Blood Will Out

by Jo Treggiari

  “You hurt your head, honey. It’s no wonder you’re confused,” her mother had said in the car on the way home. “And the horror of driving that truck! It’s no wonder you’re traumatized. Give it time and let us look after you.”

  “You’re safe now,” her dad said firmly, as if by saying so he made it true. “Just take it as easy as you can.”

  Ari had just stared at her black-stained fingertips. The last thing they’d done at the police station was take her prints. “So we can eliminate you from the investigation,” Officer Tremblay had said. Eliminate me like Sourmash tried to. Make me cease to be.

  There was so much she couldn’t remember. She felt like she was standing on an ice floe in the middle of the ocean. How had she gotten from the library to Sourmash’s cistern? Why would she go anywhere with him? It didn’t make sense. She was missing some fundamental piece of information. Something was deeply wrong. It just was.

  She needed Lynn’s strength and help. The methodical way she always attacked problems. She would believe Ari, and together they’d figure it out.

  “Does Lynn know what happened to me?” she’d asked when they had arrived back at the house.

  “I talked to her mother but Lynn was out. I’m sure she knows now,” her mother had replied.

  “Why isn’t she here?”

  “We asked people to give you room. A little quiet today. Time to heal.”

  “Lynn is not people. She’s my best friend. I need her.” Ari’s voice cracked. Her head was spinning.

  “She can come tomorrow,” her dad had said. “We’re sorry, Ari, but the doctor recommended a peaceful environment. We have to keep a close eye on you for the next twenty-four hours.”

  Her mom knocked on the door and stuck her head in. Ari jumped, hitting her head on the window frame.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, worry quirking her eyebrows. “I thought you were going to soak in the tub. I ran it for you. Nice and hot. It’s full now.”

  Ari looked down at her hands. They lay limply in her lap like dead fish. Right. She’d come upstairs to take a bath. Somewhere along the way she’d spaced out again.

  Ari focused on her breathing. She imagined she was on her back in the water looking up at the shimmer of lights high above, everything around her made of cool blue. Quiet.

  Her mother’s voice brought her into the present. “Honey. Please.” Her attempt at a smile was ghastly. It didn’t jibe with the deep grooves in her forehead and the purple bruising under her eyes.

  “Go soak in the tub. I’m making real macaroni and cheese for dinner. With extra cheese. And we’ll eat early.”

  Ari couldn’t bear her mother’s stricken expression. She forced a smile. The longer she allowed it to remain in place, the less fragile it seemed. She took a deep breath. “My favorite,” she said. Her mom smiled in response as she eased the door shut, and Ari felt as if she’d really accomplished something. Something normal.

  She stood up, stripped her clothes off and kicked them into a heap in the corner of the floor. Her worn terry cloth robe was rough under her scraped-up fingertips and heavy on her strained muscles. She felt unclean, like she’d been touched by something perverse, as if everything bad had forced itself under her skin and now rotted there. Who knew what Sourmash had done to her while she was lying at the bottom of the well? He could have climbed down. He hadn’t raped her but he had put his hands on her. She remembered them now, reaching for her as she dodged around his truck—broad and hairy, muscular with sinew. And then sheathed in black gloves, pushing her into the well as she plummeted, screaming. The two images shuddered in her brain as if she were seeing with doubled vision. She couldn’t just sit in the bath, she needed a shower first, hot enough to scour a few layers of skin off.

  The bathroom was steamy. The mirror fogged. She was glad of that. She knew she’d look different, changed at some deeply personal level, and she wanted to fool herself for a little while longer. Keeping her bandaged head clear, she stood under the shower with the dial cranked all the way around until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Then she climbed into the bath.

  Slowly her taut muscles relaxed. She added more hot water over and over again and stayed in long after the water had cooled down, her toes wrinkled, unidentifiable bits of scummy stuff floating on the surface. It wasn’t until she stood up, muscles like strings, that she realized she’d completely forgotten to use any soap. Tomorrow she would clean herself properly. She’d change the gooey bandage on her head. Tomorrow was another day. When she finally got out of the tub, there was a thick ring of gray sludge left on the porcelain. She lacked the energy to do anything about it but she was certain she’d get a pass.

