He’d apologize sincerely and tell them he could not find a boatman to take them to the island tomorrow. Mr. Lucky would put the word out tonight; Terry would telephone Karen and make sure she knew. No more trips to the island.
They’d find a way, though. He ran a hand through his thinning hair, and plodded back to his resort on sand as white and fine as flour.
15
“Why didn’t you go with her?” Jemma asked. Karen had called, asking them both out to dinner. Alex declined.
“I felt bad about yesterday. I wanted to hang out with you.”
“I’m not going to be hanging out. I want to examine these pictures and do some writing.”
Alex sighed. “You could hang out.”
“I’m not here to enjoy the beach.”
Alex decided to push forward. He needed her to let him know he meant something to her.
“Can I check out the pictures with you?”
“Fine,” Jemma said.
The water sparkled in the sun, and everything smelled crisp and clean. Jemma turned and took the camera to her cabin.
Alex offered to open the windows since they didn’t have power in the stifling room, but Jemma declined. He suggested they go up to the restaurant, which had a nice cross breeze.
“It’s not dark enough for the pictures.”
They both sat on the bed, with plenty of space between them. Jemma set the camera down and pulled the memory card out. Alex gave her the three from the recorders as well.
Alex picked up the camera and water ran out of it. Fucking hell, what was he doing here, other than throwing the University of Oregon’s money away? If he didn’t need to replace the lenses, he could maybe replace the body of the camera for seven hundred bucks. While Jemma loaded the pictures on her laptop, he carefully took the whole thing apart and set the pieces out to dry. At least it wasn’t saltwater.
She turned the screen so they both could see. A lot of green and a lot of gray crowded the images. She paused on each image, scanning for anything out of the ordinary. Orbs were usually dust—though pouring rain would cut down on the dust particles. She didn’t use a flash, because the light reflecting off raindrops would create false orbs. It wasn’t cold enough and no one was smoking, so any ectoplasm pictures would most likely be real. No funnel-shaped vortices, no dark shadows. That Jemma potentially killed the expensive camera almost made him want to cry. The whole trip made him want to cry. He scrutinized the faux-thatched ceiling (real thatch work and air conditioning don’t go together) and heard Jemma suck in her breath.
“Right there,” she said. It took Alex a half second to register and shake off his melancholy.
Jemma jabbed a gloved finger at the screen.
“Look!”
Something moved through the rainy jungle, captured in white. That’s not a ghost. “Is that whoever’s living in the basement?”
Jemma blew the image up until it became grainy.
“I think it’s a ghost.”
Alex leaned in. “I don’t know. Looks solid to me.”
He could barely make out a white form in the shitty image. The curve of the hip and buttocks appeared feminine. Foliage blocked the head and face.
“I wonder what our mics will pick up.” Jemma frowned.
Alex racked his brain. He’d read a lot on the topic of paranormal investigation, and fancied himself pretty good at it.
“Could the woman on the island be doing something to the ghosts?”
Jemma thought for a moment. “Maybe.”
“We need to find her. Need to let her know we’re not going to hurt her. We just want to interview her.”
“I have to research this. Dammit, when will the power come on? Is there anywhere we can go with Internet and electricity?”
“Soon.”
Only twenty minutes.
Jemma stood up and paced. “I need to think on this. Thank you.”
Dismissing him. He wanted to ask if he could stay. He hesitated.
“Call Karen back. Go to dinner with her,” Jemma said. She pronounced Karen’s name like a racial slur.
Alex flip-flopped in his mind. He could do that. He could do just that. And would probably have a better afternoon for it. He chewed on his lip for a moment.
“I gotta talk to you,” he said.
“We’re not leaving.”
“No. We’re not leaving, not yet anyway. But I gotta…you’re acting jealous of Karen.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? You’re all over her. You can’t stop talking about her.”
“No, I—”
“Fine. It doesn’t matter. I have to figure out how the woman on the island is keeping ghosts.”
“Or maybe she sends them on.”
“Or whatever.”
“Listen to me a minute, okay?”
She sighed, a dramatic heave.
“You’re treating me like shit.”
“You can do whatever you want with your free time. You’re my research assistant.”
“I want to spend my free time with you.”
“Let’s not talk about this, okay?”
“No, not okay.”
“We can’t possibly be together. You know it. I know it. So go fuck another floozy.”
“I think we can, though.”
Jemma laughed. A harsh, brittle laugh. “I won’t put you through that. You’ve felt it. You can’t touch me.”
“I have a theory…”
“I know your theory.”
“I honestly think it would get better over time. You touch me, I get your pain, then I touch you, and you get it all…I think if we touched long enough, it would reach an equilibrium.”
“And you want to find out?”
“I’m willing to, yes. There’s no reason you should carry your burden alone.”
“Go be with someone you can touch.”
“I want to be with you.”
“No you don’t. You only think you do.”
“Don’t tell me I don’t know what I want. I make decisions for me.”
“And I make them for me. And I want nothing to do with this.”
