Circe

by Jessica Penot

  “There is something you need to understand. Most people believe that places become bad because of bad things that have happened there. They believe that ghosts haunt these places, corrupting things. This isn’t the way of things. There are evil places and bad things happen there because they are evil. Darkness dwells beneath the earth and those who plant in that soil will reap only sorrow. Ghosts are not born. The dead don’t walk. Ghosts are shadows of the other side, monsters without faces. There is more to this world than what can be seen with our eyes, and what dwells beyond will always be a mystery, but sometimes it seeps out. Sometimes the other side finds a place it can seep out and penetrate us. These places are called haunted, and what comes from them hungers for us. Like unrequited lovers they reach out, but they are never satisfied. Such a thing reaches for you now, Eric.”

  I shook my head. “Y’all just don’t like me,” I said with bitterness and disbelief. “The last woman I had read my palm said I would die young.” I laughed. I saw Pria wringing her hands behind me. Anxiety filled her eyes. She believed everything the woman was saying.

  Cybil pointed to the last rune. It sat alone on the empty table. “This is the blank rune. It is Odin’s rune. It is the rune of the Unknowable. Blank is the end and blank is the beginning. This rune portends death. You have opened a door, and I know you did not do it on purpose, which can not be closed. Your destiny is set.”

  Cybil turned away from me and touched Pria’s belly. “Don’t worry,” I heard her whisper to my stunned wife. “There is more to this world than can be seen. In the end, you and your babies will find peace together. You must face what your husband has unleashed. That has always been the burden of being a woman, but never be afraid. You’re marked. You’re saved.”

  My wife brightened. She was crying, but a warm smile peeked out from the storm of her fear. She embraced Cybil and cried on her shoulder.

  “What about me?” I asked with a nervous laugh. “Am I saved?”

  A cloud passed in front of the sun that had dappled the room, and the breeze stopped, filling the room with a noxious silence. “No,” Cybil hissed. “You’re damned. You’re Circe’s now and so is the woman that is already bound to her.”

  “I can’t buy this,” I said. “I didn’t drive all the way out here for you to scare my wife half to death. What is it with you people? Say something nice, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Fifty dollars,” Cybil said, coolly extending her hand. I gave her the money and pulled Pria out of the house. I virtually ran to the car and drove away as quickly as I could. I felt flushed and all I could feel was the anger beneath my skin. I was tired of women who claimed to be witches or psychics. I had lived my entire life surrounded by intelligent people who were educated enough to know that the real world only existed in what could be studied and quantified. I refused to accept madness because it was handed to me in the guise of sense. I was sick of dabbling in bullshit because some woman was afraid of reality. I didn’t care what the runes said. It was all crap. It was one woman with too many kids trying to sucker me into giving her more money with bad omens and scary whispers. I couldn’t even believe I had let Pria drag me to hillbilly country to be accosted by some hick’s wife’s opinion about my future.

  “What happened between Cassie and you?” Pria whispered under her tears. “I know you two had sex, but what else? You said she did some crazy voodoo stuff in the basement. What does that mean to you?”

  “I’m not doing this, Pria,” I responded. “I know I owe you. I know I should be your willing slave, but I’m not playing this game anymore. I’m not going to any more psychics or talking about demons or spells or curses. I’m done. I might as well go and talk to my crazy patient on the third floor that thinks a demon made him kill his family. That is where we are headed with this.”

  “Please, I’m really scared. Make sense out of this for me.”

  “Why are you scared? Because some nut read a bad reading for me. She’s crazy!”

