Genius Loci

by Edited by Jaym Gates

  In the chair, laid out, encollared, gauze over my eyes; the light snaps on, flooding my mind with sunshine. Then, what seems like mere seconds later—

  “All right,” I hear Karr say, from far away. “We're done for today.”

  I lick dry lips, tongue gone equally dry. “But…you haven't even started yet,” I hear myself say, voice gone hoarse and querulous.

  She laughs, closer now, fingers light on the ruff's fastening. “We started this morning, Mrs Courbet. That's the twilight sleep for you.”

  “No memories.”

  “As advertised. Now—be careful getting up, hold onto my arm. Here's some water, drink it slowly. Yes.”

  “I don't feel any different.”

  “You might not, immediately. It's not an exact science.”

  I take another sip, cough a bit to clear my throat, but the roughness doesn't go away. “That's…very reassuring,” I manage, finally.

  #

  That night, when I close my eyes, I find myself back by the lake in full restraint, the base of Karr's chair plunged deep enough that my heels touch wet silt, with my face angled out towards open water. The straps dig my wrists 'til they start to numb, and through the cone's white flare I can just glimpse a silhouette I suspect must be Stana's to my left, hair unbound and whipping in the mounting wind.

  Can you see it yet, Bri-oh-nee? she asks. Poor little girl. It is so close, now—very close.

  The mrak? I ask, trying to crane my neck further, to finally see her, after all these years…all I have is memory, a bent mirror, and the warped reflection of her I've courted again and again, chasing it through a chain of equally unsatisfying women. And for a moment, fear grips me, bowel-deep: what if I do manage to catch a glimpse, at long last, only to find it's just yet another variation on a theme—so close to my wife, that unwittingly pale imitation, as makes no difference?

  But: No one knows how the mrak is made, Stana continues, though we all wonder. Is it always the same? Or is it made anew over and over, every sunset, the same way day turns to dusk?

  Perhaps it was a person, once. A child, even.

  Perhaps it is the mrak's own touch, itself, that makes another mrak.

  Out on the water are islands, the nearest of which sketches a cool curve furred with trees, a skeleton eyesocket of rock, a jutting cabin-cheekbone. And as the sun sets, as twilight falls and dusk creeps up, draining the world of colour—I watch the whole thing lurch and rumble, earthquake-shifting. See it re-orient itself, submerged portion slick and streaming, to form a massive, bisected face which turns my way, blindly seeking, like some sleeper fresh-awakened. Like a hunting animal, roused by the scent of prey, who sniffs into the wind to discover exactly which way it should turn, and pounce.

  Phosphorescence spreading, a rotten green creeping up over its domed hillside skull, blooming all over. Its concave features, decay-blurred, algae-encrusted. Soon, I think, a pair of similarly glow-palmed hands will break from the lake, reach out to seize me, lift me whole and struggling to its gaping, rock-toothed shore-mouth…

  The false sun that doctor shines will never keep it away, poor girl, Stana tells me. Only the Morning Star's true light can do that, and I do not see it rise, not now, not here. Not for you.

  Oh, but surely, I want to shout in return, you will save me, Stana—you must. Because you love me, don't you, just a little? The same way I love you?

  No reply. The straps bite deep; the mrak's green light fills my cone-collar like a cup, drowning me. I gasp and take it in, lungs filling cold as lake-waves, deep and murky, each lung set outlined and glowing in the red darkness of my chest—

  —'til all at once, I feel Stana's hands on my shoulders, pressing me down, her hair falling 'round me, soft and dark, like earth into an open grave. Saying, as she does: But perhaps I should not have worried, Bri-oh-nee, all this time. For see, in its eyes—how it recognizes you? Perhaps it has touched you already, long before, without either of us knowing. This would explain much, yes?

  So you belong to it already, and always have: never fully sick, never fully well. Never fully asleep, and never fully waking.

  (Never fully loved, I think, helpless, at the same time—no, I know: unloved, loveless, unable to love. And never fully loving.)

  At this, Stana nods, probably. Pronounces, as though passing sentence—

  Now you are mrak, and this love you want so badly…this love you offer…pollution, only. Danger. Just as this hour is yours, this time between. Just as this place has always been your place.

