The Pain Eater

by Beth Goobie

  “Yeah,” Maddy said weakly. “Good timing, though. Thanks.” Pulling up her jeans, she exited her cubicle to find three seniors leaning against the counter opposite.

  “Maddy!” exclaimed one of them. “What was that all about?”

  It was Tina Snooks, a friend of Leanne’s – better known as just Snooks. “Nothing much,” said Maddy. “Still, I’m glad you walked in when you did.”

  “You sure?” asked Snooks, waggling her eyebrows. “I can have a little chat with those two, if you’d like. I have connections.”

  High on relief, Maddy giggled. “No, it was just a fluke kind of thing. They’re not after me or anything.”

  “Well, let me know if you need any assistance,” said Snooks, heading for a cubicle. “I’ll call out my network.”

  Thanking her lucky stars, Maddy headed out into the hall.

  Chapter Five

  There it was, suddenly, on her phone screen – a simple Greek comedy mask, white and leering. She’d been sitting on her bed, checking her Twitter, and the image of the mask had leapt out at her. Stunned, all she could do was stare at it. This mask appeared to be an exact replica of the ones that were handed out at Our Town, as if someone had taken a photograph of one of those and tweeted it to her. If so, there could be only one reason: they were after her again, or at least one of them was. Which meant that it wasn’t over. They hadn’t forgotten her. She hadn’t managed to convince them she’d never talk, their secret was safe with her.

  No text accompanied the image, except the hashtag #themaskedavengers. The username was @theneverknowns. How had @theneverknowns gotten hold of her username?

  @Yummibreakfast didn’t identify her in any way; had Leanne given it to someone? Or Jennifer, or one of her other friends? Perhaps. Neither her sister nor her friends would’ve known, after all, why the guy was asking. But why hadn’t they mentioned it? A whimper crept up Maddy’s throat; panic resonated through her in waves. Nowhere was safe, she thought. Not here, not anywhere. If @theneverknowns had her username, they could get through to her any time.

  Dropping her phone onto the bed, Maddy took off for the tree house, where there was no wifi; no one could reach her, she truly was safe. The backyard and the ladder steps passed in a blur; she clicked on a flashlight she kept with her art supplies and then she was sitting, her head pressed to her knees and hugging her legs. Tighter, tighter she hugged, trying to compress her fear, her heartbeat, herself, into nothing. But it wasn’t working. In spite of her fiercest efforts, memory was starting to unfold and take shape – memory that was stronger than her, stronger and bigger and out to devour.

  Another whine ground out of her, and Maddy lifted her head to glare at the chalk mural opposite. Goddamn sunflowers! she thought. Parading their sunlit happy heads! And that picture of her family, sitting on a dock with a picnic lunch – it was bullshit! La la land! Rising to her knees, Maddy launched herself across the tree house and attacked the pastel family scene, swiping at it repeatedly with her arm. Then she moved on to the sunflowers. The images surrendered easily, smudging to blurs of sky blue, emerald, and saffron. But the memory in her head wouldn’t follow suit – no matter how many chalk fantasies she destroyed, the shadows in her mind continued to come after her, feet pounding, hands reaching.

  It wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough – nothing she could tell herself, no advice, no calm-down talk, no reasonable common sense. Only one thing worked; only one solution took it all away. Crawling over to her art supplies, Maddy pulled out a concealed pack of cigarettes. Then she lit up, inhaled, and raised the hem of her shorts. The terror in her mind was still with her – even as she brought the brilliant ember to her inner thigh, she felt herself being pushed down to frozen ground and hands shoving apart her legs. But then pain took over – pain that gouged, twisted, dug into her flesh. Pain that was a master, a fiery fury that went after everything – chasing it down, kicking it into nothingness, defeating and destroying it. So that, finally, there was nothing left – nothing but numbness spreading out from the fresh blister taking shape on her skin. Nothing but the sweat that beaded her forehead, and the long shuddering breaths that eased slowly out. Exhaustion lapped through Maddy, like waves on a shoreline. Over, it was over now, gone away, and she was at peace. Peace. The mural opposite was in pieces, but pieces for peace, she thought wearily – it was a good deal, wasn’t it? Just so long as she could get a grip, keep everything together and functioning okay. Wasn’t that what was expected, what she was supposed to do?

