The Dark Beneath the Ice

by Amelinda Bérubé

  Dr. Fortin frowns, but doesn’t interrupt.

  “It’s not working,” I repeat. I won’t be shrill. I’m in control. This is a reasonable request. “It’s getting worse. You have to give me something else.”

  “I can see why you’re concerned,” he says slowly. “Was there anything else you noticed?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been feeling weird. Kind of…spacey? Dizzy, maybe? I thought the medication was helping at first. Things don’t…stick to me the same way. It’s easier to talk to people. But you said it’s not supposed to work that fast anyway.”

  “Well, it’s certainly possible to notice an effect from SSRIs right away. Usually I’d prefer to give them time to reach full strength. You’ve only been on them for a few days. But still…it sounds like the most worrying symptoms here are escalating. And more quickly than I’d like.”

  I trace lines on the arm of the couch while he watches me, his brow furrowed.

  “This is a significant step,” he says at last, “especially at your age. But I think I’m going to give you another prescription.”

  He jots something down on a notepad, hands it to me. Quetiapine is the next magic word.

  “Given your mom’s symptoms and everything you went through with…well, a couple years ago, I think it’s worth getting out the big guns. If what we’re seeing here is early indicators of something running in your family, there’s research showing it can make a big difference to get on top of it early.”

  “What if it’s not enough?” I ask him, staring at the looping blue lines of the word on the paper. “What if it keeps happening?”

  “It’s scary, not knowing,” he says in his gentle amber voice. “Isn’t it?”

  I nod, not looking at him.

  “Give it some time. I know it’s hard, but this is some serious medicine, and we don’t want to rush to conclusions. And if it turns out it doesn’t help, it’s not the end of the world. We’ve got a few other things we can try. Medication’s not a silver bullet, unfortunately. Give it time.”

  • • •

  The quetiapine hits me like a fist. May cause drowsiness, it says on the bottle. They’re not kidding. Exhaustion descends in a leaden curtain. It’s not even seven o’clock when I collapse into bed, but sleep rolls over me right away, heavy and sticky.

  I’m startled awake by a butterfly touch on my shoulder, the faintest brush of cold fingers, light and hesitant. I open my eyes in the dark. I left the light on, didn’t I? My head swims. It’s hard to think. An awful, familiar roar fills my ears. The wall is washed faintly orange, my hand a strange inanimate thing on the pillow beside me. At first I can’t remember how to move. Am I awake?

  When I roll over, it leaves the room swinging dizzily around me. And there’s someone there. A shadow in the dark, bending over me, a pale familiar face with hollows for eyes, framed by long trailing wings of dark hair. At first what gleams through my murky thoughts is hope. Relief.

  “Mom?”

  But the word is soundless. And the face above me contorts, goes ugly with rage before hands slam into me with an impact that knocks the breath from my lungs, cracks the ice beneath me, plunges us both into bottomless, drowning darkness while something screams its wordless fury at me, not needing to breathe, a howl that goes on and on.

  When I flounder out of sleep, gasping, the light is back on, a reassuring yellow glow flooding the room. But I can’t catch my breath. I can’t shake the fear. Fear is what makes a nightmare, and it hammers through my head, unreasoning, refusing to ebb.

  Am I awake? Am I really awake this time? My thoughts feel mushy, sluggish, a beat behind everything.

  There’s sound, though. At least there’s sound: the creak of Aunt Jen’s bed in the next room as she rolls over and the faint, ever-present drumming on the roof.

  I grab the phone, desperate to put as much distance as possible between me and the figure that wasn’t my mom. The clock reads 2:45 a.m.

  Ingrid just posted something two minutes ago.

  I let my breath out, sagging against the pillow. Right. She’s three hours behind me. But I can’t text her about this, especially in the middle of the night. It would be weird. I hesitate over the screen for an agonizing minute before snapping a horror-movie selfie and tapping out a post for the world at large, all three of my followers. Well, three if you count the bot.

  my whole life is upside down rn and i just woke up from the most intense nightmare. too scared to sleep.

