by Beth Goobie
The following day, the signs were again upon us, and that Sunday, the Tongue of Fire rose above my mother’s scabbed face like the pillar of light that led the Israelites through the desert darkness. No one, as far as I know, ever questioned my father’s cover story about an attack by a neighborhood dog, and for a brief time the Tongue of Fire regained its brilliance, the Divine Sister recommenced her eerily accurate predictions, and attendance at the Waiting for the Rapture End Times Tabernacle surged. And so when the Tongue of Fire next began to fade, my mother knew what had to be done, and cut surreptitiously at her upper arms and inner thighs where the wounds could be hidden, until my father locked the household knives in his toolbox, fearing she would dig deeper than he could patch.
To compensate, my mother began throwing herself off the second-floor landing, allowing her body to crumple and slide down the stairs without making any attempt to protect her face or head. By this means, she circumvented potential dry spells—if the signs had not appeared by midweek, the staircase between the first and second floors became her solution. After her first few “tumbles,” she started to protect her face, and my father eventually installed a thick carpet to prevent bone fractures. I do not know what other church members made of the dark welts that appeared on my mother’s arms and legs; time and time again, I watched their gaze glaze over and slide across them without comment. I, however, never got used to seeing the purple-black marks on her arms, never reconciled myself to the red velvet box and its manufactured display.
One Sunday when I was twelve, the Divine Sister waited to prophesy until the very end of the service, and the hoarse and guttural message that spewed from her mouth left her drained and semiconscious. After the doxology, the congregation departed quickly to rescue simmering pot roasts; once everyone had left, my father and Pastor Playle together carried my mother’s limp body upstairs to the pastoral office. Quite by accident, this unforeseen combination of circumstances left the red velvet box unguarded by the podium.
In the four years since its inception, I had never examined the box up close, for my mother’s cage was treated like the Ark of the Covenant—kept in a locked room and wheeled into the sanctuary just before the service, then wheeled back out immediately afterward, as if a bolt of lightning would strike dead anyone who touched it without permission. That day, entirely alone in the sanctuary, I sat aiming vicious kicks at the pew in front of me as tears streamed down my face. Still aching from the loss of Louisie years earlier, I was being forced to live my life with only a small percentage of my mother available to me, and that box seemed to contain the rest of her. Slowly, knowing full well that what I was about to do was absolutely forbidden, I stood, slid myself out of the pew, and walked the center aisle toward the velvet box.
Gold script ran along the top, and images had been embroidered onto both drapes—an altar, a pillar of fire, Jesus standing with His right hand raised and a halo about His head. Circling the box, I ran my hands over the velvet material that had been stapled to the sides, seeking the presence of my mother there the way she felt out my bedroom vibrations during her nightly prowls. Close to the box’s bottom, on the side that faced the podium, I found a tiny lightbulb that the Divine Sister obviously used to signal Pastor Playle when she was ready to prophesy, but I felt nothing of my mother, nothing that would even hint at her ever having been inside this contraption.
Kneeling in front of the box, I pressed my forehead to the ground and asked God’s forgiveness for what I was about to do. Then I stood and pulled the drapes aside, opened the half-gate, and saw the well-padded walls, the braces and buckles, the harness meant to fit around the waist, and the soft shackles intended for wrists and ankles. Finally, I understood the reason the velvet box was always wheeled into the sanctuary with my mother already inside it—the congregation was never to see the Divine Sister tied up like a common dog, a marionette tangled in its strings.
Heart pounding, I climbed into the box and closed the half-gate, then sat staring out at the empty sanctuary, imagining my mother’s view of the families who came, dressed in their Sunday best, to see if the Divine Sister would survive this week’s visitation of the Holy Spirit. It was like a lottery—she had been chosen, my mother truly was a chosen one, bearing agony alone while everyone else got off scot-free. Next to my left hand, I noticed a small button that probably set the signal light flashing for Pastor Playle, and the lever that opened and closed the drapes. Carefully, I strapped myself into the Divine Sister’s harness, slipped my feet inside her shackles, closed my eyes as I imagined she must do, and waited.
