Death in Her Hands

by Ottessa Moshfegh

  “You’re kidding. You know, I went there when I was little. Got awful poison ivy running through those woods. They had little lean-tos out there, for I don’t know what. What did you say your name was, Vestina?”

  Now she was washing her hands, the spare car key on the counter by the sink. I looked around for clues. It was rude to snoop, but Shirley’s back was turned.

  “Do you get any flooding?” I thought to ask. “When it rains. Does your basement flood?”

  Her face wasn’t visible, but she gave just a slight indication of surprise. “The basement,” she said. “No, I don’t think we got any floods.”

  Under a collapsible stool by the telephone, I saw something yellow. I took a silent step toward it and bent down. It was the handle of a hairbrush. In a flash, I snatched it and hid the brush in my deep coat pocket.

  “I don’t go down to the basement much,” Shirley was saying.

  “I see,” I said. She filled a glass of water from the tap. I held up my hand to refuse.

  “No? Okay. Well, we can go now. I don’t know how to thank you for all this. I don’t know what I would have done.”

  I followed her back out the front door.

  “Your son would have come to the rescue.”

  “But it’s not safe to ride bikes out there late at night. Who knows what could happen. The way people drive sometimes . . .”

  It was true. I myself had terrible night vision. Things got grainy and blurred for me in the dark. Walter had forbidden me to go out after he got home from work.

  “It’s true, and the streetlamps, they’re too far apart. At night I can barely even see the road. Just the headlights,” I said as we walked back to the car.

  “Makes me sick with worry,” Shirley said, shutting the car door. “But that’s the price we pay to live somewhere so beautiful. I hate cities. I went down to St. Viceroy last summer and it took me weeks to get over it, all that noise. Such close quarters.”

  “But cities can be fun,” I said. Now we were driving out into the sunset, back toward Bethsmane. “So much energy.”

  “I like it here. Nobody bothers you.”

  “There is that,” I said. “I like it here, too. I don’t mean to say I don’t. I’m very happy.”

  “Do you live all by yourself out there, at the camp? I haven’t been there in decades. I can’t believe it’s still standing, if you ask me.”

  “Yes, I am alone. The structure is very stable. It’s actually quite nice. Rustic, but comfortable.”

  “All us girls went there during the summers,” Shirley said. “All the things we did. I wish I had a daughter sometimes.”

  “Oh, me, too,” I agreed. But I just said it to be agreeable. I didn’t really mean it.

  “Boys are so rough and tumble. Blake puts up with me, wanting pretty things. He’s not that tough. And thank God. What they’re saying about football these days, the brain damage? I’d rather my son be one of the gays than a total vegetable. Those poor parents.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “I’m talking your ear off,” Shirley said.

  “Don’t be silly. A lonely old lady like me? It’s a pleasure to have some company once in a while. The only person I talk to at home is my dog.” As soon as I said it, I became panicked. I’d left Charlie all alone through the entire afternoon. I don’t think we’d ever been apart that long, not since I got him.

  “You should get out more,” Shirley said gently. “I know there’s a senior bingo night at Sisters of Mercy. My dad used to go, before he passed.”

  I drove a bit faster. Shirley made a few more suggestions—knitting circle, book club, volunteering. I could even call on her if I got lonely, she told me.

  “You’re very sweet,” I said. She was.

  Why was I so scared of asking about Magda? What’s the worst she could do? Jump out of the moving car? Shirley sighed as we turned onto Main Road.

  “May I ask you something?” I ventured. I kept my hands steady on the wheel, tried not to tense up or shake, although I was nervous. I felt Magda’s hairbrush inside my coat pocket. The handle of it was like a gun I could pull. It calmed me.

  “Well, yes, Vesta, of course. How can I help you?” Shirley sounded like a customer service agent at the power company. Every time I’d called them in Monlith, they sounded just like that—chipper, happier than a normal person should be.

  “Have you ever heard of any strange crimes around here, in the Levant area, or in Bethsmane?”