  A friend would at least send an emoji if they saw that, wouldn’t they? It’s a sad little private test, a message in a bottle. She loves me, she loves me not.

  But while I wait, hugging the phone, sleep sneaks up on me, a tide creeping in to suck me down again. The next time I open my eyes the room is bright with morning, and the phone has slipped from my hand to lie facedown on the floor.

  There aren’t any notifications when I pick it up.

  • • •

  I’ve never been so tired. The world creeps by in slow motion. I zombie my way through my last exams, English and history, past caring about my marks. If my parents are disappointed, they can blame themselves. I’m still trying to drag myself through the essay question on the causes of World War I when they declare our three hours up.

  Ron falls into step next to me as I trudge from the gym. Her hair’s tied up in a dozen little knots today. Between glossy, eggplant-colored lipstick and a swishy little black skirt paired with her tall boots, she looks like something out of a cartoon.

  “How’re you doing?” she asks. The words are tinged with caution, but I don’t really care. She’s talking to me. Our conversation at the beginning of the week seems so impossible that half of me thinks I dreamed it; I was bracing myself for her to breeze past me like we’d never spoken. “Are things still, you know, weird? I saw your post from the other night.”

  “I was sleepwalking,” I say, so quietly she has to lean in to hear me. “That’s never happened before. So I’m on this new medicine, and I’m supposed to give it time to work, but the dreams…they’re awful. And they haven’t stopped. They’re supposed to stop.”

  Around us, people cast furtive looks at her, keep their distance. She draws stares as if she glows in the dark, leaving a wake of whispers. I’m torn between a faint, smug glow of satisfaction and alarm. Invisibility compromised.

  “Do you still want to talk to my mom today? It’s okay if you don’t.” The question is casual, but she’s watching me, and when I don’t respond right away she drops her gaze, fiddling with the unraveling edges of her fishnet gloves. “Look, I know I said she’s the flakiest flake that ever flaked, but—”

  “Yes,” I interrupt. “Please. Let’s…see what happens.”

  She looks up again and nods, crimps her violet lips into a tiny smile. But she still looks worried.

  My turn to say something. I cast around for a normal topic of conversation. “How did your exams go?”

  “Eh. I predict a C in English. It’s like they pick the reading list for maximum boredom. And I was mostly making stuff up for history.”

  “Join the club. I barely studied.”

  “Well, obviously. You should talk to the guidance counselors.”

  I frown at her. “Very funny.”

  “God, not about that. The exams. You should talk to them. Claim extenuating circumstances, with your parents and everything. Maybe they can get you a rewrite, or extra credit, or whatever. They must be good for something.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Ron hesitates. “Listen, I brought something for you.”

  She pulls a necklace over her head, a long, pointed obsidian pendant strung from a black ribbon.

  “It’s for protection.” She holds it out to me, sounding embarrassed. “It’s not much, but maybe it’ll help. You can keep it.”

 
The pendant’s warm from resting against her body. I slip the ribbon over my head.

  “Thanks,” I manage.

  “Don’t thank me yet. Let me go get my coat, and then we can head out, okay? I’ll meet you by the front doors.”

  She ducks around me and hurries off down the hall, ignoring the losers who turn to watch her pass, nudging each other and smirking. I clutch the pendant in one hand, its glassy edges biting into my palm. Its warmth is already fading.

  • • •

  “Just remember that ninety percent of this is just reading people,” Ron mutters as the bus roars away from us, leaving us under the gilded red-and-blue arch that stands over the street, its Chinese letters gleaming in a scrap of sunlight. “Don’t let her lead you into telling her what’s going on. And don’t let her weird you out or anything. Okay?”

  “Weird is my life right now.” I sound less apprehensive than I feel. Good. “Don’t worry.”

