White Horse

by Alex Adams

  What do I have?

  A great view with a direct line of sight into Morris’s office; all the clothes I can carry; toiletries, food, water, and bedding; an extra-bad attitude that starts somewhere behind my eyes and reaches out so far even my toes feel wracked with ill will. I want to hurt something, break it, control it until destruction is inevitable.

  The wall yields easily beneath the toe of my boot. Only about twenty good kicks before it punches right through the Sheetrock. A pile of crumbles amasses on the synthetic beige pile, like Pop Rocks half pulverized by a brick. Guilt is a serial killer, stabbing me for losing control of my anger, then choking me for being foolish enough to think: To whom do I send the check for the damage?

  Nausea washes over me, using me like I’m the shore of a long-abandoned beach. Once again I’m on my knees, praying to the gods of cheap carpeting.

  Please let death be swift.

  DATE: NOW

  Shadows stretch across the cobbled path, from east to west. The sun is still new in the sky and hasn’t yet gained her confidence. From room to room I wander without pausing to contemplate the relics of the dead. There’s a stillness in the air that tickles my intuition, telling me I’m alone, so I put it to the test and establish that my instincts are sharp and true: Irini, the Medusa of Delphi, isn’t here. There was a time when this wouldn’t have bothered me, but that was before. I’m calm. Honest. The museum’s expansive windows tell me so. The bouncing pulse in my throat is the lie. A fabrication concocted by my hormones and fears for the sole purpose of feeding my paranoia.

  The steps are empty. So is the path as far as I can see. Only Esmeralda is there, and she’s busying herself with grasses and the other things donkeys deem important. Her calm state presses a cool hand on my forehead and tells me to chill. My ears listen. My brain processes the message. My pulse continues to thump, regardless.

  We walked up there yesterday, Irini and I, just far enough for her to point out the areas of interest: the stadium, Apollo’s temple, the tholos—a circular structure with three of its original twenty Doric columns still standing—but we didn’t move close enough to do more than admire the passage of time from a distance.

  I’m trapped in a déjà vu loop. Only the scenery changes, but the dangers and the accompanying reactions are the same. Something is following me, someone disappears, and I chase after them, only to be too late to help. In truth, there’s nothing to suggest Irini is in trouble. There are no signs of a struggle, and if she’d called out, I’d have heard her. But my intuition whispers its brand of poison, and I listen.

  The ruins are tall and proud and blond in the morning glare. A noise trickles between the rocks and spills into the sunshine. At first I think it’s Irini talking to herself, but it soon separates into two distinct voices: Irini’s hesitant lilt and another, thicker, harsher, struggling against itself.

  Go. Stay. Go. Stay. I do my own internal dance. Then the decision is made for me.

  “Come. I know you are there,” says the thickened tongue.

  I move as if in a dream.

  “Closer. I want to see you.”

  Around a corner. Along the Sacred Way until I see the Polygonal Wall. Then I stop, because there’s a rock jutting up from the path and my mind is trying to make some kind of sense out of what it’s seeing. Yes, it’s a strange, pale rock, but with a human center. Arms and legs spring forth from the boulder’s core, hang there like laundry in the sun. These useless limbs are topped by a woman’s head, her hair piled high in a loose bun, her eyes keen as if she knows all. A vine creeps up to her middle, spreads itself around her like a thick green belt. She’s older than Irini, but their eyes are the same shade of nut brown and their noses hold the same curve.

  Jenny lying inert on the sidewalk, a red circle marring her forehead. The hole in my soul widens another inch.

  “It is true,” she says in hesitant English. “You are carrying a child.”

  My hands move to cover my belly. “Yes.”

  “Come here.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t trust?”

  “Almost never. Not now.”

  She nods. “Why did you come up here?”

  “To find Irini.”

  “And what would you have done had she been in danger? Would you have risked your life and that of your unborn child to save her?”

  “My child has been at risk since the beginning.”

