Gossamer: A Story of Love and Tragedy

by Thompson, Lee

  And things went back to normal, the way all things must, for a while.

  But when Julian came I had been a hundred and twenty years without a man’s touch. And I ached for it. It made me weak, the nights spent staring at the stars, thinking that the gift I gave to those kind souls in Gossamer was nothing compared to the heat produced by two hungry bodies.

  *****

  Angel sat next to Brooke. She was tiring him. He didn’t know how or why, and at first he didn’t want to figure out the reasons. The sun didn’t reach under the carousel’s canopy and for a moment he wished it would because his skin felt very cold and very close to his bones.

  He looked down at himself. Not the body of a super model. Not even a good body, really. He’d never liked it. There were a couple dozen times when he’d had to have the lights out while making love to Brooke, and the couple of women he’d known before her. The women always seemed to think that his desire to make love, or to simply rut, in the dark was because he had found something distasteful about them. He was such a coward that he couldn’t tell them the truth. Where the shame stemmed from, he didn’t know. He’d known uglier people with worse carriages who appeared at home and comfortable in their flesh.

  He pulled his shirt close to him and slid it on. Brooke turned her head. He thought she might smile for some reason. He thought he might tell her how uncomfortable he was in his own body, but he didn’t want her to laugh at him or to patronize him, especially since she didn’t look so hot either with dried blood on her face, the torn shirt, the ropes around her wrists and ribcage. He hung his head, pulled his pants close and covered his genitals with them.

  Brooke didn’t say anything. He was grateful for that because if she started asking questions he didn’t have the answers to, then things would only grow more confusing for both of them. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. Taking off his clothes in public was about the last thing in the world he’d do. Sitting on the carousel’s cool platform with his pants bunched in his naked lap, he blushed, shaking his head, hoping that Brooke’s daughter hadn’t seen him in that condition.

  His memory was spotty. He thought that she’d run away for some reason and feared that it was in fact his temporary lack of inhibition. He swiped a shaking hand across his brow to wipe sweat away and to also check if he was running a fever. He’d heard somewhere that sunstrokes could cause a person to do funny things, possibly disgraceful actions.

  He didn’t seem feverish.

  He shrugged to himself, blinked, shivered.

  Better not to dwell on it. His stomach hurt as if he’d done a hundred sit-ups, which would have been another first for him. If there was anything to eat close by, he had no idea. He hadn’t seen another soul since they arrived, other than the old woman. He wondered where she had gone off to. He wondered, for just a moment, if something was wrong, possibly seriously wrong. More than sunstroke, possibly some fuse having blown in his head. The idea frightened him. His old man was obviously not all there or he would have loved his mother and his son more and kept his snake in his pants instead of burying it in the hot wet slits of whoever stumbled drunkenly across his path.

  And Angel’s mother, doing what she had done to escape it all—murder and suicide—had not been a beacon of tranquility or a soundly rational mind. And he’d inherited both of their genes, both good, which hindsight showed little of, and the bad, which had further-reaching repercussions.

  He shook his head, wanting to cry. He didn’t ask to be their child. He didn’t ask for much of anything in life, and what he’d gotten out of it wasn’t much to speak of. At least not until Brooke walked into his life.

  Brooke said, “Angel?”

  He ignored her. It was better to ignore her than to face the consequences of what he’d done. He squinted, looked in the distance where heat waves danced and the sun worked its way beyond the rim casting a long shadow over the valley. He looked for a moment at all the baby shoes hanging in the leafless trees. If they were trees. They resembled a cross between a young sapling and a scraggy bush. Something that could only survive in a place like this, a region caught between the hardscrabble desert and the jutting, ragged peaks of rock.

  The shoes disturbed him. Even from a distance he could see that they were russet-spotted as if with dried blood. He bit his lip. Nothing made sense and he didn’t expect answers and he didn’t expect anything to get better because there was a point, and he knew it, where things fall too far south to be fixed.

