At one o'clock Megan stopped to eat her lunch out of the brown paper bag. After lunch, since it was the hottest part of the day, Megan walked across the garden to collect her sketch pads. She cleared off the garden swing and sat with her back to the sun, sketching the yellow house and the shrubbery that guarded the French doors.
When Megan was just about finished and ready to turn the page to move on to a new subject, she heard what sounded like gas hissing from a pipe.
"What are you doing?" rasped Beverly from the center of the doorway.
"I was sketching. I used to do it a lot when I was younger. It always relaxed me. I could sketch you if you'd like. Perhaps you'd like Carl to have a likeness of you. But then, since he is a photographer, I guess he's taken many snapshots of you."
"He has only one likeness of me, but he said he did it from memory."
"Did what from memory? Did he try his hand at sketching, too?"
"You mean like you?"
"Carl told me about the woman he lived with and about how she used to have models come to the house so that she could sketch them. Actually, this is one of her pads."
Beverly reached out with a gloved hand, moving forward until the sun hit the drabness of her robe. Stung by the burning rays, her body wilted, shoulders visibly lowered; her hand fell to the front fold of the material, her shawled face dropped lower onto her chest, and her knees started to buckle.
"Here, let me help you."
Megan jumped up from the swing, dropping the pad onto the ground, and moved forward quickly to catch the old woman. As Megan's arms encircled the dark form, Beverly exhaled the cry that had almost caused her to collapse, and with it a stench filled the air, forcing Megan to free her. Horror-stricken, Megan watched as Beverly raised her hand to her face. Were those maggots she saw squirming down the gloved hand? Megan shook her head and closed her eyes. It couldn't be.
When she opened her eyes again, no one was standing in front of her and the sweet smell of hyacinths had again settled around her.
"The pad," called Beverly from the bedroom. "Bring me the pad, Megan, now. I want it now."
Seeing the woman so hysterical, Megan quickly ran to retrieve the sketches. At arm's length she handed the pad to Beverly and watched as the woman flipped violently through the pages, tearing the spiraled edges as she did. The old woman appeared to be panting for air.
O my God, please don't let her have a heart attack now, Megan prayed. I wouldn't know what to do, and it would certainly have been all my fault.
"I didn't mean to upset you, honest," Megan pleaded, hoping she could soothe the woman's temper. I should have known that Beverly wouldn't have liked that hyacinth woman, and here I am bringing the sketches right to her door, she thought. What a pea-brain you are, Megan.
Soon Beverly reached Megan's sketch.
"You draw well, Megan. Perfect, absolutely perfect."
"It's far from perfect. Are you all right now?"
"Fine! Much better! You've given me joy again."
Scratching her curly ringlets, Megan backed away from the doorway.
"I guess I'll finish up here and head back. You can keep the pad if you want."
"Oh, no! I want you to use the pad, Megan. I want you to draw Carl."
"Okay, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate for me to ask him to sit for something like that, given how he felt about that woman," she said, nodding toward the pad.
"No, you mustn't tell him. Memorize him. Memorize every part of him."
"Gee, I could probably sketch out his face now if you'd like."
"No! Not just the face. I want a naked drawing of him."
Megan's eyes widened. "Naked?"
"Yes. He has a mole right about here," Beverly said, indicating a very private part of the anatomy.
I guess she is his mother, Megan thought. Mothers do change diapers.
"It must be a perfect replica. Search his body with your hands and eyes. Learn every detail of his form and skin."
Megan's cheeks were afire. What could she say? She was so flustered that she couldn't deny she had been intimate with this woman's son.
"Please. I need it, Megan."
Megan recalled that the woman had said that Carl was ill. Maybe she wanted this drawing to remind her of him after he died. But naked! Well, didn't all mothers have bearskin-rug-type photographs of their babies? Even at fifty, he's still her baby, Megan declared silently.
She nodded. As she did, she moved closer to Beverly to take back the pad that was held out to her.
"It might take a few days."
"I want it perfect. If it means waiting a few days, that's all right."
As she took back the pad, Megan tried to peek under the heavy shawl, but all she could make out was some blackened skin covering a sharp chin.
31 - Don't Forget the Shovel
In a puddle of maggots Beverly watched Megan close the garden gate behind her. Squirming larvae worked their way down Beverly's nasal passages and up through her throat, freeing themselves from the rotting flesh within. Beverly spat the fatted chunks of squiggly debris onto the ground in front of her.
She would have to be more careful, carry a handkerchief with her, so that Megan would not see what was spewing up from within her. Beverly had finally found her means of vengeance, but she didn't want to scare the messenger away before the time had come to act.
