It had never occurred to Rose how much the small creatures looked as though they were made of dandelion fluff. From where her face lay on the sand, she felt she could breathe hard, exhale in just the right way, and set the tiny thing aloft.
It skittered sideways, and then she felt him next to her. His warm presence, only inches from her prone body.
“Want a snack?”
Rose turned and there he was, beautiful Hugo, holding out a small cowrie shell just as he had when they had first met. Before everything had changed.
So like it had been in that moment. The peace of the seashore. The gentle battering of the sheet walls of the Pavilion in the wind. The warmth of the sand.
It was so nice.
Rose reached out to take the shell from him. Anticipating its maple crunch.
A little something tickled the back of her brain. A memory, fleeting images. What was it? Anger, desperation, the sensation of falling forward.
Her hand paused in midair.
“Hugo, what did you do?”
He looked away from her and suddenly it flooded back. Adam. The hallucinations. Her mangled leg. And the hard surface of a door rising up to meet her.
“I’m really glad you’re here, Rosie. I’ve missed you so much.”
Rose sat up.
Through the parted sheets of the Pavilion door she could just make out the spires of Castle City in the distance.
Something was wrong with it.
Rose stood to get a better view, making her way toward the door.
The city was decaying. Crumbling without its shield. Bits of buildings were breaking off even as she stood there. Rose could make out tiny bricks tumbling from their towers to the unseen streets below. Vulture shapes circled in the space between.
A wind blew in a carrion scent.
“What happened?” Rose asked.
“I’m glad you weren’t with me when I went there. It’s a horrible place, Rose. Someone like you doesn’t belong there.”
Rose looked at him, still on the sand, his eyes turned firmly away from the door … as if even a glance of the city would be too much.
“I didn’t want to go without you, but I had to. You made me. Because you wouldn’t go to sleep. Because you wouldn’t meet me here.”
“Hugo, what did you find in there?”
He didn’t answer. Instead he said, “I’m not angry. It was better that I did it alone.… Even though I missed you.”
Hugo seemed broken. Delicate. There was something about the way he was sitting, his knees curled up toward his chest, that made Rose think of Adam. The way he would put on a brave face after an injury. The way he soothed himself with words, pretending to be more courageous than he really was.
What had happened while she was away?
What had he faced alone?
“I think it’s better this way,” he continued. “Maybe sometimes people shouldn’t get rescued. Maybe sometimes people should stay behind the walls.… Besides, it was always better when it was just the two of us anyway. Just the two of us alone … and nobody else.”
“Hugo, I don’t want it to be just the two of us.”
“Hi, Mommy.”
Rose turned at the sound of Adam’s voice and found him sitting at her kitchen table, suddenly occupying a corner of the tent. Isaac and Penny flanked him, smiling, beatific. They waved at her.
“It would be okay for them to be here. If it was what you really wanted.”
Rose thought of her nightmares of the island attacking her children. This was the last place she wanted them to be, even if—
“It’s not real, Hugo. It’s not really them. It’s you, you’re putting them here.”
He sighed and the children flickered out, little depressions on the sand the only evidence of their appearance.
He lay down, a fetal curl. “I don’t understand why I’m not enough for you, Rose. You were enough for me. You have always been enough for me. That’s why she left.…”
“Your wife?” Rose moved closer to him. His voice was vague, listless.
“She said there wasn’t enough room for three people in our relationship.… Because she knew that she could never be you. So she took my little Rose and she drove away.”
“I don’t understand.”
“My daughter. We named her for you, before my wife started to hate you. Before the end. Our little Rosalie. My wife took her away because of you.”
Rose flashed to the view from the nightmare, the bedroom that had come after they had escaped the flood in the high school. The Subaru below the window, pulling away, herself behind the wheel, Penny leaning against the dash, waving good-bye. The way Hugo had looked on in horror.
Like the high school, it had been a memory, the day his wife had abandoned him. But Rose and Penny had overlaid Hugo’s wife and child, new refrains for distant echoes. New players for the old script. Wife scowls and turns the wheel, reverses out of his life. Little girl enthusiastically waves good-bye, innocent of the finality of the farewell.
“She said she couldn’t compete with you. This woman I drew pictures of and told my daughter about. She left because she could never be you. She could never be my Rose. She couldn’t be the woman of my dreams … so strong, so beautiful.”
Rose’s heart ached. Of course Hugo’s wife couldn’t compare with the Rose in her husband’s dreams. A woman without flaws or fears who had no demands on Hugo other than that they continue to romp around the playground of the island.
Rose herself fell short of the fantasy.
She was nothing like she was in their dreams.
But neither was he.
Hugo closed his eyes, pushing his face into the pillow of the sand.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
She shook him. “Hugo…”
“I’m sorry, Rosie. It shouldn’t be too long.”
“Too long until what? Until what, Hugo?”
A crunching sound came from the corner of the tent. Rose pulled her eyes from Hugo, searching for the source.
There was a little boy popping seashells in his mouth. He grinned at her. Held out a small cowrie.
“Want a snack?”