  Another breath shuddered through her. Blinking back tears, Maddy smoked silently.

  . . .

  Vince Cardinal didn’t seem all that interested in what he was reading. Short, with black, shoulder-length hair and glasses, he rattled off the text on his tablet as if he were reading from a phone book. As he progressed, Maddy shot several glances at Julie and Dana, but their bored expressions didn’t show much interest either. If they were still planning on influencing the plot’s development, they didn’t appear to have started with Vince.

  Once, Maddy caught Julie watching her, but only once. Dana appeared to have forgotten the washroom incident entirely. Neither girl had approached Maddy since it had taken place, two days previous. Though Julie sat only two desks over from Ken, Maddy made sure her glances at the girl didn’t take in any part of him. If Ken was watching her – if he was, indeed, the one who’d tweeted the photograph of the mask he seemed to have saved since the rape last March – she didn’t want to know.

  Maddy’s phone was in the drawer of her bedside table. She hadn’t looked at it since she’d shoved it in there, after returning from the tree house last night.

  “The high priestess sang creepy little songs as she played with the soul stones,” Vince read off rapid-fire. “None of them were songs Farang knew, because the high priestess had learned them in a secret language taught only to priestesses. She learned it at a temple school in the capital city of Faraway. That was where all priestesses got their BAs in temple stuff. A high priestess had a PhD.

  “So when Farang hid and watched the high priestess hex the soul stones, she couldn’t understand the words to the songs. But she did learn which stones went with which villagers. One night, she saw the high priestess pick out a stone that belonged to a great warrior. The high priestess put it at the center of a circle of stones. Then she poured something over the warrior’s stone. The liquid smelled awful, like something rotten. Like death. It was so awful, Farang almost choked. But she didn’t, which was good, because then the high priestess would’ve killed her.

  “The next day Farang hung around the warrior, watching to see what happened. She saw him pick up his bow and arrow and go into the forest. She followed him. Because he was a great warrior, he moved quickly and she couldn’t keep up. And so she got further and further behind. BUT!” For the first time, Vince showed interest in what he was reading. Leaning forward, he enunciated carefully. “THEN FARANG SAW THE HIGH PRIESTESS STEP INTO A CLEARING. THE HIGH PRIESTESS GOT ONTO HER HANDS AND KNEES AND CHANGED INTO A TIGER. THEN THE TIGER TOOK OFF AFTER THE WARRIOR.

  “Farang didn’t know what to do,” Vince continued, his voice returning to normal. “She was too far behind the warrior to warn him. And if the high priestess saw her, she might kill her instead of the warrior. So Farang went back to the village. The next day, when the warrior’s dead body was brought into the village, she saw the claw marks all over him. The high priestess had gotten him all right. The great warrior was the only villager who would argue with her. So she killed him.

  “Farang was the only one who knew this. Everyone else thought it was a real tiger. And Farang couldn’t tell them. If she tried, they wouldn’t listen to her. She had to figure out some way of telling the villagers that didn’t look like it was coming from her.

  “That’s what I think, anyway.” Lowering his tablet, Vince glanced at Ms. Mousumi and shrugged.

  “Thank you, Vince,
” she said. “Can you send me a copy? Any comments, class?”

  As Vince headed to his seat, the class sat, slumped in thought. A hand went up.

  “Is shapeshifting something the high priestess learned at the temple?” asked Julie. “Or can anyone in the tribe do it?”

  Ms. Mousumi glanced inquiringly at Vince, who made an exasperated face. “Not anyone,” he replied. “Or why was Farang so shocked?”

  “You didn’t say she was shocked,” Julie pointed out.

  Vince frowned. “Well, she was,” he said huffily. “Wouldn’t you be, if you saw that happen?”

  “I’m just saying,” said Julie, “if anyone could do—”

  “Well, they can’t,” Vince cut her off. “It’s just the high priestess with her PhD. That’s what taught her how to do that.”