  Brooke cleared her throat. She whispered, “What are the baby shoes for?”

  Angel whispered, his throat dry, “I don’t know.”

  Brooke said, “Are you okay now?”

  He shook his head. “Who said I was ever okay?”

  She sighed and said, “I can’t feel my hands, honey. The ropes have cut the circulation off. I need you to loosen them a little before I get nerve damage.”

  He glanced up in her direction, his brow wrinkled so hard it hurt. His eyes burned.

  “What if you’re right,” he asked.

  “About?”

  “This making us old instead of making us young?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  He nodded. “It is,” he admitted.

  “Loosen the ropes for me, Angel.”

  He stood wearing only his shirt and stared down the street.

  He said, “I was so sure that this was something amazing, but then you went and ruined it.”

  It didn’t feel good to be angry with anyone, or to have that anger rise so suddenly. He’d learned that a long time ago, too, that it came unasked and quickly. But sometimes it was easier to be angry with them than to be angry with yourself. Truly he felt like a fool, a dope, as if someone was playing a stupid gag on him and he was just dull enough to fall for it.

  He walked away from her, still pantless, circled the perimeter of the platform looking for a switch to engage the motor. He didn’t see one from above so he jumped down, the ground hot beneath his feet, Brooke above him, saying with a bit of desperation in her voice, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to find the switch and turn it on,” he said, “After I see what it does to you then I’ll know for sure.” He ran his hands over smooth polished wood. It was unreasonably warm, though he did remember something about black holding the heat more than any other color and it had been baking in the sun all day.

  Maybe an hour to dark, he figured.

  Dorothy had said he needed to ride it by dark.

  Only he wasn’t as stupid as they all thought he was.

  Brooke would ride it first and he would watch her closely for any change. A part of him was scared of course, that the ride itself would do nothing to her except drive the wedge further between them. He skirted the perimeter, came to the steps built into the side, got on his hands and knees and examined around and beneath the steps with a scrutinizing eye.

  Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

  He stood, angrier than he’d felt in a long time.

  It doesn’t even run, he thought.

  He jumped back up on the platform, the sweat cooling quickly on his flesh. He grabbed Brooke’s chin and lifted it, forcing her to look him in the eye.

  Angel said, “What kind of game are you two playing, huh?”

  *****

  Brooke leaned as far away from Angel as she could. His breath stank like a sewer. He wore a shirt but no pants. She thought, He’s out of his head. Way out. It terrified her to think that this wasn’t all Dorothy’s doing, that there was the possibility that the old woman was only working with something that was already there, and had been only hiding, inside Angel.

  How many True Crime books had she read about this or that serial killer who everybody thought a nice guy, though a little quiet? Too many not to also remember her mother saying the same thing about Angel just a few days ago. And Brooke had said what she suspected many lovers of the strange and murderous do, He’s just shy. Give him time and he’ll open up.

  And now he
was throwing a temper-tantrum, from one extreme to the other. But she noted that the blind faith he’d placed in Dorothy’s word had begun to crumble and she considered that score one for herself.

  Willing to gain an extra inch she said, “Loosen these bonds, please.”

  “No,” Angel said. “I want to know why you’re doing this.”

  “What?” she said. “Doing what? I came here with you, remember?”

  “And you’re from around here,” he said. “Grew up a few hours south. So who is she? What is this? I don’t get it. You want to hurt me? Is that it? Or do you want to make me think I’m crazy? Whatever it is, I’m not going to let you do it.”

  “You’re not making any sense at all. Untie me and we can go home and put all of this behind us.” It was difficult to keep the anger she felt out of her voice.

  “What do you think of me? Really think of me?”

  She was taken aback. She asked herself what he was asking her and she didn’t know the answer. In the past week she went from feeling like she’d finally found her soulmate to believing he was a lunatic. It proved a harsh contrast, and one she found difficult to vocalize.