  Now, as then. Then, and always. Always, and forever.

  (So I was right to send my wife away, after all, I think. I was being kind, keeping her safe. Because I loved her.)

  (Because I still do, and always will.)

  The island, looming, cliff-mouth wide, water streaming like a beard, and the lake opening too, right below it—lips of foam, teeth of bone, grim grey sky for a jaw-hinge, eternally poised to bite. A double devouring.

  But before either mouth can quite close over me, I rocket up from sleep in one great, wracking leap, lie drenched and sleepless 'til dawn. Wait, with a pounding, skipping heart, for the moment when I can at last tell Dr. Karr: It wasn't enough.

  #

  “I'll need to send you deeper,” Karr says, as I frown. Explaining, gently: “In order to add auto-suggestions in on top, so I can guide you through the process. These dreams you describe—to me, they almost seem like your brain revolting against the twilight sleep, reframing your lack of new memories into some sort of phobia. I mean, you've been put out before, yes, completely? For surgery?”

  “…now and then.”

  “And how did you react to the general anesthetic process, on those occasions?”

  The frown spreads, becoming a full-bore shudder; I've always dreaded “going under,” how consciousness simply drops away without warning, nothing left behind but a black hole of non-being. That total disappearance. That emptiness.

  “I fought it,” I tell her, finally. “The same way I would have fought death.”

  “Well, then.”

  I sigh. “But I've had these same dreams for years, doctor, especially here. It's all part of the pattern: nightmares, insomnia, depression…”

  “Interesting that you chose to come to the cabin for therapy, then. Isn't it?”

  (In context? Yes.)

  “At any rate,” she continues, “your body's obviously so used to these symptoms, it sees our attempts to cure them as an attack. Has it ever been this bad before?” I shake my head, reluctant. “So why do you think that is?”

  “This place,” I say, shrugging. “The situation… my divorce. Stress.”

  “Ah, yes—the prime exacerbation.”

  When looking for causation, always start with whatever's newest—Karr's not wrong about that. “My wife,” I find myself saying, “had expectations, I think, about how matrimony would change things. Change me. I'm still not sure why. I was like this when she met me, after all. But…”

  “Love cures all?”

  I nod. “It doesn't, though.”

  “People are bad at distinguishing manageable behaviours from pathological ones,” Karr agrees. “To grasp that it's not a question of 'getting well,' but of incremental steps towards long-term maintenance. It can be difficult to accept the essential uncertainty of that reality, especially when you have no opportunity to contribute. Significant others appreciate being given the chance to at least try to help—it makes them feel valued. Needed.”

  “But she couldn't help,” I point out. “Nobody can. You can't fuck a crazy person sane. Why waste time trying?”

  “It was hers to waste.”

  “I was trying to be…considerate.”

  Karr sighs. “I wonder if she'd think so.”

  #

  Soon, twilight sleep gives way to twilight state. The lake, the grey sky, white sun hanging in dimness: so small, so bright. Is that the sun, or the Morning Star? It hu
rts my eyes to look at.

  Deeper, Mrs Courbet, deeper. Briony. Can you hear my voice? Speak freely.

  (Yes, doctor.)

  Good. Can you move your head, your hands? Nod, if you can. Give me some sign.

  Nothing happens. The lake laps the shore. Inside the cone's curve, my field of vision shrinks, restricted: lake, sky, star. My own shallow breath, my blood, my skull set singing, an empty shell's dull roar. My slack body, tied down, motionless as stone.

  Speak freely. Are you awake, or asleep?

  (I…don't know.)

  Can you see?

  (Only the lake.)

  Can you move?

  (…no.)

  That's good. That's very good.

  I hear Karr take a breath, then say: Open your eyes now, Briony. There's someone here who wants to speak to you.

  So I do, and the first thing I see is a woman, standing over me: tall, spare and dark, curvaceous, queenly. She studies me the same way she did for most of our marriage, with a bitter fascination. As though I promised her something without meaning to, then never quite delivered on it.

  “Hello, Bri,” she says. “Been a while, hasn't it? You can answer freely.”