For a second there was nothing—only an impression of vast restless emptiness—but gradually the darkness inside my head began to quiver, as if something was shifting the fabric of my mind, trying to make contact. Abruptly, I felt a sense of deepening, and a tilting and turning, and finally I thought I saw a glowing figure with wings take shape in the distance, then turn and start toward me.
At that moment, my father appeared at the half-gate, yanked it open, and pulled me out of the harness. “Blasphemy!” he screamed hysterically into my face. “You commit blasphemy! Don’t you know you could be struck dead for this, Mary-Eve?”
•••
The staircase was a long gray thought rising out of colorless earth, each step cracked and hollowed, the handrail filmed with frost. Alone with the late afternoon, Jez climbed slowly, withered leaves gusting in heavy breaths about her feet. At the landing she paused as she always did, poised in that moment scraped clean by wind and sky and gazing out over a collage of shingled rooftops and the stark arms of trees. Empty, the thought came to her, for no reason she could discern. All of them empty and waiting.
Within the hour, the horizon would flush plum and apricot, the trees darken to a black tangle of nerves. Gently, Jez tested the doorknob, then opened it without knocking. The note she had found inside her locker that morning had said the door would be unlocked and Dee would meet her here at four but had given no explanation for the other girl’s all-day absence. Stepping across the threshold, Jez closed the door and looked around the room. At 3:40, she was early—had rushed out of her last class wanting the chance to stand alone in this place and soak in the gray slanted light.
Outside, the wind let out a long December moan, a sound that seemed to ooze directly out of the garage’s walls, and not for the first time Jez felt the cold sadness that darkened these corners—the kind felt while drawing a finger across a damp windowpane, realizing touch was the only truth that could give a clear view of the world. As usual, the room was teasing her mind, pulling it into a between-thoughts kind of realm, the air floating with dust motes, bits of the lower brain surfacing to touch light. And, Jez realized, bringing with them the shadow heartbeat that found her at moments like these—a soft, slurred pulse that followed her own so closely, it seemed to envelop her with each beat. It had been a while since she had heard this second heartbeat—months, she thought, listening carefully—and it came to her now like a forgotten scent, lost tendrils of the mind. As if in a trance, she blinked, sleepy and deep-awake. Each time she came to this room she felt it more clearly, a shadowy inner landscape that was texture rather than image—a dark pulsing cave like that of The Chosen Ones, but deeper. Much deeper.
Like a womb, she thought, gazing around herself. But empty, always empty. As if— Flinching from the thought, she hesitated, then forced herself back to it. As if it’s always been empty. As if there never was another. As if others are just a game, a trick of the mind, and aloneness the true way of things.
The true way of things, she thought, the phrase repeating itself bleakly inside her head. Waiting, always waiting for the aloneness to change.
From the alley came the sound of the garage’s ground-level door; glancing out the window, Jez saw Dee’s father lift open the door and disappear inside. Instinctively, she pulled back. Her contact with Mr. Eccles to date had been limited to brief hellos, nods of the head, and one prolonged encounter.
The latter had taken place in the Eccles’ kitchen a few weeks earlier, Jez seated across the table from the brawny fifty-something gentleman while Dee perched on his knee, giggling and cooing, almost…Well, flirting with her dad! Jez had thought, taken aback. Over by the sink, Mrs. Eccles had stood witness, flashing jewelry and ominously silent as she took in every smirking detail. Including the moment, Jez recalled uneasily, when her husband had glanced directly at Jez and given her a wink unmistakable in its meaning—unmistakable, that is, if it had come from a stranger staggering out of a late-night bar or a hotel called the Babylon Arms.
The episode had given Jez the unmitigated creeps, and she had avoided Dee’s father ever since; now, as he backed his ’72 Ford out of the garage, then got out to close the door, she pressed herself to the window frame’s outer edge and watched, tracking his movements until he returned to his car and drove off. Even then she stood motionless, observing the deserted alley and wondering what it would be like to live in a household where everyone walked around constantly carrying knives—visible and invisible—the way this one did. As far as she knew, no one had yet drawn blood from anyone else, but collectively the Eccles family left Abraham and Isaac in millennia-old dust.
At that moment, footsteps started up the outside staircase, the wood absorbing the sharp kick of high heels. Coming out of her thoughts with a start, Jez dropped onto the couch and slid a cigarette from the half-empty pack on the coffee table. Then, assuming a casual pose, she dragged in heavily and exhaled a sultry tease-line of smoke just as the door opened…and Dee’s mother walked in.