  She heard the phone ringing and froze, hoping that it was Lynn and she’d hear her mother calling up to her, but there was nothing.

  “Brick by brick, Ari,” she told herself.

  She slipped on the robe again, tying it tight as if it could keep her from falling to pieces, and went downstairs holding on to the banister like an invalid. She made a detour into the hall and picked up the phone. At first she couldn’t remember Lynn’s cell phone number. She was so used to just pushing the “1” button. She focused and entered the digits. The call went straight through to voicemail. Either the battery was dead or Lynn had turned off her phone. She did that sometimes—declared she was going to be a Luddite and give up electronics.

  Ari couldn’t verbalize a message. How could she sum up all that had happened in one snappy voicemail? Instead she just said, “It’s me, Ari.” She didn’t care what the doctor or her parents said; she needed Lynn. Lynn would bring her back to normalcy. Lynn was all the good stuff in her life.

  Her parents sat stiffly at the table. She looked at the wall clock. It was barely 4:00 p.m. She wanted to get into her bed but she was scared of night falling, terrified of waking up in the middle of it. The darkness would transport her directly to the well.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I took too long.”

  “No worries,” her dad said, pulling her chair out for her and awkwardly patting her arm. Her dad wasn’t a touchy-feely kind of a guy except for special occasions—birthdays and holidays—but ever since the hospital he’d continually reached out for her, as if he were reassuring himself that she was still there. Ari didn’t know if she was there. It felt as though some part of her had been left back in the cistern and the cabin. Her sense of self was shattered, leaving just a shell.

  “Perfect timing,” her mother said, sounding like she was talking to a guest. Ari wondered how long they’d been sitting at the table waiting for her, heads turned toward the ceiling, listening to the water running.

  The big casserole of macaroni and cheese was covered with a glass lid. Condensation had formed on the inside, and when her mother served, she shoveled out congealed wedges of glued-together pasta. Clearly the food had been ready half an hour ago.

  “Who was on the phone?” Ari asked. “Was it Captain Rourke? Did they find Stroud?”

  Her mother froze in the middle of serving and exchanged a glance with her dad, who carefully unfolded his napkin, clearly stalling for time.

  “No, it was Carl from work,” her father said.

  “The police may not need to talk to you again, Ari,” her mother said.

  Ari’s mouth fell open. “But I might remember something else. And Captain Rourke said he’d let us know when they find Stroud and what’s going on with Rocky.”

  “There’s been no time for anything new in the investigation.”

  “Try not to think about it anymore,” her dad said. “Let the police do their job.”

  She stared at him. How was that even possible? “Not think about it?” She knew she was shouting but she couldn’t help herself. “I want to know. I need to know. Everything. So I can understand what happened to me.”

  She stabbed at her macaroni with her fork.

  Her mother’s voice gentled. “Some things don’t make sense no matter how hard you try. They just don’t.”

&
nbsp; Ari’s mouth was dry. She swallowed a gulp of water and spluttered as it went down the wrong way. Her father leaned over and rubbed her shoulders.

  “I can’t just be a victim. I can’t let Sourmash do that to me.”

  “You’re not a victim. You’re strong, so strong. You saved yourself, Ari,” her dad said, putting his water glass down forcefully.

  Ari hung her head. That was the thing. She felt like it was her fault. As if she had asked for it. What was it about her that screamed victim? Was it a weakness that predators could sense?

  “Okay, Ari?” her mother said, sliding the salad bowl across to her. Her expression was pleading.

  Ari nodded, not wanting to upset her any further.