  Wind chimes clink and jingle as we step inside. The café is furnished in a mismatched vintage chic, with an assortment of Formica-topped, metal-banded tables in different sizes scattered around the room. A couple of people work studiously away on laptops on the threadbare couches in the back. At a little table by the window sits a woman with a riotous cloud of curly gray-blond hair and half-moon glasses perched low on her nose. She bends over a coffee cup in earnest, low-voiced conversation with a paunchy man in a business jacket. Colorful cards are arrayed over the table between them; as I watch, the woman points to one of them and taps it a couple of times in an emphatic sort of way.

  A moment later, the conversation is wrapping up. They stand, exchange a hug, and the man presses some folded cash into her hands, thanking her over and over again. Beside me, Ron sighs.

  “Rhiannon!” she calls, sitting down again as her customer ducks past us out the door. “And you must be Marianne, right? Rhiannon mentioned you might be coming by. I wish I could say I’ve heard a lot about you, but she’s been very secretive. Infuriating, really.”

  “Marianne, this is my mom,” Ron mutters. “Mom, Marianne.”

  “Niobe.” She gives me a showman’s smile as she sweeps the cards on the table into a pile, shuffling them together with an expert snap of her thumbs. “Usually Rhiannon finds all this a little high on the ‘woo’ scale for her tastes, so I was surprised she asked me to read for you.”

  “What,” Ron says, saving me from having to reply, “you hadn’t predicted that?”

  Niobe gives her a look over the rims of her glasses but otherwise doesn’t respond.

  “It’s a joke,” Ron mutters, folding her arms and looking away. Niobe turns to me instead.

  “Come sit down.”

  I slide into the seat across from her. Ron pulls another chair up to the table and straddles it, draping her arms over the back and resting her chin on them. Niobe shoots her another glance. Ron sets her jaw, but doesn’t meet her eye. They didn’t look much alike to me at first, but somehow in irritation their gestures speak the same language: the downturn at the corners of their mouths, the way their eyebrows draw together.

  “All right.” She taps the cards against the table to settle them into a neat stack before presenting them with a ceremonious little flourish. “Shuffle, please.”

  The cards are worn to a soft, almost fabric-like texture, their backs printed with a plain, faded plaid. The smell of incense clings to them, coils up around me. They’re bigger than playing cards, awkward to hold in one hand. I cut them clumsily a few times and then hold them out to Niobe. Instead of taking them, she clasps both her hands around my outstretched one, cards and all. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. Ron rolls her eyes and drops her forehead silently onto her arms.

  “Knock it off,” Niobe growls, without opening her eyes. “You asked, remember?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Ron mutters.

  “Don’t ‘yeah yeah’ me! You’re going to throw me off. Go for a walk or something.”

  Ron shoves her chair back from the table. The wind chimes at the door jangle as she stalks outside, yanking a box of cigarettes from her coat pocket on the way.

  “Honestly.” Niobe rolls her shoulders, shakes out her hands. “Let’s try this again.”

  This time, after clasping my hand for a moment, she takes the cards from me and turns the first one over onto the table. In washed-out primary colors, a bolt of lightning strikes a flaming tower, people tumbling from the fiery windows, their mouths open in dismay. The Tower, I read upside down.

  “Mm.” Niobe studies me over the rims of her glasses. “Rough go of it lately, I take it.”

  Ron told her as much.

  “Kind of.”

  “This tells me the whole world has come crashing down around your ears. Like a house of cards.” She narrows her eyes. “A bad breakup, I think. Messy. The kind that blows up and leaves you picking shrapnel from the wounds. It wasn’t mutual.”

  She pauses. I drop my gaze to the gold-speckled table.

  “Here’s the thing,” she tells me, businesslike, draining her coffee cup. “And this is going to be hard to hear, so bear with me. It wasn’t real. It’s like building your house on sand, or the San Andreas fault. It could never have lasted. Of course it hurts when it comes tumbling down, but it was inevitable. You have to clear all that away and start over. With the truth. Whoever this was, you’re better off without them. Okay?”

