Daughters of Arkham

by Justin Robinson

  Nate frowned. “Private?”

  “Yeah,” Sindy said. “We need to talk about menstruation. You see, once a month the lining on the uterine wall sheds…”

  “Stop! Stop,” Nate said, hands over his ears. “I got the picture. I’ll see you guys tomorrow, and have fun with your, um…”

  “Periods.”

  Nate scurried off.

  Sindy laughed. “So, what are we really talking about?”

  “Um… menstruation.”

  “Ew! Seriously? I was just trying to get rid of him.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “I thought it was going to be about Bryce.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Yeah, might as well pass the Bechdel Test.” Sindy hoisted her backpack and Abby followed her out. A steady line of cars circled around the front drive, picking up the locals. Abby and Sindy joined the straggly exodus across the lawn. They were quiet until they reached the first turn, and turned up the hill toward Harwich Hall. “So, were you going to talk?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Abby mumbled. “I’m… I guess the term is ‘late.’”

  “Late? As in late-late?”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Sometimes, I forget just how sheltered you are.”

  “You’ve met my mom.”

  “I’ve also met me.”

  Abby shrugged.

  “Okay, so when you say you’re late, how late are you?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “Maybe you’re pregnant!” Sindy laughed.

  Abby felt her eyes bulging. “What? I’m a virgin!”

  “I know. I mean, I thought maybe…”

  “Maybe what?”

  “You know, the night of the carnival.”

  “What happened? What happened the night of the carnival?” Abby was scared by the urgency in her voice, but she couldn’t stop it.

  “Whoa. Calm down.”

  “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t remember much after the funhouse and what I do remember doesn’t make much sense.” Abby paused. “Do you remember that night?”

  Now Sindy blushed. It was an odd sight, not in the least because she so seldom did. Sindy made it a practice not to be embarrassed by anything she said or did. “I don’t remember much, either.”

  “And you don’t think that’s at all weird?”

  “Well I was drinking. So I figured that’s why I couldn’t…” Sindy shrugged. “But you didn’t touch a drop.”

  “You must remember something if you thought I might not be a virgin.”

  “Well, yeah. But it was after we left the carnival. We went looking for you because it was shutting down and you were sitting just outside the funhouse. You didn’t say anything, I figured you were still upset, but you came with us.”

  “Where did we go?”

  Sindy’s brow furrowed as she struggled to recapture the events of that evening. “We all went to the parking lot out by the Fisherman’s Lodge.”

  Fisherman’s Lodge was a bar near the river delta, supposedly the midpoint between the people who fished on the river and those who fished on the ocean. It was a fake log cabin, and the parking lot was so sprawling it went off into the woods. Plenty of trees grew all around it, and there were sections entirely shielded from both the road and the bar. Teenagers went to drink there all the time. “I don’t know what happened exactly. I think Hunter handed me a bottle—I guess it could have been Ben or Laze—and I was about to hand it to… someone. I don’t know. And then I saw you off to the side. I mean… I saw your back.”

  “Where was I?”

  “We were down in the corner, you know where the lot slopes down? And you were going off into the woods.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “I thought you were getting, you know, friendly with someone.”

  “Who?”

  Sindy shrugged. “I don’t know. It was dark. It could have been anyone, but I figured it would be either Bryce or Nate.”

  “Did you see them?”

  “I don’t remember. It’s pretty much dark after that.” A shadow passed behind Sindy’s sapphire-blue eyes, but Abby didn’t press her. Sindy wouldn’t keep something important from her.

  “So you thought I went off to sex in the woods?” Abby couldn’t help but hissing sex in a stage whisper.

  “To sex,” Sindy snorted. “But, I mean. Yeah. It was either that or you were going off to pee, and you don’t usually take an audience for that.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?!”

  “I figured you would say something to me if there was anything to say. You were the sober one. And, after you didn’t mention it later, I figured I misinterpreted or misremembered. Or it was lame.”

  “Did you?”

  Sindy shrugged. The shadow returned to her gaze, and this time it stayed there. Abby knew it meant no. In the same way that Abby half-remembered things from that, Sindy must have remembered this. She had seen Abby go off into the woods with a boy as sure as she was looking at her now.

  Abby felt frantic in a way that monsters couldn’t begin to touch. This was next-level frantic. “Can you have sex with someone and not remember?”

  Sindy shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  A cramp tore through Abby, but it was a weak reflection of the menstrual cramps that she ironically she now wanted. It was as though her body was trying, through fear, to echo what she felt she should be feeling. She thought of that—of having sex with someone for the first time—and that memory being stolen from her. It made her stomach turn inside out.

  She rushed to kneel by the side of the road to puke in the drainage ditch. Sindy held her hair with one hand and rubbed her back with the other, murmuring soothing words. Abby heaved a few more times, and turned away, not wanting to see the remains of her lunch spewed out across fallen leaves and muddy earth. She got up, sniffing through the acrid stench.

  “I’m sure you’re fine,” Sindy said, though her voice told a different story.

  “Oh god, Sin. What if I’m pregnant?”

