The Breathless

by Tara Goedjen

  CAGE SAT UPRIGHT, GASPING FOR air. He shuddered, felt chilled. Everywhere was cold. He had a bad feeling inside and his bones were aching, deep down to the marrow. It was dark around him and the air felt hard like a wall.

  There was warmth on his chin and someone was turning his face as light flared. He squinted, threw his arm up to shield his eyes, but the movement seemed to take forever.

  And then a girl appeared in front of him. A pretty pixie face, dark golden hair. She looked like…The name came to him slowly, like he was still half asleep.

  “Mae?”

  “Don’t worry, I found you. I’m right here.”

  The bad feeling came back and his head was about to split open. He felt chilled inside and everything was shivering. Something was wrong.

  “You’re soaking wet. We need to get you out of those clothes.”

  He was cold, but the voice was soft. He wanted to hug it, but he couldn’t see it.

  “You must have passed out. I thought you were dead.”

  No, he wasn’t. Everything hurt too much for him to be dead.

  “Cage?”

  And then Mae was in front of him again, and she was tugging on his shirt.

  “Lift your arms.”

  What was she doing? “No, wrong,” he said.

  The pressure on his arms was insistent. “You’re soaked through.” It went dark and then light again and there was no more wetness on his chest.

  “Pants next,” Mae said.

  Warm hands were on his waist and she was unbuttoning his jeans. But Ro! “Mae, we can’t.”

  Her face was a blur in front of him and then time sped up and she said really fast, “Cage, that’s not what I’m doing!”

  His jeans peeled off with a yank, but it was far away, like through a tunnel. Now he felt less cold. He looked down and saw he was naked. Wet sand was all over him and he was sitting on a raft, but underneath the plastic wasn’t water, it was cement. The barn, he was in the barn. The light was still shivering around him and there was a clattering in his ears. Something soft passed over his head, his chest.

  “There,” he heard, and that golden hair was back in front of him. She was so pretty. He could see her goodness and she didn’t even know it. Dark blond hair, pixie-face Mae. She was floating past him, he tried to catch her.

  “I need to take you to the hospital.”

  “No!” Not now, no hospital. He couldn’t go there.

  “What?”

  No hospital, not again. Bad idea. A hand was on his forehead.

  “You’re burning up, Cage.”

  Burning, yes, he was burning where she touched him. He could feel the heat from his insides, but his skin felt damp as the cold surged over him and the blackness came down.

  “Cage? Caaaaaaaa…”

  —

  The girl is driving so fast Cage thinks they might die. He tries to relax into the passenger seat as her red car veers down the one-lane highway, going deeper and deeper into the Alabama woods.

  He looks over at her and thinks he’s dreaming. She’s gorgeous. Red bikini strings tied around her neck, sea-green nail polish, and a grin that makes him feel lucky. Her blond hair’s still wet from the ocean, from nearly drowning in Gulf Shores, where she coaxed him off his uncle’s boat and into her car.

  “I want to thank you with dinner,” Roxanne says, her eyes on him instead of the road. “Since you rescued me and all.” This is what she promises: a real Southern home-cooked meal in an antebellum home. She tells him he should be careful, though, because the Coles have secrets, and then she laughs. He wonders again how he got to be in the car.

  She grabs the rearview mirror and adjusts it. He can see the reflection of the two younger girls in the back. They’re fifteen or so: one tall and curvy, one petite and lean. He’s embarrassed when he catches the smaller girl looking his way.

  Her name is Mae, he remembers, shifting in his seat. He met her on his morning break—he was eating a ham and cheese sandwich on the pier. All of a sudden there she was, a girl in jean cutoffs and one of those Hanes V-necks, way too big for her. She asked about his uncle’s boat, what he was fishing for. She asked if she could sketch him too. She was real nice, easy to talk to, and he hadn’t wanted to go back on the water. He looked for her again that afternoon, but she wasn’t on the beach. And that was when he saw Roxanne. That was when he saved her in the water and his life changed. After he pulled her out, Mae and the other girl came running up, and when Roxanne introduced them as her younger sisters he tried to hide his shock. He knew then he should probably say something to Mae—an apology, or a hello to show he remembered her—but Roxanne did all the talking, and the moment was gone.

