The hall was black. But gradually my eyes adjusted. There’s always a gray scale, even in what seems like total darkness. I went into Gryffin’s room and closed the door behind me.
The bedroom was warm. I could hear him breathing deeply. Not snoring, which was good. I don’t sleep well with other people in the room.
Not that I could sleep yet. I crossed to the far wall. There was enough light that I could see Gryffin lying on his back. One arm rested on his forehead. His head was tilted. The sleeve of his T-shirt had hitched up so that I could see the hollow beneath his arm.
He looked beautiful. Otherworldly, I would say, except that what was so lovely about him was his very ordinariness, the fact that he could be in the same room with me, breathe the same air; and know nothing of me at all. As though I were a ghost; as though Aphrodite had been right, and I was truly nothing.
But for as long as I stood there, for as long as he didn’t wake, our worlds occupied the same space, the way a photograph can create a secondary world that exists within the real one. I felt as though I had stepped inside a photo—not one of my own pictures but someplace calm, someplace suspended between waking and sleep, the real and the ideal. A place my work would never belong, any more than I would.
Gryffin belonged there. Dark as it was in that room, I could imagine he slept somewhere else, sunlit. A beach, a green woodland. Sun, a man smiling; always out of reach. I would never be able to touch him.
Grief hit me then, the image of Aphrodite’s sad small body sprawled beside the woodstove, and horror at the darkness around me. I turned and groped around the room until I found Gryffin’s desk, the brass candlestick and box of wooden matches. I struck one, not caring if he woke, lit the candle then extinguished the match.
The flame seemed blinding, but he didn’t stir. I stood at his bedside, candle in my hand, and gazed down at him: his mouth parted slightly, as though he were on the verge of speaking to someone in his dream. His eyes moved behind his eyelids. His breath was warm and smelled of toothpaste and alcohol. He was beautiful.
Everything is random. That’s what I used to believe. Nothing happens for a reason, nothing happens because we will it. I never believed in gods. I believe in Furies. I think there are beings, people, impelled by the power to do harm. Sometimes the impulse is momentary. Maybe in some instances it’s eternal. And maybe that’s the one thing in the universe that isn’t random.
When I was raped, I ran into one of those Furies. Over the years, I became one myself.
But if there is an opposite to whatever I am, it—he—was lying there in front of me. As I stared at him I realized that what I had first sensed outside the motel room, that black roil of damage … it had nothing to do with Gryffin Haselton, nothing at all. He’d looked at me, and I’d seen a glimpse of myself in his eyes. My own rage and fear had come back at me like bullets bouncing from a wall.
Nothing else.
I shot the last four frames. I steadied the camera on the edge of the desk so that my shaking hands wouldn’t ruin the exposure. Even so, I knew the images would be blurred. Like when you’re outside shooting the moon without a tripod—no matter how hard you try to remain still, you move, and the moon moves, and the earth moves. And the camera captures everything.
Now, in Gryffin’s room, very little seemed to be moving: but I knew the photos would show differently. They would show how everything changes, a fraction of a second at a time. Death is the eidos of that Photograph, Roland Barthes wrote, but not even death is static like a picture is. If you look at a corpse long enough, you see things move beneath the skin, as real and liquid as the blood in your own veins.
Now I saw a sleeping man, motionless. Four frames. When I was done, I rewound the film inside the camera then removed the roll. I needed to hide it.
Gryffin might find it in a drawer, or under the mattress. I saw the turtle shell on the windowsill and remembered what I’d found in the room above the Island Store. I picked up the shell, pressed my finger against the bit of carapace that formed a trap door where the turtle’s head had once retracted. It moved to reveal an opening big enough for the roll of film.
I slid it inside then shook the shell. The film didn’t move; it was wedged tight. I put the shell back on the windowsill, turned and watched Gryffin sleep.
Our gaze changes all that it falls upon…
I never wanted my gaze to change him.
