“What are you talking about? Owen?”
“Give me that,” he said, snatching it from her hand. “It's mine. Not yours.”
She stood before him, trembling.
Owen cradled Dagon in his arms. He closed his eyes, and whispered a brief prayer.
When he opened them, he said, “Here is something I hope you think about until the moment you die. I am going to be your dutiful son as long as your years continue. But the moment that I get an inkling that you are old and feeble, I will come to your bedside one night, and I will press my hands over your nose and mouth until you smother to death. And in those last moments, you will look at me and know that everything you were ever afraid of was true.”
His mother pressed her hands to her lips, unable to speak.
It was the power of Dagon, of course. It was there, in the room. The god was there with him.
Dagon whispered within his blood, “You will die like the bitch that you are.”
Or had Owen himself said it aloud, in a whisper, to his mother?
2
This is how it will happen, the voice came to him. You will tell her things. You will tell him things. He harbors a madness. He is breakable. Then, she will kill him. You will save her. She will kill him and you will have her.
He slept that night with Dagon next to him in bed. He dreamed of the great realm beneath the sea and he no longer felt his age, but felt as if he were again a child, and Jenna was with him, the Queen of the Deepest Fathom.
3
“Hello sweetie,” Mrs. M said. She had just finished the Sunday crossword puzzle, and looked up from the paper. “You all ready for four more days of this…this tempest?”
The kitchen was like a brilliant day compared to the murky rain outdoors.
Owen had come in through the back, his towel in his arms. “Up for a swim, Cathy?”
Mrs. M shook her head. “Feeling a bit downtrodden from the rain. Ask Frank, he'd probably love a race with you.”
“Mr. M's around?”
“He's enjoying the summer here after all.”
“That's great. I would've thought with the rain…”
Mrs. M didn't seem to notice his comment. She crossed her legs, one over the other, and Owen thought for a moment that it was the most luxurious movement he had ever in his life seen. “You here for Jenna?”
“I doubt she wants to see me.”
“Owen,” Mrs. M said, setting the paper down on the kitchen table. She arched an eyebrow. “Something's changed about you. What is it? Turn around.”
Dutifully, he turned about and then back to face her again.
“You're different now. What's that all about?” She said it with a sweet amazement. “Are you in love?”
“No,” he said, too quickly.
“Jenna's in her room. She sleeps later and later. Go call her if you want. She should get up. It's nearly ten. No one should sleep this late. Not at her age. Not in summer.”
Then, Mrs. M leaned forward, her breasts dropping slightly out of her robe. “Between you, me, and the wall, Owen, I think she's really depressed over something. But I'm the last person she'll confide in. I imagine it's about a boy,” she whispered. “That McTeague character.”
Then, she said, lightly, “I always thought there was something not right about him.”
4
“Oh. It's you,” Jenna said.
She was sitting up in her bed, the covers around her white cotton nightgown.
“Hi,” he said from the doorway.
The room smelled of sandalwood and vanilla.
“It's the rain. It does this to me,” she said, wiping her hair back from her face. “I hate storms.” She added, idly, almost as if he wasn't listening, “It's like my summer got stolen.”
He remembered the love that he had nearly forgotten. He remembered why he loved Jenna so much. She was there for him, always. She had always been there for him.
“Okay if I come in? You know, like I used to?”
“Sure,” she said, drawing her knees up. Then, “What is it between you two?”
He went into the bedroom, and sat down on the chair near her desk.
“Who two?”
“Don't be coy,” she said unpleasantly. “Jimmy. Is it just sex?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes. That.” “I don't want to talk about it.”
“I think you do.”
“No, I really don't.”
And then, something within him opened up.
It was like feeling a heat—a fire—in his chest, near his heart. It was Dagon. Dagon would inspire him. He felt that strength, suddenly, just when he thought he would falter.
Without even trying, tears poured from his eyes.
“Owen? Owen?” she asked, but he was nearly blind from the tears. She lifted the blanket, and patted a space next to her. “Come here. What's wrong? Owen?”
He bawled like a baby, and without knowing who—or what— had moved him, he found himself in her bed, her arms around him.
“Aw, Owen, what's wrong? What's wrong my precious, precious, precious baby boy?”
She held him close, and Dagon was there. He felt it. He was not alone. Dagon was there. The voice that came from his throat didn't feel like his. It was some small boy's voice. Some crybaby who shivered and spilled emotion across the girl he loved.
“He…I didn't…I didn't want…I can't talk about…I didn't…he just kept…he just kept…he kept…he…I tried to…fight…fight… fight…push…hit…but…he just kept…he just kept…he just kept.”
“Oh my god,” Jenna said, her voice chilled and haunted. “No. He didn't. No. Did he? Owen? Did he rape you? Did he?”
“He just kept…oh god, Jenna, I can't face this…I wanted to…I wanted to…I wanted to…kill…myself...I wanted to...”
And so it began, and she said all the things that she was meant to say; and Owen told less than he needed to tell, because she made the connections herself, and he sat with her for hours in her arms, and then, they made love.
5
He went to the boat that night.
It was over now. It was all over.
