by Beth Goobie
“We’ll see,” said Dee. “C’mere.”
Slowly, her body awkward with unease, Jez knelt opposite the other girl. Though she had asked for this—begged for it, even—now that they were about to begin, she found herself overcome by quick, miniscule shudders. Caution whispered through her, lace-curtain warnings in a window breeze.
“Did you bring it?” asked Dee.
“Yes,” said Jez. Reaching for her jacket, she drew a flannel-backed paper doll out of a pocket. “Here,” she added, giving it to Dee. “This was hers—her favorite thing. It was like a real person to her. She talked to it, carried it everywhere with her.”
Eyebrows raised, Dee took the faded Billy Graham cutout from her hand. “A million souls saved for Jesus,” she murmured, studying it.
“Louisie was only seven when she died,” said Jez. “She didn’t know about that kind of stuff. Billy Graham was like, y’know—Elmer the Safety Elephant or something. A guardian angel, one step down from God.”
Face expressionless, Dee continued to study the flannel-backed figure.
“I remember,” Jez continued hesitantly. “Well…we used to play this game we called Bible Guys. She would pick a Bible character and I would pick a different one, and we would make up a game pretending that was who we were. Lots of times we picked Cain and Abel.”
Obviously not getting it, Dee just looked at her.
“You know,” said Jez, “the twins. They were Adam and Eve’s kids. Cain was a farmer and Abel was a shepherd. One day they both made sacrifices to God and He rejected Cain’s by sending the smoke back down to the ground, because it was fruit and vegetables. But Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because it was an animal, and the smoke went up to Heaven.”
Dee frowned.
“Well then,” Jez stumbled on, a flush rising in her face, “Cain got angry and killed Abel. Something like that had never happened before—someone killing someone else—because this was near the beginning of the world, and it was the first murder. So a mark was put on Cain’s forehead to set him apart, and he was banished from his family and sent out to wander the wilderness. And…”
She paused, considering how to put her next thoughts into words. “Well,” she added reluctantly, “when Louisie and I pretended we were Cain and Abel, she was always Abel and I was always Cain. So every time, the game would end with me murdering her…as part of the story line, see?”
Dee’s eyes honed in, intent. “How?” she asked slowly.
“Just a butter knife,” said Jez. “Nothing sharp-edged; don’t get excited. The last time we played Bible Guys, we were at a birthday party for a girl from our church. The rest of the kids were out in the backyard running an egg-and-spoon race, and I was stalking Louisie with some red Freshie and the knife that had been used to cut the cake. And she was running all over the house and the yard, trying to keep away from me, with this Billy Graham in her hand, whispering to it the way she always did.” Jez gave a small hysterical laugh, remembering. “God, when I think about it, we were so weird.”
“No kidding,” said Dee, grinning slightly.
“I finally jumped her,” said Jez, grinning back. “By the rose bushes. Poured the Freshie all over her dress for blood, and held the knife to her throat. And the whole time, she was waving Billy in my face and shouting, ‘You have to sacrifice a sheep, stupid! Carrots aren’t no good. Kill a sheep and then maybe Billy’ll let you into Heaven.’”
“Huh,” said Dee, a thoughtful look on her face. “Not so weird, actually. Everything I’ve met on the other side wants blood.”
“Not everything,” said Jez. “There were times…” She faltered, her voice trailing off. Because when she thought about it further, she realized Dee was partly right, even when it came to the long-ago game of Mirror See. While that hadn’t involved blood per se, there had been pain—Louisie’s pain, that bright, ripping sensation that had accompanied her every heartbeat. And as for the solstice figures of light that had appeared among the congregation the year Jez was ten—well, Jez thought, they had entered and exited this level of reality through the hole in her own soul that Louisie had torn open at the moment of her death.
But why? she wondered suddenly, fighting back a sharp rise of tears. Especially when there was so much beauty on the other side. Why did the body have to be wounded in order to create a gate for the mind? Why did it take so much pain to see?
