Deep Down (Hallie Michaels)

by Deborah Coates

“His? Whose? Hollowell’s?” And then she knew. “Boyd’s.” Because this was Iowa, past the gravel slope, here in front of her, all green and gentle hills and just enough trees that you could tell where the creeks and rivers and farmsteads were. “But why? Why make it look like this? Why isn’t it just … well, hell?”

  They reached the stand of trees, and Hallie leaned her shotgun up against one of them, took her second bottle of water from the backpack, and drank, careful not to drink too much, though she was hot and incredibly thirsty. It had to last until she reached Boyd, until they could walk back out.

  She could have drunk the whole bottle and another one besides, but she recapped it, returned it to the backpack, and settled her shotgun in the crook of her arm. She felt a little ridiculous carrying it in this place, so peaceful, so not hell, but she wasn’t stupid. No matter what she saw next—church, priest, children getting out of nursery school—she meant to be prepared.

  “I remember this,” Lily said as she stood at the edge of the road. Her voice was so soft, Hallie barely heard the words.

  Hallie wanted her feelings about Lily to be predictable, to be jealousy, because Lily had once been married to Boyd, or anger, because they were all in this mess either for or because of Lily, or even sadness, because she, Lily, had died. She wanted to wish Lily far away, to never have met her or seen her or known her as anything other than a misty gray ghost. But the Lily in front of her just looked lost and seventeen.

  “Was it nice?” she asked.

  Lily looked at her. Her eyes had a certain flatness to them, as if they weren’t quite hers or they weren’t quite seeing the same things Hallie saw. “I think so,” she said. “I think it was. I remember Boyd. I mean, I don’t remember what he looks like or anything he said or things we did together. But I remember him. Right?” She looked at Hallie as if she had the answers. “That’s the thing that counts, isn’t it? That I remember him?”

  “What do you want, Lily?” Hallie asked. She tried to say it gently—a real question, not a demand.

  “I want to remember why I did it.”

  “Did what?”

  “Died.”

  “Okay,” Hallie finally said to that. Because what else could she say?

  The house across the road was clearly a farmhouse, but foreign to Hallie—not the right kind of house or barn or even driveway. Too close to the road, though set back some forty yards. Too green. It was a different season here—wherever here actually was—late spring, the grass freshly mowed in slant lines across the big front yard. Three patches of daffodils and tulips lining the drive. It was a white farmhouse, two stories, plain with vinyl siding that looked brand-new.

  Hallie looked carefully at the house, the yard, the road in front of it, looked behind her to the trees and the rock hills concealed behind them.

  “Where’s Hollowell? Is he here somewhere?”

  “Reapers never stay,” Maker said.

  “They can stay, though, right? I mean this is … Isn’t this their place? The under?”

  “They never stay,” Maker repeated.

  “Then who made this?”

  “Memory.”

  “Boyd’s memories? You mean it’s from his head?”

  Maker looked at her but didn’t answer.

  As they talked, Lily trotted ahead, her movements graceful and ground-eating.

  Maker looked at Hallie. “Remember what I told you,” it said. “He has to agree to go with you. You can’t just make him leave.”

  “All right,” Hallie said. “I heard you the first time.”

  “The rules—”

  “Okay!” Because that was the one thing she wasn’t worried about.

  Maker was just turning back and Hallie had just stepped from the road into the shallow ditch that marked the transition from road to yard, when Lily stopped abruptly.

  She took a step back, looked at the ground, looked left and right, then started forward again, only to stop abruptly once more.

  “There’s something here,” she said. “I can’t get through.”

  When Hallie came level with her, she stopped too. She couldn’t see anything, not even a slight variation in the light. She took a step forward. Nothing. Took another one. She could feel a slight pull, like a gossamer web; then it was gone. She turned around. Lily and Maker were standing where she’d left them.

  “Try again,” she said.

  “No,” Lily said. “I can’t get through.” She pressed the flat of her hand against something Hallie couldn’t see.