  “Oh, honey, you know these fools are fiddling with drugs around here. Two summers ago a trailer over on Brooksvale blew up. Exploded. You see people high as kites wandering around these parts. They’ll use any old place to cook their drugs.”

  “No dead bodies?”

  “Well,” she paused, and pinched her lips as she thought up her answer. “People die all the time, don’t they? Sad as it is, life is short, bless us all. Isn’t that right?”

  “But no murders, then?”

  “You sound just like my son. Boys his age are fascinated by that gruesome stuff.”

  “Your son is?”

  “You know, we need to keep an eye on our youngsters, with all the violence in this world. I don’t know where they get those twisted ideas. From movies, I guess.”

  “From computers.”

  “Lord knows.”

  “So no murders?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.” She was turned toward me in her seat, pulling the seat belt away from her bosom. “Are you afraid out there alone in that old cabin? Reading too many scary books?”

  “That’s what it is. My head’s just filled with scary stories.”

  “Read something nice tonight, sweetheart,” she said. “Something to set your heart at ease. Nobody’s going to come after you, Vesta, don’t worry. You hear anything funny going on, just ring up the police. They’ll come out right away. But I’m sure you’re safe and sound out there.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. I do have a big dog to protect me.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  By the time we pulled back into the library parking lot, the sun had set. The sky was an almost neon blue. The lot was empty but for Shirley’s old little Toyota Corolla, silver, with doilies covering the back window shelf.

  “You’ve been so generous, and so kind. Thank you,” she said. “See you again, I hope. Please don’t be shy. We’re all neighbors out here, in the wilderness.”

  And with that, she got out and shut the door. I watched in the rearview mirror. She unlocked the car, got in, started it, and flashed her lights at me. I drove out of the lot, Shirley following, and back through Bethsmane, toward Levant. Who were these strange drugged people roaming around, blowing up trailer homes? Cooking what, exactly? Cooking? From the top of the hill, where Route 17 met Main Road, I could see the lights of the strip mall, where I knew there to be a McDonald’s. I supposed I could go there, ask whether anyone working behind the counter had known Magda, if anyone might want her dead, and so forth. But that’s what a police detective would do. I didn’t want there to be any intrigue, any gossip. I’d been discreet enough with Shirley. I took out Blake’s poem and held it in my hand as I drove. They stumble all night over bones of the dead, And feel they know not what but care, And wish to lead others, when they should be led. Perhaps Blake was referring to those druggies, stumbling. Maybe they would lead me to the end of my story. Maybe they were holding Magda’s body for ransom. Could they be out there on the island, waiting for me? Did Blake know? I had to see for myself, I decided. I dropped the poem in my lap. Magda’s hairbrush poked me in the leg. I pulled it out and looked at the hair spun around the little spokes. Yes, long black hairs. Magda’s hairs. I will find you, Magda, I said in my mindspace. I drove faster, turned onto my gravel road and rushed to park and nearly ran with my purse up the gravel to the cabin door, so dark now,
so quiet, just the moon glowing low in the sky. I’d been gone longer than I’d planned. Hopefully Charlie hadn’t done his business inside the cabin. It would stink. And I couldn’t punish him for that. The door was locked, as I’d left it.

  “Where are you, my love? My sweet boy? I’m so sorry. I know you were waiting. Please forgive me, my pet. My good, good Charlie dog.”

  He did not appear. He was gone. I went back outside, stared out into the pine woods, then walked around the cabin and looked down at the lake. He could be anywhere by now, I realized, after so many hours without my watching. Someone with a key must have come and let him out.