  “Where’d you go there, sailor?” Roxanne asks, grinning at him. The force of her smile gets him right in the gut and he grins back. She makes a sudden turn off the road and the car shoots down a gravel driveway lined with oaks. The radio blasts and she starts singing the Rolling Stones as loud as she can and he can’t take his eyes off her.

  Then she’s pulling up beside an old fountain, and as she does a shadow falls across them. Next to the car is a huge run-down house swarmed by ivy. Its high walls are bluish and ugly, and darkness gathers in its corners, hemmed in by trees and overgrown bushes. The air is thick with the stench of undergrowth, as though the weeds are waiting to reclaim the house and everyone inside it. Instinctively he doesn’t like the feel of the place—not the house, not the wide yard, not the woods around it.

  But then he looks at Roxanne, and he can’t help but smile. She’s humming the song from the car, only slowly, off-tempo. I see a red door and I want it painted black….He knows he’s been sucked into the riptide that she is, but he doesn’t care and follows her jean skirt and tank onto the rickety porch. The wood has fallen away in chunks, and the porch swing hanging down from thick chains is swaying even though it’s empty, and the row of rocking chairs is doing the same. The decaying pillars tell him the house was once grand but has been cast into some sort of purgatory. Everything is ragged except for the door, which is red and newly painted.

  The younger girls trail behind them, probably unsure what to think about him being there. Roxanne grabs his hand and he feels the way he did when he first rode a motorcycle, that excitement bordering on queasiness, a charged-up anticipation that the world is going to get better. She gives a loud rap on the iron knocker, and a minute later the door creaks open to a dank foyer. Standing a few feet away in the stairwell is an old man, practically ancient. His white hair is smoothed to the side and he’s wearing a suit even in the summer heat, a flower in his jacket pocket like he’s on his way to a prom.

  “I didn’t even have to open it,” he says, and then turns to Cage. “Hello there, young man!”

  “Hello there yourself, young man,” Ro says, teasing him. “We’ve brought a guest for dinner, Granddad.”

  His face brightens, and he nods. “How do you do, son?” he says from his place on the stairs. He’s clutching the railing as if afraid to let go.

  “Good, sir. Thank you.” Cage glances at Roxanne to see if he’s said the right thing and she squeezes his hand. He feels like there’s a generator inside him kicking in, his whole body buzzing with her touch.

  “Well, come on in,” the old man tells him, and Roxanne pulls him inside, the girls right behind them.

  Cage glances up at the oil paintings on the walls and at the dusty chandelier suspended from above—it looks as if the old crystal might come crashing down any moment. The foyer is strangely cold, the afternoon shadows turning everything dark and watery. The doldrums, he thinks. The house reminds him of stagnant water, yet this girl lives in its depths like some sort of siren, the kind his uncle talks about.

  Roxanne takes his hand and pulls him deeper into the house. It creaks underfoot as if to protest each one of his steps, wanting to spit him back out. Deeper into the house they go, and deeper still. Now he’s being led down a narrow set of stairs by his golden girl, who tugs his hand and sends shiv
ers up his arm. And then they’re in an unfinished basement filled with outdoor gear.

  It’s a raised basement; the windows meet the soil outside so that the room is half underground. There’s a stench of something Cage can’t name, and it’s hard to breathe. He isn’t used to so much humidity in such a cramped space, not after spending the start of the summer on a boat with the wind and water around him.

  “Home is the sailor, home from sea,” Roxanne tells him, and grins like he knows what it means.

  And then, looking out the window at the crested ground that meets the glass panes like a wave, Cage realizes why the house seems so strange. It feels like a sinking ship.

