He said nothing, but shook inside at the surprise of it, the cheek of the woman he had married. That door had been battened up for over twenty-two years, since the day Eli buried his mother and he had rightfully inherited the home. He had fixed sturdy boards across the door frame, nailed them to the molding on either side. But she, his wife, had somehow pried them off. She had entered the room, cracked the window, and washed the walls. Hung old blankets on the line, beat dust from the rug, scrubbed gray stains from the mattress. Plumped a feather pillow, brought in a brown teddy bear, a quilt of navy boats on a white sea, a wooden box filled with painted wooden blocks. She stole into Eli’s old bedroom, she did, without a single thought, and made a space for her boy.
Those were the worst moments for Eli, to pass by that room, see the door open wide, that boy crouched on a braided rag rug, running wooden trains along the coils. Or reading a small book, acting like he was a fine child. A son to make a father proud. Sometimes Eli caught a whiff of the boy’s smell. In the paste on the wallpaper, now, the sheets, the floorboards. Sour, as though the boy’s very skull was a putrefied potato. Eli imagined squeezing the boy’s head, his thumbs bursting through the tight skin, sinking into the yellow filth. The odor reminded Eli of his uncle, a man who lived with Eli and his family when Eli was a young boy. A grubby fucker, and Eli wouldn’t think twice about slitting his throat if the bastard were still breathing.
Whenever the air in the room crawled out and drove itself up his nostrils, he’d skid down the stairs, back of his boots barely grazing each step, belt already undone. He’d find his wife, and no matter what she was doing, he’d clutch her hips. Haul down or yank up, tear aside, and with a suffocating urgency, he’d locate that warm space. Struggle with his own body until those two knots, one between his ears, one between his legs, were untied. Smoothed. As he let go, he’d arch his back, strain his face towards heaven, wanting to cry out, “I am this. I am not that. Do you see me, you bastard?” A few moments were all it took to remind himself. All the proof he needed.
Night after night, Eli dreamt of trapping the boy in that room. Bricking up the narrow window that looked over the field. Bricking up the doorway. The boy inside, and still alive. A slow madness, a slow death. And Eli would awaken, coated in sweat, overwhelmed by the need to soothe himself, once again, with his wife’s body.
He could despise the boy but, he reasoned to himself, he could not move him from that room. A perfectly acceptable place for a child, and his wife might question. Not force an answer of course, she was incapable of that, but she would spy his flustering. The heat in his skin. Eyes averted and suspicious. So instead, he held his breath when he passed the open door, and after weeks, he collected the boards of good wood. Brought them out to the barn and hauled the nails out with the claw of a hammer. Laid bent ones on a stone, tapped them straight. He piled the boards in a corner, and so as not to waste, he collected all of the nails in an old jar.
NO OTHER SIGNS of movement in the room, and Eli kicked the earth with his left boot, then started walking again. He hated the thought that the boy, from the dimness of his bedroom, had been watching Eli work. But what could he do about it now? Too late, too late, for so many things. With practiced elbows, Eli squeezed the cabbages until their outer leaves squeaked. They were solid and heavy, a good harvest, and he tried to be grateful for the late frost, the predictability of his soil.
7
LEWIS AND WILDA drove out towards Crowley’s Lurch, an expanse of flat rock that eased upwards and upwards, then dropped off into the ocean. A man from the motel had told him this was a popular spot, even though it was haunted by the ghosts of two young lovers. “Our own Romeo and Juliet,” he said. “Story goes, one young chap was a bit of a scoundrel, up there on the lurch with his missus. Right crazy in love. He goes over the edge, let’s out some sort of scream, and then she’s calling to him, frantic-like, and not a sound. Just the water. And then she, thinking he’s dead, tosses herself in after him. Strikes the rocks below, washed right out to sea, never seen again. He, now, gets up from the perch where he was hiding, couple feet down on a rock that sticks out. They calls that Romeo’s plank, nowadays. Well, he sees what he done with his horsing around, and dives in after her. Smacks the rocks, and he’s done for. Good-bye. But, tangled up with the wind, you can still hear the screeching coming up over the edge of the lurch. Wants other young lovers to join them. Two gets a bit lonesome after a time, I reckons. A bit dry.” He glanced over at his wife. “No matter what sort of love you starts out with.”