“Y’know what is absolutely the worst thing about all this?” she blurted, her gaze skittering past Dee’s. “Before Louisie died, it was like my father said in Pastor Playle’s office—he loved Louisie best, and my mother loved me. Because I was most like my mother—at least the way she was then. But after Louisie died, well…I could see it in both their eyes. They both wished it had been me. They both wished I had died instead. And I can see them still thinking that now, every time they look at me. Every day my mother and father look at me and think, I wish you were Louisie.
“And they’re right,” she whispered, the words shuddering cold and deep through her body. “It should have been me. I should have been the one to die. Because if I had died, my mother and father would have been left with Louisie, the good daughter. The three of them would have made the perfect Christian family, with no one suffering or going mad, and God would have stopped punishing everyone else for my sins.
“Because…” Here Jez paused, both arms wrapped tightly around herself and hovering on the edge of the abyss, that inner depth she had never dared look into alone. “Well,” she wavered, then pushed mercilessly onward. “It was really me who destroyed everything. Because I was the one who couldn’t let anyone else love Louisie. I had to have her all to myself. That’s what it’s like being a twin—you’re cut in half, part of you always missing, running around inside someone else. And so I wanted her always to be with me, and no one else. So I could have more of myself with me, okay?”
Jez paused again, her lips, her arms, her entire body trembling. “And I think,” she said haltingly, avoiding the gaze that watched steadily from beyond the candle flame. “I think I slowly sucked the life out of her. Bit by bit, to pull her back into myself. So we could be one again, y’see? So everything could be back together again. That’s why her heart got weak; that’s why she was always tired and sick the way she was. And then when she died…well, I thought all I had to do was hold onto her real tight. Dying is like going backward, back to how you were when you were conceived. Louisie and I used to be one person, and I figured…well, that she would come back into me when she died. But she didn’t. At least not the way I thought she would. I held onto her while she died, like I said—I didn’t let go—and when she died she came into me, then went right through me. I felt it, man. I know it happened.
“But I think, somehow, she didn’t quite make it to where she was supposed to go—Heaven, I guess. She got stuck somewhere deep inside me that really isn’t inside me at all. I don’t know where she is now, but sometimes I can feel Louisie out there and I don’t think she’s happy—like I’m not happy. Do you think, maybe, if we find her tonight, I could pull her back into my body and trade places with her? Our bodies were made from the same blueprint; I’m sure we could do it. No one would have to know about it except Louisie and you, and she would make the perfect daughter for my mother and father—finally they would be one happy family.”
A long silence stretched out on the other side of the coffee table. Jez couldn’t look, couldn’t look. “Oh, maybe not,” she mumbled, looking down. “Maybe this is a dumb idea. Maybe we shouldn’t try to contact Louisie at all. Because, y’know, I probably wouldn’t be able to do it. I’m too selfish. I…”
She swallowed hard, swallowed again. “Well,” she blurted, the words awkward, reluctant, dragging themselves inexorably free. “More than anything—more than helping Louisie or helping my mother—I want to live. I should want to give my life to Louisie—I’m the bad girl, full of hate, and I don’t deserv
e to live. I deserve to die, I know that, I’ve always known that…but I want to live.”
Raising both hands to her eyes, Jez wept, a voice shoved out of itself and wandering through grief. Empty, she felt oddly empty, as if something jagged and gargantuan that had lived submerged within her for years had just departed. Hugging herself, she rocked and wept, rocked and wept, oblivious to the soft shifting sounds coming from across the coffee table. Then, gently, as if from a great distance, arms crept around her and pulled her close.
“Shhh,” whispered Dee, nuzzling her hair. “Shhh, bad girl, shhh. Shhh.”
Exhausted, Jez rested within those arms and floated on the inner emptiness like a sleeping child; the evening carried her, without resistance, toward some primal knowing of herself.
“Shhh,” soothed Dee. “Shhh.”
Out in the alley, a car idled past the garage, reversed, and braked to a halt. Headlights shattered across the frosted window and dimmed. A car door opened.