  “She’s been following me. The ghost. I know you think I’m crazy. I know I sound crazy, but I swear to God she is real. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I wake up with bugs in my hair and I can smell her in my bed. Please!”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not… I don’t know. She’s a monster. I’ve been dreaming about this horrible monster. I think she’s real. I think she wants to kill the babies. I can never talk to you because I know you’ll send me to a shrink and I’m not crazy.” Pria began to cry and pushed her face up against the window. “You’ve been away so long. You’re here, but you’re not here. I’ve been alone with this. I’m not a woman with much faith, but I know something is wrong. I can feel it. What Cybil said made sense. When she was talking about Circe she didn’t mean the hospital. She was talking about the thing that has been haunting me. She was talking about the monster. She said there was something old and evil under the earth. She meant this thing. She meant this thing that has been following me. Just tell me what you did.”

  “Please, don’t ask this of me. Pria, my beloved, Cybil is just wrong. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to think about what happened between Cassie and me. Every time I attempted to conjure the images from that evening buried in the filth beneath the hospital, my mind writhed in denial. I couldn’t remember what I was thinking when I had succumbed to her repugnant body, covered in blood and wildly chanting. She hadn’t even seemed human. I felt degraded by the memory of it.

  Pria was crying in the seat next to me. The setting sun played tricks with the light in her black hair. Her belly looked just a little rounder beneath the baggy blouse she was wearing. Her face was thin and her eyes had deep shadows beneath them. I reached out for her, touching her hair.

  “Forgive me, Pria,” I whispered. “Forgive me. I have never deserved you, but no matter what I did I always loved you. Cassie took me underneath the old hospital. You’ve never seen C.R.C., so it’s hard to explain, but the campus is old and has served many purposes. There are these old brick buildings that used to be hospitals, like one hundred years ago, and they’re connected by a labyrinth of tunnels beneath them. They’re all empty. Cassie took me underneath them, into the labyrinth and I got lost. I followed her because, you know me, I wanted to be the best. I wanted the best review and I did whatever she told me to do. I’m not going to lie, for a minute I found her attractive, but I never meant to fuck her. She had this altar set up and she took off her clothes and started chanting. We got in a fight and I think I hit her and then before I knew it we were done, lying in the center of her weird shrine. After that I tried to break up with her, but she can be infuriating and compelling. She told me she’d tell you about everything, all my past affairs. So I stayed with her to keep her quiet, until I couldn’t handle her anymore. She’s bad. She’s unethical at work. She uses the patients. She represents everything I hate.”

  Pria was looking at me with her wide, black eyes. The light had faded and there was only the moon above us and the occasional street light to illuminate her features in the car. The heat hissed above the roar of the engine. Pria placed her hands on her belly

  “Pria, I understand if you leave. I don’t deserve your baby or you. What I did with Cassie is unforgivable. I know that.”

  “Shhhh,” she said. “Hush now. It’s too late. What’s done is done. Unfortunately, I love you. I’ve loved you since before you even knew who I was. You always think you saw me first, but I had seen you on campus. It’s funny because you always think that I didn’t want you. You always tell people how you seduced me and I was above it all, like I was a fairy who was above the lusts of the flesh. But I always knew you. I always wanted you. I had friends who you used and left and I knew that I could make you mine. I knew that if you felt like I hated you, you would want me more, so I played the role. I became inexorable to you. I made you mine and no matter how many women you fucked you always came back to me. You were always t
he most beautiful and brilliant man I had ever seen. So many women wanted you, but I won. I could never leave you. There were never any others for me. For you women are like beads you collect during Mardi Gras; for me there was always only you. You’re all I have ever wanted. You’re the only man I have ever known. This baby is yours.”

  “You’ve always been smarter than me, haven’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  * * * *

  The days grew colder than usual. In Mobile, this meant that the nights dipped down below freezing, leaving the subtle traces of winter in the air. The week Pria and I found our new house, ice hung from its roof like daggers. We looked forever amidst the cold and frost. Pria was looking for something she couldn’t define. She said she’d feel it when she found her baby's home.

