Cradle Lake

by Ronald Malfi

  Alan’s first thought was that Hank and Lydia had had a second child who died of some horrible childhood illness. The child in the photographs, whose sex was indeterminable due to a lack of hair and whose attire consisted solely of white linen hospital gowns, stared out of one photograph with large, beseeching, doe-like eyes. A network of tubes streamed from one of the child’s arms and vanished out of frame. Alan noticed a slightly out of focus dialysis machine in the background. It had been taken in a hospital room.

  As Hank flipped through the pages, the photographs became more and more depressing. Alan silently prayed he’d stop before reaching the end of the album, because who knew what the final pictures would show? After all, this child was no longer with them …

  “Leukemia,” Hank said. His voice was sober, his hand turning the pages of the album admirably steady.

  It was a little girl, Alan realized. In one photo she was propped up in a hospital bed, her pale, hairless scalp covered in a pink straw hat adorned with silk flowers. Her smile was heart-wrenchingly beautiful.

  “Hank, I’m sorry.” His voice was inconsequential. “I’m so, so sorry. She was … beautiful. What was her name?”

  His hand paused in the middle of turning one of the pages. “That’s Catherine.”

  Alan felt the world waver and tremble all around him.

  “She was diagnosed with childhood leukemia when she was a baby. These pictures were taken in Baltimore before we came here. She suffered for years. We all suffered.”

  Another picture showed Catherine in a wheelchair—the very same wheelchair that was now leaning against the wall beneath Hank’s baseball uniform. She was clutching a fistful of balloons and grinning at the camera. It was the same toothy grin her father had. Something folded in half inside Alan’s chest.

  “Got a whole box of pictures,” Hank said, jerking a thumb at the open cardboard box but not pulling his gaze from the photo album. “I told you I’d been in that lake exactly seven times, including today with the Morris kid. Those six other times were with Catherine.” He traced one of the photos. “Just like you, I didn’t believe at first. And just like you, they wanted to keep it a secret from us when we first moved here. But I guess Catherine stole a couple of hearts—you know how kids are good at that, right?—and the next thing I know, Don is having a few beers on my back porch with me one night, same as I was having them with you tonight. He says, ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ and I follow him across your yard—your uncle was living there at the time—and into the woods.

  “We go down that path, those strange white stones seeming to light the way, and by the time we get to the lake he’s told me pretty much what I’ve told you tonight. All of it. Of course, that was before what happened with the Morelands, so there was less concern and less understanding of what the lake could do—both good and bad.” A teardrop fell on one of the photos. Hank wiped it away with his thumb.

  “The Morris kid was fixed right up—one, two, three,” Hank said. “It was different with Catherine. It took six trips to the lake over a three-month period. It was no different than a regular medical treatment, actually. No different than the chemotherapy. The healing was slower with Catherine. Like I said, there’s no explanation for why it works the way it does.” His voice had deepened, his eyes lost in reverie. “Guess there doesn’t need to be an explanation.” He closed the photo album and leaned his head against the cinder-block wall.

  Alan remained motionless beside him. His mind was suddenly racing; he couldn’t erase the images in the photographs from his head, couldn’t shake them loose. He couldn’t stop thinking of Heather, either, and the two dead babies they’d left behind.

  “I’m showing you this because it’s important you believe. And it’s important you respect the lake’s power.” Hank swiveled his head toward Alan. Their noses were practically touching. Alan could smell Hank’s aftershave and the cigarettes he’d smoked on his breath. “Stay away from the lake, Alan. For every story like Catherine’s, there’s a story like the Morelands’. It’s not good for everyone. And it’s best just to stay away.”

  Alan crept through the dark hallway and turned on the night-light in the bathroom. It was barely enough light by which to brush his teeth and wash his face. His ulcer was working overtime now, ever since he’d left Hank’s house, and he leaned against the sink basin and held his breath for several seconds. One-handed, he located his antacid tablets in the medicine cabinet and dry-swallowed three of them.