“If that’s Andy…” muttered Dee. Rising, she blew out the candle, crossed to the window, and peered out. “What d’you know,” she muttered. “It’s snowing cats and dogs.” Quietly, she slid up the single pane of glass and leaned out to get a better view, then quickly pulled back in. “Shiiit!” she hissed, holding herself like an indrawn breath. “Jezzie, you’re not going to believe this. It’s your dad.”
“My dad?” gasped Jez. Getting to her feet, she joined Dee at the window. There below her, almost blotted out by falling snow, she saw the parked Valiant and the dark shape of her father, casting about the alley like a hunting dog.
“Shiiit!” she echoed, retreating from the window. “How did he know I was here? He’ll absolutely kill me if he finds me.”
As if in response, her father veered around the side of the garage and footsteps started up the staircase. Panicking, Jez scooted across the room, pausing only to grab her jacket, dress, and boots before ducking down into the narrow space between the wardrobe and the bed. Seconds later, there came a loud knocking and the squeak of hinges as the door swung open. Pressed flat to the floor, Jez could see nothing except the small shadowy opening between the legs at the foot of the bed. In the silence that followed, she heard her father breathing heavily and then the slow closing of the door. Cautiously, she inched herself up until she was peering over the top of the mattress.
Dee was crouched between the couch and the coffee table, relighting the candle; Deacon Hamilton stood just inside the door. “You!” he said heavily, eyeing her. “You streetwalker, bitch, slut! Where is she, my daughter? I’ve come to take her home.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Dee. Her voice was calm, almost bored, but Jez saw her hand shake as she tossed a pack of matches onto the coffee table.
“I’ve seen the two of you!” snapped Deacon Hamilton, his voice rising as he pointed an accusing finger. “Seen you driving in a blue car, both painted and dressed like whores. Consorting with boys at the 7-Eleven and…” His mouth twisted. “God knows what else.”
Eyebrows raised, Dee just looked at him. “Oh yes,” he hissed, stepping forward. “She thought she had me fooled, Mary-Eve. Dressing you like herself and bringing you into the church. But I saw you for what you are. Whore demon. Jezebel! Out to steal my daughter and lead her into Satan’s ways.”
Slowly, Dee got to her feet. “Your daughter…Mary-Eve,” she said carefully, “is trying to save me. She goes around school handing out Jesus pamphlets. I thought I’d give it a try.”
“The hell you did!” roared Jez’s father. “I’ve been watching the two of you, keeping track since I saw you at the church. She’s not changing you—you’re changing her. My daughter has become a liar, a deceiver, a whore slut…like you.” Mouth trembling, he drew a shuddery breath, then added, “She came here tonight. I was following in my car and lost her a few blocks back, but I picked up her footprints in the alley. She’s here and you’re hiding her. I know you are.”
“You’re crazy,” said Dee, her face deadpan. “Get the fuck out of here.”
Instead of responding, Jez’s father went into a moment of absolute stillness, rooted to the spot and staring bug-eyed at the coffee table. Then he darted forward. “This here!” he shouted, snatching up the Billy Graham paper doll and shoving it into Dee’s startled face. “This was my daughter’s. My only daughter’s. You must have gotten it from her. She’s here—I know you have her here somewhere. Give her to me, you goddamn whore slut!”
His face was contorted, his eyes strangely bright. Watching him, Jez felt such a wash of fear that she was left boneless, her mouth collapsed and sucking on itself. Abruptly, her father lunged at Dee, overturning the coffee table and toppling the candle. The next few seconds were crazed, impossible—two figures grappling beside the couch, Deacon Hamilton’s hands around Dee’s throat, her hands begging against his as gurgling, grunting sounds issued from their mouths. Then, with a sigh, the toppled candle gutted completely and the room was reduced to shadows, outlined faintly by the heater’s red glow.
And in that moment, the gray-robed Chosen Ones came stepping into the womb of that room as if they had always been walking toward it and Jez had always been waiting. Enveloped by their low-throated hum, they slid a robe over her head and placed a curved ceremonial knife in her left hand. As she grasped it, Jez sensed vibrations keening from the spirit knife, and felt herself tilt and turn as if her very molecules were realigning to some new axis. Then, without thinking, she was rising to her feet and stepping out from behind the bed, tearing the black sheet from the door and drawing the red-handled jackknife free of Farrah Fawcett’s face.
