The drive down the mountain would have been the happiest ride of my life, if not for the view. We snaked across slippery, white roads, and even with the truck’s high beams on, I could still see the fading stars in the dawn sky. But beneath them, dangling in the trees, were scores of human bodies. They swung from their necks or wrists or feet, fastened with dark red rope – rope that looked much like the dreamcatcher’s sinew. As they passed overhead on our downward crawl, I could barely make out their frozen faces, lifeless for years, maybe decades. Some of them were flayed or had missing body parts, and their black blood stained the trunks of the trees.
The ranger did not appear to notice, and so I kept my mouth shut. I’m not sure if these were the “spirits” Tíwé had spoken about, or if temporary insanity had poisoned my mind. Perhaps I’ll never know for sure, but as I watched them drift past, I imagined what might have happened if the ranger had showed up an hour later than he did. I imagined my own corpse swinging there, and my bones strung up in a fresh dreamcatcher nearby. The faces of those mangled corpses will haunt my nightmares until the day I die.
The ranger took me to an emergency room, where he vouched to the hospital staff that I’d had a brush with a wolf. They gave me injections and stitches and antibiotics, and eyed me suspiciously as we left.
Twenty-four hours later, I found myself at the airport. I had no luggage, only the promise that William would ship my possessions to me. Right before I got out of his truck, he muttered,
“Tíwé’s dead.”
Although I already knew it, the words eviscerated my heart. That pain was reflected in William’s face; he and Tíwé were dear friends and had known each other for decades.
“He got turned around in the blizzard,” William said, barely able to force the truth out of his own mouth. “They think…think a bear might’a got ‘im.”
None of the typical anxiety troubled me on the flight home. No nausea, no claustrophobia. Only the memory of Tíwé’s warmth, and of his unspeakable demise. The thoughts rotted me from within.
As I sat there with my head against the window, a constellation of possibilities presented itself in my mind. The Impostor gave Faye’s ring back to me. He wanted me to destroy the dreamcatcher – the totem – whatever it was. The ring was an object of great sentimental value, both to Faye and to my family. The creature used it to invade her mind and control her thoughts. To weaken our relationship. To make us suffer.
But for some reason, the Impostor hadn’t learned everything he needed to fully conquer Faye. So he gave up on that project and instead came after me. I believed that when the creature returned the ring to me, he gave up some of his influence over Faye – but he gained something else in exchange. By destroying the dreamcatcher, I gave him the keys to the cabin. I let him in. And when he came, his goal was to extract the meaning of the number five from me.
I’m not sure I’ll ever unravel the truth behind that number, but I believe that my ignorance might have saved Faye’s life. My ignorance, truly, is her bliss.
Walking into my home and seeing Faye light up nearly stopped my heart. An ineffable mixture of joy and sorrow overwhelmed me, and we wrapped each other up in a long hug – after which I endured a volley of angry slaps and kisses. I understood. She was furious that I’d spent so much time trying to take control of the situation, that I had treated her like a child and disregarded her feelings in my crusade to rescue her.
Tyler and Colin were delighted to leave our house and never look Faye in the eye again, although they did have some good news for me: she had not walked or talked in her sleep, or done anything out of the ordinary in a little under two days. This corresponded almost exactly with the moment when I had recovered the engagement ring. After an hour or so of reprimanding me for being an idiot, Faye forgave me, and we lay in bed together, holding each other in the silence of deep relief. At the end of the night, I took the ring out of my pocket and slid it onto her finger. The smile on her face soothed every bruise on my body and soul. The two little emeralds looking up at me sparkled, then disappeared behind tired eyelids. For the first time in what felt like forever, we slept without worry.
In the dead of night, Faye leaned over and kissed me in the dark, saying “Thank you for trying so hard for me.”
And then she licked my face.