  Trembling, he staggered into the hallway to the bedroom. Heather was snoring gently and buried beneath a mound of blankets despite the heat. Alan stripped out of his clothes and climbed in beside her. She did not move, did not make a sound. Rolling over, he embraced her and slid closer to her back.

  He could not shake the photographs of Catherine Gerski from his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes, her smiling, hairless moon face would look up at him from a wheelchair or hospital bed. And as he drifted off into restless sleep, he swore he could actually smell the clinical, medicinal staleness of empty hospital corridors, soured bed linen, and the fetid odor of inevitable death. Overhead lights fizzing and popping in their fixtures. A steel sink basin speckled with pinkish spatters of vomit. Each empty mattress—

  (blood there’s blood on the mattress there’s blood)

  —still bearing the impression of the person who’d died on it. People vanishing into death. All of a sudden, he was snuggling into Heather’s soft, soap-smelling hair in their tiny bed in their tiny Manhattan apartment, whispering into her ear, They’ll always be here. They’ll always be with us. Both of them. The mermaid and the sailor. So foolish in his consolation.

  Babies. Dead babies. What was a baby? How could babies die? They don’t die; they just get lost. Stupid, inconsequential, inconsolable words. They called it losing the baby, so where were they now? To where have their material parts dispersed? Had they returned to the earth, their physical bodies the topsoil of fresh flower beds, their essence in the bloom of a new rose? Or had their spirit and essence retreated inside Heather? Or perhaps they had simply dispersed into the atmosphere. And they would always be running with the bulls in Pamplona and in the passion of young lovers and in the shrill of guitar solos and in the magnetic ebb and flow of the tides and the nerve-damaged throb of every old man’s headache.

  Might be a time when you’ll find that it’s worth the gamble, just like with the Morris boy. But for now, live your life and forget about it.

  When his eyes opened, he was disoriented. His face was still buried in Heather’s hair, which he’d dampened with tears. She was sleeping soundly. The clock on the nightstand read 2:18 a.m. Something had prodded him from fitful sleep—some notion, some realization. Something he’d forgotten about—or, more accurately, hadn’t realized—until just now …

  Swinging his legs onto the floor, Alan eased himself out of bed and staggered in his nakedness back into the bathroom. He closed the door and then, bypassing the night-light, switched on the bathroom fixtures. Four spherical halogen bulbs burned brightly above the mirror. He winced like a vampire. The antacid tablets from earlier had done nothing to soothe his angry stomach.

  Once his eyes adjusted to the light, he peered closely at his reflection. Sweat was already dampening his brow and sliding in ticklish rivulets down his ribs. He touched the skin above his right eyebrow with a finger that vibrated like a tuning fork. Touched the skin, prodded the skin. It had been this way all week yet only now did he actually notice, actually realize—

  The gash on his forehead—the one he’d contracted after his foolish stumble on the dirt path that first day—was gone.

  It had been gone since the morning after he’d touched two fingers to the surface of the lake.

  BOOK TWO

  ATAGA,HI—THE LAKE

  CHAPTER TEN

  The headline proclaimed, MURDER-SUICIDE SHAKES up SMALL TOWN, and the tagline read, LOCAL MAN KILLS WIFE, SELF.

  Alan had located the article easily enough online. He sa
t now at his computer, which he’d set up in the back room of the house that functioned as a makeshift office, a cup of hot coffee beside the keyboard. A Google search of Owen Moreland’s name along with the word murder provided a number of hits, the most promising being archived newspaper articles. Alan had to punch in his credit card number and purchase a subscription for twenty bucks in order to access the archives, but his curiosity bested any frugality he might have normally displayed.

  The article was accompanied by a full-color photo of the Moreland house on Cedar Avenue, decorated in yellow police tape. Just reading the headline and looking at the photo of the house caused a hollow feeling to permeate Alan’s body. It wasn’t as if he had doubted Hank’s story—despite what he was and wasn’t ready to believe about the lake, he knew Hank wouldn’t lie to him about something as horrific as what had happened with the Morelands—but seeing it here in front of him was like being awakened by a loud, resonating gong directly behind his head.