Hugo, the boy … as she had first seen him. Rose’s eyes dashed from the sleeping form of his grown self to the child he grew from. He looked precisely the same as he had when she met him, his legs splayed in the sand, quick brown hands bringing seashells to his sweet, crooked smile.
Rose remembered that he had seemed so grown-up to her then. A big boy. Eight years old. So much more mature than her.
But he was just a little boy, wasn’t he? No older than Isaac.
The grown Hugo was still on the sand … asleep in the dream.
Rose stood up.
“You can’t leave,” little Hugo snapped. He was watching her closely.
“What?”
“You can’t leave. I won’t let you.”
“What do you mean you won’t let me?” Rose took a step toward him, her toes making trails in the sand.
“This is my island, you know. Mine. I can do whatever I want here and I don’t want you to leave.”
Rose would never have tolerated that tone from her own children. They would have found themselves in time-out or short a toy or a privilege. She didn’t remember Hugo being this way when they were children.
“I could hurt you if I really wanted to … since he’s not here anymore. I won’t, but I could.”
“Who’s not here anymore?”
Little Hugo nodded his head in the direction of big Hugo, asleep on the sand. “Him. He never let me hurt you, even when you deserved it. Even when you tried to leave. Even when you forgot.…”
Rose tried to make sense out of what little Hugo was saying. “Forgot what?”
“That you belong to me.”
Rose should have known better than to reason with a brat, but she responded instinctively, “No, I don’t,” her voice strident and high.
“Yes, you do.”
&nbs
p; “No, I don’t.” She sounded so childish.
Little Hugo stood, smug hands on his hips. “I made this place, Rosie. I made it. It’s mine. I can make it do anything I want. And I don’t want you to leave, so I’m not going to let you.”
There was something so cruel about his face. Little psychopath in a pirate shirt. Rose turned back to the sleeping form of big Hugo.
He was made of sand.
A perfect sculpture of the grown Hugo lay where only moments before she had watched him lay his head. Sandy eyes closed in rest, his shoulders a solid mound of grit. Like those carved marble sleepers that lay on the tops of tombs … but created by some meticulous beachgoer.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Rose did not decide to run, but suddenly she was doing it. She needed to get herself away from this monster that looked like a child and Hugo. Get as much distance between the two of them as possible.
She bounded toward the door of the Pavilion, toward the decaying city. She crested the threshold—
And stepped right back into the space she had been standing the moment she had started to run.
“See! I told you!” Little Hugo’s pretty face was curled into an ugly smile.
Rose took off again. Faster this time. Her body leaning into the run. She felt the unfiltered light of the outside world hit her nose—
And she stepped onto her precise starting point.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each time she landed, Rose felt a sickness rise, her stomach lurching at the impossibility of what was happening to her body.
“Stop it!” she screamed.
Little Hugo was calm. “You stop it. I don’t want you to run away from me anymore.”
Was it true? Was this mean little boy in charge of the island? Had he made it, as he said?
Rose realized that there had to be some truth to it, even in how she thought of this place. Hugo’s island. That was what she called it. That’s all she had ever called it … even in the recesses of her own mind … even when she thought she was dreaming of the place all on her own … it was always Hugo’s place. A place she visited. Never hers.
Rose’s eyes skimmed the sand form of the grown Hugo. She could see that it was drying, losing its structural integrity. Soon the whole thing would crumble, abandon its shape and disappear into the ocean of sand. What did he mean, “He never let me hurt you”? This little boy was Hugo, wasn’t he?
Or at the very least, he was some part of him.
The part of him that has been sending you nightmares.
Rose needed to get away from this boy. This monster with the face she had loved.
Rose took another step toward the door—
—then jerked her body to the side. Her hand touched the wall of the tent, the leading edge of her dive. Her fingers caught the bottom of the blanket and lifted it as she rolled under its hem. Rose held her breath, bracing herself to find that little Hugo had sent her rolling back into the same room again.
He had not.
She was in the Orange Tastee.
Or rather, the Orange Tastee was in the Blanket Pavilion, its cloth walls and ceiling hanging over the order counter and aluminum-faced kitchen of Hugo’s former place of employment. A gentle tide lapped in among the supports of the bolted tables. Above the counter hung the illuminated menu, with its listing of orange whips and dogs—all the different joinings of the same five ingredients.
The price listed for every item was the same.
Tastee Dog.........................$RO.SE
Super Tastee Dog...............$RO.SE
Classic Orange Tastee........$RO.SE
Kid’s Combo......................$RO.SE
Rose heard the gentle whoosh of sand buffeting the tent wall. She turned. Little Hugo had stopped short of his pursuit, taking in the Formica tables and the cheap bentwood benches. His eyes were wide.
Rose flinched, ready to bolt, but the boy wasn’t even looking at her.
Instead, his lips were pursing, pressing against each other as his eyes devoured the facts of the room. Rose could sense that something was rising within him. Something familiar.
Embarrassment?
“You didn’t put this here, did you?”
Little Hugo’s eyes whipped back to her. Pupils narrowing.
