Once inside she felt the heat of the place, unpleasant, like a fever. She held the offering in front of her, away from her, like a shield.
She followed the man deeper into the house until he said Stop and she did. It was dark and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to it; she could see nothing, just the faintest outline of his head against a window. He lit a match, and the shock of it made her gasp.
He said I smell you. The blood had seeped out of her, soaked through her blouse and coat. She could smell it too. Blood dripped at her feet. From the bag.
He said, Look.
He shifted the light, and on the floor she saw a woman, on her back, arms akimbo, legs spread, skirt pushed up over her knees. The centre of her was black with something, the same something that spread out around her body, all the way to his shoes. The woman’s eyes were open, staring up.
It was not Mrs. Chapman. It was someone else.
Izzy jammed her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. The man chuckled softly.
And behind you he said. She didn’t want to look, but her head turned of its own accord. There was Martin Chapman. She recognized him. And near him, his wife. The bullet they said he’d put between his eyes had obliterated much of his face. What remained was a single eyeball, and even that was halved.
A sob escaped her lips. They’re not really here she said.
He ignored her. I like to keep my work about me, he said. It’s beautiful work. You’ll come to see that.
Izzy pressed her eyes tightly shut. The wound in her side was aching and she could feel a trickle of blood running down into the waistband of her skirt. She kept her eyes shut because when she opened them, she could sense others moving in the shadows beyond the light from the match.
The man snapped his fingers and the light rose to near the ceiling, illuminating everything.
Look at me. He was now sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her, smiling pleasantly. What have you brought me? He held out his hands eagerly.
Izzy reached inside the bag, ignoring the sounds that had begun behind her. Wet sounds, the strangled sounds of dying breath.
The thing inside the bag was cold. She curled her fingers around it and pulled it out. No different than a piece of liver from the market, no different than the steaks she would barbecue after all this was over. Cold.
She pulled out the heavy thing and held it out to him, her neck straight. I brought flesh she said.
He took it from her.
Now you he said. You must give me you.
Her skirt was pushed up around her waist, her blouse torn down the front. Blood smeared her stomach from where his hands had been on her, where his fingers had dragged from her open wound across her breasts. The beast had mounted her.
There was nowhere for her to look. Her head was pressed against the dirty floor. If she opened her eyes she would see the woman, whose head had twisted so that the staring eyes were looking right at her. The dead man just to the right of the woman was watching them unsmilingly, teardrops of blood dripping steadily from his chin. If she looked the other way she’d see the child perched on the edge of the stair rail, his arms wrapped around his naked legs, also watching.
She kept her eyes squeezed shut and tried not to feel.
The thing that had penetrated her, it might have been a tail.
Afterwards he bent his head to where her grandmother had cut her. His cold, sharp tongue poked inside the wound, making her squirm with a kind of pain-slash-ecstasy that she bore with blank stoicism. His lips made a seal around the wound even as his tongue penetrated it, he had suckled from her. The sound of it filled the room.
Long fingers were curled around her thigh, nails pressing and releasing with every pull on the wound. It reminded her of when she’d breastfed
(David)
the children.
Her vagina was slick with his offal and her own blood.
It’s always a woman who pays the old woman had told her. Because in our way we are gods.
This is my mark he said when he lifted his head. His breath smelled like her blood.
you’re not a stupid woman Isadora
This is my mark. She felt scored where he’d touched her—everywhere, but especially in the wound under her breast, where he’d left a trail of something caustic that burned like acid.
There will be a reckoning the thing said. The words came out of his mouth wet and heavy. When this reckoning happens, you will know and you will get down on your knees and thank me.
Yes she said.
You must keep your number. Do you understand? You will keep your thirteen about you and you will stay close and true to me. To this place.
She nodded. This place. Thirteen, she repeated for him, like a child.
Thirteen women at all times. There would be gifts for their sacrifices
(everything you want)
Sometimes He would take. He told her so.
Do you love your daughter? he had asked when he was slaked and panting his cold breath into her ear. He pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it painfully but thoughtlessly, as though rolling a grape between his fingers. No more than that.
Yes, she’d said. But she was thinking of David.
Do you love your son?
Yes, she did, it was true. Even the sound, the thought of his name soothed her. In the worst times it was he who—
And who do you choose?
Without hesitation she said, My son,
(I choose David above all David above everything)
her voice shrill with just the beginnings of panic—and something else, of course, something ancient, a protective thread that shot rapidly through her centre. Too late she asked,
(it was later she would realize she’d asked too late—choose David for what?)
reckoning
When the thing left her, it bore no resemblance to who had answered the door, to the large, handsome man who had told her she had to ask her way in. The thing that had crawled atop her, that had plunged into her with pain and ice, had doubled in size. It had the head of an animal and the eyes of goat, slit like a reptile’s.
Before it disappeared it grabbed the naked child’s hand, yanking him up in the air like a doll. “You are mine, as this is mine—”
As it left, it repeated Thirteen.
And everything changed.