  He read the article, digesting all the words. The information was not much different than what Hank had relayed to him, except for the fact that there was no mention of the young fireman Sophie Moreland had been involved with, since his body, according to Hank’s chronology, wasn’t discovered until a couple of days later. That was when the police were able to piece it all together. The reporter made no attempt at hypothesizing a motive behind the slaying, despite Hank’s inference that much of Groom County knew of Sophie Moreland’s infidelity. The reporter’s conclusion was simpler than the mere search for motive: it was a horrible, frightening tragedy that defied explanation and had come to mar their peaceful, perfect little community.

  After reading the article twice, Alan felt an inkling of disappointment. He’d been hoping to find a photograph of Owen Moreland. Surprisingly, there was none with the article.

  Alan jumped ahead to the newspaper of the following week where the conclusion to the Owen’s story was detailed once again on the front page. The body of Wade Balfour, a twenty-nine-year-old firefighter, was discovered shot to death in his duplex outside of town. This time the reporter was less equitable; the love triangle was more than just hinted. The article closed with a few quotes from neighbors of the Morelands about Wade and Sophie’s affair.

  There was still no photograph of Owen Moreland.

  Easing back in his chair, he cringed as the ulcer began to sizzle in his stomach. Then something occurred to him.

  Instead of searching for Owen’s name and murder, he did another Google search for Owen Moreland and pharmacist.

  The results were limited, but the first website looked promising. It had Owen’s name and job title in the heading along with an address on Market Street downtown. Alan clicked on the link and waited as the page loaded.

  Information about the pharmacy and a photograph appeared on the screen. Thin, white face, rimless glasses, narrow cheekbones, and surprisingly pleasant, squinty eyes beneath a mop of unruly black curls, Owen Moreland grinned at him.

  “There you are.” He sipped some coffee. “Went a little berserk, did you, buddy?”

  From down the hall, Jerry Lee began barking.

  He scrolled through the website, but that was the only photo of Owen Moreland. Jesus Christ, he looked like a nice enough guy. Friendly, even. Alan clicked back to the newspaper article and looked at the photo of the house on Cedar Avenue with the crisscrossing of police tape running up and down the porch. Where was Cedar Avenue? The town wasn’t that big.

  Jerry Lee continued to bark incessantly from the other end of the house. Alan knew Heather was napping—she’d been napping a lot since the move, sometimes straight until nighttime—and it would take nothing short of a nuclear blast to wake her from her medicated coma.

  “Goddamn it, Jerry Lee.” He stomped into the living room to find the dog staring out the patio doors. “Come here!”

  The dog turned and gave him a cursory once-over, then looked back out the doors. Something in the yard had attracted his attention.

  “What are you doing?” he said, coming up behind the dog and yanking him away from the doors by the collar. Alan peered out. He could see nothing.

  At his heels, Jerry Lee growled deep in his throat.

  “Sit,” Alan said, opening the sliding glass door. “Stay.”

  Jerry Lee whimpered but obeyed.

  Alan stepped into the yard. A strong wind bowled down from the mountains and bent the tips of the tallest pines. A steady shhhh echoed throughout the valley. Casting a wary glance at the terminal, rain-pregnant thunderclouds, Alan poked a cigarette between his lips and surveyed the yard. Behind the glass patio doors, he could still hear Jerry Lee growling.

  “Hello? Anybody out here?” Feeling instantly like an idiot for talking to himself …

  The wind shook the trees along the edge of the property. He looked up to see pine boughs crisscrossing each other in the wind over the mouth of the hollow. For a split second he thought of the peculiar brand of dreams he’d been having ever since he moved into his uncle’s house—the dreams of Jimmy Carmichael standing in this very yard or his father staggering along the wooded dirt path, naked and pale and rotting with each step he took, his heels leaving bloodied hollows in the packed earth.

  Something cried out behind him. It was the sound of an infant in sudden pain. He spun around and saw a mangy gray cat struggling through a mesh of nettles. It glared up at him, its yellow eyes wide and fearful, then it opened its mouth and emanated a yowl that caused the hairs to stand up on the back of his neck.