But, of course, it already had. I blew out the candle, removed my boots and leather jacket, wrapped my camera in the jacket and set it on the floor.
Then I pulled the blanket back and slipped beneath the covers. Gryffin made a small questioning sound and shifted onto his side.
“It’s me,” I whispered. “I’m cold.”
“What?” He mumbled and turned toward me. “Huh?”
“Cass. There’s no heat in my room. I’m freezing.”
I could see him frown. Then he shut his eyes.
“Whatever,” he said, and put his arms around me. “Just go to sleep.”
Gradually the cold ebbed from my body; gradually the room grew light. I listened to the humming in my head and the sound of Gryffin’s breathing.
Finally I slept. It wasn’t exactly the sleep of the just. But for those few hours, it was enough.
part two
SHADOW POINT
17
“Get up.”
I buried my face in the pillow and groaned.
“Get up.” The voice came again, louder. The bed shook. It was a moment before I realized this was because someone had kicked it, another moment before I figured out the someone was Gryffin. I rolled onto my back and stared up at him, blinking in the morning light.
“What?”
“My mother.” He was fully dressed but looked terrible: unshaven, eyes bloodshot, his face knotted with grief. “You have to get up. My mother’s dead.”
“What?” I sat up and felt as though someone had jabbed a steel rebar through my skull. “Oh shit.”
“For God’s sake.” He lowered himself onto the bed. “Something happened, she fell or something. She—”
He covered his face with his hands and began to shake.
“Your mother?” I didn’t have to mime shock as memory overwhelmed me, her pallid skin, the pinprick froth of red on her lips. “Gryffin…”
He didn’t look up. I touched his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, so softly I wasn’t sure he heard me. He turned, and I leaned against him. His entire body shuddered as I stroked his arm.
At last he pulled away. He removed his glasses and wiped his eyes. “It’s terrible.” His voice was raw. I wondered how long he’d been awake. “I heard the dogs in there whining. She—it looks like she fell. By that goddamn woodstove, she never even uses it—”
He choked and got unsteadily to his feet. “You better get dressed and come downstairs. The sheriff’s on his way over.”
“What?”
But he was gone.
I got up and dressed. I have as many words for “hangover” as an Inuit has for snow. None of them did justice to how I felt. I tried to make myself look presentable. I hadn’t imagined I could feel any worse, but the thought of being questioned by a cop pushed me close to panic. I popped another Adderall and hoped it would kick in before the sheriff arrived.
I went downstairs. The door to Aphrodite’s room was shut.
I found Gryffin in the kitchen. The deerhounds loped across the room to greet me, whining. I looked at Gryffin.
He sat staring out the window. It was overcast—high, swift-moving clouds but no fog, just an endless expanse of steely water and sky. A raven pecked at something on the gravel beach. On the horizon hung a ragged black shadow. Tolba Island.
“There’s coffee,” he said at last. He gestured toward the pot but didn’t look at me. I poured myself some then sat by the woodstove. After a minute, he turned.
“I went up to let the dogs out. Usually they come downstairs if she’s not awake. It looks like she hit her
head on the woodstove.” His voice cracked, and he took a gulp of coffee. “I—I guess she was drunk and she tripped. I mean, every time I come here, I think I’m going to find something like this. And now…”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “God. Do you remember what time it was when we came in? Was it around midnight?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“And you didn’t see her, did you? Before you—before you came in to get warm.”
“No.” I cupped my hands around my mug.
Tears fell onto his shirt. He rubbed his eyes. One of the dogs turned and raced toward the mudroom and began to bark. The others followed, yelping. Gryffin ran a hand across his face.
“That’ll be him.” He went to get the door.
I waited in the kitchen. I thought of when Christine had died, and how the fact that we hadn’t gotten along or even recently spoken just made it worse. Any chance of making things right was gone.