  Six

  For so many mornings, I’d risen with the pale sun shimmering on the lake, white and pink and yellow softness, still sinking into my dreams, and Charlie’s, too. But that next morning, I woke up alone. I’d slept somehow, exhausted, with the aid of wine. I couldn’t have gone out and looked for Charlie. It would have been too dangerous to go walking around at night when there were druggies on the loose. I kept thinking about what I’d said to Shirley. “When I lose something, I retrace my steps.” But I couldn’t do that with Charlie. That wouldn’t help at all. So now I had two mysteries to solve, Magda’s and Charlie’s, and on top of it, I missed my dog. It was cold in the bed without him. I had eaten a bagel for dinner, feeling too guilty and too sad to eat the roasted chicken all alone. This was why I’d gone out and gotten a dog in the first place, the deadly quiet, the loneliness of the empty house in Monlith after Walter died. My emptiness, with Charlie gone, felt worse. Why hadn’t he come home by now? The sun was up already. We had our morning walk to go on, our breakfast to eat, our lives to live. Was he that insulted? Had he thought I’d abandoned him in the cabin forever? I couldn’t wonder too much about who had been in the cabin, who had held the door open, even encouraged Charlie to run out, shooing him, I bet, scaring him, warning him not to come back. “Vesta’s dead! Now scram, you dumb mutt!” Ghod had done that. I hadn’t allowed myself to think of it, but I thought of it now that the sun was up, and it infuriated me. I’d been violated. I’d been attacked. I must be on the right track, I thought, for Ghod to lash out at me this way. Revenge.

  I got dressed. I didn’t know quite what to do. I must have looked a bit mad, heaving, tearing up. I hadn’t showered in several days by then. Usually that would have bothered me, but I didn’t care. I was too upset. I really felt like a child without its mother all of a sudden. I wished there was someone I could call. Could I find Shirley? “My dog ran away,” I’d sob.

  “You poor thing. I’ll come around after work and help you look for him. Did you leave some food out? He’ll come straight back when he’s hungry enough. He knows where home is.”

  But I had no phone, and involving Shirley would only complicate things. I could imagine the kind of laughter I’d get if I called the police.

  “Crazy old lady, the old Girl Scout, her dog went missing,” they’d say around the station.

  “Wonder where he went.”

  “Dumb old mutt.”

  “Probably ran away. Who’d want to stick around with that old hag, that monster, that witch? Hansel and Gretel, is that the story? The crazy old hag who lived alone in the woods? Or am I thinking of Goldilocks? Whatever it is, she’s a bitch, that’s for sure.”

  Brutes, those cops were, talking about me that way. Didn’t they know I’d been the wife of a scientist? Didn’t they know I’d worn the most elegant silk blend dresses, gone to dinners at the university? The wife of a state senator had complimented me on my hairdo. They’d printed my picture in the paper a few times. I’d sung in a chorus at college. I’d studied Japanese calligraphy. I once saved a kitten that had crawled up into the wheel well of an old man’s car. And what were those cops good for? Pulling people over for speeding? I pictured their mindspace crawling with headless rats, spewing blood, white flashing neck bones, severed heads gnawing at dead headless bodies. It made me sick to imagine their thoughts, those monsters. If Ghod laid a hand on my dog, I’d kill him. I wouldn’t even let him beg for mercy. I’d just slit his thick, white throat.

  I could imagine what Walter would say. He would be thinking it even now from his watery resting place. “You aren’t strong enough for this, Vesta dear. Your nerves are too tender. You are like a little bird, you are a sparrow, and you’re trying to be a hawk. You don’t have that kind of spirit. You are just a little thing. Be your good self and twit about. Dance a little, sweep the floor. My sweet feathery girl, death is not for you.” I’d polluted the lake now forever with Walter. I should have emptied him into the trash, carried him sealed up in the thick black plastic, and left him in the county dump, where I left all the garbage I didn’t burn. Not that I made much trash. Besides the wrappings on things, the empty milk cartons, I tried my best to use the big compost bin I’d bought at the hardware store last summer. Charlie was always sniffing it. They said you couldn’t compost meat, but chicken bones would be all right, I thought. Anyway, Charlie couldn’t eat them. They turned to needles if he did. His throat would be torn. His guts would bleed. Oh God, I thought, grabbing my coat. Charlie could be hurt. He could have gotten hit by a car. He could have been eaten by a bear, or worse. Nothing would keep him from coming home, I imagined. Not unless he was maimed and trapped. Maybe a boulder fell on him, I thought. But there were no boulders in Levant. And then, grace, I imagined he’d fallen in love. I’d never neutered him. I had that to be grateful for. He could be out there, rapt in romance, procreating as he was always meant to. Soon he’d come back, proud and relaxed, and demand a new kind of respect. “You see, Vesta? I’m not a baby anymore. I am a proud papa. Just wait until you see my pups.” That cheered me. That made me smile. But I wasn’t sure of it. Given all that had happened over the last two days, I had to assume there’d been some foul play. Ghod had come. Ghod wanted to scare me, lead my search astray. He could be watching me now. Without Charlie to howl, I had no idea who might be out there in the pine woods.