  “This way,” she says. He is taut in her presence, and she is like a flame. She leads him past a table piled high with fishing supplies, long fillet knives and tackle boxes and trophies and bright lures in different colors, and someone emerges from the shadows. A man with a long ponytail, a rag in his hand, a knife.

  “Cage, this is Sonny, my dad,” Roxanne says. Sonny looks him over, doesn’t smile. Goes back to cleaning his knife.

  “Nice to meet you, sir.” Cage forces himself to remember her dad’s name, to make a good impression—but it’s hard to think about anyone but Roxanne. This blond ray of light next to him is warming his skin, warming him everywhere. There’s something off about the house, about her dad, but she is home. He feels like he’s known her all his life. Or maybe his life only started when he pulled her from the water. And he can do better for her, no matter what his mother might say. This time he can do better.

  “Come on, stranger.” Roxanne takes his hand. “Don’t want you getting lost.”

  Then she’s leading him back up the stairs, her two sisters orbiting like moons, and Cage wonders, all of a sudden, how he came to be surrounded by girls and rotting wood. He’s already in love, and it could be the end of him. A bad feeling takes hold, but he shrugs it off and gives her hand a squeeze, never wanting to let go—

  —

  “Cage!”

  He jolted upright, his breath ragged. The shirt he was wearing clung to him; he was drenched. He blinked and looked around the barn. A water jug was beside him, and a bowl with a washcloth. Blankets were at his feet, and he was sitting on something spongy.

  And someone was in the barn with him, watching from the shadows.

  After staring at the girl for what seemed like two minutes, three, an avalanche of sweat began to run down his face. The sensation heightened in the silence; he felt the sweat pouring from him.

  Still this girl said nothing. She stayed in the shadows, studying him. He could see the whites of her eyes and the shadow of her hair and she seemed familiar but he didn’t know her. He wanted to move away, only his muscles felt like sludge as she took a step toward him.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  And then she darted forward, too fast to track, and a hot white flash stung his cheek.

  Cage blinked, opened his eyes. “What?”

  He was flat on his back, looking up at the ceiling of the barn, and Mae was kneeling over him. She was angry, her brown eyes sharp. No, not angry—worried.

  “You wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t want to hit you, but you wouldn’t wake up.”

  He brought his hand to his cheek. It stung and his skin felt like sandpaper; his insides were thin and brittle, about to break. It was hard to move.

  “Don’t mind waking up to you,” he finally managed, trying to hide how sick he felt.

  She laughed—it was like a sigh and a laugh together. “You’re coherent,” she said. “At last.” She brought her hand to his forehead. “Your fever must have broken.”

  “I had a fever?” It explained why he was weak, sweaty.

  She held a glass to his lips and he drank, but it hurt to swallow. The water was cold in his throat, in his gut. He wanted more and drank it all down and then leaned over and threw up, right on her shoes.

  “Sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. “I’ll clean that.” But when he tried to stand, his legs gave out. He shivered; it was awful being this sick in front of her.

  “It’s fine,” Mae said, glancing down at the mess, her nose all wrinkled up. “You need to rest. You’ve been in and out all night.”

  He’d never known what being this sick felt like; he’d always thought it was something you could shake off if you tried. But this tiredness, this—

  Mae touched his forehead again. “You’re still hot.” She bent down and squeezed the washcloth into the bowl of water and then put the damp cloth on his face. “You didn’t recognize me just then.” The cloth was cooling him down, and she was so close that her breath brushed across his neck. “Your eyes were open, but you weren’t looking at anything.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I think you were dreaming.” She dipped the washcloth into the water again and wiped at his temple. “You kept talking about Ro in your sleep. The things you said—”

  “Mae.” Her hand was slick when he took it. No, his hands were slick. There were shiny beads across his skin—he was leaking, sweating everywhere. He felt cold and hot all at once, and he dropped her hand. “I remember what happened. I didn’t kill her.”

  “I know.” Her voice sounded funny. “I heard you in your sleep. I heard everything.”