  “Irini tells me you are looking for your husband.”

  I don’t correct her. “Yes.”

  “You have traveled across the world, all the way from America, to find this man?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many women would do such a thing? If our world was not dead, they would write poetry about you—long, gamboling stories filled with half-truths, all of them predicated on one solid fact: you are a hero.”

  “Heroes die.”

  “We all die. Heroes die gloriously, for things bigger than themselves.” She glances at Irini. “Water, please.”

  Irini lifts a bottle to the woman’s lips and tips slowly. They’ve done this before, perfected the art.

  “What happened?” I ask. “Can we get you out of there? There have to be tools somewhere near.”

  Her laugh is more wheeze than mirth. “It is not rock. It is bone.”

  Shock steals my words. My cheeks pinken with embarrassment.

  “I was sick before with a disease that was turning my body to stone, as they say. The tissues, the bones, all of them stiff and fused. But it was slow. Then the disease came and my own skeleton began to consume me.” Another wheeze. “My sister became Medusa and I became part of the landscape.”

  “Why here? Why not stay closer to the shelter?”

  “I like the view. It makes me believe I am free.”

  The whole world has become a house of horrors. Women made of snakes and bone, men with tails, primordial beings who feed on human flesh. Those of us who survived are clinging to the edge of the soup bowl, trying to find a spoon to ride to safety.

  “I have to keep moving,” I tell them. “I have to find Nick if he’s still alive.”

  “He lives,” says the rock woman.

  “How—”

  Irini bows her head. “My sister has the sight. She knows many things. She is the sibyl, the oracle of Delphi where there hasn’t been such a thing for centuries.”

  “Hush, Sister. The gods have been cruel enough. Do not give them reason to take more from you.”

  “What more can they take?” she asks simply.

  “You still live, do you not?”

  “This is not a life,” Irini snaps. Immediately she dips her head in contrition. “I’m sorry. I did not think.”

  The woman of the rock looks straight at me. “Take her with you. I implore you.”

  Irini’s head jerks up. “No.”

  “Go with her.”

  “I have to stay with you, Sister. Who will feed you, bring you water?”

  “My time is short. You will go with the American, deliver the child into this broken world. Maybe some good will come of her birth. Everyone needs a purpose. This is yours.”

  The screaming wakes me on the third morning. Holding my belly, I race up to where Irini is standing, her face melted in horror. My brain processes the scene like an investigator, in explicit, full-color snapshots. The rock woman’s head dangles at an unnatural angle, her useless limbs hacked off and used to form the letters I and N in one single word painted on the ground in scarlet letters.

  ABOMINATION.

  My mind flips through the searing photographs with gathering speed.

  “We have to go. Now.”

  Irini doesn’t argue. With methodical detachment, she gathers her things and stacks them neatly in a sleepover bag. It’s high-quality leather, the kind that improves as it is passed down through the generations. Within minutes we’re moving on with Esmeralda in tow.

  There’s a hole in my soul and it’s filled with the dead.

&n
bsp; “Not a ghost.”

  “No.”

  “Who, then?”

  I know what she wants: some explanation so she can make sense of her sister’s death. But all I have is an improbable story that sounds like a lie. I give her the bones, then the story’s meat. My tongue lifts my mind’s petticoat and skirts and displays my regret: that I didn’t double-, triple-check that the Swiss was dead.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Why what?”

  “Why you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You must.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then why chase?”

  Why do crazy people do anything? Why did I sprint across the world to find one man?

  “I don’t know.”

  DATE: THEN

  I leave a note in the box, place it outside the front door. When Morris comes, she reads it moving her lips.

  “Crackers and Twinkies?”

  “Everything else makes me sick,” I mouth through the glass door.

  She shrugs, scratches her nose. “Okay.” She disappears across the street with the box. We’ve been doing this for a week now: I leave the box out front, she returns with supplies within minutes.

  Only, this time the minutes drag by slow enough that I have to run to the ground-floor bathroom twice to throw up. She comes back empty-handed.