  I went back to work. I enjoyed working with Dr. Donalds and the team very much. We didn’t spend as much time wrapped in bureaucracy. I did at least three evaluations a day. We treated and worked to get people in the best place for them. I actually felt like I was helping people. I began to enjoy my work again. The psychiatrist on our team was a brilliant man. He was young and quick-witted. He was willing to try new things and always listened to every member of the team. Unlike Dr. Yoshi, he was the leader, and everyone listened to everything he said. It didn’t take long for me to forget about Cassie.

  Dr. Donalds gave me the day off work to go with Pria to the Ob/Gyn before I even asked. It was like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. I had always had to beg and lie with Cassie, but Dr. Donalds just smiled and congratulated me on my new family. He talked jovially about his children and grandchildren and gave me tidbits of advice.

  Pria and I went to the Ob/Gyn for her first ultrasound. We were both full of apprehension. We had discussed it in depth and had decided to find out the gender of our baby. I knew Pria wanted a girl and she knew I wanted a boy. We decided it would be easier on both of us if there was no disappointment in the delivery room. I held Pria’s hand through the entire procedure. We both gazed at the monitor as if entranced. I could hardly tell what I was looking at. It just looked like smoke and fog to me. The nurse pointed to the screen identifying feet and arms that seemed like nothing to me and then she gasped.

  “Oh my!” she exclaimed. “The doctor never heard two heart beats?”

  “Not that he told us about,” Pria said.

  “Well, this isn’t common. Usually we catch this sooner. You’re pregnant with twins!”

  “Really?” Pria said. I could hear the fear in her voice and I knew she was thinking about that ridiculous psychic again.

  “Look,” the nurse was saying. “Can you see that? There are two heads. Oh! And look at that, there’s a penis and there’s the vulva. A boy and a girl!”

  “That is wonderful,” I said. “Now we both get what we want.”

  “Cybil was right,” Pria said. Her expression was flat. I could tell she was upset.

  “She also said you and the babies would be happy. So cheer up. You’re having twins. Twins.”

  I lost part of Pria that day. I drove her home and she threw up. She sat on the couch staring vacantly at the television. She didn’t say anything or ask any questions. She seemed lost. I sat beside her for a long time, rubbing her feet and watching Lifetime television. She didn’t want dinner, but she threw up again.

  “You can’t let some nut have this kind of effect on you,” I told her. “These types of readings can be explained in a lot of ways.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “There were positive things in what she said. She said you and the babies would be happy. She told you not to be afraid.”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” Pria said.

  “You’re not going to lose me.”

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”

  “I promise.”

  She put her head in my lap and I kissed her forehead over and over again. I called in sick for the next four days and Pria and I never left each other’s sight. We found our new house and signed a contract. The house was lovely. It was a pale blue cottage by a lake. You could almost see it filled with baby toys and basinets. It was perfect. The grass was thick and lush. There was a wooden play set in the back. The yard was fenced in for the dog. It felt like home.

  Pria’s father gave us money for a down payment and closing costs. He said it was a beautiful house, sitting on a river near the outlet malls in Foley. There was a huge room upstairs that Pria thought would be perfect for the nursery. For the first time since we had seen the psychic, she was happy. She smiled as she talked about where we would put the cribs, and the decorations she’d put in the nursery.

  I stood outside and talked with Ron while her mother and she walked through the house discussing furniture and paint colors. We shivered and talked about work and family. Ron put his hand on my shoulder and slipped a wad of hundred dollar bills in my pocket. “Buy my daughter something nice,” he whispered. “She needs to feel loved.” I thanked him and bought Pria some maternity clothes.

  Things seemed to get better. We would be able to move into the house in sixty days. Pria put in a two month notice at work as soon as she knew the house was final. She was relieved and she said that the people at work were relieved as well. They didn’t want to deal with Pria and her health problems. They wanted an employee who was healthy and single. They wanted someone who lived for their job.

  I went to my father’s old office and talked to the other people working there to make sure they were still willing to give me a chance there. Everyone was happy to see me. We reminisced about my father and talked about the practice. They told me about the different types of clients they saw and described a typical day. Finally, they took me into my father’s old office. This would be mine. There was still a picture on the desk of my mother, holding me in her lap, with Jeff and Jeremy standing beside us. I would fill the void left by my father. I would take his place. Our future was set in stone.