Sometimes it was easy to forget that any of it had happened, especially after the old woman died. Death had shut those knowing eyes that grinned and smiled at Izzy even as she cackled happily and spit out her non sequiturs. Once she’d even said, how’s your cunt feeling, Isadora? Is it stuffed full of money yet?
And by then, of course, it was, so to speak. The very day after her visit to the Chapman house, Roger got a job, a good job. Within weeks he’d been promoted twice. Suddenly there was money.
Her parents’ neighbours hardly missed their
(flesh)
puppy.
It was easy to forget. To start anew.
They soon moved to Haven Woods. Izzy found Aggie, who already bore the mark. It was easy enough to recruit the others.
Izzy cut them herself and spread her blood over their wounds, making them all one, sisters. Whatever the beast was, He had kept his promise. Her life grew exponentially better. They had everything she wanted: a good life for her children, a good life for her. The city was left far behind.
Haven Woods became Izzy’s as she adapted it to her needs and to the needs of her sisters and their families. The church closed. The hospital had fewer and fewer patients—no one got sick, doctors didn’t stay.
All had been forgotten about that time. By her.
Until He took David.
It was getting very dark and Izzy knew she had to get moving. Outside the car, things crept close and bumped against the glossy tan exterior. Shadows seemed to be moving just outside her peripheral vision, darting away if she turned to look. She didn’t look, didn’t need to. She had a good idea what she would s
ee.
An odious task. No different than the dishes, the last load of laundry, wiping someone’s bloodied nose.
Izzy leaned forward and pulled the lever that popped the trunk. With a hollow snap it opened about two inches and stayed there.
Outside, the night was alive. Something dark darted past the car and there were sounds that might be … nothing, might be just the night, might be voices. Bits of things being said, only theoretically human, like the drone of a radio far away. There was another bump against the passenger side and the sound of something dragging along the car. Then it was gone.
She fished around on the floor for her leather apron, then opened the door and got out.
As if a drop of oil had been added to a dish of water, the shadows and shapes, the forms in the dark, spread out and away from her. Briefly she saw the outline of what might have been a woman, a flash of breast in the moonlight, a shimmer of hair. A hint of weeping permeated the air over her head.
Even in the moonlight, the dark seemed to follow her like a large shadow. She lifted the trunk lid. Inside the dog, clearly terrified, looked up at her with sunken eyes. He whimpered piteously as he jerked himself to his feet, awkwardly, painfully, from his cramped position.
Izzy put her hand on his head, both to keep him from jumping out and to soothe him. “It won’t hurt,” she said.
From somewhere around her there was murmured discussion, voices
(what might have been voices)
that disagreed, agreed, wanted to see.
From her bag she pulled a container and a small handkerchief. She poured from the one onto the other, and when the reek hit her nose she held her breath. It wouldn’t do to pass out, not here.
“It won’t hurt,” she repeated to the dog. She felt sorry, but from a distance. For the dog and for herself. Especially for herself, because of all the people who wouldn’t understand.
She stroked the dog’s head, so little flesh between fur and skull that she might well have been petting him long after he was dead. He looked up at her with knowing eyes. He didn’t fight when she pressed the sodden cloth to his snout and held it there.
In less than a minute his skinny body collapsed to the floor of the trunk, still breathing
(that was important)
but still as the night. Some other night. Somewhere other than this place.
Around her there was more discussion, fogged laughter, muffled delight. And maybe she heard
dead dead dead
It was hard to tell because the wind had picked up. As she lifted her offering out of the trunk, dropped it to the ground and dragged it to the porch of the legendary, boarded-up house, that breeze ruffled her hair with mock affection and whispered in her ears. Hollow sounds, like music from a seashell.
She laid the dog on the porch and dropped to her knees. She unrolled the leather apron and took out the large, well-honed knife. It caught moonlight and flashed—of course it did. She raised it above her head and brought it down on the poor thing’s throat. Blood sprayed against the door. Izzy didn’t notice her tears falling into the blood
(because it reminded her, as it always did, as everything always did, of David and how he’d fallen and how it had sounded and looked and the blood)
The blood formed a puddle on the porch floor, where it slipped towards the door.
“Please,” she said. “I bring you death.”
The things in the yard, which didn’t dare come to the porch, fell silent. She could hear the blood gurgle as it emptied from the dog.
“Tomorrow we have thirteen,” she said.
The porch door opened.
The large man stood there, grinning.
Please she thought.
“What else do you offer me?”
Izzy hesitated, and in that quick second of reluctance she felt the old wound under her breast suddenly shoot with pain. But still a million images ran through her brain.
“A child,” she said. “I will bring you a little girl.”
He held the door wide and with a hand swept the air mockingly, gallantly, for her to pass. “Mi casa,” he said. “Su casa.”
She dragged the dying dog behind her.
Afterwards she made it back to the car, but no farther. She slept, even as the voices around her quieted and dawn broke. Even in that place.