“Don’t be crazy…I love you—”
“I have no idea why,” she spat, and tore off one of her gloves. She took three steps across the room and touched his face.
He had felt it before. All of Jemma’s pain flooded into him. She was a wobbly vessel…if she touched someone with more pain than she carried, she would take it on. Someone with less pain, her pain seeped away.
Memories flooded him. Self-loathing. How did she live with this darkness? He saw John’s face, remembered being stripped naked and tied to a table, raped and punched. Until she got a foot free. He lived the experience—not for the first time—as she kicked her husband in the face. And killed him.
Alex lived the energy pouring from Jemma—everything awful that John’s abuse bottled up in her sluiced from her and destroyed her tormenter.
She has to let it go.
He knew he was right even as the fear she’d endured for four days before he’d rescued her consumed him. He relived the humiliation as he saw her, bound and naked and emaciated on the table.
It became a loop as he touched her in the memory and learned the whole story from her body.
The initial shock of her memories passed and left him sensitive and disoriented.
“I’m sorry it happened to you,” he croaked. “But you have to move forward.”
“Move forward?”
“Touch me. Right now.”
They would pass it back and forth until it dissipated. He knew it.
“Get out.”
“Take my hand, Jemma. Hold it. Don’t let go.”
“Get out!”
He went. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Maybe he should have tackled her. Held her down and proved himself.
It wouldn’t mean anything if it didn’t come from her. If she didn’t want it.
So he left, huffing a sigh, feeling flayed, raw and bitter.
16
The afternoon sun baked through Terry’s light cotton shirt and linen trousers. Sweat pooled at the small of his back and inside his trousers. It was only Virginia. Nothing to be afraid of. Just his beloved wife. He’d had to wait a day, to make sure Mr. Lucky fed her, to make sure she wasn’t hungry when he came. He arrived at noon, when the sun shone strongest and the creatures of the night were at their weakest.
Maybe she’d be asleep, and it would be a wasted trip. Mr. Lucky was angry at him, the ghost hunters were furious, asking him why they couldn’t find a boatman. “The season is very busy,” he told them, but they didn’t buy it.
“Virginia,” he said, in barely a whisper.
Normal jungle sounds answered him. How long could he justify staying here before he headed back to the boat? Back to Vista Breeze, where he would drink himself into a stupor. He’d lock himself in his cabin, close the shades, and fantasize about what would happen to Virginia and El Nido if he packed up and left.
“Hello, lover.” Her voice was a liquid purr. It wasn’t even her voice anymore…that’s not what his Virginia sounded like. She’d been sixty when she came back to the island, when she came and never left, but the years melted away, and before him stood a woman in her twenties. He hadn’t even known her when she’d been so young.
He reminded himself this wasn’t her. Her true face was a horror.
She lingered in the shadows of the gazebo, avoiding direct sunlight. He stayed in it, let it blast him in the face. Maybe he would get cancer, he thought, willing it to be so. Any end would be better than this. He wished they’d realized that before Virginia made her choice.
The version of herself she presented wore clothes in a matronly cut. The thin material showcased her nipples, and tiny black panties through the skirt. She’d never had such a body, not even back before he met her.
If it’s not her, then why stay? he argued with himself. It is her, though.
“You send me an old woman?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“She was dying. I can tell. She was nothing. She was worse than nothing.”
“You’re going to be alone here for a while.”
“They have to come collect their machinery.” She pointed a long white finger toward one of the tripods. A blinking red LED greeted Terry’s gaze.
He glanced up as he spoke, and saw her lips droop into a frown. She changed, body and clothes, before his eyes. She melted into forty-year-old Virginia, Ginny at her most beautiful, before the cancer. The clothes thickened.
“What will I eat?” she asked.
“We need to wait a bit. A week, maybe. You can go a week without food.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t. You know it hurts when I’m hungry.”
“Dogs then. I’ll bring dogs.”
“You’d have me eat dogs?”
“What can I do?” He wanted nothing more than to hold her, but when he’d tried, he found her cold and hard and nothing like the woman he remembered.
“I can’t help it. I’m hungry. All these people here…” She pouted. “Feed me the ghost hunters. The woman smells delicious. She’s miserable.”
“They’re here to write a book about the island. About you. What you do.”
“You want them to kill me?”
Did they want to kill her? He didn’t think so; he didn’t know what they wanted. “What if she’s the one?”
“You want to leave me again?” She gazed at him with Ginny’s brown eyes. They almost melted his heart, but the whites were too yellow, and the rest too cloudy.
“You could rest.” It’s nearly impossible to kill an Aswang. But it could be done, the curse could easily be transferred to another. “Don’t you want to rest?”
“You can’t leave me,” she said. “You’d be alone. You’d hate it.”
“I would,” he said, and he meant it. He couldn’t imagine a final good-bye with Virginia, even after all they’d been through.
“I won’t leave you.” And he wouldn’t. He wiped sweat from his brow. “No more food for at least a week. You used to go a month or more.”