  Hallie looked at them. “You either?” she asked Maker.

  The dog sniffed at the ground along the invisible barrier, then snorted and shook its head violently, as if it had smelled something bad. The grass was thick and green on both sides, but along what Hallie assumed was the barrier itself was a swath, maybe a foot wide of dead plant material—grass, small branches with dead leaves still clinging to them, goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace and winter wheat. Hallie grabbed a handful; green grass grew undisturbed beneath it all.

  “Hollowell,” Maker said.

  “So things can’t get in?”

  “So Death can’t find him.”

  Hallie let the handful of dead leaves and branches fall through her fingers. She grabbed a handful of the living grass. Grabbed the dead plant material in her other hand. “This,” she said. “This. How are these different?”

  “Outside,” Maker said. “One is memory. One is from outside.”

  Outside. In the world. Hollowell had brought grass and twigs in from the world to create his barrier, because the grass and trees here weren’t real in the same way.

  “He has less power here,” she guessed. Because he couldn’t pull power from something that had never been alive.

  “Less,” Maker affirmed. “Not none,” he added, cautioning her.

  “You should both go,” Hallie said, straightening. “I’ll get Boyd. We’ll get out. I can find the way back. It’ll be fine.”

  “I want to talk to him,” Lily said. Her voice was quiet and determined.

  “It could be dangerous,” Hallie said. “Waiting here.”

  “All I do is wait,” Lily said. “Here or somewhere else, it makes no difference.”

  She walked back to the road and found a place to sit under a tree along the ditch. There was no shade; everything curiously flattened, almost real, almost Iowa, but not exactly. Lily didn’t look back at Hallie or Maker, like she’d already sort of forgotten they were there.

  Hallie looked at Maker, who was sitting with its tongue hanging out, panting softly. “Don’t worry,” Maker said. “Things happen the way they happen.”

  “Does that mean you’ll take care of yourself?” Hallie asked. She didn’t trust it, this harbinger of death. She didn’t. But she didn’t want it unmade. Not while it was with her, at any rate.

  It looked amused. “It means things happen,” it said.

  “All right,” Hallie said. There was nothing else to say.

  29

  Hallie crossed the lawn. When she reached the house, she knocked on the front door, even though it looked like the kind of front door that no one used. When no one answered her knock, she tried the side door, slightly amused that she was bothering to knock at all—they were in hell, not Iowa.

  Somewhere a dog barked, though it wasn’t Maker, whom she could see sitting just past the barrier. She left the house and started toward the barn. She took a moment to sling her shotgun and checked that her knife in its belt sheath was easy to get to.

  As she approached the barn, there was a thump, a long dry rattle, and the big barn door rumbled back.

  Boyd stepped out.

  He looked—well, he’d been gone less than twelve hours, so in most ways he didn’t look all that different. And yet—he was wearing worn jeans, clean but battered workboots, and a green barn coat with a leather collar, faded at the seams. He had on a baseball cap, the kind with an extra curve to the brim, a faded red one with a cardinal picked out in white.


  He looked different even though he’d hardly been gone … less precise, younger.

  He paused in the doorway. Seeing him again, Hallie felt her doubts and fatigue slip away. Not because he could make everything all right, or because he took care of her or made decisions for her, but because things made sense when he was around.

  Her steps quickened. “I can’t believe I actually found you,” she said. “Do you—?”

  Boyd frowned. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  Between one step and the next, Hallie froze, the heel of her right boot half-lifted. “What?” she said stupidly.

  There was a crackling, like small joints breaking. A scattering of thin branches fell to the ground three feet to Hallie’s left. She closed her eyes for a brief half second, then looked up. The tree, a giant oak, maybe two hundred years old, was dead. She cast a quick glance around, expecting Hollowell, but there was nothing, nothing but Hallie and Boyd and Iowa.

