“It was a lot harder back then, you know,” Marina’s mother said. “Abortions were still illegal. Not that going around the law ever meant anything to me, of course. The point is, I didn’t care about the law and I didn’t want to be a mother. That’s right; I didn’t want you, Marina. But I didn’t have the money and I couldn’t find anyone to do it. And then it was too late. Always too late. And now here you are.” Marina stole a sidelong glance at her mother, who was smiling, showing a mouthful of gray teeth. Marina looked at her mother’s eyes, the same shape and color as her own. She searched her memory for a time when she’d thought her mother was beautiful. There had to be one, but it wouldn’t come.
“Why are you talking to me?” Marina asked. Her voice sounded small and stifled.
“Because you need to be told,” her mother answered. “I couldn’t get rid of you and you won’t be able to get rid of that one.” She pointed at Marina’s belly. “Might as well save yourself the trouble.”
“Go away,” Marina whispered and turned her eyes back to the road.
“You’re going to have to make it right,” Marina’s mother said. She leaned over, so close Marina could hear the words right inside her ear. “I had to have you and you have to have her. You need to know that.”
“No,” Marina said. “No, I won’t. I don’t.”
“Your problem,” her mother said, “was you always thought you knew everything. You don’t listen.”
“Why would I listen to you of all people?”
“Because if you don’t, I’m going to have to keep coming back,” she heard her mother say. “And I’m sure you don’t want that.”
“I don’t hear you,” Marina said. “You’re not really here.” She felt a tremor in the air around her and something that sounded like a sigh. Marina glanced to her right. Her mother was gone.
This is how a person went crazy, Marina thought. It happened slowly—excruciating degrees of madness. You saw people who weren’t there, heard words that weren’t being spoken. And then you started conversing with your own phantoms. So far, she’d been successful about suppressing the urge in public. But how long before she couldn’t control it anymore? She was already so close to that edge. For weeks now she’d been holding herself in check even as the constructs of her carefully designed life began crumbling away. Time had taken on a bizarre and unfamiliar shape since the morning Gideon had left her holding that vase full of roses, the moment all this insanity had started. First Mrs. Golden, then Rosa’s daughter, and they were only the start. The dead had been mixing freely with the living for Marina, becoming more real as time looped on.
But it wasn’t only the dead being conjured for Marina. Taken alone, they would be bearable. But no, at any given moment on any given day, Marina could not be sure if what she was doing or seeing was happening in real time, had already happened or was yet to come. It was like being in a constant state of déjà vu or sleepwalking through a series of layered mirages. This had complicated even the simplest acts, like walking on the beach or ordering a cup of coffee, and made the more complex interactions of her work almost impossible. What had made Marina so successful were her powers of observation and the ability to analyze those observations for her clients. That was all gone now, mutated by the shifting kaleidoscope of visions she saw before her all the time. Marina could only cling to what she thought she was seeing and comment on that. And none of it was what her clients wanted to hear.
Most often, she received the kind of hostile reaction she’d gotten from the woman whose child she’d “seen” drown in the ocean before it actually happened—like the time she met with a first-time client who’d been referred by one of her regulars. The woman introduced herself as Brooke, but as soon as she did, Marina said, “It’s nice to meet you, Barbara.” The woman bristled immediately and Marina tried to correct herself, but there was nothing to be done—Barbara was the only name that would come out of her mouth. “I changed my name a long time ago,” the woman huffed, “so I don’t know why you want to call me Barbara.” But that was only the first thing to go wrong. When Marina commented on the large ornate crucifix Barbara/Brooke was wearing, the woman looked at Marina as if she were certifiable.
“What are you talking about?” she asked. Marina looked again at the woman’s neck, which had suddenly become bare.
“I mean,” Marina said, struggling, “I meant that your faith is very important to you.”
“No,” the woman said, “I left that behind long ago.”
“But that’s what’s holding you back,” Marina said.
“Holding me back from what?”
“There’s a woman at the school where you work,” Marina said then, completely unable to stop either the images or the words that followed them, “and you are attracted to her. You’re in love with her. But you won’t go out with her because your faith tells you it’s wrong.”
The woman stood up so quickly that she almost overturned the table. Her face pinched and white, she said, “I’m not paying you for this. It’s…it’s outrageous.” And then she stormed out.
That kind of response was something Marina was starting to get used to, but getting used to it and understanding it were two different things. That Marina was now having visions that could be considered psychic and that those visions were not only unregulated and indecipherable but ruining her business as a psychic created a kind of cognitive dissonance within Marina that was impossible to reconcile. Marina wanted to believe that there was a physical explanation for what was happening to her—an alteration in brain function, synaptic messages gone wild—and that it could be fixed or cured. But Marina couldn’t be sure of anything except that there was little time to figure it all out. The client base she’d worked so hard to cultivate was disappearing. The new ones seemed either mystified by her behavior or angry with what she said, and the old ones, her core of regulars, seemed to have melted away altogether.