  “You’re not. I’m sure you’re not. You’re Abigail Thorndike. You’ve never even let a guy touch one boob.”

  Abby had to chuckle about that, and her abused throat burned for it.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. Just one of those things. You’ll get your period in a week, and this is going to be a funny story—”

  Abby looked at Sindy, stricken. Funny?

  “—that we’ll never speak of again,” Sindy finished, hugging her.

  She hugged her back, terrified of what might have happened to her body, and what still might be happening. They talked only a little bit on the way back to Harwich Hall. Abby’s mind was wandering too much to say much. She focused on that blank space in her memory. She had barely thought about the night of the carnival since it had happened, and now she was stuck again with a black pit where her memories should have been.

  If she had had sex, and if it had been with Nate, he would have mentioned something. So either it never happened with him, or he had lost the experience as well. She couldn’t imagine having sex with him, anyway. They were just friends. She said goodbye to Sindy at the base of the driveway to the Endicott estate. The Endicott home was large, and it was old, but not so large or old that it had gotten a name. Abby preferred it to Harwich Hall; there were elements of Sindy and her mom in that place, little details that made it feel like a lived-in home, rather than a museum specializing in upper-class New Englanders.

  She went inside. She could hear her mother somewhere deeper in the house. Bertram and her grandmother were quiet as usual. She snuck up to her room and wondered what she was going to do.

  Pregnant.

  The word flashed in her head, and every time she closed her eyes it only got brighter. Sindy had meant it as a joke, but it wasn’t one. It felt possible. It even felt probable. She had to know. She had to know right now or she would go crazy, actually crazy. I’ll take a test. I’ll take a test, and it will be negative,
she reassured herself. It had to be.

  She barely knew where to get a pregnancy test. At the drugstore, probably. Arkham was so small. She had no chance of getting one and getting out unrecognized. The news would get back to her mother somehow, and then weekends would become something that happened to other people. Perhaps even worse would be the rumors. She was only just shedding her reputation as the crazy girl, she didn’t want to follow that up as the school slut.

  She had to go to another drugstore, then. There were towns close by, but not so close she could ride on a bike. She had no idea about buses, either. She’d never ridden one in her life. She closed her eyes, not wanting the frustration to overwhelm her. The idea of pregnancy was too frightening, so she set that aside. Take one problem at a time, Abby, she thought. She needed a ride. All right, who has a car?

  Bryce Coffin.

  13

  The Ride

  Abby nearly curled up with shame. This would be a great way to get him to like her. She imagined herself saying, Can you drive me one town over so I can buy a pregnancy test? I won’t be able to legally drive for two years. She shook her head. He was the only person she knew who had a car and a license, and might be willing to do it.

  She swallowed.

  She forced herself to open up her phone and text him. Need a ride plz

  Her phone vibrated: Sure. Where are u?

  She sighed.

  . He wasn’t. Abby let out a long breath. She slipped out the side door and looped around Harwich Hall toward the front. She felt like this should have been happening well after dark, but it was only deep in the shortening afternoons of autumn. Darkness would have given her some cover, but it would also ruin her cover story that this was some innocent errand. That was an illusion she wanted to preserve as long as she could, if only for herself

  . The side gate creaked as she pulled closed it behind her. She looked back at Harwich Hall and clicked the gate’s latch completely shut with a sinking sense of finality. She wanted to scold herself—it’s just a trip to the drugstore—but it was much more than that. This was an adult’s errand. Adult women did this. She was fourteen, and she’d never even kissed a boy. She closed the gate behind her and went down to the street to huddle against the stone wall that circled the Harwich estate

  . Abby barely had time to wait before a red BMW cruised to a stop next to her. She allowed herself a small, inward smile. Bryce had left pretty quickly after getting her text. That was a good sign. Maybe he’d already been out for a joyride

  . She got in. Bryce grinned at her. “And where are we going?

  ” “Thanks for doing this.

  ” Bryce shrugged and hit the gas. Abby expected him to instantly floor it. This wasn’t a sports car, but the soft rumble of the engine implied that it could put out some speed. Instead, he went up the winding roads with relative caution. “It was either this or watch Mom drink her weight in gin.

  ” “I’m sorry.

  ” “No, it’s just that I’ve seen it before. I know how that one ends.” He grinned again. “So where are we going?

  ” “Middleton,” she said. It was the next town over

  . “Middleton?

  ” “Um. Yeah. To the drugstore.

  ” “We have a drugstore in Arkham.

  ” “Yeah. I know.

  ” Bryce probably would have stared at her had they been parked. He concentrated driving, looking for the turn-off to head back down and inland. They wound along a narrow road that went past more sections of forest. Craggy trees grew close enough to the road that their branches nearly linked to form a tunnel over the top of the road, grasping for each other like skeletons. Eventually, they came to Main Street. From there, they went to the highway. The sun fell ahead of them, turning the sky the same color as the autumn leaves

  . Bryce turned his radio on, flicking through the satellite stations. He settled on a woman singing softly over stately electronic beats. It wasn’t what Abby would have expected

  . “Thanks again,” Abby said, unsure of what else to say

  . “No problem. Really.