''Those rats have heavy competition," she said, staring down at the whirling life surrounding her booted feet.
Somehow, Beverly had managed to distance herself from the decay and rot. She couldn't explain the aloofness she experienced as she watched what was happening to her body. Had she been driven mad? No, she confessed, it wasn't lunacy driving her; it was the desire to stop Carl.
"You may never know who the person was who destroyed you, Carl, but that's not what matters. Survival will come out of this for one of us three." She gagged on the rubbish crawling up her throat. "You'll die a worse death than what could have been back in the Amazon."
Beverly swayed back and forth in the stillness of the bedroom as she surveyed the garden. The tools were beneath the swing where Megan had placed them.
"A shovel!"
She turned away from the afternoon sunlight and headed back into the depths of the house to search for a shovel. Scattered about an unfurnished room was a multitude of apparatus, some of which no longer had any reason to be there. Then there were the tools that hadn't been touched since Carl had fixed up the house for rental. But no shovel.
"It's just like you, Carl, to hide all the equipment necessary for your spells. But now I have an ally who'll help me. I'm sure you have shovels of various sizes stuck away in your own house. Megan shouldn't find it difficult to whisk one away from you."
Beverly went to the living room, opened the slats on the window, and watched the calm afternoon change into a breezy summer evening. When twilight began flickering through the room, Beverly heard some shuffling sounds coming from the bedroom. Sensing her nightly visitors were back, Beverly gently shut the jalousie and retreated slowly to the bedroom, where she saw several rats nuzzling the bed linen, which was balled up on the floor.
"I'm not there, you fools," she rasped as she lurched into the room, scattering the rats.
One rat, which had climbed to the top of the armoire, leaped down upon her, fixing its teeth on the side of her neck under the long shawl. The other rats, gaining confidence from their confederate, advanced on her, mouths atwitter in their warring cries.
32 - Moonlight Swim
Megan sat on the lid of the toilet, sketching feverishly. No, that's not right, she grumbled as she corrected the shape of Carl's chin, then erased the tuft of hair sticking out from behind the base of his skull. Carl had just trimmed his own hair; that silly little bit of silver-blond was gone now. Something about the nose didn't look quite right to her, either. Perhaps she had made it too large orwait, it wasn't straight enough.
Eraser crumbs were sprinkled across her naked feet an
d overflowed onto the floor's tiles. Her toes wiggled excitedly as she attempted to perfect the drawing.
"Damn," she cursed.
"Megan, are you all right?"
Shortly after dinner, Carl had excused himself from the table and had said that he would be working in the study for a while. For some reason that Megan couldn't fathom, he had taken the developed photographs with him. Earlier he had surprised her with both negatives and photographs. After viewing them, Megan tried to think of a way to steal the negatives. She certainly wouldn't want them published or lost. Burned was the best answer. However, Carl had put them away in the study in one of the locked drawers. Oh well, Megan had thought, at least this gave her a chance to begin her own project for his mother. Megan had loaded the sink with dishes and retreated to her own private office.
"Megan, are you ill?"
She hurriedly flipped the pad shut, placed it on the edge of the bathtub, and began unwinding a chunky roll of toilet paper.
"Be right out," she called as she started to dampen the paper.
Squatting down, Megan cleaned off first her feet, then the tiles. She wanted no casual evidence left behind. When she was finished, she flushed the paper down the toilet, hid the pad behind the pedestal sink, then threw open the door, walking directly into Carl.
"Sorry."
"Are you all right? You've been in there for quite a while."
"Not very long, really."
"I stopped working a half hour ago, and you've been sequestered in there ever since."
"I'm fine." Megan shrugged as if the world were hunky-dory.
Carl started to move around her to enter the bathroom. Megan reached her hand across the doorway, gripping the frame.
"Where are you going?"
"Mind if I use my own bathroom?"
"Why don't you use the one off the hall?" she said, envisioning the edges of the pad protruding on either side of the pedestal.
"What's the difference?"
"I'm taking a bath."
"A dry one," he said, looking her up and down.
"Well, I was about to take a bath."
"Is that what you were pondering so long in the bathroom?"
"Sort of."
"Take your bath," he said, holding his hands palms-outward in front of him.
Once Carl was out of the room, Megan raced back into the bathroom to retrieve the sketch pad. She had just barely slipped it under the mattress when she heard Carl's returning footsteps.
"I thought you were taking a bath."
"Changed my mind."
Carl shook his head.
"Shall we walk down to the river?"
"What are you going to do, bathe in the river instead?"
Megan giggled and teasingly brushed her hand against his cheek.
"Maybe we can go for a moonlight swim," she said seductively. She immediately caught herself. A midnight swim wouldn't allow her to see any of the specifics of his body, but it was too late to retract the offer, because he accepted immediately.