  “So, are you saying all the high priestesses through the whole land could do that?” asked Dana. “They were all evil like this high priestess?”

  Kara’s hand shot up, and Ms. Mousumi gave her the nod. “That’s not in Harvir’s chapter,” said Kara. “The high priestess before this one wasn’t evil. Maybe they all know shapeshifting, but it can be used for good as well as evil. Not all the high priestesses are evil.”

  Harvir’s hand went up. “That’s true,” he said. “I agree with Kara on this one. Shapeshifting could be bad or good – it depends on what you want to do with it.”

  Julie and Dana grimaced at each other, but didn’t comment.

  “Well, Christine,” said Ms. Mousumi, “I guess it’s up to you. You’ll be presenting your chapter on Monday.”

  From her seat next to Dana, Christine nodded. Maddy’s gaze flicked from Christine, to Dana, to Julie’s satisfied grin, then to Kara, who was slouched beside her, scowling. For a long moment, she considered writing Kara a note and revealing Julie and Dana’s plan to her. Maddy wasn’t Farang, after all – Kara would listen to her, she would be believed.

  But once told, Kara would kick up a fuss, no doubt about it – a fuss that would go all the way to Ms. Mousumi. Was this situation worth that kind of fuss? So what if Julie and Dana went around trying to influence the way the story went? It was just a story, after all. Moreover, it was up to each student to decide if they wanted to be influenced. Maddy had more important things to worry about; she had bigger, darker, heavier things on her mind. So she decided not to tell Kara, not to get involved any further, to let things slide.

  Lowering her gaze, she concentrated on turning her left hand into hamburger meat.

  . . .

  Midway along one of the city’s riverside bike trails, Maddy braked to a halt. It was windy – the weather report had said thirty mile-per-hour gusts, but these felt more like fifty. Pulling up her jacket hood, she stood a moment, surveying the scene. She was on the higher riverbank, at the top of a bluff, and the city stretched out before her, its streets September-gold, rippling under the ever-present prairie wind. Up here, near the sky, thought Maddy, breath went in deeper, scented with that dry, sweet smell that came only in autumn. But it wouldn’t last long. One more week of heavy winds and that golden glory would flee the landscape, leaving a series of browns.

  Still, today life was gorgeous-golden, and with her phone lying in her bedside table drawer, she was unreachable. Hood tied tight, Maddy started off along the trail. This time of year, it was crowded with university students, cycling and jogging; she had to keep a constant eye out. Before leaving, she’d thought about asking Leanne to come with her on this Saturday-afternoon ride, but her sister had headed out for a swim with friends, pointedly not inviting Maddy. Even if Leanne had invited her, Maddy would have had to refuse – public pools didn’t admit swimmers with open sores on their inner thighs, and, anyway, how would she have explained? Maddy hadn’t been swimming once this past summer, not since she’d started playing with fire. Playing and praying – to be cleansed, to be cured.

  Not that she wanted to think about that now. Not up here, where everything stretched before her, sun-dappled and wind-sung. Ignoring the throb where her jeans rubbed against her bandaged blisters, Maddy put on a burst of speed, then slowed as the trail dipped and went into a blind curve. Trees crowded in here, the trail having veered away from the river, and the wind had calmed. A bench waited at the curve’s apex; stopping her bike, Maddy sat down and got out the Mars bar she had brought along for just such a moment.

  A group of cyclists came around the bend to her left, their heads down, their legs pumping. Obviously in a race, the three guys paid her no heed, their voices hoarse as they called friendly insults back and forth. Just as they passed, Maddy recognized the guy in the lead – David Janklow – and then the one right behind him, his head coming up momentarily as he gave a long wolf howl, “Ai-eeeee!” Then the three were past her and shrinking into the distance, their butts dancing over their bike seats as they strove to outpace each other.