Dagon was still within him, and he had won.
He wanted to take it to Jimmy. He wanted Jimmy to suffer from it.
If he could, he would've videotaped the afternoon, he would've tape recorded Jenna's voice saying over and over again that she loved him, that it was all her fault, that Jimmy should never have come to the island, that he was bad, he was evil, and they should call the police, they should do something.
She even told him that if that bastard ever set foot on her property again, she would take that gun and shoot him right between the eyes.
The storm continued to rage, but in muted anger, across the gray mood of sky. The Sound and the distant islands that could be seen were like watercolor images, fuzzy and melting in the rain.
Owen wore a bright yellow raincoat that belonged to his father. He was a fire in the darkness.
“Mooncalf, you look like a fisherman,” Jimmy said. He wore cut off jeans and a striped rugby shirt that was already soaked through, and his hair was like seaweed, hanging in his eyes. In his hand, a green bottle of beer. “Like, you know, a real New England Clam Chowder Fisherman!” He had to shout over a roll of thunder and a crack in the sky; then the world lit up for a moment; it returned to gray.
Owen laughed, shaking his head. “You're drunk, boy.”
“Want a beer?” Jimmy asked.
“Sure,” Owen said. “How many you drink already?”
“Four. Maybe five. Who's counting?”
“Let's get out of the rain!”
“I like the jetty,” Jimmy said, tossing him a small bottle just before he leapt to the dock.
He grabbed Owen's free hand. “No one's looking. We can hold hands, all right?”
“I don't know,” Owen tugged away. He twisted the top off the Rolling Rock bottle, and took a swig. “God, I'm sick of rain!”
“M
e, too!”
Jimmy tried to kiss him, but Owen stepped back to avoid it.
The rain lightened slightly; it was a warm rain; it washed across their bodies.
“She's sort of expecting us,” Owen said.
“Who?”
“Jenna.”
“Jenna?” Jimmy laughed, and then looked sidelong up the hill to the Montgomery place. “What for? I thought it was you and me tonight.”
“She's…she's pissed. I guess that's what it is,” Owen shrugged. “She's pissed and she wants us to talk to her. I told her.”
“You…you told her?”
“After yesterday, in the truck, Christ, Jimmy, I can't not tell her. I've known her all my life. She's one of my closest friends. I told her about us. About how we're going to go away together. How you love me now. How everything's all right.”
“You…you…” he stammered.
The bottle in his hand dropped to the rocky ledge, shattering.
“You told her.”
It was coming out now. The madness that they all had within them.
Owen wanted to smile, but knew that if he did, he would give himself away.
6
The rain thinned. Minutes passed while Jimmy took in what had just been said. Owen could practically see the thoughts in his eyebrows as they squiggled around, flashing anger and confusion, and the way he chewed his lip, and how his eyes wouldn't stop blinking.
Owen reached over and touched his scalp. “Sometimes I think I see a halo around your head. I do. I think you're some kind of angel,” Owen said, and then scruffed his hair.
“You fucking told her?” Jimmy growled. “You goddamn fucking son of a bitch told her what we've been…what we've…”
“Do you think she didn't see?” Owen set his bottle down on the jetty, and put his hands on Jimmy's shoulders, pulling him into him. “Do you think she's stupid? We're her friends, for Christsakes. She can see. She told me she watched us that first night. She saw us. There was enough light to see our shadows, puppy. She told me it upset her, but she understood. She wasn't sure if it wasn't just one of those drunk boy things…or something else. I told her it was.” Then, he added hesitantly, “Something else.”
“You fucking goddamn son of a bitch gardener's son living in your goddamn peasant fucking world you don't even know what you've done!” Jimmy shouted. His face had contorted until it was more mask than face, a mask of pain and fury. It was no longer human. “You fucking think that,” spit flew from his mouth, “that… that…you, you, with nothing to lose can just throw what we have in front of her, in front of—you know what you're playing with? You're playing with things you can't even understand!” Jimmy began stomping around in a circle, alternating his shouts with lion roars.
When he finally quieted, Owen said, “What happened to yesterday? You looking up at God and telling me how this all felt, how you felt on the inside. How you felt you needed to let this out? What happened to that?”
Jimmy's eyes lit up. “Don't you, you son of a bitch, use my words against me! I wasn't born to lose everything because I'm sleeping with some island townie whore, I wasn't born to have this get out, to have this ruin everything I've ever built.”
“Listen to yourself. You talk like it's 1950. You won't lose everything just because...”
“You think so? You little bitch, you think I won't lose everything? You don't even understand what is going on here, do you? You think it's about me wanting you. The stakes are higher! I'll tell you something, boy, I want you, but I don't want you. You don't even understand why I have to be with Jenna, do you? Do you?”
Owen turned and began walking toward the strip of beach. “I don't want to hear.”
“Well, you need to. Maybe living in some little caretaker's house gives you zero perspective on this, but Jenna Montgomery means I will not be some poor shit like you.”
Owen glanced back. “You're rich.”
“Ha!” Jimmy cried. “You don't know the half of it.”
“You're an heir to some fortune. Some sports store chain.”