“I can’t,” she moaned. “You all smell so delicious. You intoxicate me. Your blood is warm.”
“You can.”
“You used to call me dear. Used to tell me you loved me.”
“I have to go.”
She took a step to the edge of the shadow, and held a hand up. The fingernails weren’t right…they were claws, yellowish and curled.
He turned so she wouldn’t see his tears and made his way back to Mr. Lucky’s boat. Could Jemma be convinced to take her place? Could Virginia be convinced? He imaged Alex making the same decision he’d made.
“I miss you,” she called behind him. “I’m lonely.”
He broke into a jog.
17
Alex rarely took his shirt off in public, aware most folks didn’t need to see his hairy, pasty, man boobs. But here the sun begged him to drink it in. His skin still tingled from the residue of Jemma’s touch. Every follicle of hair seemed to ache. The warm water helped.
Jemma sat on the beach, a black-clothed sulking ball. They’d spent the previous day going from boatman to boatman, asking for a ride to the island. Each man looked longingly at the wad of cash Alex offered and said no. Alex called Karen in the evening, and she coolly told him they sometimes take a day to fish for their families.
The barking motor of the Baby Roxanne shattered his enjoyment of the afternoon. Alex paddled in toward the shore. Jemma looked up, away from her book.
Mr. Lucky helped Terry into the knee-deep water, and he waded ashore.
Alex splashed over.
“Have you heard anything from the police?” he asked, then paused. Terry’s face was the color of cottage cheese. Red splotches stood out on his cheeks and the tip of his nose. His eyes were gray and watery.
“No.”
He gazed past Alex, at Jemma. Fixated on her for a moment. Then he moved away from Alex, and headed to shore.
“Why are you upset?” Alex asked.
“Please, I’m in a hurry.”
“I’ll walk with you. What’s up? Something upset you. Were you on the island?”
Terry stopped, wheeled around, and spat at Alex. “Please, leave me alone. This has been a most horrid day.” He wheeled around and resumed his splashing stride toward the resort.
“Does this have to do with your wife?”
Terry wheeled again. “If you ask me another question, you and your friend will find yourselves out on the street. Do you understand me?”
That sounded like a yes. Alex waved to Jemma. He needed her help.
Terry stormed past her, up to the bar.
“You have to touch him,” Alex said.
She stared at him for a moment.
“You must still be feeling pretty good from yesterday—”
“Fine. What do you hope to learn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will I hurt him?”
“No. He’s a mess. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it would help.”
Tears welled in Jemma’s eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her gloved hand.
“You’re sure?”
He was never sure. Could never be sure.
“I’m sure,” he said.
She nodded, and started up the stairs. She peeled her gloves off as she went, and handed them to him, one by one, and dropped them into his hands, careful not to let her pale skin touch his again.
Terry picked up a bottle of rum from the bar. His eyes were red.
“Not now. I can’t right now.”
Jemma turned to Alex. There wasn’t anyone else up here. Alex nodded to her.
He knew their skin brushing together could do it, but Jemma placed one hand on each of Terry’s cheeks. Both of their eyes widened, Jemma’s head flew back, and she began to moan, a lonely, agonized sound.
18
For a moment, Jemma felt her skin against Terry’s. Touch. Skin. Anoth
er human. Twice in three days. A new record.
Then pain racked her. Tore through her, lighting every nerve on fire. She took his pain as it slammed though her, touched all of her, wave after wave of blinding white agony. She knew what it felt like to be a piece of driftwood, slammed against the rocks. Intellectually she knew she could handle this. She’d not often touched people who hurt worse than she did. Usually she hurt them, like she had Alex. But sometimes it went this way.
She let go when she slumped to the floor. But she’d seen it all—Terry’s marriage, his wife’s cancer, and the bargain he’d made. She saw his guilt every day, and his questions about what to do.
Terry extended a hand to help her up.
“Don’t help her,” Alex said. Red tinged everything…a burst blood vessel in her eye?
“Her nose is bleeding,” Terry said. “What did she do?”
“She took your pain.”
“I know…I feel…lighter.”
“I need to get her to her room”—Terry reached for her hand again—“but we can’t touch her skin.”
Alex lifted her into a chair. “Here are your gloves, sweetie.”
He only talked to her like this when she lingered in this misty pain place, when she saw everything through gauze and haze and her body felt like she’d been used all over and in every pore.
She took the gloves. She had to put them on by herself. Unless she let him. He’d offered, after all.
She pulled them on.
“I need to lie down,” she whispered.
“Gotta drink something first.” Alex turned to Terry. “Orange juice? Something really sweet.”
She drifted away for a moment and woke as Alex shook her shoulder. His touch—through her shirt—was brief and hesitant. “Here, we’re almost done.” Could she really have touch all the time if she let him?
The horrible juice, warm, thick, syrupy, and painfully sweet, dribbled down her chin. Her shoulder, tender from the pain, throbbed where Alex had touched her.
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