  Alone on the bench, Maddy stared after them. The way the second cyclist had raised his head, and that long wolf cry – it was familiar, so familiar she’d seen and heard it a hundred times. The first had been last March, as she’d lain trapped against the cold ground; the rest had come via memory. That March night, the third masked rapist had lifted his head exactly the way the second cyclist had just now, and then he’d let out an eerie, ululating howl. He was one of the two Maddy hadn’t been able to identify yet; even after seeing his face today, she couldn’t put a name to him. But she had observed him walking school halls, often in the company of Pete Gwirtzman – so he was probably also in grade eleven. And even though today’s glimpse had been brief, she had noted his obvious resemblance to David. Was he an older brother? A cousin?

  But of more immediate importance – were David and the others planning to follow this bike trail across one of the bridges to the other side of the river, or to reverse tracks and come back this way? She had to get out of here, but quick! Shoving her half-eaten chocolate bar into her pocket, Maddy mounted her bike and took off along the trail in the opposite direction to the three cyclists. Within minutes, she was drenched in sweat, her breath rasping and her leg muscles burning. But she kept going, kept her legs pumping mindlessly as she shoved herself away from the afternoon’s encounter – away from the memory of it, away from the possibility of it having gone differently, maybe even….

  No! She wasn’t going to think about that now! Ahead, the bike trail merged with a city street, and five blocks farther was her neighborhood and the sight of her house at the end of a boulevard. Pulling into the driveway, Maddy ditched her bike by the garage without bothering to lock it. Then she ran for the backyard and the tree house, the pack of cigarettes she had hidden behind a sketchbook, and the lighter that would bring the blessed fire and the longed-for, numbed nothingness of mind.

  Chapter Six

  Christine Considine smiled brightly at the class. Slender, with long, dark hair, she was pretty enough to be admitted into the fringes of the in-crowd, but not pretty enough to take their tolerance for granted. Now, before starting to read her chapter, she arched an eyebrow at Julie; Julie replied with an answering smirk.

  “The Pain Eater, instalment for Monday, September 16,” Christine recited in a clear, slightly mocking tone. “It was the full moon. As always, the tribe was coming together to dance and sing. Everyone was there – the high priestess and other priestesses, the chief, and all the villagers. Farang was hiding in the bushes, because she didn’t get to join in the fun part. But the question is – how much fun was it for everyone else?

  “Because remember – the tribe was about to give Farang their pain. That means they had a lot of it. So where did this pain come from? Well, the chief had a son who had some kind of a disease. No one knew what it was, but it made him weak and pale. Lots of times, he couldn’t go out hunting. Sometimes he couldn’t even get out of bed. He was the chief’s only child, so this was a big deal.

  “Then there was a woman who was mauled b
y a tiger – a real one, not the high priestess. Her wounds never healed properly, and they hurt a lot. And there was a little girl who fell out of a tree and got a bad concussion, and a lot of other problems like that. Plus, there were people who were sad because someone they loved died – I mean really, really sad. Some people got so sad, they could hardly go on living. So there was a lot of suffering in this tribe, just from their daily lives, not to mention the problems the high priestess dished out.

  “And the thing was – Farang made it better. When the people gave her their pain, she took it away and their lives got better. The chief’s son got better again, and he could go out hunting with the other men. In fact, he was about to get married and become the new chief because his dad was retiring. So he was important, and the tribe needed him to be well. And the woman who was mauled by the tiger? She was the tribe’s best weaver. If she couldn’t weave, someone had no clothes. And the little girl with the concussion just made everyone happy. They all loved her to bits. When her concussion acted up and the little girl cried, everyone got upset. She was important to everyone, part of their hearts.

  “Everyone was like this, really. The tribe had hundreds of people, and everyone had a secret pain. Lots of them never talked about it – they just gave their pain to Farang, so she was the only one who ever knew about it. Farang knew a lot of secrets, because when someone gave her their pain, she could tell why it was there. Farang knew everyone’s secrets – she knew what everyone was hiding from everyone else.

  “Think about it – what a person like that means. What if someone in this class knew your deepest secret, a secret you’ve never told anyone else? Would you want her around? Wouldn’t you be worried about her telling someone? And what if this same person knew the deepest secret of every single person in this class? That deepest secret you’ve sworn never to tell anyone. Would you want her sitting next to you like a friend? Would you want her talking away to other people like one of the crowd?