  “Where’s my box?”

  “C’mon. Doctor wants to see you.”

  “I’m in quarantine.”

  “He doesn’t care.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Reluctantly, I open the door, step out onto the sidewalk, maintaining a distance between us. Our boots echo down the hall once we enter the old school. Hers clip along cheerfully while mine drag all my baggage behind them.

  Joe is in the infirmary waiting on us, blowing into a latex glove. He holds it to his head and grins. “I’m a rooster. How long has Nick been gone?”

  Morris glances at me. “Six weeks.”

  “Six weeks, two days, six hours. Give or take.”

  She raises an eyebrow, scratches her nose.

  He pulls open a drawer, rifles around, tosses a box to me. I stare unblinking at the packaging.

  “When was your last period?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Morris scoffs. “All this stress, who bleeds anymore?”

  “Did you use protection?”

  My cheeks flush. “Mostly.”

  “Well, then it mostly worked,” Joe says with a brightness that makes my retinas burn.

  Although the box is light in my hands, the gravity of the situation elevates it to the weight of a brick. I can’t be pregnant. I wanted children, yes, but not like this. Not now.

  Joe ties a knot in the glove. “Go pee on the stick.”

  Morris steers me out of the room. Numb, I allow her to propel me to the bathrooms. I pee on the stick while she paces. Two pink lines slowly form in the white window.

  “How many lines?” Morris asks.

  “Two.”

  There’s a hoot of laughter.

  “I’m glad one of us finds this funny.”

  “‘I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ babies,’” she screeches.

  Joe grins when we walk in. “Looks like your death sentence has been reduced to life imprisonment.” He throws me a bottle. The irony of the rattling container is not lost on me. “Prenatal vitamins.”

  Like all bad ideas, this one is born in the middle of a sleepless night when my mind has inevitably turned to a channel where I’m a child again. I’ve flipped through the other pages of my life already tonight: the regrets, the embarrassing moments that still manage to color a grown woman’s cheeks; all those choices made and opportunities that languished while I wandered down life’s side streets. Then I’m seven, six, five, four, three years old, dragging Feeney, my toy monkey, along behind me in a cherry-red cart. An invisible finger yanks one of my heartstrings and holds it taut until I’m aching to see the monkey again. The sensation of longing evolves in a painful fantasy where I’m holding Nick’s hand, watching our child toddling ahead of us with Feeney tucked under his or her arm.

  When I wake, my pillow is wet.

  At breakfast I tell Morris about Feeney.

  “I’m coming with you,” she says.

  “Huh?”

  “You’re planning on going back to your folks’ place, right?”

  She knows me too well. “You got me.”

  “Coffee first. Then we’ll rustle up some bicycles.”

  An hour later, we’re peddling through the badlands. Out in the burbs, the grasses grow wild, concealing the curbs, defiantly shooting pollens into the crisp air. They seem to know they’ll never see another lawn mower, never have their stems whacked ever again. There are signs everywhere that nature has seized control. Vines race up the brick veneers, competing for the highest gutters. They grab saplings in choke holds and wrestle them for precious sunlight. Our tires roll along parched blacktop that’s become cracked and warped enough for green sprouts to poke their heads through. Nature is having her wild way with the land—a party to end all parties.

  My mind plays a cruel game, stripping away these new adornments, giving me furtive glimpses of how it used to be. I used to ride these streets when they were cared for by people who had no idea how soon the end was coming. The lawns were once neatly manicured, the flower beds free of weeds, and the houses didn’t peel. There’s no longer the soft tsk-tsk-tsk of sprinklers accompanying the birds and bugs. Now my old neighborhood is a strange new world where the curtains twitch and things creep. I have my gun. I have bullets. Or rounds. Whatever they call them. I’m not a gun person. All I know—and need to know—is how to load and pull the trigger.