  “Hello, Heba,” I reply, surprisingly unsurprised. But that's not enough for her, apparently. “Answer the question,” she snaps back, an angry crack in her voice, as though she's testing something. Then relaxes just a bit when I answer, with only a second's pause—

  “Yes, it has been.”

  Heba looks to Dr Karr, who's standing beside her; Karr nods, slightly. “Just like you wanted—total suggestibility, but without the amnesia, this time. Ask her anything.”

  “…all right.”

  Heba Gilroy Courbet, my wife—ex-wife to be, that is—takes a moment, maybe to think over what exactly “anything” should consist of; her hair hangs heavy, framing a pale, fatigue-smudged face set with eyes so deep blue they seem black. And: You don't look good, sweetheart, I catch myself thinking. Almost as bad as me, and that's saying something. Don't tell me you can't sleep now.

  Heba leans in, studying me, as Dr Karr stands with arms crossed, nervously tapping one foot. I'm not sure what she thought would happen once Heba got what she must have paid for, access to me in this useless, curtailed state, but perhaps this wasn't it.

  She's a hard one to trust, doctor, I try to project, unable even to meet her eyes. This circumstance alone should tell you that.

  “Why do you think I'm here?” Heba asks me. “Speak freely.”

  My lips are so dry. “Therapy?”

  “That's funny, but no.” She sighs. “To find out why you're really here, I suppose. Mary told me you were sick, that you'd opted to come up to the cabin for treatment, and I…I remembered those stories you told me, about your parents. Stupid, right? But I know you, Bri. I know what this place is to you.” She waits, as though expecting me to answer, then realizes her mistake. “Oh, for Christ's sake! Speak freely.”

  I clear my throat. “I don't know what you want from me, Heba.”

  “Four years, Briony. I just want what's mine.”

  “And what would that be exactly?”

  “Think back: when we stood up in front of all those people, you promised me love, fidelity, loyalty…that we'd always be together. That we'd be like one person. So why did it take me reading Mary's session notes to get any sort of an idea about exactly how fucked you are, let alone why? You never even told me something was wrong, until it couldn't be fixed anymore. You never told me anything.”

  “Maybe I wanted to…protect you.”

  “From what?” I hesitate, drawing a bitter laugh from her. “You won't say, right? Even now. Well, Mary here can make you, if I tell her to, or even if I don't…make you do anything she wants. Hurt yourself, maybe. Stare in that stupid lightbox 'til you go blind. Jesus, Briony, how desperate would you have to be, to try a treatment this outlandish? To trust Mary couldn't be bought, when she very obviously can?”

  (There's only one real weakness, Briony, I hear my father say, from somewhere down deep inside, universally shared, and nothing ever changes but the currency involved. That's why you have to hold onto money so tightly, because it'll leave you in a minute, for the first open hand. And all you really have is more of it than most people, at least to begin with.)

  (But: No, Bri-oh-nee, Stana's voice points out. You do have one other thing, and always did, just as it has you. Even though you may not want it.)

  The dusk deepens, clouds of mud roiling up through lakewater, disturbed by a delicate footstep; as much smell and sound as something seen, the susurration of wind on water, acrid tang of mouldering wood and leaves, an insectile buzz felt in the temples and fingertips… Oh but wait, no: that's Karr speaking, her too-calm clinical voice gone brittle, disturbed. Saying—

  “…enough. Let me get her to sign the documents and send her back down; we can be over the border at Sault Ste. Marie in four hours—”

  “Shut up, Mary.” Heba is only a cut-out silhouette now, black on black on black, and I find myself smiling at her sharp command, realizing exactly where she must have learned that tone she's trying to mimic. “You'll get your money. Money's nothing. Briony taught me that—and I'm a fast learner, as even she'd agree.” Swinging back to me, her bruised eyes suddenly visible again as they meet mine: “Wouldn't you, darling?”

  “Very fast, yes.”

  “Thank you.” Her shadow-self shifts, clenched fists kissing over her breastbone, as if to help her hold herself together. “Money's nothing, love is… well, it's something, but I was never going to get that, was I? So that doesn't matter either. Satisfaction, though… that's something, too.”