PART IV
Chapter 32
A few weeks came and went. Summer was upon us, and with it, the warm winds of change. Faye got a better job, and by the grace of some merciful power I completed my Qualifying Examinations, which meant that I was no longer obligated to attend graduate seminars or work as a teaching assistant at the university. I now embarked upon the final stage of my program: to finish my research and write my dissertation. In two years, hopefully I’d “get hooded” and revel in the snobbish honor of adding three little letters to the end of my name: Ph.D.
Luckily, I had secured a few generous research grants which enabled me and Faye to move a few hours north for her new job. We rented a nice condo in suburbia, slightly bigger than our home back in Faculty Housing, and both of us were delighted to find that the nearest forest stood miles and miles away. If the Impostor wanted to come after us here, he’d have to learn how to imitate a lawn gnome.
Faye seemed to be in much higher spirits too. Her playful demeanor had returned, along with much of her sarcastic wit. She talked at great length again – something she hadn’t done in a month – and constantly engaged me in battles over everything and nothing. To me, her feistiness was the strongest indicator that this recovery was real. Best of all, that engagement ring never left her finger again. Our relationship remained alive, firmly clutched in Faye’s vice grip. If anyone wanted to destroy it, they’d have to pry it from her cold, dead hands.
Ranger Pike had kept his promise and returned my possessions to me. Chief among them was my laptop, which held years of my research, as well as a lifetime of precious photos and unpublished stories. He told me that when he and Nathan visited the cabin to retrieve my things, there were signs of forced entry: shattered windows, marks on the doors, and a knob broken off. However, nothing was missing. The pile of firewood out back had been restacked. He made no mention of a cellar.
In the box William had shipped, I found a little piece of paper with a phone number written on it. It was Nathan’s. I called it a few times, hoping to express my gratitude for his kindness and my anguish for his father’s death. For weeks, I never received a call back. Then one day, as Faye and I unpacked in our new condo, my phone buzzed.
To my relief, it was Nathan. I immediately babbled a salutation and a few questions, which he ignored. His voice came through grave and low, and he said,
“Felix, let me speak to the one who followed you home.”
I looked to Faye, who sat on the floor next to me in a pair of yoga pants, pulling books out of a box.
“Uhh…It’s for you, I think.”
Faye put the phone to her ear and said “Hello?” and then listened quietly for about a minute. I could hear Nathan speaking, but could not make out anything he said.
Suddenly, a volcano of black puke exploded from Faye’s mouth. It sprayed across the carpet in a cone before her, and sent me nearly jumping out of my skin. She doubled over onto the floor like a ragdoll, coughing and sputtering. I leaped to my feet, panicking and asking if she was alright. I picked up the phone and screamed at Nathan, demanding to know what he had said to her.
“I know how to purge a drain clog,” he said, chuckling.
“What did you do to her?!” I repeated, trying desperately to stave off the sympathy nausea that washed over me. My skin went clammy and tingly.
Faye staggered off to the bathroom to clean herself up. I fled to the backyard, shaking so hard I could barely command my muscles. Nathan spoke as I walked, but I barely picked up anything he said. The tunnel vision of fear protected me from all outside stimuli. My brain was trying to block the vomit out.
“You okay?” he asked. My mind settled enough to
process his words. “You’re out of breath.”
“I’m phobic,” I wheezed. “Can’t…stand it…son of a bitch.”
A cool breeze caressed my face. My lungs expanded. I could breathe again.
“We need to talk,” Nathan said. As my awareness of the world returned, I suddenly worried that he was about to blame me for his father’s death. How could I even begin to apologize?
“I…I wanted to…he was a good man,” I said, trying to string my thoughts together into coherent sentences. “I’m so sorry.”
Nathan was silent for a moment, then replied, “Yeah. I know.”
“Do we know how it happened?”
I felt awful for asking, but some part of me had to know. Maybe he got lost and died of hypothermia. Maybe he fell and hurt himself. Maybe it was quick. My heart ached for a death other than the one my brain imagined; I couldn’t bear the thought of gentle Tíwé meeting his end in the claws of the Impostor.