  “You seriously don’t know me?” she said. Though she knew the answer. Because that was the look in his eyes. Or the missing look, more accurately. Recognition.

  This was what Maker had warned her about, what she hadn’t understood, because it hadn’t affected her and she’d assumed or wanted to assume that it wouldn’t affect Boyd either. Memory. Like his was gone.

  He looked calm, but his right hand tapped steadily against his leg, like he was keeping time. “I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he said. He took a couple of steps forward. For a wild moment, Hallie thought if she just touched him, he’d remember. Like magic. Like wanting it and having it would finally be the same thing. But she knew that it wouldn’t.

  He didn’t remember her.

  “Maybe if you told me where you think we met,” Boyd said. He smiled, not the quick half smile that she remembered so vividly, something less … personal, less real.

  There was a deadline; bad things were happening. There were things in this world that could make her disappear forever, but she’d figured she’d have Boyd at least.

  “You know,” she said. She held up a hand, palm outward. “Maybe I’m just—maybe you remind me of someone.” She had to look like this was not that important, like she wasn’t a creepy crazy person, like he could at least talk to her. Because she had a shotgun and she’d appeared out of nowhere. And Boyd had to agree to go with her.

  She pointed back toward the road. “I’ll … go now,” she said, though she wouldn’t. She’d pretend to leave, maybe, but she’d come back. She’d always come back.

  “Wait.”

  Hallie stopped. Was she wrong? Did he know her after all?

  Shrubs along the double garage rattled dried leaves, half of them dead or dying, half of them still lush and green. An acrid scent rose off them, like they’d died so quickly, they’d burned.

  Boyd closed the distance between them. “I— What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Why?”

  Something like pain flashed across his eyes.

  Hallie almost reached out, almost touched him, then remembered she was trying to be nonthreatening. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  Before Boyd could answer, the air filled with the sound of something howling, like the soul-shredding scream of a dozen dying mountain lions. In one quick motion, Hallie shed her backpack, grabbed her shotgun, and raised it to her shoulder. The lines of sight weren’t as good here as they could be. Trees lined the far side of the yard to the road and the driveway. Across the road was the shallow wooded area she’d come through with Lily and Maker, a few more trees and another cluster just “south.” The scream sounded again. Hallie turned to her left, heart thumping against her ribs. It sounded so close. And yet, she could see nothing.

  Boyd’s voice came from several paces behind her and to her left. “Put the gun down,” he said. “If you want to talk, we can talk. Really. It will be all right. But you need to give me the gun.”

  Hallie let out a breath, almost a sigh. Because that? That had sounded almost exactly like the Boyd she knew, even though it wasn’t. Because the Boyd she knew would know her.

  She turned slightly so she could see him in her peripheral vision and still scan the open yard, road, woods in front of her. “You didn’t hear that?” she asked.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he said. “Give me the gun.” His voice was still slow and deliberate, like they couldn’t talk about anything else while she was holding it in her hands.

  Another scream. Closer this time. Wind, hot and damp, swirled around the corner of the house, like monsters lurked just out of sight, panting. The hairs on the back of Hallie’s neck stood up. She wished Maker were with her, not stuck outside the barrier, because maybe he would know what that was. Maybe he would tell her. “We—I,” she amended, because Boyd still didn’t know there was a “we.” “There’s something out there. It’s not safe here. Okay?” Hallie said.

  Boyd shifted maybe two steps to his right. Hallie had to admire the way he did it, easy and smooth, like she might not notice, like she might not realize he was moving a bit out of range and closer to cover. He might not remember things, might not remember her, but his instincts were still fine.

  Hallie stepped to her left so the farmhouse was more or less to her back and she could easily see a clear 270 degrees or so. She lowered her shotgun. “What do you remember?” she asked him.

  He ran a hand across his forehead, tipping his baseball cap back slightly. He straightened it and said, “What do you mean, what do I remember? I remember—” He stopped. “You and I, we’ve never met before. Is that what you’re asking?”