  I opened the front door. I whistled. I called. I was scared to look for him, because if I didn’t find him, it meant he was gone. And if I did find him, it might be his dead body I would find. Was it better to look or not to look? I debated, one foot out the door. It was another beautiful, clear morning on the lake, I could see through the windows. The island was there. I could pretend that nothing bad had happened. I could go on with my day, walk through the birch woods, have my breakfast. I could plant more seeds, listen to Pastor Jimmy, dance a little if a song came on. There was more to life than a dog to worry about. More than Magda, too. There was me to care for. I needed minding. I decided I wouldn’t go hunting for Charlie that morning. I would stay put. I would think, and I would not think. The mindspace without Charlie was wild and panicked, but it was also half empty. There was more room for me to fill.

  Perhaps there was a way, I thought, of figuring everything out from the safety of my own home. Maybe I didn’t need to venture out, to investigate. Walter was always saying how the world was mostly theoretical, wasn’t he? If a tree falls, does it really? How do you know for sure? You shouldn’t believe your eyes. Oh, Walter. Was he really dead? I’d seen his dead body for but a few minutes. Could he have been faking all of that just to get rid of me? “I’ll send you a sign,” he’d said. I’d been begging him to agree to do that. “When you’re dead, will you come back somehow? Please try. If you can, send me a sign that you are there. And if you can, stay with me. I’ll be all alone. But will you promise? Promise to come and find me. Even if it’s very hard. Won’t you? Will you? Please?” And so he’d promised. And I’d seen him promise. But I hadn’t believed. If I closed my eyes, I could be back in Monlith. I could be back on our honeymoon. I could be in college. I could be seventeen years old. I could almost taste the bitter rind of the oranges that grew on a tree outside our house growing up. You weren’t supposed to eat them, but I would and they gave me stomachaches. Or had they? Had I grown up at all? Had time reall
y gone by? What had happened to my life, I wondered. And with that, I put out my hand for Charlie to meet it with his silky head, but he did not. So I was crushed again. Things might be theoretical, that was true. I may be imagining it all, but it still hurt. It was still sad to lose someone you loved.

  I turned on the radio and made a pot of coffee. It was Pastor Jimmy. He seemed to be on the air whenever I needed him. “And God said unto thee . . .” I went and washed my face. “Man’s sin is his blindness.” I brushed my hair with Magda’s yellow brush. “The blessed are those . . .”

  I poured myself a cup of coffee and took it to my table. My papers were stacked in a pile, and not as I thought I’d last left them the night before, scattered. But I’d been drinking wine. From my coat pocket I pulled out Blake’s poem. The pen he’d used to mark the lines was blue ballpoint, the same as the note from the birch woods.

  How many have fallen there!

  They stumble all night over bones of the dead,

  And feel they know not what but care,

  And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

  I still didn’t understand. I wished someone would come and lead me. Like a dog on a leash, I guess. Drag me straight to Magda’s body. Then the mystery would be solved. Charlie, I thought, might be in pursuit of the same goal. He might be standing guard over Magda right now. He might have swum out to the island. I could picture him, sitting, guarding her body. All day he’d sit, waiting for me to find them. I missed him. My throat clamped in worry.