Marina tried to remember the last time she’d seen Madeline and then realized that she’d pushed Madeline away before all of this had happened. But Madeline had never been the type to back off. Nor had Eddie, who suddenly sprang into Marina’s mind. She’d wanted him gone, but had always believed he’d stick around, hovering at the fringes of her life. Now she realized she hadn’t seen him since that morning at Darling’s—the morning of the day that ended with Gideon.
Everything seemed to come back to Gideon. And every night Gideon came back to her in the dream she couldn’t stop. Back when the dream was new—it felt so long ago now—Marina had been convinced that Gideon was walking away from her, but now that he really was gone, she was sure that he was walking to her, even though she was following him. That she was meant to warn him seemed clear, but everything else about the dream was so confusing. There were the details she couldn’t see, blacked out before she could define them, and the sense that she knew the place to which he was heading. She could almost glimpse it. But every night, in every dream, there was an explosion, a flash of light before she could make anything out, and then the sudden horrible knowledge that he was dead. Yes, death was the very clear message of the dream and at the end of it, before it all went dark, Marina had the sense that she hadn’t done enough to warn him in time. Before her return to consciousness, Marina felt a physical surge of grief for the loss of him. And as soon as she was awake, the nausea would come—waves upon waves of sickness.
Marina pressed her hands against her belly as if to keep it flat. This pregnancy—she refused to think of it as a baby—was the latest and cruelest twist in the story that had begun with Gideon. Her own body had betrayed her, clinging to this piece of him even as her mind knew she had to let him go. He wasn’t ever coming back. That was the real message of the dream this time. And she was going to keep having the dream until she terminated the pregnancy, the first step on the path back to normal. In fact, it was probably the hormones that were making her crazy now. She was allergic to pregnancy, Marina thought, and that was just one reason among too many w
hy motherhood was not an option.
Marina had finally reached her office, but had to double back and take the long way around to avoid the construction on the street. She didn’t know what they were doing, nor, she suspected, did anyone know why half the street was torn up, but the noise, dust and traffic were choking the neighborhood. By the time she found a parking space, she was exhausted. She decided to just sit in the car for a few minutes and gather herself. At least, for the moment, it was quiet inside this metal shell.
It was not in Marina’s nature to wallow or feel sorry for herself. But now she questioned why she’d been singled out for what felt like a tsunami of bad luck. No, not bad luck. It felt much more like punishment. But it was unjust punishment, Marina thought. For a moment the clouds parted and she experienced the kind of clarity she’d once taken for granted but could no longer depend on. It was all about free will, she realized. Every one of her clients, past and present, exercised their free will when they sat down at her table. No arms had ever been twisted. They reached into their pockets to pay her with their own hands. Mrs. Golden had given that ring to Marina because she’d wanted to. Marina’s only crime, if it could even be called a crime, was that she hadn’t contacted Mrs. Golden soon enough to return the ring before the old lady died.
“You promised to wear it. You promised to keep him safe.”
Marina startled at the sound of the words and turned her head to see Mrs. Golden sitting where her mother had been just a few minutes before. This time she didn’t try to ignore the vision, although she couldn’t tell if it was because she was too tired to resist or if she just preferred Mrs. Golden over her mother.
“I did wear it,” Marina said. “I’d be wearing it now if he hadn’t taken it back.”
“You have to wear the ring,” Mrs. Golden insisted. “You have to get it back.”
“Well, I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that,” Marina said. She wondered if anyone was watching her; she surely looked like a lunatic, talking to herself in her car. But then, Marina thought, here in southern California people did the most bizarre things in their cars. Talking to oneself was really the least of it. “He thinks I stole the ring from you,” she continued. “I wish you’d tell him what really happened.”
“He’s not safe!” Mrs. Golden shouted suddenly. “He won’t be safe unless you wear the ring!”
“What do you want me to do?” Marina said. She put her head in her hands and pressed her fingers into her eyes until she saw spots. “This is ridiculous,” she said to herself. She opened her eyes and turned to her right. The passenger seat was empty once again. “You know,” she said to the air, “if you would stick around a little longer, you might be more useful.”
Marina got out of the car and walked to her office, laughing at her own craziness. There was nothing funny about it, of course, but she supposed it was better than crying.
Before she even got past her office door, Marina knew that something was wrong. There was a subtle but insistent feeling that the air had been moved—a displacement of molecules. Someone had been inside. There was nothing out of place in the front, but Marina sensed the touch of another person as clearly as if she were looking at glowing fingerprints. She walked slowly to the back, fear and dread taking turns whispering at her ear. She had a flash, not really a memory, of being with Gideon on the day he’d come to see her for the reading he never really wanted. She’d seen what she thought was the shadow of a person exiting through the back door then, although she’d dismissed it as impossible. Nothing was impossible now, Marina thought, and somehow it connected with…
Marina looked at what was waiting for her at the table where she did her readings. Her tarot cards were scattered haphazardly on the floor as if they had been thrown up in the air. The tabletop was clear save for two items. In the center, a single dead rose, dried and blackened, lay on top of the one card that wasn’t on the floor: Death.
Two thoughts fought each other in Marina’s mind as she stared at the tableau in front of her. One was that the person who had broken into her office and staged this scene knew nothing about tarot, witchcraft, voodoo or any other dark arts. Even the greenest practitioners knew that the Death card didn’t signify physical death. Whoever had done this was an amateur. The second thought, rapidly gaining ground, was that it didn’t matter. The intent was sinister and Marina was frightened.
