He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell her the truth.
“The way you were staring at it, you’d think you were reading your own obituary.” She sat down on the bed and looked through the junk in the knee drawer Peter had yet to put back in the desk. She didn’t really seem interested in it, though. It looked like a nervous distraction to disarm whatever it was that was hot on her mind.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing’s up. Just seeing how it’s going in here.” She had a curious, yet distracted, look on her face. “The story idea, is it something new you’re working on?”
“Something old, actually,” he lied. “Procrastinating, really.”
“Not cheating, I hope,” she said, smiling wryly at him.
“Huh?” He was taken aback for a moment, but then it hit him what she was referring to. “You remember that?”
It was something he had told her when they had first met. He had said how when he was working on a story, he had to stick with it until it was finished—a sort of literary monogamy. Only then would he turn his attention to other story ideas. To break this rule was akin to creative infidelity so far as he was concerned.
“Of course I remember.” Sylvia squinted at something on the floor. She bent down to pick up a paperclip at her feet, then dropped it in the drawer. She wasn’t wearing any shoes and had dry grass clippings on her toes. “What happened here?” she asked, gesturing to the drawer. “Looking for something?”
Peter turned sideways in the chair and draped his arm over the back, resting his chin on his shoulder. “The drawer jammed when I was looking for a pen. Don’t know my own strength, I guess. I tried to get it unstuck, and the whole thing came flying out.”
Sylvia laughed softly, then licked her lips. She slid back a little on the bed and tucked her hands under her thighs, letting her legs hang off the bed. She was staring at her swinging feet. It was a youthful, carefree look, one Peter hadn’t seen on his wife since their first years together, before any of the bad stuff had infected them.
“How’s the book? Good as the first time you read it?” Peter asked. “You looked peaceful out there by the water.”
“You checking on me?” She looked up, took her hands from beneath her legs, and pushed some hair behind her ears. She gave him a cute little sideways smile.
“Admiring,” he said, lying again. He had been checking on her, and he was pretty sure they both knew it.
Something odd was going on. Sylvia was giving off an air of unpredictability that made Peter a little uneasy.
“I like that better.” She stood up and crossed the room. “It’s nice out there. You should join me later. It’s so stuffy in here.”
“Maybe,” Peter said, eyes tracking upward as Sylvia approached him. A sheen of sweat glistened across her chest, her cleavage. Her nipples, dark and small, peeked through the dress.
She stopped and stood in front of him, resting her hand on the back of his neck. “I’m bored.”
He looked up at her, suddenly understanding why he felt that sensation of unease about her. There was an energy between them that he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was both exciting and terrifying at the same time. A sense of something that should feel familiar feeling foreign and perhaps even a little dangerous.
“I have to run into town to get a couple things,” he said. “Feel like taking a ride? I thought maybe when we got back we could make some lunch.”
“Okay,” she said, stepping one leg over his lap and coming around to face him. She gently positioned him so that he was sitting with his back squarely in the chair and she was straddling him. Her hands now resting on his shoulders, she leaned down and kissed him. Her tongue brushed the tip of his. She tasted like sweet tea.
When she pulled her head back and smiled, Peter could see down the front of her dress. Her breasts were small but perfectly shaped. His blood started to stir.
He was looking at her, a stupefied expression of surprise on his face. “Syl, are you sure you want—”
She pressed her finger against his lips and kissed him again before he could speak. As her lips slid over his, she took his hand and placed it on the inside of her thigh. She slid it farther up until Peter could feel her pubic hair brushing his knuckles. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. He found her slick seam with his thumb.
Was she planning this? he wondered.
The answer didn’t matter. She was unbuckling his belt. Fly unzipping. Hand reaching in. Taking him out. Their kissing became a war of tongues. She bit his lip. Heavy breathing building. She gripped him firmly, sliding her hand up and down his rock-hard erection.
She kissed his neck, then his ear. “I want you,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes and buried his face in his wife’s breasts, tasting her sweat. “Come up here.” He slid his other hand behind her and squeezed. He pulled one of her breasts out and bit her nipple. It was salty. She moaned.
Sylvia let go of his penis, wrapped her arms around him, and sat down slowly until he was inside her. They were moving together, and the chair was scuffing the floor, its joints groaning and creaking. Then they were on the floor, rolling around, and scuffing themselves.
Eventually they took it to the bed, knocking the junk drawer onto the floor and spilling its contents for the second time.
6
Peter sat at the kitchen table, wearing nothing but his underpants, while Sylvia napped in the bed where he had left her. His body was buzzing with endorphins, but he had a headache. He popped two aspirin into his mouth and washed them down with orange juice as the phone receiver rang in his ear.
From the right angle, he could look across the hallway to the bedroom and see his wife’s feet on the bed. It conjured up an unpleasant memory of when he had found her after she had taken too many pills. How he had only been able to see her legs through their partially open bedroom door at first.
“Yeah, hello.” Tom Landau’s voice came through on the phone.
Peter cleared his throat. “Tom, it’s Peter.”
“Hey, pal,” Tom said cheerfully. “You miss me?”