  “It was an accident. She…she tripped.”

  Then Mae was leaning into him, her arms wrapping him in a hug, and he didn’t want her to let go. “I believe you,” she said.

  Smart Mae, sweet Mae. She didn’t know how good she was. “You might,” he told her as she pulled away, “but no one else will.”

  “I have a plan.” Her lips pursed and she sighed. “Cage, there were things you said that only Ro would…”

  She was still talking, but his head was rushing—it was heavy, waterlogged. It felt like a whirlpool was spinning in his skull, and he couldn’t think. He tried to stand and collapsed back onto the raft.

  “Are you okay?”

  Mae’s voice was fading. He stared up at the skylight and it started fading too. The air was doing strange things. It was curling in on him.

  “Can you hear me?” Mae was farther away now; the air was forming a wall between them. He couldn’t see her anymore. “Cage, your eyes are black!”

  And then everything dropped away, and the kudzu, it was crawling up his legs, up his arms, over his face, his nose. Green, so much green, he was buried in it. He opened his mouth to breathe and the vines filled his throat and then a bright light was shining through the vines, shining everywhere and—

  —

  The sun’s beating down on the deck, blinding him. It glints off the bay, off the metal fasteners on the boat. An empty Coke can is on the counter and a map sticks out from under a coffee mug. Something seems off. He feels like he’s been here before, like he’s in a dream.

  The map ruffles in the wind and the can tips over and there’s a loud burst of laughter. “Cage! Over here!”

  “Ro?”

  He turns and finds her sitting on a deck cushion behind him, her blond hair lifting in the breeze like smoke. “What kept you so long?”

  He feels dizzy—he must be dreaming. “You’re not alive anymore,” he says.

  She laughs and pats a cushion. Chipped green nail polish is on her fingers. “Takes more than a little water to get me. Anyway, I come bearing a message.”

  “What message?” And the next thing he knows he’s sitting beside her on the cushion, but he doesn’t remember moving. He lifts his hand to touch her hair. “Your head…You were bleeding before.”

  She smiles and kisses his cheek. “Doesn’t matter here.”

  He feels confused. “Am I dreaming? Where are we?”

  “We’re on the sailboat, Cage. Don’t you recognize it?”

  In front of him is the small hideaway hatch, the mast, the railing. Everything is just how he remembers it.

  “And there’s the dock at Blue Gate,” she says.

  He looks to where she’s pointing. The d
ock is small at first, but he blinks and then it’s larger—they’re tied up next to it now. Something shadowy is in the center of the planks.

  Dead blackbirds, piled on top of each other. He turns to Ro, feels like he might be sick. “Who did that?”

  She puts a finger to her lips and shakes her head. “He’ll hear you,” she warns. “He’s always watching.”

  “Who?”

  But then she only winks. “And up there,” she says, “is the island.” A few billowy clouds are in the sky. “See all that green?”

  Something drops down from the cloud. It’s a vine, a ladder of kudzu. His eyes follow it up to a hovering island of green. His head hurts and he remembers his tire hitting the guardrail, the motorcycle flipping.

  “Please come back with me.” He wipes his hand across his face, tries to figure out what to say. “You always told me you’d take care of your sisters. And your dad, he needs you. And I need you.”

  “You only think you do.” She kisses his cheek again, but all he feels is coldness. “I miss you, though. I miss the small things, stuff you wouldn’t think.”

  “Like what?”

  Ro tilts her head, runs a finger down his arm. “The way my dad squints when he can’t make up his mind. And watching Mae paint, how she loses herself in it. Driving at night, Elle falling asleep on my shoulder.” She looks at him—her eyes are so green, glittering like cut jade.

  “I remember being young too,” she says. “Dressing up in the old clothes in our attic.” She pulls her hair back and he sees how pale her skin is, almost transparent. “I made the twins wear these big bell-shaped dresses, while I got the straw hat and a vest made out of animal skins.”