I pushed the thought away, tried not to think about what lay on the floor upstairs. I heard the door open. The dogs’ barking rose to a frantic crescendo then diminished. There was the sound of male voices, a rumble of sympathy. Gryffin walked back into the room, trailed by a uniformed policeman and Everett Moss. Moss looked at me in surprise.
“I forgot you had company,” he said to Gryffin. “Well, I just needed to escort the sheriff over here. Marine Patrol will take over, I guess, when you need to get back. And other arrangements—”
He shook his head. “I guess State Office’ll deal with that. I’m sorry for your loss, Gryffin. Let me know if I can do anything to help.”
He left. Gryffin restlessly smoothed back his hair. He looked young and vulnerable. Frightened.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Gryffin,” said the sheriff. He nodded at me. “I’m John Stone, Paswegas County Sheriff.”
He was short, gray-blond hair, slight paunch, a worn face with a kindly expression. The kind of cop who, after retirement, becomes a school bus driver and remembers everyone’s birthday.
“I know this isn’t the ideal time to ask you questions,” he said, “but I’ll have to do that.”
He took out a notebook and a pen, set a camera on the table.
“Go ahead,” said Gryffin.
“It shouldn’t take too long. I was coming over anyway to question you about Merrill Libby’s girl. Which I’ll have to get to after this.”
He sighed. “The dispatcher’s already called in about your mother. They’re sending down someone from Machias, but it’ll be a little while before he gets here. So I’ll try to finish this up as fast as I can.”
“Who’s coming from Machias?” asked Gryffin.
“Criminal investigator. Homicide. I’m sorry, but this is all routine, Gryffin. What you have here is what we call an unattended death. So we have to do this. I’m real sorry. I’ll start with you, then your friend.”
He sat at the table and began filling out a form. I took a seat and drank my coffee, trying to stay calm as he went down his list: Who was there, Where did Gryffin find the body, What time. Had her doctor been notified.
“Any sign of forced entry?”
“No.”
“Purse missing? Any money missing? Any valuables?”
“No. No. No.”
“Keys gone?”
“Sheriff, I have never seen a set of keys in this house.”
John Stone leaned back. “Well, you know, yesterday Tyler Rawlins had a set of keys disappeared down at the Island Store. So these things do happen.” He glanced at his clipboard again. “You said you were here last night.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see your mother?”
“No. Not since sometime in the afternoon.”
“Do you usually see her?”
“No. Usually she takes the dogs out, she’s gone most of the day. We’re not close. I was just here on business. You know she drinks, Sheriff.”
The sheriff gave a brief nod. “But you were here last night?”
“No. We went to Ray Provenzano’s for dinner.”
“Your mother with you?”
“No. Just me and her—” Gryffin indicated me. “You can check with Ray.”
“Okay, I will. What about when you got home? You do anything? Go right to bed?”
“Yes.”
“Your bedroom’s upstairs? Did you hear anything unusual? Before you went to bed. Or later. Did you look into your mother’s room?”
“No. I don’t come up here much. I—”
He stopped. John Stone wrote down something then asked, “Were you by yourself? When you went to bed?”
For the first time Gryffin hesitated. “No.” His face reddened. “I was—she was with me.”
He pointed at me. John Stone sucked at his upper lip, made another mark on his sheet. “Okay. Anything else you can think of? Anything out of the ordinary? Those dogs—”
He looked out to where the deerhounds ran along the rocky beach. “Did they bark?”
“No.” As quickly as he’d blushed, Gryffin paled. “Excuse me, I’m not feeling well. I—”
He bolted from the room. John Stone drew a long breath then looked at me. “Boy, I really hate this. Now I have to do the same with you.”
He put a new sheet onto his clipboard. “Can you spell your name, please.”
A flicker of panic went through me. But as the minutes passed I felt more confident. The Adderall kicked in with its laboratory glow of invincibility, and I had to remind myself that this was police procedure and not a job interview. The dogs chased a seagull on the beach. John Stone’s radio crackled. He checked it, turned to me again.