Peter believed that everyone had at least one bad joke in their repertoire that they recycled too frequently—a sort of personal catchphrase. Tom’s, when talking to Peter, had always been: Did you miss me? Even if he had been gone five minutes: Did you miss me? He wondered if Tom said it to his other clients, and supposed he probably did. He didn’t care.
“Always, Tom. How’s it going? I’m calling on a Sunday. That okay?”
Tom laughed. “Any time, day or night, is fine, Peter.” He paused. “I have to be honest, I didn’t think I was going to hear from you the entire time you were away. You make it to the place all right?”
“Syl and I just got here this morning.”
“How’s the lake? Nice? Hopefully you opted for a place with a good view.”
“Beautiful. It’s a great place with a great view,” Peter said, watching his wife’s feet slide down the bed as she stirred. “We’re already making friends with the locals.”
“That so?”
“Dinner invite tomorrow,” Peter said, running his finger around the rim of his cup and flicking off tiny flecks of orange-juice pulp. “But listen, I need a favor.”
“What’s up?”
“I need you to work some magic for me,” Peter said.
“Magic?”
“That’s right.”
“What kind of magic are we talking?” Tom asked. Peter could hear him light up a cigarette on the other end of the line. Then he heard the thin clatter of ice cubes in a glass.
A drink would be nice right about now, he thought, but gave the idea the slip before it could drag him down.
“The schmoozy kind. Agent magic. I want you to put me in touch with Declan Wade. Do you know him… or someone who does?”
“Do I know him?” Tom said. “I wouldn’t be much of an agent if I didn’t. Personally I don’t really read his stuff—Joan does, from time to time—but the guy sells a
lot of books, that’s for sure. Why? What do you want with him?”
“Nothing important,” Peter said. “Writer stuff.”
“Is that all you’re going to give me?”
“That’s enough, isn’t it?” Peter said.
“Should I be worried?”
“Not at all.”
“Your breath reeks of bullshit, my friend.”
“Then I’m speaking your language, aren’t I?”
“Touché,” Tom said. “I could make some calls and probably put you two in contact. It shouldn’t be that hard. I won’t be able to do anything today, but I’ll see what I can do tomorrow.”
“Good enough. Thanks, Tom.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s my job.” There was a brief pause. “But if someone asks what this is about, what should I tell them? ‘Nothing important’ might not be the best response to get results. Can you give me something? Anything?”
Peter could tell Tom was just digging for info as to whether or not this was regarding a matter that would affect his bank account.
“Say it’s regarding his Gilchrist Project.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“He’ll understand.” Peter said. “At least I think he will.”
“All right. I’ll see what I can do,” Tom said.
Peter gave him the phone number to Shady Cove. The two said goodbye, and the conversation was over.
He stood and went back to the bedroom. It was perfect napping weather. A steady afternoon breeze had cooled the room to a comfortable temperature. Perhaps a front moving in. Distant boat sounds drifted in from across the lake. Wind chimes kissed lightly on the porch. Loose manuscript pages on the desk, held down by a box of paperclips, lifted and dropped with the wind.
Sylvia was sleeping in the nude and snoring softly. Her yellow dress was a pile on the floor, along with Peter’s clothes. He lay down beside her and draped his arm across her chest, pulling her close. He fell asleep almost immediately.
But it was the thin, delirious sleep of a fever-struck mind.
7
Peter was in the woods. It was a mad but familiar place. Everything was burning. Bright colorful flowers grew out of cracked and swollen smoldering trees. But they weren’t flowers at all. They moved. Quivered. Their fleshy petals puckered as if tasting the air. Despite the fire, the place was bitterly cold, and the air smelled of smoke and carrion decay. An icy mist permeated the atmosphere, tickling the tip of his nose as he moved through it. The sky was a low sea of churning black clouds. Silent bursts of red lightning strobed from the inner depths. It was a place of stored misery. He could feel the atmosphere pulling a charge from his heart, draining him slowly but steadily. And like a battery connected to a faulty circuit, if the connection wasn’t soon severed, there would be nothing remaining but a dead cell.
But he wasn’t ready to leave. There was something here that called to him.
Peter went toward a clearing up ahead. He was standing in the backyard of their house in Concord and looking at the back of their home in the near distance. Only, it wasn’t exactly their home. It was a similar two-story shape, but there were elements of Shady Cove mixed in—a wrap-around porch that shouldn’t exist and gray weathered shingles instead of the usual white lapboards. And surrounding the house like a castle moat were hundreds of massive orange tiger lilies, each ten feet tall, the flesh of which looked wet and membranous like all the other strange foliage that wasn’t really foliage.
A narrow path ran through the tiger lilies and led to the house, where, as if waiting for him, there was a single rectangle of yellow light. Every other window was dark except for this one on the second floor.
You know what this place is.
He looked down at his hands and could see through them to the ground. Then he looked up at the house once more and immediately understood. It wasn’t a matter of what he was seeing… it was when he was seeing. He knew this scene far too well. And he knew what came next. This was simply a new angle from which to watch the horror unfold.