“Is that true?” Lewis asked.
“Sure as there’s hair on my chest, sir.”
Wife sidled up alongside him, patted his bald head. “Wouldn’t go betting the farm on it, though,” she said with a snicker. Leaned closer to Lewis, elbows on the counter, chest rising up to touch her chin. “You likes this lassie?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You could try a fairy ring. Wander about over the rocks, and you’ll find these odd circles of broken stone. People ’round here says good fortune’ll befall lovers if they stands in one.”
“Look who’s talking nonsense, now,” the man scoffed. “No more to that than the freeze and thaw of rocks.”
Undeterred. “But the circle can’t be broken, though, Mister. So, watch where you steps.”
“Yes, now,” he said, nudging his wife out of the way. “If you don’t get blown over the cliffs first.”
“Best hold tight to her good.” She scratched out a map on a piece of paper, folded it and slid it across the counter to Lewis.
Lewis pulled into a row of cars dotted over the rock, noticed a pair of visitors out trying to stroll, but clinging to each other. The stretch of land was barren, swept clean, except for a few crippled trees that were gnarled and spread, branches pushed down into the stone. The engine was turned off, but the car still shivered as winds whipped up and over the cliff. Lewis listened for the screaming, though the wind sounded closer to moaning. Breathy ohhs, ahhs. As though Romeo and Juliet were down there, in the inky blackness, right out in the open, engaged in frothy saltwater penetration.
Lewis shifted in his seat, parts of his body suddenly bound inside fabric. Yanked at the knees of his trousers, blurted, “Have you ever seen a UFO?”
Her hands were folded on her lap. “My word. Not that I know of. You?”
“I don’t know. I likes to think that I did.”
“Here?”
“No, up north. My brother and myself. In a camp a few years back. Moose hunting.”
“You have a brother?”
He reached up, gripped the steering wheel. “Yeah. I do.” That discussion could wait.
“Just what did you see?”
“Bluish lights. Just hovering.” He left out the part about the empty bottle between them, or how Roy had fired several shots straight up into the night sky.
“Oh.”
“’Twas pretty. Sort of.” Mind straining for something poetic. “Pretty like a, like a...”
“A blue light?”
“Yeah.”
“With all this talk of flying objects and Francis with his mermaid, I feel like I just tripped down after Alice.”
“Alice?”
“You know. Wonderland?”
“Oh.”
He laughed hesitantly. This was his attempt at being playful, and it was clear he was failing. “The old rabbit hole, hey?” Stupid. Stupid. Invisible heel of a hand hitting a forehead.
“We ought not to worry about things so far away. There’s enough right here.”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “Of course.” Quickly changing streams. “Your Uncle Francis. Now there’s a man who could make a decent living as a department store Santa Claus.”
“Oh no, not really.”
“No?”
“He’s far too frail.”
“Must be a lot of work. Looking after him.”
“No, no. Not at all. He doesn’t need me.”
“I thought you said he needed help.�
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She touched her cheek, looked away. “Around the store. That’s all. More than likely for a bit of company. He doesn’t need much.” Quiet for a moment, then she said, “So. Constable Trench. That’s a serious job to have.”
“Yes, yes. Can be. Did my training up in Ontario.”
“Why did you leave?”
“What? Leave Ontario?”
“Yes, there.”
Lewis frowned, leaned his head to one side. “I wanted to come home, of course.”
“Really?”
“Don’t we always want to come home?”
“I– I don’t know.”
“To settle down. Have a family. Be close to everything familiar.”
Her head was turned away from him, and he couldn’t see her face.
“Don’t you want children?”
“Do I want children?” She laughed lightly. “Oh, gosh. Do children want me?”