  She cleared her throat and wiped the sweat from her eyes with her shoulders. She forced herself to remain calm for Natalie’s sake and said with a level voice, “If you untie me we’ll go find Dorothy and we’ll make her tell us what this is all about, okay? We’ll force her, even if we have to hurt her to do it. She’ll talk and then we’ll both know what this is all about, and we can find Natalie. I need to find her, Angel. Now. Right now.”

  He lowered his head, bit his lip. She could tell that he was thinking about something but she also feared that when he raised his head and spoke it would be about something that made no sense at all and only worsened her situation.

  She scanned the streets, at the dead dark space thick with shadow between buildings, at the rooftops, hoping for any sign of Natalie or Dorothy or the strange boy who had been up there next to the Explorer.

  She was mad at Angel too, and mad at herself, for being so lost in what could be that they’d overlooked stopping for gas earlier. Then again, she wondered if this was the way things were supposed to go. Her mother was a big believer in fate, mostly due to her religious beliefs, and more than any other time in her life Brooke wanted to see things from that point of view, with that same conviction, because she believed it would somehow make it easier if she knew deep inside that this was all part of some greater plan.

  But she didn’t believe in things like that. As a cop she’d seen people do insanely stupid things for money or acceptance or out of rage, but that was it. No big mystery. Nothing unexplainable. They wanted something so they tried to take it. How could that be part of any bigger plan? How could the death of a victim work for good in the families of those left behind? It couldn’t. She’d seen families struck by tragedy. It didn’t bring them together for long. The memories faded, the sharp edges were once again worn dull, everyday life and all the responsibilities it imposed returned to take precedence like they must. People were beasts who sometimes showed each other compassion, who sometimes felt empathy that proved hard to sustain.

  Angel kissed her shoulder and drew her from her thoughts, from the fear, the questions. His lips were dry and warm. They smacked together quietly as he pulled them from her skin. She bowed her head, waited for him to strike her again, or to do something even crazier, like to call for Dorothy and try to confront her on his own, which Brooke knew would only increase whatever jeopardy Natalie was already in.

  *****

  I cradled two dolls, one of Longfellow, one of O’Connor, and to Natalie they appeared nothing more than dolls, nothing more than small comforts. I finished telling her of the past few days and my own helplessness nearly overpowered me. For so long, so many years, I had believed myself strong, but it had been a lie.

  After I told the child about Julian and Peter, Natalie thought about the body her and her mother had found standing upright in a coffin inside one of the houses. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what I had told her, but it still chilled her insides and made it hard to breathe. She wanted her mom, and wanted to be home among her few but wonderful friends, to see smaller children dressed in ghastly glee for Halloween, begging candy, their voices faint chirps muffled by masks of the Incredible Hulk, or Captain America, or Batman.

  She took a deep breath and held it for a second, gathering her thoughts as I shifted my position, silent.

  Natalie said, “You’re a witch and your boyfriend is a vampire. Unbelievable.”

  She buried her head in her hands, her mind scrambling for purchase. It was hard being her sometimes, she thought, and she knew it was hard for other kids, and she imagined that life was hard for adults like her mom sometimes because despite what the movies showed things didn’t always work out for the best in the end.

  She looked me in the eyes and said, “We’re not going to escape, are we? It’s not like the movies where you can outsmart the bad guy.”

  “I’m not the bad guy,” I said, lowering my head. When I looked up again I said, “But Julian is, and if we work together we can stop him.”

  “Stop him? I thought you loved him? You let your whole stupid town be a snack for him!” Natalie thought I was quite insane, or just a pathological liar. Either way it didn’t matter, she was righteously screwed, and she knew it.

  She looked up at the photograph of me and Peter for a moment. There was a lot of tenderness between us, awkwardness as well, but something genuinely warm shared there, the slight way we leaned toward each other, the honest smiles only love can produce.