  I fold my arms. She thinks this is about some stupid teenaged romance. I guess it might be accurate enough if it was my mom sitting here.

  “Maybe,” I say eventually, because she seems to expect me to respond. She gives me a dry look, but flips over the next card: a woman standing bound and blindfolded, swords piercing the ground all around her, their hilts standing as high as her shoulder. Water twisting at her feet. A roman numeral takes me a moment to decipher upside-down: VIII.

  “Helpless, is how this feels,” Niobe says softly. “Like you’re all alone. And trapped.”

  Ninety percent of this is just reading people, Ron said. I keep my face impassive.

  “Part of what this card has to tell you, though, is that there is a way out. You just aren’t letting yourself see it. When you get right down to it, this is self-inflicted, this trap you’re in. You made your bed and now you’re ready to swoon into it and wait for some prince to come and kiss you awake.” Her tone grows stern; she points a warning finger at me. “Well, that’s bullshit. Don’t fall for it. Just because you made your bed doesn’t mean you can’t choose to walk away from it. You need to stop thinking of yourself as the victim here and take some action.”

  I blink at this assessment, baffled, a little indignant. How could any of this possibly be my fault? Isn’t that the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to say in this situation? It doesn’t even seem to apply to my mom, to Dad leaving. What could she have done?

  “Make sense?”

  “Not really.”

  Niobe sighs.

  “It will. Trust me. This is plain as the nose on your face from where I sit. Keep it in mind, all right?”

  On the next card—Page of Wands—a man in an embroidered tunic stands in the desert, holding a long wooden staff that sprouts a few shy springtime leaves.

  “Ah,” Niobe says in satisfaction, “this is good news. You don’t have to go it alone. Now, this isn’t a prince, right? Nobody’s riding to the rescue. But you do have a friend here. Someone who will to go to hell and back for you. Someone who’s new in your life, or will be soon.”

  I can’t help a sigh at that. Niobe makes an inquiring sound.

  “That just…seems like a lot to hope for.” There’s been exactly one new person in my life lately. She’s leaning against the wall outside with her cigarette, slouched over her phone under the dripping awning, looking surly. Downright intimidating, actually.

  Niobe watches me, her brows climbing.


  “Not at all,” she muses. “In fact, maybe this is more than a friend.”

  It’s a frozen heartbeat before I can swallow. I study the card, refusing to let a glance betray me. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t matter. She’s just telling a heartbroken kid that there’s a new prospect on the horizon.

  “I doubt it,” I mutter. Niobe, thankfully, turns the next card without commenting further.

  The caption reads The Moon. It’s a weird image. A frowning face, set into the curve of a radiant orb, hangs in an empty sky. Two dogs bay at it from the ground, and a lobster crawls from the waves at the bottom of the picture. Something about the lobster’s scaly, black body, the way the sky bleeds into the landscape below it, reminds me of my dream.

  “Now, this,” Niobe says and stops, frowning, to peer at me. I wait for her to continue, trying not to let my sudden tension show.

  “Something…isn’t what it seems here.” She pokes at the card with one finger. “Only I get the feeling that’s a warning to me as much as it is to you.”

  She slides the cards over the table, rearranging them so the woman with the swords is next to the moon, studies the two of them together. Her frown deepens.

  “What is it?” I ask anxiously.

  “Hang on,” she says. “This was so clear a second ago. But something… There’s something about the water here. Someone else who’s trapped. I don’t understand.”

  She glances up at me. Her eyes are lighter than Ron’s, a bright cinnamon color. I hold my breath, wondering what she’s looking for. Wondering what she’ll see.

  She inhales sharply, once, and the frown disappears into a look of ashy shock that makes me think of my mom. Nothing happened. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Slowly, she sits back and puts a hand to her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” she says at length, her brisk business voice gone thin and strained. “I don’t think I should do this here.”

  “What?” I fight down a wave of panic. “Why? Did I do something wrong?”