“He went off the road,” Nathan said. “Up into the woods. Police think he was trying to avoid some of the snow collapses. They can push you off the cliff if they’re big enough. Or bury you.” His voice seemed incredulous, like he thought the idea was stupid.
“But you don’t believe that,” I guessed.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” he said, seemingly pondering another explanation. “A few days before, I was out hiking with friends, and I heard a voice in the woods. I’m the type to ignore those things, because of what I believe. But my dad…he was the kind of guy who saw the good in everything. If he heard a voice, he’d probably think it was someone in trouble. He’d go try to help them.
“They found him at the mouth of a cave. Something dragged him in, but he crawled back out. He died without his clothes.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed, leaning against the side of the house. “I’m so sorry, Nathan. He was on his way back from visiting me.”
“The body was mutilated,” Nathan stammered. “Someone took his skin and hair…took his teeth.” He broke down and cried. I did too.
“I just want you to know,” I said, trying to come up with anything that might dull his pain, “your dad saved my life that day. He pulled me back inside. I would have frozen to death if he hadn’t been there.”
Nathan seemed to take heart from my words. He calmed down a bit. His voice became firm and resolute.
“Pay it forward,” he said. “That’s the proper way to honor him.”
I looked through the screen door at Faye, who now
scrubbed the carpet with frantic devotion.
“I will,” I replied. “I promise.”
Nathan and I spoke a little longer. I watched the clouds drift overhead and disappear behind the house as he talked. He told me that he’d met up with his best friend’s grandfather, a man who still believed the old stories of their tribe, and learned a bit more about the At’an-A’anotogkua. Allegedly, the creatures hunt and kill at random, salvaging the human and animal parts they need to walk the earth as mortals for a short time – but their real pleasure derives from conquering a person from within. They become fascinated with certain people, and harbor special intentions for them. Faye seemed to be one of the unlucky few who are “chosen” in this way, and this Impostor’s fixation upon her had probably festered for decades. After long enough, the continued presence of such a creature in the mind of a victim leaves a stain on the soul. This corruption necessitates a purge – hence the barf-party Nathan had just thrown for us. I prayed that the carpet stain was easier to banish than the creature, or else Faye would probably fly Nathan out here and force him to clean it himself.
“What did you say to her, anyway?” I asked.
“I just mentioned your famous tacos,” he replied.
Chapter 33
Faye and I christened the new condo with our favorite tradition: we grabbed milkshakes from a nearby burger stand and held a movie marathon on the couch, awash in a sea of blankets. Instead of the usual horror films, we lined up a stack of mindless comedies, including Faye’s all-time favorite: Grandma’s Boy. About halfway through it, she got up to get a drink from the kitchen. On the way, she paused at the horrid gray stain on the carpet.
“It kind of looks like a person,” she said.
She was right. The mark was about two feet long and looked a bit like a man with gnarled limbs and crooked shoulders. One arm reached up above his head, and twiggish fingers branched from his hands.
“I’ll rent one of those carpet cleaning machines from the grocery store,” I said, sucking down the last bit of my milkshake.
I stopped counting the nights since Faye had last walked or talked in her sleep. It had been a little more than three weeks, one of which we’d spent in our new place, and a feeling of cautious relief was finally settling over my mind. A few nights after the movie marathon, I rolled over in bed to put my hand on Faye’s back. The second I touched the cold sheets, a thousand horrible thoughts rushed through my head. Faye hadn’t made a peep since everything had settled down, so my brain immediately interpreted her absence as a sign that our visitor had returned.
I found her downstairs. She sat there in the dark, spine straight and neck craned to the side, facing the stairwell. Her eyes were closed. She ran her fingers across the stain on the carpet before her, whispering to it and giggling. I raced over and threw the light on. As I flipped the switch, Faye mumbled with a big grin on her face,
“How could I forget?”
She winced and threw her hands over her eyes, shielding herself from the light. When she came to, she looked around in confusion and then glared at me, as though she’d been woken from an unusually good dream. I asked if she remembered who she’d been talking to, but she shook her head and yawned.