  She said, “How come he’s aged if the rest of the town didn’t? He wouldn’t ride the carousel? What is he?”

  “I don’t know what he is, but I’m the only one he’s ever spoken a word to,” I said. I glanced at the window and the street beyond. “He came from the desert one night, just like Julian had, though the boy was here first. I protected him. I had to. The townspeople, as much as they meant to me, wanted to burn him like a witch because he always had spiders crawling all over him. I understand why they thought it off-putting, but I can’t tolerate hurting a child because they don’t act like other children, or because they’re strange. Maybe it’s my past,” I said, thinking of the priest, Longfellow, and the dirty policeman O’Connor, “but I felt I understood him. He saw that I wasn’t a threat, and after a while, after no one was hurt, the people here just looked right past him as if he didn’t exist.

  “Peter is a terribly lonely boy. Lonelier than I think anybody has ever been or ever could be. I had hoped it would pass as he settled in here, but it hasn’t. He won’t speak of his past, though I wish he would because I think it would do him good. It just isn’t going to happen. But I love him, and he’s the reason I want to stop Julian. As much as I claim to love these people, I love the boy most. Where the people had a shot at happiness, organization, hope, he has nothing but the spiders that cling to him and that he clings to as if his entire identity is as fragile as the fine filaments they produce… And he and I are alike. I feel like a mother to him, both of us outcasts, misunderstood.

  “Once Julian arrived Peter had tried so valiantly to protect me, using his spiders to attack the bloodthirsty horde, but Julian, and those like him, were unaffected by arachnid poison. Instead, Peter’s sweet pets, or more likely, his brothers, died. Their corpses lie everywhere upon the battlefield. He has more, but they were useless for violence against the vampires. And he had enough problems before Julian sank his teeth into his neck. Though I suspect that Peter might not change, possibly something to do with his odd anatomy.” I shook my head. “Lately I’ve been thinking about how I’ve never seen him bleed, and I can’t say with any conviction that he can. At least not like you or me.

  “And then there is the fact that Julian’s other victims sleep during the day. Peter never sleeps. He hadn’t before being bitten, and he hasn’t since. He’s always roaming, or sitting in the high places an
d looking as if he’d like to cast himself to the earth.”

  I lowered my head. Natalie couldn’t tell if I was lying or not, or if I was hoping that Natalie would be stupid and crazy enough to help me, which was closer to the truth. But Natalie had no intention of helping without knowing everything she could about what happened, which was probably her greatest weakness, given how little time remained before dark.

  Despite seeing Peter, or the Explorer on the roof, or the corpse in the coffin, she asked for proof.

  I folded my hands in my lap and sighed as if I expected the child to ask as much.

  “What kind of proof would you like? You’ll have more than enough by dark, but shortly after that it will be too late for any of you.”

  Natalie said, “I want proof before then. You want my help, you explain everything to my mom and you stop doing whatever it is you’re doing to Angel, and come clean.”

  “You’re quite the little negotiator, aren’t you? And so difficult with your demands, which, by the way, will go unheeded, because you have nothing to offer. You, sweet little bird, have no choice and no power.”

  “If I don’t have any power then how come you told me that story and how come Angel hasn’t come to tie me up and throw me on the carousel?”

  “Because,” I said, “I want you to be running around, hoping for escape, so you can bring Julian to us.”

  Natalie blinked.

  I said, “As to proof, if that’s what you want, go to the church and the barn.”

  *****

  Angel said to Brooke, his lips close to her ear, enjoying the smell of her like he enjoyed the smell after a vicious storm…

  “I never thought I could love anybody like I love you. And I don’t know what’s happening here but I want to trust you. I really do. But I don’t know how. Have you ever felt like that? Like, the more you trust someone the more they can hurt you? Doesn’t everybody feel that way? I think my mom did with my stepdad, and he did, he hurt her bad because she loved him and he didn’t care for much more than himself.”