  ” “It’s just that… I realize we don’t know each other very well.

  ” “Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I knew who you were.

  ” “You did?” Abby’s belly tingled, and she felt the heat in her cheeks

  . “Yeah, of course. You knew who I was too.

  ” “Yeah,” she said, almost whispering

  . “It’s been nice getting to know you. Pleasant surprise that you were there. At the carnival, I mean.

  ” “That was fun.” Abby paused. “You know, until I sucked all the fun out of it.

  ” “I wouldn’t say that. But you certainly caught everyone by surprise.

  ” “What? Didn’t everyone know that I come from a long line of uptight women?

  ” Bryce laughed. It was a warm and open sound, almost involuntary, and it sent her stomach into cartwheels again. Small crinkles appeared near his eyes and that was when she realized that the ever-present grin he wore never touched his eyes. It was just something he put on in the morning, like a tie. But that laugh. Oh, sweet Lord that laugh.

  “You’re something else, Thorndike.” Bryce brushed at his eyes.

  “I’m glad you think so.” Bryce’s guard was down. A thought struck her. “Can I ask you something?

  ” “Of course.

  ” “Where did we go after the carnival?

  ” Bryce frowned

  . Abby filled the silence: “I had a really bad migraine that night. So things are kind of hazy.

  ” He considered. “We went down to the Lodge.

  ” “And from there?

  ” He laughed again, but this one sounded hollow. “I don’t know. All over.

  ” She watched him, hearing the same thing in his voice that she had in Sindy’s. Or was that just wishful thinking? She couldn’t read him. She wanted to ask him more—about everything—but she knew she’d sound crazy, even if she omitted the part about the fish monsters. Just admitting to something as simple as her missing memories felt wrong. She had too much to lose. She wanted Bryce to like her; she wanted to be invited into this car again. And how wide were his shoulders, exactly? She could probably use her hands to measure them; he was sitting right there

  … “Now, can I ask you something?” His voice jolted her back to reality.

  “It’d be kind of rude to say no with you driving me all the way to Middleton.

  ” “Truth.” Something unreadable passed over his face before he spoke. It effectively extinguished the laugh from his eyes. “Why didn’t you take a drink?

  ” Abby stiffened. Here it was. He was disappointed in her; he was upset that she’d put him into a position where he felt he’d had to take her side against his friends. She felt a warm flush across her chest quickly spread up her neck as she relived the embarrassment of that evening. She didn’t reply

  . “Abs?” Bryce said.

  She cleared her throat and then shrugged. It didn’t matter now anyway. “I don’t really know,” she began. And she didn’t. “I just know that I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t ready to be sure. If I had taken a drink, it would have been just to try and impress everyone.” Her cheeks might as well have been on fire. She forced herself to look at him. “To impress… you. And I guess I felt like… ‘who are these people to ask me to impress them?’

  ” Bryce was silent except for a slight pulsing in his jaw. Abby cringed. She was in the thick of it now; might as well take it to the finish.

  “I’d rather be ostracized than the cool kid’s pet monkey.” She forced those last few words out her throat and struggled to not shrink back against the relative safety of the car door. She wasn’t the iron maiden that her grandmother was, but she was still a Thorndike. She had to own her words and actions

  . Bryce was silent for a long time. Then he said, “You were wrong, Abby.”

  Oh, God. She wetted her lips. “Could you be more specific?

  ” He turned his
head slightly toward her, meeting her eyes. “You didn’t have to take a drink to impress me.” He smiled and the warmth that Abby felt this time had nothing to do with embarrassment.

  14

  The Test

  they made small talk until they came into Middleton. When they turned onto the main drag, it wasn’t long before she spotted a Walgreen’s. Bryce saw it, too, and pulled into the parking lot. She unbuckled, opened her door, and froze as she saw Bryce do the same.

  “Do you mind waiting here?” she asked him.

  “Sure.” He frowned, settling back into his seat.

  She got out and trudged toward the entrance. Everyone from school was going to be inside, she felt certain of it. Why not? This whole thing was already so fun; might as well make it a surprise party. Her birthday wasn’t until March, but if they threw the party in October, that would just be extra-surprising. They could all jump out from behind the racks and shout, ‘Surprise!’ Then they’d drop their party favors and let go of the balloons, and they’d ask why she was here in the first place.

  She had to fight the urge to turn around and get back into the car. She wasn’t pregnant. She couldn’t be. She might not remember everything from the night of the carnival, but she would definitely remember having sex. This pregnancy test was pointless. She was only doing it because Sindy had made a joke. A joke!

  No one jumped out at her when she went inside. Quiet pop songs wafted through the filtered air. There were a few customers and employees. None of them looked the slightest bit familiar. They were also all human, something that relieved her more than it probably should have. She moved quickly, checking the labels on the aisles. None of them said “Pregnancy Tests”. Eventually she found them next to the tampons. It was a level of queasy irony that she did not appreciate.