  I went back to work after taking a week’s sick leave. I thanked Dr. Donalds profusely and he said he understood. He said that the babies would change our lives forever and that it was appropriate to take time to digest the change. He seemed happy to give me anything I needed and he enjoyed reminiscing about his family. I left earlier than I had ever left with Cassie and waited by my car in the cold for Andy and John.

  I saw her again. I did not smile this time. Jane. She stood on the stairs looking at me. She walked slowly towards me, she sauntered. She always looked so happy, so benign.

  “Roy misses you,” she said.

  “He thinks you’re a ghost,” I responded.

  “I’m no ghost,” she answered.

  “Who are you?” I asked again.

  “I’m Jane. I’m Cassandra. I’m Dr. Bosarge. I’m you. I’m Circe,” she answered and disappeared into the mist. I flinched. I was left cold and confused. By the time Andy and John arrived, I had convinced myself I had dozed off.

  They emerged an hour late looking sullen and disgruntled. I had my car warm and they leapt in gruffly.

  “How in the hell did you deal with her?” Andy asked.

  I shrugged. “To be honest, it almost ruined my marriage.”

  “Really?” Andy said. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea what you were going through. That woman should lose her license. She isn’t a psychologist; she’s a witch doctor with a diploma.”

  “I can’t even decide what kind of psychologist she is,” John said. “I don’t see her enough to make those kinds of judgments. The most I see of her is her criticisms on post-it notes.”

  “It isn’t her post-its that bother me. There is something seriously wrong with that woman. You know she has books on witchcraft in her office. Not that touchy feely new age bullshit all my high school friends were into, but like old school black arts. Have you listened to her talk? She’s crazier than half the people in the hospital. She collects memorabilia from everyone who was tortured here. Who the hell does that?”

  “I just can’t hel
p but wonder why Babcock keeps her on. Babcock seems so grounded. I know she runs a tight ship. Why would she keep someone as completely backward as Dr. Allen?”

  “I think Cassie can be superficially charming,” I answered. “She passes her interns' work off as her own and as long as no one reports her she seems to be incredibly efficient.”

  “What the hell does she do with her time?” Andy asked. “I know she isn’t in treatment team or with any patients.”

  “She used to tell me she was on the third floor a lot,” I answered.

  “No. I work with Roy on the third floor and I don’t see her but, like, every other day up there. She has to be doing something else with her time,” John retorted.

  “Apparently, she spends all of her time bleeding our reports and looking for new ways to torture us,” Andy said glumly.

  “Just ignore her,” I said. “The next few months will go by more quickly than you think and then we can all leave and start our real lives. Speaking of which, when is the big day, John? Aren’t you getting married? Pria has been looking for the invitation, in between bouts of morning sickness.”

  John laughed. “Has it been that bad? We aren’t quite there yet. I think it’s going to be a small ceremony, maybe at the basilica. We’re still waiting on confirmation of the date.”

  “Well, you better get married before Pria has her babies, because I don’t think she’ll care after that.”

  “Babies?” Andy asked.

  “Yeah, we’re having twins.”

  We had John, Angela, and Andy over for dinner that Friday. Pria cooked a Thai dish that set our mouths on fire. It was splendid and intense. We all drank too much, except for Pria, and sat on the back porch laughing at Dr. Allen. It was good to be on the other side. To listen to other people’s stories about the mad psychologist rather than to be the one telling them. There was always so much to talk about that one night didn’t seem long enough. Everyone talked about their futures. Marriages, houses, jobs, and babies flitted in and out of the conversation. The stars smiled down upon us in our delight. Ambition filled the yard and dreams of family and love. Even Andy talked about the new man in her life. She mourned her prior failures to commit and confessed that she did want a child, someday.