She reached over, moved the rose to the side and picked up the card. The room around her seemed to wobble for a moment and then grow darker. Marina’s field of vision contracted and when it expanded back she had the sensation that she was no longer in her own body, as if she were looking out through someone else’s eyes. She scanned the room, unfamiliar from this perspective, and felt a creeping contempt that wasn’t hers, but belonged to the person whose head she was inside of. She smelled rank sweat and something else—some bitter chemical smell. And she could hear thoughts that were not her own as clearly as if she were thinking them.
Goddamn witch. I never should have trusted her. They used to burn them. They never should have stopped doing that. Good idea, burning.
Marina saw the cards fly out and scatter, saw the Death card on the table, saw the dead rose held in a black glove, saw it placed carefully on top.
See how she likes this—something from her own bag of tricks.
Marina felt a wave of hatred, strong and black. But there was something else behind it—something bitter and sad and buried.
Burning—that’s what she deserves. Burning like a witch.
Marina felt a sharp jolt, as if she’d been hit in the back of the head, and for a moment the room went completely dark. A second later she was back within herself, her eyes stinging and mouth dry. Her legs suddenly too weak to hold her up, Marina sank into her chair and stared ahead at nothing while her mind tried to make sense of what was happening to her. Telepathy. Marina turned the word over in her head, considering its meaning: the connection between one mind and another outside of sensory perception. Before this moment, Marina would have called it a fancy way of saying, “I know what you’re thinking.” Long-married couples, mothers and children, twins…they all shared some telepathic insight, born out of love and familiarity. But what had happened to Marina had nothing to do with love. She’d connected with the mind of someone who hated her enough to want to see her burn alive.
Why is this happening to me? Marina struggled to find the cause. If she could only understand the why of it, she thought, everything else—the voices and visions—would all make sense. And if she focused on the why, she wouldn’t have to think about who. Because there was only one person that angry at her. The name rang loud in her head even as she tried not to hear it. Gideon.
Chapter 21
Madeline sighed, rolled over and kicked the grubby motel blanket off the bed. Her body was shiny with sweat and her lips were throbbing, plumped up and bruised from rough kissing. She could feel other bruises forming, small points all over her hips and thighs where tiny capillaries had been crushed by teeth and fingers. The smell of sex, sharp and earthy, steamed off her like wavy cartoon lines. She was grimy and sticky and she had never felt as satisfied in her entire life.
Those early days with Andrew, when they’d both been in the deepest throes of romantic passion, had come close, but in a different way. Back then they’d both been in love with what the other represented and their emotional wants fueled what their bodies expressed. The heat they generated came from the friction of competing desires as much as it did from their physical lovemaking. That was what made the difference, she supposed. There was love in it, not just sex. But sometimes sex was better without love—or whatever it was that one confused love for. Right now, for example, on this nasty bed that probably held the ragged DNA of a thousand other sinners, Madeline felt something close to physical euphoria. Some secret pleasure center in her brain had come to life, and it didn’t matter to her that it had taken this cheap dirty room and the violence of raw need to turn it on.
&nbs
p; He wasn’t touching her, but she could still feel his hands, his teeth and his tongue all over her body. She shuddered, feeling a tingle at the base of her spine, and realized that she could go again. She wanted more—much more. Wasn’t there some kind of animal that had sex until it literally dropped dead? Madeline felt entirely capable of doing just that. Talk about a happy ending.
Her partner in all this sat next to her on the bed, staring straight ahead at the water-stained wallpaper as if he were having a religious vision. And maybe he was, Madeline thought, because she knew it had been at least as good for him. She reached over and ran her hand along the top of his thigh, her fingers questioning his body for response. It wasn’t a tender motion. She was salivating, all her senses still on overdrive.
“Damn,” he said softly and caught her hand with his. “You got some kind of energy.”
“C’mon,” she said, and she climbed on top of him, her knees hitting the chipped fake-wood headboard. She grabbed a handful of his hair with each of her hands and pressed herself into him. He stopped her, pulling her hands away from his face before she could get to his mouth.
“I have to take a shower,” he said. “And we should probably get out of here.”
“Why?”
He lifted her left hand and flicked her wedding ring with his finger. “Because,” he said. His mouth curved into a smile but Madeline could see guilt crowding out passion in his blue eyes. And guilt meant that regret wasn’t far off, and regret would ruin everything. Right or wrong, what they’d just done had an intensity that rendered it pure and true. Madeline couldn’t bear to lose that—not yet.
“No,” she said, and she covered his mouth with hers so that he wouldn’t be able to answer. It was essential that they not speak now. There was nothing she wanted to know about him other than what she could learn with her hands and hips and tongue. Nor was there anything else he needed to know about her. He mumbled something she couldn’t hear and tried to push her away, but she pressed harder, grinding herself into him until she could feel their bones rubbing together. He yielded, becoming passive for only a moment before he clutched at her again, biting her lips and flipping her over as if she weighed no more than the flattened pillows beneath them.
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