  The last time I cruised these streets, I was driving Jenny’s car. That was the last time I saw my parents alive. Maybe they still are. Hope fills me like helium and I pedal faster, hoping to get there before some big prick bursts the bubble.

  It’s like old times almost, me coasting to a stop, throwing my bicycle onto the lawn, but this time I don’t run to the front door. Morris stops, butt on the seat, feet on the ground. She lets her bicycle down easy next to mine, draws her weapon.

  I came prepared: I have keys.

  The smell comes up and backhands me across the face. I stumble backwards into my friend.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” she says. “You never get used to that smell. You okay?”

  I give her a look.

  “Didn’t think so.” Her voice takes on a soft, gentle sheen. “We’ll go slow, okay? Where’s the monkey?”

  I’m holding my nose, trying to not to breathe, trying not to think about how this smell is probably what’s left of my parents. Morris pats me on the back.

  “I’m okay. He’ll be in the attic. They kept all our toys up there in boxes.”

  The air is stale and the silence deafening. Growing up with electricity, I never appreciated how much noise it made. Everything is the same. The den is neat, although the cabbage rose couch is cultivating a layer of dust. The kitchen is clean, the dishes put away, the sink empty. The beds are made and somehow the bathrooms are mildew-free. Mom cleaned before—

  “Up there.” I point at the trapdoor in the hall ceiling, its synthetic rope dangling low enough for me to grab. We climb deeper into the gloom. Sun leaks in through the tiny grimy windows. Dust flecks aimlessly ride the beams.

  Morris coughs.

  My whole childhood is up here, packed in boxes bearing labels in my mother’s tidy hand. One side belongs to Jenny, the other to me. Easier to sort that way, Mom used to say, when we had our own children.

  My eyes heat up. Tears make threats. So I fake a cough to chase them away.

  “I wish I could take everything,” I say.

  Morris gives me a wry smile. “You’d need a moving truck.”

  She’s right. These boxes are stacked in minor mountains.

  “Maybe someday,” she says.

&nb
sp; “Maybe.”

  We get to work. I don’t linger over old photos. I barely recognize the happy people depicted in the quilted albums. They belong to a time I’m not entirely convinced ever existed. Maybe the past is all a fairy tale we tell ourselves over and over until we believe it’s true.

  I find Feeney crammed into a box with other old toys and claim him for my child.

  On the way out, I use the bathroom. Stare at the trapdoor in the floor.

  It’s locked.

  I wonder which of the neighbors was left standing long enough to slide the bolt home.

  Morris sneezes. “Allergies.”

  It’s not allergies. Morris knows it and I know it. But neither of us wants to jump to the right conclusion. We’re walking down the hall at the school when she paints the floor in two of three primary colors.

  She pulls out her pistol, shoves the end into her mouth, and bang! Just like that. Her skull shatters. Brains splash. The wall is Morris-colored on institutional beige. And that damn jingle keeps dancing around my head: How many licks to the center of a Tootsie Pop? Cleanup in aisle five, Dr. Lecter. Don’t forget to bring a nice Chianti and those fava beans. And a spoon. You’re gonna need a spoon because this is one sloppy mess and a fork isn’t going to cut it.

  The voices are distant, miles away at the end of a long dark tunnel. But they’re getting nearer. Closer. Closer. Closer. Until they’re right in my face, shouting at me, trying to pull me away from Tara Morris. That’s when I realize I’m kneeling, holding her in my arms, trying to scoop up her brains and shove them back into her head. A rerun of Jenny’s murder.

  “Don’t touch me!” I scream, but their hands keep tugging until I’m forced to let her go. A sob blocks my throat, reducing my voice to an animalistic whimper. “No. No.”

  Then something inside me snaps into two pieces—maybe my mind compartmentalizing, stowing away the grief and horror in a steel vault until I can gain perspective and cope. Suddenly I’m looking down on the scene, not dispassionately, but through a cool veil. Separate. Other. Not part of this. Not part of this at all.

  “Let’s clean her up,” I say.