Jimmy shook his head. “It's not like it looks. My father has these stores. That's all he has. But the business is changing. It's changing, and he's had some setbacks. He isn't a good businessman, Mooncalf. Never has been. All this stuff, this boat, the houses, all of it, will be gone in a few years. It's coming. He's going to be in jail someday, my father, and the IRS is going to eat him alive. And I do not intend to live like that. I do not intend…”
“Jesus,” Owen gasped, and then began laughing. “Jesus. You're just a golddigger. You just are after her money. Jesus!”
Owen dropped to his knees on the wet sand.
“What's wrong with you?” Jimmy snarled, coming over to him. “You feeling bad now?”
“I thought you loved me,” Owen said.
“It's not about whether I love you or not. It's not about that. But you've ruined even that now.” He grabbed Owen under his armpits, lifting him up to a standing position. “You've destroyed something for me, Mooncalf. You really have.”
Then, he looked up the hill to the house.
The lights were on along the pool, and the upstairs light—Jenna's bedroom—was dim.
"I need to set this right," he said.
"No, don't, Jimmy, it's—"
"I need to," Jimmy said. “I'll tell her that it was weakness. I'll tell her I love her. I love her more than anything on the face of the earth. I'll tell her that I couldn't help myself with you, but that it was nothing. That you were nothing.” He nearly laughed, but it had a cry within it. “You're just a little manipulative piece of trash. She'll understand. She's not like you. She'll understand.”
Then, he took off in the rain, bounding up the wooden steps that crept like a vine along the side of the hill, and Owen began following, but slowly. He waited along the steps.
He heard the shots ring out before he had reached the top step.
Soon dogs down in town were howling, and lights came up along the waterfront.
7
The house was dark and silent when he went in through the glass doors by the pool. He walked past the shimmering water, flicking up the lights as he went. Entering the kitchen, he saw Mrs. M, lying in a pool of blood, and then Owen found himself moving more swiftly, his heart pounding—
—she resembled nothing of the mermaid she had once been; death had robbed her beauty; blood took away the magic of her form; her eyes were open, and fish-like—
Dagon, what is this? This isn't what was promised. This isn't what I prayed for—
—He ran up the stairs to Jenna's room, and found him standing there, the gun in his hand—
On the bed, Jenna, bleeding, an enormous hole in her neck. Her hands moved as if she were trying to reach up to her neck to stop the blood, but could not. She opened her mouth to cry out, but all that came was a rasping sound, and blood pulsed from her throat.
He felt himself burning as he watched the last light flicker in her beautiful eyes.
Then, her eyes closed.
8
“Mooncalf, what did I do?” Jimmy said, his skin red, his eyes narrow slits, his shirt torn and bloody. Tears and sweat shone like diamonds on his skin. “What did I do? I...I came up…I wanted to talk…and she…she had this…” He held the pistol up. “She…she threatened me…and then her mother came up…I grabbed it from her…I was going to leave…but they said things…her mother, too…they said things about me…and her father…About something…some lie…something you told her…something…”
“All of them?” Owen asked. “You killed. All of them?"
“I guess so. It's kind of a blur. Funny thing is,” he giggled in a way that seemed uncharacteristic, “it didn't really feel like me at all. It felt like something else. Like I got taken over. Maybe if she hadn't pointed this gun. Maybe if I hadn't been drinking. I don't know. It happened fast. I was about to leave, but her mother saw me with the gun. She saw me and she was saying these things. And then I just wan
ted to shut her up and this thing was inside me. This feeling. Like something wanted me to point the gun at her mother. Just to scare her. And then: kabang.”
“Jimmy?”
“And then her father starts shouting upstairs, and I feel this… this wild thing inside me,” Jimmy said, and now the giggling was becoming annoying and seemed to increase between words. “And I just go running back up the stairs and down the hall and there's her dad, and I think of my dad, and I think of all the things I'm never going to have, and suddenly the gun is going off, and then Jenna's screaming and she's picking up the phone in her room because I hear that beep beep noise and I have to stop her, I have to tell her not to call, that there'll be a way to work this all out. And then, I feel it in me again. I'm moving faster than I'm supposed to—the rest of the world is moving slow—and I'm in her room and she has a look on her face like she doesn't understand how I got there so quickly and I'm feeling this—power or something—and then I press the gun against her throat to shut her up.”
Then, he calmed slightly. He pointed the gun directly at Owen. “It's something you said to her. Isn't it? It's because you told her. But you said something terrible, didn't you?”
“Jimmy,” Owen said. “Now, I know you're upset. I know this is difficult right now. But I want you to breathe. Take a few deep breaths. Come on. Just breathe.”
Jimmy looked at him curiously for a moment, blinking.
He opened his mouth and let the air in.
Then, out.
Then, in.
Slowly, carefully.
Epilogue: Belief
1
I can look at this past summer now and see that it was all Dagon. Dagon was there, I had brought Dagon into our world, and Dagon had gotten loose. There is no madness except the madness of the gods. There is no purity except the purity of love.
Coming of Age: Three Novellas (Dark Suspense, Gothic Thriller, Supernatural Horror) Page 8