Lewis groaned inside, stomach flip-flopped. This talk of children, and he could not control the flashing images of the act that led to their creation. He coughed into his fist. “Have you always lived here?” Words like squawks, someone plucking his feathers.
“Long as I care to remember.”
“How many years have you been there? With your uncle?”
“Six. Maybe five, about. He needed help.”
“Do you like it here?”
“Yes. I do. It’s quiet. Calm.”
“And before that? You lived—”
“Nowhere important.”
“Maybe I know it. I’m good with geography.”
“It’s a good distance away. Barely even on the map.”
“Let’s see if I know it.” Louis rubbed his palms together.
“It’s nowhere, really.”
“You sure are secretive.”
She placed a hand on the button near the top of her coat. “You sure do ask a lot of questions.”
Lewis stopped then. He was probing, wanting to know everything, but he risked silencing her. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. My life. Life there, and then here. The store, Francis. Yard sales and markets and people’s front porches. It would just bore you to tears.”
“I’m certain it wouldn’t, then.”
She laughed again. “I’m certain it would.”
“Well.” He shifted in his seat. “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” The air had grown cold inside the small car, and he noticed that her arms were folded across her chest. Perhaps bringing her here had been a mistake. Maybe he should just have taken her for tea. A single slice of cake, two forks.
But first. He stepped out, came around to her side, and opened the door. Held it, as the wind tried to tear it from his grip, buckle it backwards. “Are you sure?” she said.
“Just for a minute,” he replied. “Something I wants to see.”
He took her by the hand, and they walked over the rock. As smooth as a sloping dance floor, though the tilt made worse by the coaxing winds. Drawing them closer to the edge. He found a stone circle, quick check of the circumference, and he lifted one foot, then the other, and stepped inside it. Guided her behind him.
Using the gust as an excuse, he put an arm around her belted waist, held her. He stuck his nose in her neck, her hair. Two distinct smells trapped there. Something fresh, like tea roses, and something old, like an attic.
“I have to leave tomorrow.” He spoke directly into her ear.
“Yes.”
“But I can come back. A week or two. Not much more.”
She never answered, and after another moment, he spoke the sentence he’d been thinking all day long. “To think I found you in a curiosity shop. That beats all, Wilda Burry. That really beats all.”
Stepping back, she laughed, shook her head. “Found me? You and Francis. Who says I don’t want to stay lost?”
Hand in hand they stepped out of the circle, Lewis first, and Wilda following. He cleared the stones with no trouble, but Wilda tripped slightly, and the tip of her shoe struck the lip, scattering chips of rock.
PART
TWO
8
A KNIFE. THESE past years, Garrett Glass rarely went anywhere without one. He always kept a shiny blade folded and slipped into his pocket, or an open blade pressed against his lower back by the band of his trousers. He felt stronger, more capable, when there was a knife at the ready. Ready for what, Garrett didn’t really know.
Garrett discovered his adoration for knives on a summery afternoon when he was six and a half years old. Standing on a stepstool near his mother, he watched her move metal down through a hunk of bloody meat. The meat itself was interesting, the shape, long and red, barely able to resist the sharpness when his mother flexed her forearm. But it was not nearly as fascinating as the tool of destruction, the knife that sliced and chopped, turned that loin of muscle and fat and gristle into pieces he would soon fork into his mouth. Power in that blade, and Garrett could barely blink as it flashed before his eyes, edge just missing his mother’s knobby thumb.
When she turned to wash her hands, Garrett slid the knife off the countertop, placed it inside his striped T-shirt, against the flesh of his belly, and strolled cautiously out into the woods. Privacy found inside a clump of dogberry bushes, and he tugged up his shirt, removed the warm blade. Instantly, the skin on his stomach sensed the absence of the metal, and he wanted to put it back. First, though, to study it. He crouched, knife on the forest floor in front of him. He flicked away the bits of meat, then stared at it. Turned it over and over. Caressed the worn wooden handle, eyed the perfect hook of the edge, the forked tip that could pierce through a hide. Crack through a bone.