  As her parents tried to change the subject, she listened to the buzz of mundane conversation without really paying attention. This was how normal people dealt with trauma, but Ari was beginning to think she would never be normal again. By moving her food around and forcing down a few more tiny mouthfuls she made enough of a dent in the huge mound to soften her parents’ worried faces. When she put her fork down, they both exhaled, although she didn’t think they were aware of it. They likely had no idea that their concern felt like even more weight on her; the stress of having to pretend that she was all right or would be all right soon, as if there was an ETA for recovery.

  “I’m tired,” she said, pushing her chair back and feeling guilty for not being able to absorb her parents’ worry.

  “You get some sleep,” her mother said, getting up to give her a hug and a kiss. Her father embraced her too and dropped a kiss on her forehead, something he hadn’t done since she was young. She felt the scratch of his unshaven chin through her hair when he tucked her under his chin. She bore it for as long as she could, but she could barely stand the pressure on her skin. It reminded her of the doctor prodding and poking at her. Mumbling an apology, she fled upstairs.

  Ari sat on her bed, clutching her pillow. The sun was going down. The shadows lengthening. The tree outside her window sent long black fingers creeping into her room. She had never felt less tired. She needed to talk to someone about all the crazy feelings she was having because otherwise they would swallow her up. Like the bottom of the well, like her darkening room, turning into a vacuum of nothingness, a vast pit of despair, the world as she had known it disappearing around her.

  She snuck downstairs and called Lynn’s cell phone but it went to voicemail again. She tried the landline. The recorded message came on, Mrs. Lubnick’s brisk inflection and some childish ruckus in the background, but Ari hung up without saying anything. The black hole got bigger. Where the hell was Lynn? Lynn had borne witness to all of Ari’s freak-outs over the years, had talked her down from numerous ledges of anxiety and fear of failure. Ever since she could remember, they’d seen each other daily, or spoken at least twice. There was no way Lynn would abandon her now.

  Up in her room, she logged onto her computer and started typing.

  From: Ari

  Subject:

  To: Lynn

  For a long moment she looked at the blinking cursor, tears blurring her vision.

  Please come over right now.

  Ari

  She went back to her open bedroom window. Lynn’s house was dark. Ari reached out and hooked up her pirate flag, closing her window behind her. She tugged the curtains closed and sat at her desk, tapping her fingers nervously on its surface.

  The notes she’d taken at the library were piled in a heap. She spotted the name Dahmer, with all its evil associations, and pulling open a drawer, she swept the papers into it. God knows what she’d been thinking! Sourmash had been a sick fuck but he hadn’t had some grand plan. She pushed the drawer closed and leaned against the desk. After a long moment she began to pace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I don’t dream often. Never have. But when I do, it’s about my mother, or at least I assume so. She’s always in darkness, like a person delineated in charcoal, like someone pieced together out of the deepest shadows. In the dream she locks me in the closet. I can’t visualize her face, but I remember the closet with the lock on the outside and the hard linoleum floor, the smell of mouse shit, and those wire hangers above me, clicking against each other, moved by some unseen force. How cold it got in there, with the drafts pressing against the thin plywood back wall of the house and coming in through invisible cracks. Sometimes I pulled down a mildewed wool coat and drew it over my ears, but the clothing in there was old, from previous tenants, and it smelled bad—like sick, elderly people. That’s what remains in my memory: the dark, the pungent odor and the scratchy feel of wool against my neck.

  I chose this place because it has no closets. Instead, my coats and sweaters are stored inside a large cedar chest with a couple of bolts on the outside. The wood panels are good and solid, an inch thick, reinforced with slats, and the chest is certainly big enough for a girl who barely measures five foot three.

  After Mrs. Randolph died—of the cancer, though it’s possible her cats suffocated her to death while she slept—I was homeless again. Fortunately I had a little money saved, thanks to one of Ma Cosloy’s many strictures. “Always save for a rainy day,” I seemed to hear her say. Mrs. Randolph’s house—mortgaged and re-mortgaged to pay her medical bills—went to the bank. The cats, those who survived her, were delivered straight to the pound in a cardboard box.