I helped her to her feet. As we made our way up the stairs, Faye suddenly vomited again – this time all over the banister wall. My skeleton nearly leaped out of my mouth and bolted from the scene, but I somehow maintained my composure and got Faye to the bathroom. By the time we arrived at the toilet, she had nothing left to give. She climbed into bed, claiming she just needed to sleep.
For an emetophobe, cleaning up vomit is a diabolical form of punishment. I spent almost a half-hour scrubbing the wall, gagging all the while, scarcely able to still my rattling hands. But after a time, something distracted me from the horrid stench: this stain had an unusual shape that reminded me of a Rorschach test. From the angle at which Faye projected her dinner, the dark splotch ran across the wall diagonally, stretching nearly five feet. Like the mark on the living room carpet, this one also had the shape of a man – only this time, he was climbing or gliding through the air. His long, clawed fingers dangled out in front of him as though he could walk on them.
I had to take a boiling-hot shower to get the stink off my body, and by the time I crawled into bed, Faye was sleeping peacefully.
“Please don’t do this again,” I said, gliding my fingers across the small of her back. “I don’t know if I can deal with it anymore.”
Sleep never came that night.
I was awake when Faye climbed out of bed and wandered into the bathroom. I rolled over and buried my face in the pillows, shielding my eyes from the blinding light that outlined the door. She remained in there for a long time; I figured she was still feeling nauseous. Faye was usually sensitive to my phobia, and if she could help it, she’d sequester herself far away from me so as not to freak me out when she got sick. At this point, however, I wasn’t sure why she’d even bother.
The light flicked off after a while, and the door creaked open. I waited for the feeling of her getting back into bed, but it never came. Finally, I rolled over and scanned the room. A strange form emerged from the bathroom, crossing into the peripheral of my blurry vision. It was Faye, standing there in the shadows so rigid and still I could have mistaken her for a department store mannequin. Her entire body was tree-stiff, with her head craned all the way back in a painful position. Her chin p
ointed straight up at the ceiling, and her arms stuck high in the air in a “hallelujah” gesture.
“…Faye?” I whispered.
She shushed me and wiggled her fingers, arms still outstretched. The contortion of her body reminded me of a
praying mantis in repose.
“What is it?” I asked, watching as her head swayed back and forth. She was looking up at something I couldn’t see.
After a moment, Faye looked down at me with closed eyes and replied, “Did you know about her?” She balled her fists, leaving only one finger pointing upward.
“What?”
“There’s an old woman up there,” she whispered. A girlish smile grew across her face. “She lives in the attic. So friendly…She remembered my birthday!”
My skin crawled; it felt like a bed of worms writhed under the sheets with me. Before I could respond, Faye added, “She sleeps right above our bed.”
Faye brought her arms down to her sides and her muscles relaxed. She stopped talking and wobbled toward the hallway. I intercepted her and gently tucked her back into bed.
For a long time I lay awake in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. I imagined the corpse of an old woman stuck up inside the drywall or dangling from the rafters in the attic. I couldn’t shake the feeling that our unwanted guest had moved in with us, and was now pretending to be a friendly stranger to trick Faye. My imagination conjured a dark stain that spread itself out across the ceiling in the shape of a large man, just like the ones in the other parts of the house. And the longer I dwelled on it, the more I thought I heard something dragging itself around up there.
A man can only stare at the shadows for so long before they drive him insane. I shuffled around the house, trying to shake the heavy feeling of doom that weighed on my mind. I peeked through each window, trying to ensure that no strange visitors waited outside in the dark. All the ghastly memories of recent events flickered in my head on repeat. They lulled me into a hypnotic state that felt at once soothing and revolting. It was a strange feeling, like the calm of a soldier marching into a hopeless battle. Without even realizing what I was doing, I moved to a window, reached out my hand, and drew a backward ‘5.’
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