And then Rose knew. As surely as she knew who the instigator was in a fight between Isaac and Adam. As surely as she knew when Penny needed to poop and when Josh was going to put the moves on her. She knew.
“You said you made this place. But you don’t completely control it.”
The boy’s fists tightened. “Yes. I. Do.”
Rose sensed it before she saw it, the snaking twist of sheets reaching out from behind her. A venomous cotton tendril.
She yanked her wrist out of its reach and threw herself forward. The sheet reared up, foiled, a cobra ready to strike. Rose pulled herself across the sand. She ducked under the tent and tumbled outside.
A strong wind was setting the saw grass that flanked the beach to dance. The stalks waved their verdant bodies, kissing their neighbors before snapping back to the sky.
Rose gained her feet and aimed herself toward the tall blades. Maybe she could lose him in the saw grass, hide until she woke up.
Or maybe she could kill him.
Rose’s bare feet reached the dry embankment that marked the boundary between beach and field. She bounded into the tall stalks, her mind racing.
She could kill Hugo.
Maybe. Possibly.
If he didn’t control everything on the island, then it was possible that she could defend herself against him. She could fashion a sword from the saw grass … as he had taught her to do so long ago. She could wait for him to find her and surprise him. She could pierce his body as she had done to so many of the island’s monsters. She could drive the blade into his heart.
No, she couldn’t.
“Come back, Rose!” She heard his voice over the clatter of the blowing grass. A child’s voice, still unchanged by puberty. “You’re being a silly head!”
A silly head.
Only a child would threaten to hurt you, imprison you, and then call you a silly head as you flee.
The image of little Hugo threaded on her grass sword resounded through Rose’s mind. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t hurt him. Not a child. Not one that looked so much like the boy she loved.
Not one that once was the boy she loved.
Rose turned her head, still moving forward, but angling so that she could see if he was following her. Through the blades she could see little Hugo’s legs as he moved through the grass, looking for her. “I told you, you’re being silly. Anywhere you go I’ll be there. I am everything and everywhere here.”
Rose stumbled. Her hands splayed out, palms biting the grit of the earth.
Hovering a half inch from the cornea of her eye was a bone-gray prong … just short of blinding her.
Rose pulled back, taking in the full view of what she had nearly impaled herself upon.
It was an antler. It sprang from the skull of a mounted Buck’s head, the kind Rose was used to seeing in tacky restaurants or the rec rooms of her childhood friends whose fathers hunted. It was just the head, suspended from a wooden plaque. Its fur was piebald, patchy. Gray with dust. The taxidermist who had created it had clearly been trying to re-create some wild aspect of the living creature, as he had posed it with its neck turned, its teeth bared, a frozen gnash at some unseen foe.
The head was leaning against a pile of dusty furniture. An old easy chair, once a red that had faded to a mottled pink. A chipped highboy dresser. A few cane chairs, the woven seats of which were in various states of unravel.
It was as if someone had emptied an antiques shop or attic into the saw grass.
The rattling blades behind her quieted. Hugo had stopped moving.
“I can see you.” His voice was playful, but still distant. Rose’s eyes scanned the g
reen stalks, looking for him.
The furniture began to fuse.
Rose watched in horror as the highboy and the chairs began to join together … their edges leaning toward one another and melting into an unnatural six-limbed thing. The mottled velvet of the chair spread a sick skin over the wooden struts and faces as they morphed and popped like muscles.
Rose pushed herself back from it, flailing against the stalks.
What had once been the back of the easy chair bent forward, reaching toward the Buck’s head on the ground. It locked on.
The whole thing shook, a big cat getting out of the water, and then it lifted its head.
The Buck’s head snarled and snorted.
And then it saw Rose. Glass eyes animate with life and hate.
It stamped the ground and charged.
Rose twisted and threw herself into a run. Headlong into the saw grass.
She could hear it behind her as she crashed into the green. The edges of the stalks caught her flailing arms and face, splitting cuts into her skin. Her heart was pounding.
He had sent this thing after her. Hugo had sent her this monster.
She would never get away.
Rose felt the despair push its way up into her mind.
A vicious, meaty snort sounded right behind her. Rose turned to look—
Suddenly she was falling.
Rose gasped, trying to make sense of the shift. The world was upside down and she was tumbling over the end of it.
The Spider Chasm.
Somehow she had tumbled off the edge of it. The cliff face was flying past her.
She screamed, reaching toward the rock wall.
Her fingers caught a slight crevice in the rock and her body swung downward, hitting the stone with a queasy thud.
Rose could feel that her fingernails had snapped somewhere inside the darkness of the crevice. Her body was in pain. Shoulder screaming, nearly wrenched out of its socket. Lungs bruised, the air torn out of them. Chin scraped against stone.
She willed her other hand to move. To find somewhere to take hold.
Her fingers scrabbled over the rock. There has to be something here. Please. Please.
Her breath reflected back off the stone, hot, panicked wind.
Her searching hand found a small outcropping in the cliff face. A tiny hold, barely there.
Hugo & Rose Page 25