  “Do you want blood, Heba?” I ask without being prompted, and watch Dr. Karr jump, just a little—mouth opening and closing like a fish, making little o's, tongue-tied and maybe thinking: no no, this shouldn't be. She's breaking free, Heba, coming back up—anything could happen now—

  “What I want is for you to look at me for once, straight on.” I do. “Yes, just like that. Now tell me, for the last damn time, before you make me do something I'm really going to regret. Tell me…”

  …what? I want to ask. But really, all I have to do it wait.

  “…why I was never enough.”

  It's not that I don't want to answer; a blessed relief, in a way, simply not to care any more. Yet the words logjam my mouth, along with half a dozen others: Because/Because nobody could have been/Because I'm not enough, not you/Because you wanted to change me, or me you/Because neither of us could have known what “for better or for worse” might mean for us/For me…

  Too much, and not enough, so in the end I don't say anything at all. Just let my eyes drift past her to the window, deep blue with autumn nightfall now, a cold yellow half-moon rising beyond the black curve of the islands—that one island, closer than any should be, already half-turned in its socket. Already humping up, poised to rise, and walk.

  Heba doesn't see it, of course; she's far too busy suddenly shaking me hard by my shoulders, snapping my slack neck back and forth inside the plastic cone like a marble rolling 'round a funnel, shrieking: Talk, I said! Speak freely, goddammit! And Dr Karr at the same time, yelping over her, trying to break my trance: My voice, rise up, four three two one and wake, you will wake refreshed, you won't remember any of this, you won't remember—

  Two sharp clicks. The therapy lights snap off, the living room track lighting on. But the dusk is thick now, everywhere, like air, covering both women in shapeless sacks through which I see only their eyes, beach mirage bright overtop as some bleak and alien desert. Sound bleeds out to silence. I stare past them, to the rising moon overlaid with sun, the silty sand, the lake.

  And then I see the mrak, rising out of the water, stepping ashore. A mountain-tall figure, a giantess, yet still vaguely shaped like that girl I fell in love with, so very long ago: Stana, done up in draped and blurry shadow, reaching out, feeling her way by the uncertain
, ten-fingered light of her own glowing hands. Her hair is ivy and pine needles, her skin weather-yellowed birch bark, her massive teeth made from the quartz-streaked sedimentary grey rock of the islands' shores, and she moves like rippling water as she strides silent towards the cabin, towering up into the dark.

  Close enough, now, that those hands can light up its great face, so raw and unfinished. Close enough for me to finally see who it really does looks like: not Stana at all, in the end. No. Not even close.

  I have never seen a mirror so tall, I think. Nor one so terribly, terribly…accurate.

  Time has slowed, as it always does, in dreams. Heba and Dr. Karr move as if caught in treacle, turning upon one another so slowly that their conflict will not even have time to begin before this is over. And behind them, the mrak dips down, re-sizing itself; looks in through the window, a curious little girl surveying strange dolls. Without visible transition, it has already slipped sideways to the door, opening it, crossing the floor like a shadow. It climbs onto the chair to peer down at me, then slides down along my body, entwining with me, one glowing hand on my heart. Pressing down, hard, 'til it feels as though my breastbone will crack.

  She kisses me, the mrak, with her rotting tongue. Pares the conical therapy ruff away gently, as her huge, bright hands brush me up and down. Then melts away, leaving me stretched out in its wake as a discarded husk, stuffed full and sodden. The straps holding me down burst, rotted instantly. I twist my hands free, raise them, and watch them start to glow—no surprise there. Just that sole unsteady, doubled light in the darkness, outside and within.

  Sitting up, I seize Heba by her face, hauling her 'round; Dr Karr skitters back in shock, colliding with the wall, but I ignore her. Force Heba to look deep into my eyes, as I tell her, with the mrak's voice: “Answer? Oh, I can do much better than that.”

  She struggles, keening, a broken-winged gull, but those hands are irresistible. They bring her closer, closer. Until, at last, I can whisper, into her mouth—

  “Let me show you.”

  #

  The Morning Star rising, or perhaps setting, somewhere above. Impossible to tell which, from this angle: not here in this place, at this hour. Not that it really makes a difference.