FIFTEEN
ROWAN HADN’T SAID ANYTHING about her stomach ache to her mom. It would have been hard to explain, given that she was eating her second piece of French toast slathered in butter and syrup. But the pain hadn’t gone away; it had settled into a kind of ache that she couldn’t put her finger on. She didn’t feel like throwing up. She didn’t have to go to the bathroom. It just sort of hurt down there. A dull throb in her lower half, sometimes poking into her back. She was starting to get used to it. Maybe later she would ask her mom for an Aspirin. That helped headaches, so maybe it would help this ache.
Old Tex was sitting at her feet. She’d discreetly fed him some of her French toast when her mom was at the stove making her another piece—“You must be in a growth spurt”—and he was still licking syrup off his snout when his head shot up and he started getting awkwardly to his feet, tail wagging.
From the porch they heard, “Hello in there,” followed by a friendly bark.
Rowan started to say, “I think that’s Mr. Keyes,” but her mom was already on her feet and she and Old Tex were on their way to the door. Jeez, she thought, with a twelve-year-old’s embarrassment, anxious much?
She ate the last square of French toast on her plate, then went to the door too. Her mom was leashing up Old Tex. The two dogs were wagging and panting at each other, and Gusto was tugging on his leash to get close enough for a sniff at Old Tex.
“Hey, Rowan,” Mr. Keyes said. “You feel like a walk with the boys?”
“Yes!” She grabbed her blazer from the hook by the door.
Her mother frowned. “It might be too warm for the blazer, honey.”
Rowan took Old Tex’s leash from her hand and shook her head. “I need to wear it,” she said, and patted the pocket quickly, feeling reassured by the lump. She tugged on Old Tex’s leash. “Let’s go, old man!”
Mr. Keyes laughed. And they all went for a walk.
Tap tap tap
In her dreams, Izzy Riley squirmed in the seat of her car. No. Not ready. Don’t come for me.
tap tap tap
Her lovely face screwed into a grimace and she turned away from the sound. Inside her head was the image of the thing in the house, malevolent, hungry, and her heart
tap tap tap
pounded in fear. It reached a paw out to her. It is time?
She groaned and slowly opened her eyes. Facing her through the windshield was a cat, a single paw on the glass. Tansy. When she saw Izzy’s eyes open, she dropped her paw and sat there, tail flickering. Beyond the cat was the Chapman house, in daylight. It stared at her with its second-storey windows. Izzy looked at the cat. The cat stared back, at least benevolently. Her friend.
She rolled the window down. “I’m awake,” she told Tansy. “Get inside.” The cat delicately dropped off the hood of the car and jumped easily through the driver’s-side window. She landed on Izzy’s lap. She was purring. She rubbed up against Izzy, who brought her hands to the cat’s head and stroked. Good girl.
Tansy accepted the petting and then stepped elegantly over to the passenger seat and curled up. Her tail moved above her like a thought before wrapping around her body. Izzy started the car.
As she drove she reached for her cellphone on the dash and turned it on. Twenty-seven messages. She would pass for now.
It was Thursday. Everyone had to hold on for one more day. She looked at the house receding in the rear-view mirror.
Ego sum vestra serva. I am your servant. For better or for worse.
In the end it would be worse. She knew that now.
At the end of the lane she turned right to drive along the river. The road eventually angled away and met wi
th Proctor, the street that circled Haven Woods. It was a pretty drive, with the trees lining the river and the houses so neat and new. It never betrayed the monstrosity that she’d left behind.
She must have slept deeply, but she was tired. The skirt of her suit was grimy from picking up the dirty dog, and a cat’s paw print lay dead centre above the hem. She pulled down the sun visor and quickly peered into the mirror. Her hair was a mess, her makeup worn off.
As she flipped the visor back up, she saw people walking towards her, with dogs. She squinted. Smiled.
Paula was still here. And the girl.
Izzy gave thanks. Ego sum vestra serva.
She broadened her smile and slowed as she approached them. Through her open window she waved for them to stop. They did, five sets of eyes staring at her like deer in headlights, as she pulled the car alongside.
“Hello there, Paula,” she said, but she was looking at the girl. The child’s expression was grave and suspicious. Good for you. She was holding the leash of Audra’s stupid, ancient dog. The thing should be dead already. She’d once bought her friend a cat, but it had disappeared, run off or something. Izzy suspected the dog.
“Hello, Rowan,” she said. The girl raised her hand in semi-greeting.
“Hi, Mrs.—Izzy,” Paula said, with some warmth. She smiled.
The man with her smiled too. He was attractive, and somehow familiar.
“And who’s this?” Izzy asked, and saw Paula redden.
“Sanderson Keyes, this is Izzy Riley. Sanderson grew up in Haven Woods,” she said awkwardly, not wanting to bring up the obvious. “We grew up together,” she added, as a clue.
Izzy’s face sobered, her smile slipping.
hey Lonnie and
“Not Lonnie Keyes’s brother?”
He nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. I was a friend of David’s,” he said, without Paula’s awkwardness.
She reset her smile. “I remember. And your mother too. She was never happy here, was she.”
Sanderson was noncommittal but polite. “I do think she’s been happier since she moved away.”
Izzy returned her gaze to Rowan. It was remarkable how much the child looked like Paula. It was like seeing her as a child again
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