“Jez!” she said in her throaty drawl, giving the jackknife an amused glance as she closed the door. “I’m so glad you got my note.”
“Your note?” gulped Jez, staring in astonishment. Then, realizing she was in the presence of an adult, somebody’s mother, she straightened, stubbed out her cigarette, and placed both feet on the floor.
Another amused smile slip-slid across Mrs. Eccles’s face. “I asked Andy to tape it to your locker on his way to work,” she said lightly, “but I’m never sure if he quite hears what I say. You know boys.” With a swipe, she cleared the love seat of laundry and sat down. “I think it’s time we had a little chat, don’t you?” Leaning forward, she slid a cigarette from Dee’s pack and lit up.
“About what?” Jez asked guardedly. Over the last few months, she had learned to be wary of extended conversation with Mrs. Eccles, and today’s chitchat promised more than the usual hazards—apart from their shoes, she and the woman opposite were dressed like identical twins. When Jez had opened her locker earlier that morning and discovered a sequined denim shirt, Levi’s 501s, and a gold chain necklace, she had assumed they had been deposited there by Dee, who knew her combination. Apparently, however, Andy knew it as well. Faintly, Jez wondered if she and Mrs. Eccles were wearing matching underwear.
“Oh, well,” said Dee’s mother. “I got you that prescription, so I thought I should be responsible and check up on you, that’s all.” Coolly, she ran her gaze over Jez’s outfit. Not a flicker of surprise crossed her face.
“I’m fine,” mumbled Jez.
“Oh, I know you are,” Mrs. Eccles assured her. “But I thought…Well, if you have any questions…about the pill, sex, men—anything at all…” Looking like a low score on a Charlie’s Angels IQ test, she smiled dazzlingly. “Well, just feel free to ask.”
Eyes narrowing, Jez ran her gaze in turn over the woman across from her, then simply shrugged and allowed an uncomfortable silence to swallow the room. In the ensuing pause, Mrs. Eccles’s smile faded. Lifting her cigarette to her lips, she inhaled briskly, the sound of the smoke’s inner progress clearly audible in the lengthening quiet.
“I see,” she said finally, a carefully sharpened edge replacing her earlier drawl. “Dee underestimated you. You’re no beginner, are you, Jez. My guess is that behind the scenes, you’re quite an expert. That’s a compliment, believe me. I admire a girl who can pull strings, handle what she gets, so I’ll give it to you straight. I have a proposal to make. I know of certain gentlemen who would be interested in getting to know you, if you take my meaning. They’re prepared to pay handsomely for your time, and the money would all be yours. Clothing and makeup would be supplied. The only commitment they would require of you is your silence. And that you’re clean, of course.”
“Clean?” stammered Jez, her mouth opening slightly.
“No VDs,” said Mrs. Eccles, smiling.
Pain laced Jez, delicate and soundless. “Are they clean?” she asked hoarsely.
Mrs. Eccles’s eyebrows lifted. “Of course,” she replied.
Rigid, Jez sat encompassed by a body-wide heart thud as she was swamped by realization after realization: Dee, table-dancing at Dinky’s party; the way she had taken on George so easily…like a pro; the identical slide-through smiles she and her mother had given after the kitchen-table discussion about Jez’s birth control prescription.
“Why don’t you discuss this with Dee?” continued Mrs. Eccles, apparently oblivious to Jez’s stunned expression. “She can explain it so much better than me. It’s really nothing like the stories you hear. A girl can make herself a lot of money for very little trouble, and Dee thinks you have so much potential.”
So much potential, Jez repeated silently to herself, staggered, the pain this time anything but delicate. Every time she and Dee had kissed—every touch, every teasing comment…all of it being assessed as potential.
