was the same ecstasy I always felt when I made any great discovery in my research, as if I’d discovered treasure or some ancient, perfect secret. “Do you know who that woman is? Or, I mean, who she thinks she is?”

  “What are you talking about? What’s the matter with you?” She stood up. “We have to call the police.”

  “Yes,” I agreed happily, not moving, “but first I have to tell you who she is!”

  “Is there something wrong with you?” She looked into my eyes. “Did she hit you or— or do anything else?”

  “No. Please just sit down and listen to what I’ve just found out; what I’ve just put together. It’s so obvio
us. I would have gotten it long before now if I hadn’t been confused by the names.”

  “The names?” She squinted, entirely exasperated.

  “It’s the thing we both knew, the clear thing we were missing, about all of this. Do you want to hear it or not?”

  My unusual enthusiasm must have been a bit contagious, because she did, indeed, sit back down. She stared at me with a perfect mixture of concern and anticipation.

  I sipped in a breath, unable to keep from grinning. “Her name. Let’s start there. I know her name.”

  “We— we already know her name, Fever,” she said hesitantly.

  “Not really. Not her real name, her full name. God, this is amazing.” I nearly lifted off my chair with excitement.

  “What is it?” she asked breathlessly, leaning forward.

  “Her name,” I said slowly, “is Iseult—and she thinks she’s living the story of Tristan and Isolde!”

  20

  Dr. Nelson nodded. Then she breathed in through her nose, a sort of calming breath. Then she smiled and leaned toward me. Then she reached out her hand. I thought she might be about to take my hand and congratulate me on my brilliant scholarship. Alas, instead, she took my wrist between her thumb and two fingers and looked at her watch. She was taking my pulse.

  I started to speak, but she shushed me with such finality that I didn’t say a word. Then, satisfied with her reading of my vital signs, she placed the back of her hand on my forehead. After a second she looked deeply into my eyes.

  “Fever,” she said slowly, soothingly, “I’m going to ask you some questions now, and I want you to answer them right away, without thinking. Can you do that?”

  “Look,” I protested, “you don’t seem to understand what’s going on here.”

  “Fever,” she repeated in the same hypnotic tone, “I’m going to ask you some questions.”

  “Damn it, Ceri!” I said, standing up. “I’m not crazy. This woman is living in—in a fugue state, as you’ve said about me, apparently.”