  “South Dakota,” Hallie said. “Taylor County. You’re a sheriff’s deputy in Taylor County, South Dakota. Before that, you were in the Polk County sheriff’s department in Iowa. Where do you think this is? Who do you think you are?”

  “Where do you think this is?” Boyd asked her.

  Hallie’s arm, the one the unmaker had slashed with its claws, felt like hot needles were pricking her flesh. She shook it, like it was just asleep, like if she ignored it, everything would be okay. She was thirsty, wanted the water in her backpack desperately. And hot. And sweating more than she probably should be. She ignored all that.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Maquoketa,” Boyd said. “Iowa.”

  “This is your parents’ farm?” Hallie asked him.

  “This is my farm,” Boyd said. “I bought them out last year.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  Boyd’s teeth showed in a thin straight line as his jaw muscles worked overtime. “This is my farm,” he repeated. “I have a hundred and twenty head of dairy cattle, seventeen replacement heifers, and twelve bull calves to sell at auction. I have seven hundred and twenty acres of arable land and another two hundred and fifty in managed pasture. I’ve been farming my whole life except when I was at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

  “I’m engaged,” he added. “To be married.”

  “To Lily?” Hallie swore under her breath. Only some memories gone, then. That made sense—a certain amount of sense.

  Boyd’s eyes narrowed. Behind him, Hallie could see the rest of the shrubs along the garage dying, just like that, leaves turned dry and brown, branches brittle. A sound as they went, like shattered icicles dropping from rooftops. But still no Hollowell. Hallie’s finger twitched against the barrel of the shotgun.

  “How do you know that?” Boyd asked.

  Hallie bit the inside of her lip. “Lily’s dead,” she said flatly.

  Boyd rocked back on his heels, like she’d hit him. “Why would you say that?”

  Another wild scream like angry monster cats—this one so close, it sent a chill up Hallie’s spine. She still saw nothing. “Seriously,” she said. “You can’t hear that?”

  Boyd looked at her for a long time without saying anything, looked at her face and at the shotgun in her hands. Hallie stood as still as she possibly could because she sensed that this was an important moment. Why it was impor
tant, she didn’t completely understand, but she had a feeling that what Boyd did or did not remember was seriously mixed up with who he actually was and who this place was trying to convince him he was.

  After a moment, he nodded once, as if making up his mind. “Come inside,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

  Hallie took one last look around, still didn’t see anything, and said, “Okay.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, she had washed some of the accumulated grime from her hands and face and was sitting at a gleaming oak kitchen table while Boyd sat across from her, his hands on the table in front of him. The kitchen was neat but not sterile, with bright blue and yellow curtains, a sunflower runner on the round table, and roosters—dozens of roosters—salt and pepper shakers, towels, single tiles on the backsplash, cushions on the chairs. There were red and yellow pots filled with African violets in the windowsill over the sink and at the end of the table.

  As if a bell had gone off somewhere, Boyd started asking her questions. “All right,” he said. “I’ve let you into my house, so I think I have a right to know some things. Who are you? Why are you here? How do you know me? And what do you want?” He’d taken off his coat and hat when they came in the kitchen door and hung them each on separate hooks just past the door, two pairs of work boots neatly lined up underneath.

  “Why are you here?” she countered.

  “I live here,” he said.

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I—”

  “No,” she said. “You tell me what you’ve been doing the last ten years. Tell me.”

  His expression as he looked at her was a mix of compassion and confusion. In some weird way, she knew that he had to wonder why he was talking to her. Because it didn’t make sense—a stranger with a shotgun who heard things he didn’t hear. He had to wonder what had made him listen, compelled him to invite her into his house—or what he believed was his house. Somewhere his brain knew the truth of things. She was sure of it. “I know who I am,” he finally said. He rubbed a hand across his face. “Look,” he said. “I went to college. I graduated. I came home to—to—”