Blinking back tears, she squinted at the woman across from her; neither she nor Mrs. Eccles had turned on the lava lamp, and the window light was growing dim. Grimly, Jez peered through the gloom, determined to meet Dee’s mother’s gaze head on—get a fix on her, figure out the fundamental lie she exuded—and let loose a startled gasp. For directly opposite, hovering around Mrs. Eccles, was what appeared to be some sort of dark emanation. Not visible seconds before, and distinct from surrounding shadows, it could have been taken as a murky upper-body halo except for the fact that it shifted continually, like smoke or mist. Hair rising on the back of her neck, Jez tracked the dark outline’s fluctuations. Whatever the thing was, it appeared to be able to manifest or conceal itself as it saw fit, like Dee’s demon. Was that what this was then—a part of Mrs. Eccles that she had sent out of herself at some point in the past…perhaps when she was being raped?
Inside the room and out, dusk deepened, blurring surfaces, boundary lines, thought. Blank-faced, Dee’s mother now sat motionless, as if shut down by an inner switch. Gradually, as Jez watched, the presence emanating from Mrs. Eccles took on a defined outline—hunched and multiheaded. At the same time, it began to speak, not in sound but with a kind of resonance that seemed to well up from inside Jez’s mind.
You carry a wound, don’t you, it sighed, its voice somewhere between a breath and a moan. A wound that twists and groans, a secret private wound no one knows except you. You’ve buried it so deep that most of the time you’re able to forget its hunger, but sometimes, sometimes when you’re passing through doorways or looking into mirrors, it’s here again—your lost part staring back at you with your own face. It’s that part you long for, you long for…and it’s still alive, haunting you from the other side and waiting for you.
As Jez stared open-mouthed, Mrs. Eccles’s stilled face became a miasma of darkness, the unfamiliar voice speaking through her many voices that whispered and overlapped. It can be yours again, murmured the shadowy weave of sound. All you need do is find the place within you where the lost part passed through. That place is a gate. Approach and open it, call back what is yours, and it will bring with it all the power of the other side—more than anything you can imagine.
Whisper-weaving and intense, the dark presence leaned toward Jez, enveloping her mind and making it difficult to think. Open the gate, it hissed. Open; let the power through; become one of the few who join both worlds. Mysteries will be revealed; all things will come
when you call; none will resist. All you need do is open the gate. Open the gate. Open…
The few…the chosen few…the lost part, the gate: somewhere within herself, Jez had always known these were connected—her mother’s life contained more than enough evidence to prove this. But the vibrations that ran through the Hamilton household, she thought, bewildered, were composed of light, not darkness. Was it possible there was more than one set of chosen few? Like the gray-robed guardians that had revealed themselves to her, did each chosen few inhabit a different plane of vibrations that contained its own gods and mysteries?
Still, regardless of the dark emanation’s frequency, Jez understood immediately which wound it was targeting. Mired this deep in her own pain and loss, she could see it within herself—the gap Louisie had torn open during her tumultuous exit from the physical plane, shadowy and pulsing like a grounded butterfly. Just as Mrs. Eccles’s emanation had said, that inner wound, hole, gate was still there. Did it lead to Louisie? After all these years, would it be possible now to pass through that wound and seek out her sister’s soul, that sweet lost light and happiness, the certainty she had never been able to achieve on her own?
Louisie, Louisie—the name resonated through Jez, an ache, a longing she could taste and smell. Without conscious intention, she lifted a hand, as if reaching toward an invisible gate that she was about to unlatch and open. But before she could complete the gesture, a dense humming sensation pervaded her; then, to her astonishment, a semi-transparent gray-robed figure stepped directly out of her body. On its heels came the rest of The Chosen Ones, their curved knives raised in warning as they formed a protective half-circle about her and stood, humming low in their throats.
With their presence, Jez woke to the truth: The dark emanation opposite was not a lost part of Mrs. Eccles, but something from that other side of which it had spoken—an entity that had beguiled the woman into opening herself and inviting it in, just as Jez’s mother had surrendered to similar deception…as Jez herself had been about to do, she realized, chagrined. Breathing deeply, she took on the same stance as the gray-robed figures that surrounded her, raised her left hand, and watched a curved spirit knife take shape between her fingers; as she brandished its tip at the dark entity, the presence emanating from Mrs. Eccles began to retreat. Then, as Jez stared, the murky haze around Dee’s mother shrank and vanished, taking The Chosen Ones with it, and leaving only a woman and a girl sitting at dusk in an unlit room above a garage while withered leaves gusted the window.