A small figure was in the second-floor window. It was Noah, and he was banging on the screen, pressing his little weight against it. It wasn’t going to hold. Peter started running toward him. He had to stop it. This time he had a chance to save his son. His lungs caught fire as he breathed in huge gulps of the sour air. He tried to scream his wife’s name, but only a strange reverberated version of his voice came out, completely distorted. He had an idea that she needed to hear him, that if she did, it could change everything. He had to warn her of what was about to happen. Right now she would be in the bathroom, starting their son’s tub time, and Peter himself would be in his office, writing with the door closed. One of them needed to know they had to save their son. God, just go check on him. Please. He’s about to…
Noah kept knocking the screen with his tiny fists. It was all happening silently, but Peter could see that his son was giggling, having a blast, blissfully unaware of the tragedy he was headed toward.
Peter was passing through the tall tiger lilies, which whispered to him in unison as he ran by, but he couldn’t make out the words. Then he could. It was a song. The flowers were singing “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in a distorted version of his wife’s voice. It sounded as if it were traveling down a long metal pipe. That was the song Sylvia always used to sing to Noah.
As he drew closer to the house, he saw something squatting on the roof like a gargoyle. It was a giant long-limbed creature with leathery skin and a shimmering face. Nothing of the earth that he knew. It wasn’t moving. It was watching, a green glow emanating from its broad chest. The light throbbed like a heartbeat. And it was getting brighter and faster.
Whatever the being was, it didn’t seem to notice him… or, if it did, it didn’t care. It was just squatting on the roof directly above the window his son was about to fall out of.
An idea struck Peter like a two-by-four across the forehead: It isn’t just watching the tragedy… it is guarding the tragedy.
The screen popped out of the window, and his son was falling. For the second time in his life, Peter could do nothing about it. He was too far away. He couldn’t move fast enough. He dove, arms outstretched, eyes closed. His elbows and knees scraped against the ground. His hands grabbed nothing but cold air.
I’m sorry, Noah…
8
Peter sat bolt upright in bed, fresh tears standing in his eyes. A glaze of cold sweat covered his skin as his heart clicked in his throat.
“Noah… I couldn’t…” he said, trying to figure out where he was. He scanned the spare room of Shady Cove that he had turned into a makeshift study. It was rushing back to him.
We rented a house in Gilchrist. Shadow Cove. No. Shady Cove. It’s light outside. Afternoon still. We took a nap after we made love. It was good sex, not like before. I called Tom. I want to talk to Declan Wade about his time here, about the book notes I found. We were invited to have dinner tomorrow night with that woman… Laura Dolan. No. It’s Dooley. Laura Dooley. Her son is Kevin, and there’s something…
His wife’s voice and touch grounded Peter further. Sylvia had her hand on his chest. She was sitting up sideways beside him. Her face was sweet and beautiful, compassionate. “You were dreaming. It’s okay,” she said in a soothing voice.
He looked at her and ran a hand over his face. “Yeah… I… I was.”
“Must’ve been a good one.” Her hand started rubbing him in small circles, calming him.
“That was so bizarre.” He blinked hard a few times. “What time is it?”
“I think we’ve been out for at least an hour.” She pulled the sheet up and covered her breasts.
Peter remembered her nipples in his mouth and tasting the salt of her sweat. If he wasn’t so shaken up from his dream
(that was no dream)
it would’ve been a pleasant thought.
Sylvia’s eyes drifted down. “What happened here?”
“What?”
She gestured to
the sheets covering Peter’s legs.
There were a few small spots of what looked like bright-red blood. He pulled back the sheet. Both his knees were scraped and bleeding. A chill went through his body as a cold claw closed around his spine. He covered them up, then checked his arms. Both forearms and elbows were scraped.
“What’d you do to yourself?” Sylvia asked.
I tried to save our son, Peter thought. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his wife that. It would be too much. Too hard.
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling a faint pang of guilt for lying. But it wasn’t a lie. Not exactly. Because that would mean he believed that the implication of his wounds could possibly be true. “It must’ve happened when we were… you know.” He wiggled his eyebrows in a way that made him look less like a young man in his thirties and more like a high school teenager who had just lost his virginity to the prom queen. “Battle wounds of love, I guess. They’re not bad. I’ll be fine.”
“Let me take a look.”
“No, I’m fine. Don’t worry. Just a little rug burn. It was worth it.”
She smiled, her cheeks flushing. “Maybe the floor wasn’t the best idea.”
“I’m not complaining.” Peter’s eyes went to where they had fooled around on the floor before moving to the bed. There was junk all over the place from when he had tossed the drawer aside. For the second time, he would have to clean it up. But it had been worth it. Both of them had needed that. Something about it had felt like a beginning.
“Me, either.” She leaned in and kissed him.
God, her lips were soft. He couldn’t understand how, for the past eighteen months, they had felt so stiff and uninviting. In that moment it was like everything between them was completely normal. He hoped it would last, that it wasn’t just a one-time gift from whatever unseen force doled out such wonderful things.
“What’re your plans for the rest of the afternoon?” Peter asked, swinging his legs off the bed.
“I think I’ll go for a swim off the dock. I dipped my toes in the water earlier, and it’s absolutely perfect. It’s like bathwater. You want to join me?” Sylvia sat up, letting the sheet fall away from her breasts.
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