Megan wondered if she was right to be so fanatical. Was it really necessary to have a perfect likeness to give to Beverly? Would Beverly know the difference? Doubtful, she thought, but she had promised, and Megan would feel guilty of cheating if the drawing was not exact. Okay, maybe she could delay the lovemaking until they got back to the bedroom, so they could perform under the glare of a one-hundred-watt lightbulb. How unromantic, she objected to herself.
"Do you live alone, Megan?"
They were on the path that led to the river. She didn't even remember walking out of the house, because she had been so caught up in her own thoughts.
"Excuse me?"
"Do you live alone?"
"No. Hester and I are roommates. Actually, we've been best friends since the third grade."
"I guess you'd like to live alone for a while."
"No. I'd have no one to share the chores with and I'd have to clean the house, do the laundry, and go food shopping every week. With Hester, I do those only every other week, and sometimes I barter myself an extra free week here and there. I probably did two-thirds of her research for school while we were in college. Since I was going to the library anyway, I'd offer to do some research for her while I was there if she did my chores for that week."
"Didn't know you were so lazy."
Megan scowled. "I'm only lazy when it comes to housework. The problem is, I think like a man." She watched Carl's eyebrows rise. "I bet the dinner dishes are still in the sink."
"You put them there."
"Ah, and you had, by your own admission, at least a half hour in which to do them."
Carl laughed. "I'm guilty. There have been times that dishes have sat in the sink until I've run out of clean dinnerware."
Megan stuck her tongue out at him.
"How inviting," he whispered, rounding her waist with his left arm.
Flustered, Megan stumbled over her feet, but Carl lifted her up into his arms before she could fall. He carried her to the edge of the river.
"Should I drop you in, clothes and all?"
"No!" she screeched, enjoying the physical contact.
"Then why don't we peel each other's clothes off?" he said, letting her body slide down the length of him.
An hour later, Megan was no more cognizant of his every pore than she had been before. She had been so enmeshed in their love play that she hadn't even considered the promise she had made to Beverly. However, she was content and sated. Tomorrow evening she could act on her assignment if she wasn't lucky enough to get a replay tonight. She sighed.
"That's a heavy-duty sigh."
"I was thinking about how unfettered it feels to make love in the outdoors."
"I certainly haven't chained you to the bed yet," he said, the glint in his eye making Megan feel more secure about returning to the house for an encore.
"Maybe we should try it indoors now to compare." Megan began quickly scooping up their clothes.
"Take it easy, Megan. Throw me my jeans."
With an underhand throw, Megan tossed the jeans to Carl. They fell onto the ground, just short of his outreached hand.
"I was never good at sports. In gym class, I was always one of the last people to be chosen for a team. I was plenty popular socially, but all the kids knew I was clumsy once I got a ball in my hands."
Carl stood and slipped on his jeans, after which he reached into the bundle of clothes in Megan's arms to pull out his shirt.
"The rest is yours, I presume."
Megan started to dress also. When she was finished, Carl called to her. He was sitting on a large rock. As she approached, he moved over to make room for her.
"Do you like spending time in the country?"
"With you, definitely."
She watched his smile broaden. Very straight teeth, she noted. His tongue inched out to cover the front two teeth as if pausing to recoup some idea. He flashed her another smile.
"Why not stay through until next summer?"
"Carl"
"There must be things you'd like to do. Are you even sure what kind of job you want to work at?"
"No, as a matter of fact, I have no idea what I'm going to do. I studied anthropology because I enjoyed it, but going off on expeditions to locate ancient cultures . . . I don't know. On this trip I haven't done too well. Could you imagine me in the jungles of some far-off place? Besides, I'd have to go to graduate school, which I can't afford right now."
"Then stay here and think awhile. Isolate yourself; learn who you are."
"Carl, I wouldn't be alone," she reminded him.
"If you stayed at the rental house, you would be."
Megan was about to deny that when she literally bit her tongue. Poor Beverly; did he expect his mother to pass on that soon? True, Beverly did appear to be wasting away from some disease. But on the other hand, she had told Megan that Carl was the one in poor health. Whether it was miscommunication or confusion, Megan knew something was wrong.
''I coul
dn't afford the rent. That's another one of the blessings about having a roommate, and I don't think Hester wants to be isolated."
"No, I don't want you bringing Hester here," he said a little too loudly. Calmly he continued, "You're young and you've had to take care of yourself for quite some time. Stay at the yellow house and sort out your possibilities. You could pay me minimum rent, or none at all if your money is tight."
Mary Ann Mitchell - Drawn to the Grave.html Page 15