Fingers wrapped around the handle, he punctured the earth, felt the blade cut through dead leaves, grainy soil, pebbles. After several slashes, he looked around for something else to cut. A damp desire moved through his body, and he felt possessed by a need to alter something. Permanently. Nothing but trees surrounded him, growing up out of the earth like split hairs on a filthy scalp. Weeks ago, when he was reading the encyclopedia at the back of his classroom, he had come across a section on trees. They required water and sunlight to flourish. They pulled nutrients up through the soil using a complicated root system. If the roots were harmed, the tree would die. The tree would die. The tree would die. He had read that line three times. Then the fourth. The tree would die.
He chose a smaller tree, trunk straight and proud, wrapped in young tan skin. With sawing motion, he stripped a ring of soft bark near the base to label it. Then, on his knees, he worked his way around its base, scuttling backwards, inch by inch, cutting through root after root, as deep as the blade would go. When he finished, he buried the knife under a pile of stones, and promised the child tree he would return. Faithfully, every afternoon. So that it would not be alone as it withered away.
Frustrated that his tree still flourished, Garrett invented other games a lone youngster could play with a stolen knife in summertime. At first he removed his shirt, coated his stomach with lines of mud, then darted from tree to tree, knife poised, stabbing the wooden enemies that got in his way. He shaved long peelings of bark from a birch, wore them like primitive necklaces and bracelets. Pretended he was a feral animal, popped a wriggling earwig into his mouth, then spat it out for fear it might scramble through the holes in there, travel up to eat his earwax.
One summer evening, as the sun was setting, Garrett watched his stepfather spit on a whetstone, glide his hunting knife over it, one side, then the other, and test the sharpness of the blade against the back of his arm. As soon as Garrett saw this, he knew he would try it the very next morning. The knife he kept in the woods was dull, so he tossed it into the creek, and quietly returned to the kitchen, extracted his stepfather’s knife with its bone handle from the drawer. Looking both ways, he scooted across the backyard and into his wooded play space.
He unsnapped the leather case, removed the knife, and stuffed the case up underneath a rotting log. Then, as his stepfather
had done, he scraped the thin blade across the soft hair on the back of his hand. As he shaved the baby fur, he blew it, watched it scatter into a shaft of sunlight. Holding the knife, Garrett shivered, and his skin prickled with goose bumps. There was a thrill there, metal against flesh, and he panted, tongue jutting out, while he squatted, let the blade glide over his calves, over bony grooves and joints, effortlessly removing patches of hair.
As he moved the knife up his shins, he felt fierce, in control, and he imagined that this self-possession was what pulled a boy towards manhood. He belonged here, in these woods, away from his mother and stepfather. He was powerful and free, even though he was only a few steps away from the slaps and the ringing ears and the wooden spoon with the godforsaken hole in the middle. Finally on his own, and he could control any inhabitant that resided near him. Every worm and forest flower and maple sapling that might burst through the dead layer would live in his realm. He could punish them if he wanted. Slice them in half, slice them down. Or live among them as their leader. His choice. He laid the knife aside, licked his finger, rubbed the saliva into the whitish marks where the knife had been. Then threw his head back, hooted with unfettered joy.
Pressure down below, and Garrett stood, dropped his shorts, dull gray underwear, kicked them away from his ankles. Relief now as he arched his back, allowed a stream of his animal piss to coat the purplish testicle flower of a lady’s slipper. Aahhh. He watched the flower shudder, then bounce back to position, dripping. He scooped up the knife again in a dagger hold, swung around, weapon poised towards an invisible enemy that was creeping up from behind. Spitting and snarling, he slashed the air, screamed, “Die, you stupid thing.” Hacked open its imaginary belly, ducked as the maggoty guts came spraying out. Knees bent slightly, he turned a full circle, seeking out any other creatures that might come up against him. “Dare you,” he cried. “Double dare.” Nothing appeared. No beast was brave enough to emerge from the ether and challenge him.
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