  I admire cats. They pretend affection but really they are devious creatures. Have you ever noticed that a cat will always sit on the lap of the person in the room who hates them the most? It’s because they are manipulative and filled with cruel intent. You have to trick a cat to catch it, whereas dogs will just come to anybody. The black-and-white cat? The one that scratched me? I held on to it and practiced my knife-work until it gave up every one of its nine lives.

  Then I left town again, hitchhiking, sleeping rough, scrounging together a little money.

  I already had Dempsey Hollow in my sights. I’d found mention of the neglected hunting cabin in Mrs. Randolph’s papers, but I needed a place to live full-time, something that matched up with the dreams and goals in my head. A small, cozy place on a dead-end road, with a river nearby that would drown out sounds. A sanctuary not too far outside town. And I needed a certain kind of old lady. The type of human who believes in basic goodness without thinking too much on the inverse. Evil. One who accepts people at face value and is glad for a little help.

  I found both just outside the Hollow. That was old lady number two, Mrs. Klein. Between her house and Mrs. Randolph’s cabin I had all the security and privacy I needed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sunday morning. Ari had barely slept all night, just experienced that uncomfortable sensation of falling and then jerking awake again, her vision suddenly graying out. Per the doctor’s instructions, her parents had come in every few hours to wake her, although in Ari’s opinion they could have skipped it. She wasn’t going to die, although lying on her bed felt like being in a coffin, and closing her eyes felt like death. Instead of curling up on the mattress, she’d piled her comforter and blankets in the corner of her room and burrowed into them. She’d put her bedside light on the floor, turning the shade so that it threw a warm circle of light. In some visceral, primitive way she felt safe within that circle. From her corner she could keep both the door and the window in her line of sight. She’d thought she wanted her mother’s comforting touch, a throwback to her childhood, but that was just a reminder of how things used to be, how foolish and naïve she had been. Lynn was the only person she wanted to talk to. She didn’t have to hide her dark thoughts from her friend.

  Ari stared at her laptop as if she could will it into activity by the force of her mind. It was open to her email account: no new messages. She clicked over to her Sent folder. There was the email she’d sent to Lynn an eternity ago. No reply.

  The last time Ari had seen her, at least as far as she could remember,
was after the discovery at the grove, those dismal, silent walks to and from school on the Wednesday and Thursday. Lynn had been so devastated, and then so angry. They’d argued about the town and the people who lived in it. And then Lynn had stormed off.

  Had Lynn just checked out? Had she become so disgusted by everyone who lived in Dempsey Hollow that she’d detached? And did that mean from Ari too? Ari should have been there for her.

  They’d only ever had two or three bad fights. And those had all occurred when they had been much younger, but Ari remembered that this was what Lynn did. She took some time to cool off. Was that what was going on now?

  Less than two days since Ari’s world fell apart. How short that seemed. And somehow also interminable.

  She’d checked the news online, although she was sure her parents would have shielded her from it if they could. Dempsey Hollow resident found dead under suspicious circumstances. Evidence of illegal drugs. Suspect in custody. Local teenage girl with head injury discovered near the scene. Identity withheld.

  Identity withheld. She barely knew who she was anymore. Lynn knew her better than anyone; Lynn would be able to remind her who she was. Not this person blindly going through the motions, this girl who couldn’t remember how the hell she even ended up out there, at the cabin. She noticed that there was no mention of Stroud.

  She looked at the clock: 7:54 a.m. She was startled by a sudden surge of anger. Mrs. Lubnick had spoken to her mother. The story was on the freaking web! There was no way Lynn didn’t know what had happened. What the fuck?! Ari would never treat her this way. She slammed her laptop closed and stood up. She was going over to Lynn’s. Once she got things clear in her own head—with Lynn’s help—she’d fill her parents in.

  Although…she paused and replayed the conversation she’d had with her mom last night.

  “Your father and I have been talking,” her mother had said, sitting down next to her on the bed. “We wondered if perhaps you might want to speak to someone. Someone professional. Captain Rourke strongly recommended it.”