Her father was wearing his camel-hair overcoat, a damp weight too thick for the jackknife to penetrate. The collar was upturned, every part of his upper body covered. Thinking she would have to come at him from underneath, Jez dropped to her knees and began struggling with her father’s lower buttons, his left elbow all the while knocking the side of her head but he didn’t seem to notice, his gurgling, glaring focus entirely on Dee. And Dee was weakening—Jez could feel that as certainly as she felt her own stopped breath. The last button undone, she wormed in between the two pairs of staggering legs and positioned herself so she faced her father’s waist.
Still he had not noticed her, so intent was he on choking the life out of the Jezebel. Already Dee’s gurgles were fading, her knees sagging against Jez’s back. A quick jerk of a hand brought Deacon Hamilton’s coat open, exposing an unbuttoned suit jacket and a cotton shirt stretched tight across his belly. With a cry, Jez brought her hands together, merging the spirit knife with the jackknife, and thrust forward, shoving repeatedly, her mouth grunting as her father’s grunted, her arms gaining strength as his lost their rigidity and blood burped from his gut out onto her hands. Abruptly, the weight against her back slid free, and Dee, released, sank to the floor. Jez’s father staggered backward, his eyes darting wildly, then fixing on her dimly lit face above the upheld knife.
“Louisie?” he croaked.
Later, she would relive endlessly the way he lurched toward her, his arms circling and pulling her close, straight into the open wound. Then his hands slipped free of her, past any meaning of her, and she realized they reached merely for the wound, working its edges frantically, trying to draw it closed. Shoulders slumped, her father reeled and tottered. Sounds dribbled from his mouth, dying sounds, but he hung on, working the hole in his gut shut; Jez could see the life in him, fierce and determined, not yet ready to lose its grip on flesh.
His face sagged, red-lit by the heater’s glow, the anger deserting it, the bitterness. In that moment, Jez wanted to reach out and stroke its final vapid emptiness. She so understood its creed of loneliness, hymn of pain, its beautiful complex code of martyrdom—she was the daughter who knew him best; he had been wrong about that.
At the very end, she saw something like wings rise from his back—a clear, blue-white flicke
ring that carried every possibility of the father she had never experienced. But Jez had learned; ducking, she let the hope of it pass her by, allowed no part of her father’s soul to touch and hang onto the living of her life. Then, as she stood open-mouthed and trembling, his body slowly caved in around her, embracing her in death the way she had never allowed him to hold her in life.
Behind her, Dee moaned and shifted. “Dee,” Jez cried, her knees buckling under her father’s weight. “Help me. Please. I don’t know what to do with him.”
Whimpering and unsteady, Dee rose to her knees. For a moment she simply gaped at the dead man, collapsed and bleeding in Jez’s arms. Then, without speaking, she took hold of his feet and began to angle his body toward the door.
“Too far,” gasped Jez, thinking of the long haul down the stairs. “The window.”
In the room’s red-lit darkness, their eyes locked as they remembered. Then they were grunting and heaving, pleading with a corpse that flowed like the Manawaka River, torso slumping one way and legs another as the head jammed itself stubbornly against the bottom of the raised window.
“Fuck, he’s staring right at us!” hissed Dee.
Twisting the right arm up and out, they forced the head through, and for one last moment the body rested, balanced on the small of its back. Then, scraping loudly, the butt slid over the ledge and Jez’s father began his fall through the snow-white air, down onto the hood of the car parked below.
Twelve
The night of my father’s death marked the beginning of a two-day near-record snowfall that descended on central Ontario like the end of the world, closing schools and bringing much of the pre-Christmas commerce to a halt. As Dee and I sat, however, trembling at her kitchen table, the future was yet unknown—the coming snowdrift that would enshroud the Valiant, magnified by a ten-foot-high snowbank piled soon after onto the snowed-over car by an oblivious snow-removal crew, and, finally, the seemingly never-ending wait for the discovery of Deacon Hamilton’s body, well into the spring thaw.