“So, why’d you come here?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“To interview Aphrodite Kamestos. For a magazine.”
“That’s right, she was supposed to be famous at some point, wasn’t she. I never knew her.” He frowned. “You knew her, then?”
“No. Not personally, not before I came here yesterday. Someone set it up—an editor. At the magazine.”
“What about Gryffin? You know him? He a friend?”
“No. I never met him. Not before yesterday.”
“What about Mrs. Kamestos? She seem sick to you? Anything out of the ordinary?”
“I never met her before yesterday. She seemed fine, I guess. She seemed … drunk.”
“So I gather. They’ll do a toxicology report, we’ll see what that says.” He made another mark on his clipboard and put down his pen. “I guess that’ll do it. Unless you can think of anything else?”
I shook my head.
“Don’t you go far, now,” Stone went on. “I still have to question you about this other thing. That girl from the motel you stayed at the other night. But I got to finish this matter here first.”
A shadow fell across the table. I looked up to see Gryffin. His hair was wet, he’d shaved and changed into a white oxford-cloth shirt and corduroys, a brown jacket.
“You finished?” He slid into the chair next to mine.
“Just about,” said John Stone. There was another crackle from his radio. He picked it up, spoke briefly before turning back to us. “That was the dispatcher. Marine Patrol just left Burnt Harbor, they should be here in a few minutes.”
Gryffin toyed with his coffee mug. “Then what?”
“He’ll ask you some more questions and take a look around. They’ll arrange for someone to bring the deceased over to the funeral home, and the State Medical Examiner will take over.”
“Christ.” Gryffin closed his eyes.
Stone glanced over his notes. “Well. What I need to do now is take a look at the deceased.”
They went upstairs. I poured the rest of the coffee and drank it, slung on my jacket and went outside. The dogs ran over to me then raced off into the pine grove.
“Nice display of grief,” I said, and threw a stick after them.
The sky was gray and unsettled, not a brooding dark but a bright pewter haze that stung my eyes. I shut them and bright
phantom bolts moved behind the lids, shapes that became a face tangled in dendrinal knots, branches, blood vessels, Kenzie Libby running along the road.
I opened my eyes. Wind hissed through dead leaves, a sound like sleet. A few tiny white flakes blew past my face.
Who could live here? I wondered.
I thought of Kenzie, of Aphrodite dead, and the flyers I’d seen everywhere. Dead cats. Missing kids. A new one now.
HAVE YOU SEEN KENZIE LIBBY?
I shivered. Maybe this was one of those places where people weren’t meant to live, like Love Canal or Spirit Lake.
Yet it was beautiful. Not just the trees and water and sky, all those things you expect to be beautiful, but the rest of it—stoved-in clapboards and flyspecked modular homes, beer bottles in the harbor, houses cobbled from stuff that everyone else threw away, a light that seemed to leak from another world.
I could live here, I realized. It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.
There probably isn’t a bigger way of blowing a story than what I’d just done. Like, if you were to take a photograph of Paswegas at that moment and ask, What’s wrong with this picture? the answer would be pretty clear. There was no way I could stay.
I thought of the film I’d hidden in the turtle shell and the stolen picture in my copy of Aphrodite’s book. I thought of Aphrodite herself, and how it wouldn’t take a crack team of investigators to dust for fingerprints under the bed and find mine.
I assumed John Stone wouldn’t bother. Aphrodite had been lit up like Las Vegas when I’d last seen her alive; the toxicology report would prove that. End of story, unless I tried to write something up for Mojo.
But I kept thinking of Kenzie Libby, making jewelry out of broken glass and beer cans; a kid in the middle of nowhere who knew the words to “Marquee Moon.” What must it have been like to hear those guitars for the first time, here on a rock in the middle of the winter, everything around you black and white and that music like a message in a bottle tossed to you from a city five hundred miles away?
What was it like to be so desperate to escape your life that someone like me looked like a way out instead of a way down?
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