  “So you’re the one causing all the commotion. Get the fuck out of here.”

  It lifted one paw and, with the disdain of the terminally wretched, hissed at him.

  “Okay. Real nice. Take off, partner.”

  But the cat was caught in the nettles. It tried to push itself forward, but the netting of weeds was too tightly meshed, snaring the beast. The cat’s ears settled against the back of its head as it sank low to the ground. It practically disappeared in the tall grass.

  “All right. But you’re pushing your luck, buddy, you know that?” He went over to the cat and bent down, petting its back with the knuckles of one hand as it pressed itself even closer to the ground. It continued hissing at him, its ears plastered to its head.

  From behind the glass patio doors, Jerry Lee paced wildly.

  “Calm down,” he said to the cat. The last thing he wanted was for it to swipe at him and open up his—

  (wrist)

  —flesh. “Keep it cool, buster.”

  A bright green nylon band appeared within the mottled gray fur around its neck. Alan ripped away the weeds and nettles just as a light pattering of rain began to fall.

  The cat purred deep in its throat—the sound of a small motorboat. Alan expected it to tear off across the yard and disappear beneath the underbrush, but it didn’t. Still low to the ground, the cat crept toward him and hid in Alan’s shadow, distempered by the sudden patter of rain and frightened by Jerry Lee, who was barking again.

  Alan slid one hand beneath the cat and scooped it up. The cat meowed in protest. Petting its head, he stood and held it close to his body as a peal of thunder ripped across the sky. The creature stirred in his grasp. Mewled.

  “All right, buddy.”

  The bit of green nylon around its neck was a collar. A medallion hung from the front. The cat hissed at him when he tried to grab the medallion, so he opted to rotate the collar around its neck until the little circular medallion came into view, all the while making soothing cooing noises close to the animal’s ear.

  “Where the hell’s Strand Street?” He scratched behind the cat’s ears, and it rewarded him with a calm, motorboat purr. He could feel its heartbeat gradually slowing against the palm of his hand. “Are you one of my neighbors or some stray sniffing out garbage and attacking squirrels?”

  It nestled against his hand, still purring.

  Blood came away on his fingers.

  “What the hell … ?” Hunting around throu
gh its thick fur, he located a shallow wound along its ribs. The flesh looked tender and raw; the puckered wound itself had gelled over with coagulated blood. “What happened to you, huh? Get in a scrape with one of Hank’s fabled Smoky Mountain grizzlies?”

  The cat hissed.

  “Hey, now, I’m just fucking with you. Come on. Let’s find your home.”

  Addresses meant nothing to him—he didn’t know anyone’s address in town except for the few folks he’d come to know on his own street—but he had recalled seeing a sign for Strand Street past the first intersection. Still cradling the cat, he walked to the intersection and turned onto Strand Street. He watched the numbers on the mailboxes tick down until he came upon eighty-three. It was a split-level with pea-green siding and an oval glass in the center of the front door.

  “Is this where you belong, you fucker?” Alan said, rubbing the cat’s spine, careful to avoid the area of injury. He could feel the notches of its backbone through its fur. “You need to stay out of my yard before you send Jerry Lee into conniptions.”

  He mounted the front steps and knocked on the door. He could hear movement, quick and furtive, in the house, and through the distorted oval of glass on the door he thought he saw shadows swimming deep within. But when no one came to the door he knocked a second time. The storm was growing closer, creeping down from the mountains, and the cat was not happy about it; the thing squirmed in Alan’s arms and tried to nuzzle its head beneath his left armpit in an attempt to keep dry.

  “Cool it, will ya?” he scolded.

  The door opened and his blood froze.

  Cory Morris stood there, wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and baggy jeans cuffed at the ankles. His sandy hair was swept across his eyes. He looked at Alan with little interest. “Hey,” he said. His tone was dry. His eyes never left Alan’s. “How come you got Patsy?”

  Somehow, as if through divine intervention, Alan found his voice. “Uh … Patsy was wandering around in my yard.” He pictured the boy lying in the middle of the street, not moving. “Thought he might be lost …”