Grim Page 4

  “Don’t you care at all?”

  “Not really. We didn’t want you, Shawn.”

  Shawn’s mouth dropped open.

  The boat rose and fell as if on the chest of a sleeping giant. He could see his mother on the other side of the lake. She wore her favorite picnic dress and a straw hat, wind playing with the hem and ribbons as she watched them. The same waves that lapped at her sandaled feet were making hollow sounds against the hull of their fishing boat.

  “Mom would never say that.”

  “Mom doesn’t give a damn about you.” His father scratched at the stubble of his chin. “She’s screwing that cop,” he said. “But he’s going to get it, because she’s not in love.” He smiled. “She’s not in love.”

  “Don’t talk about her like that.”

  “Why? Because she’s dead?”

  Shawn looked back at his father, his heart speeding up. This didn’t happen. This never happened.

  “Didn’t you go see her? Rebecca saw her. Rebecca cared more.”

  Shawn saw the caps of the waves turn from white to pink. Rubies. Wine. The water started to jump and bubble like hot water in a kettle. Something bumped against the side of the boat, making it tip harder one way. He gripped the fiberglass seat.

  “Don’t you want to look, Shawn? Don’t you want to see your mother?” Shawn shook his head, eyes shut tight. His father leaned down to breathe against his ear. “Don’t you want to say good-bye?”

  It felt like the years before his parents’ divorce, when his father raved about the affairs and the empty bank account and the things that he’d given up to make this work. Shawn had never been sure what his father thought “this” was. The family, probably, or his marriage. Or maybe even his life.

  “Look, Shawn! Stop being such a fag and look at her for once!” Shawn felt the heavy hands on his arms before he opened his eyes. His father slammed him against the bottom of the boat and dragged him to the edge.

  “Little whore, little whore, little whore.”

  Her dress clung to her like a second skin, pale blue and patterned. Blood stuck her lips together like the cheap gloss that Rebecca had always complained about. Red hair sparked fire as it snaked around her face and neck.

  Deep in his throat, Shawn’s father chuckled. He shoved his son and let go.

  Shawn saw his mother reach out of the water, but he was struggling to catch his breath and said nothing. He saw her put her pale, slick fingers over the edge of the boat. He saw her pull, hard, and felt the boat tipping up.

  His father was gone, leaving him alone to his mother and her pruning fingertips. Shawn slid down toward the water. Crimson and steaming, it licked at his skin, but he didn’t think to open his mouth. He just toppled forward, splashing into the lake and breathing blood and water and air. He let himself drown.

  Shawn woke up in a cold sweat, choking on spit that tasted of lake water.

  Jeremiah waited for Erika to come back. Her body sat behind him, lips barely touching the cold surface of the pocketknife. Her mind walked somewhere else.

  Jeremiah didn’t pry; she’d find her own way. He knew that time seemed to pass more quickly while wandering, and that Erika would come back to herself without realizing just how long she’d been gone.

  Though surrounded by steadfast twilight, the knife blade flashed like sunshine on water. A little bit of magic. Weak magic, old magic, but magic nonetheless. Still, it wasn’t the enchantments that made Jeremiah hold on to the old heirloom. The knife had been a gift from the High Kingdom to his own homeland and to his own father, and it was the most precious thing that Jeremiah had taken with him when he’d been sent away from the royal circle. It was as much a part of Jeremiah as anything, and it brought him as close to his father’s house as he could ever hope to be again.

  The dusk hovered cool and silent, and the air smelled sweetly of pine sap and thawing soil. Jeremiah drank it in as he struggled to plan his next move. He was in his element, and nearly back home, but that was never enough. He always had to run. Running and running and running on and on and on since the day they deemed him mature enough to understand. Or at least to almost understand. He hadn’t been all that old when the tricks turned dirty and the game stopped being a game. Running and running and running. The running would be a part of him, ingrained and tested, until he gave up and gave in and gave over.

  Someone had told him, once, that he was lucky not to be too much like his mother, because spirits like hers bent too easily to fit the shapes expected of them. He was lucky also, they said, for having a father capable of pushing the ghosts back into the shadows, just beyond seeing. But they didn’t understand: His father wasn’t always there.

  The knife fell out of Erika’s grasp as she came to, and the polished handle struck the forest floor. She wiped her eyes with stiff fingertips.

  “I want to go home,” she said. “I just want to go home.”

  Jeremiah put the blade back into his pocket, his fingers lingering on the worn family crest. “I know,” he told her. “But it’s such a long way. You have to give me time.”

  “They think that I’m dead.”

  He took her hands between his own. She felt the warmth of his skin, and wondered at how normal he felt. As if blood moved underneath, instead of air. She didn’t understand how everything could have gone so wrong.

  “They think I’m dead,” she repeated.

  “You make it sound like the worst possible thing.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  Jeremiah smiled. “No,” he said. “There are many things worse than dying.” He squeezed her hands gently. “And half of those things are bent on getting rid of me.”

  “Take me home?”

  “You’ll see your children again, Erika,” he said. “I promise you that much.” He jumped to his feet, smooth as smoke. “We have somewhere else to be now.”

  Erika tried to catch another breath of the sweet smell clinging to his skin. “You remind me of someone,” she said.

  “Oh?” said Jeremiah. “I hear that sometimes.” He pulled her up, but she wasn’t paying attention anymore.

  Again, chocolate stuck to the back of her throat. Coffee and citrus and the clean scent of soap. She thought of Matt.

  In the morning, Rebecca came downstairs and found Shawn in the kitchen, leaning over a sheaf of notebook paper, his ankles hooked around the wooden legs of one of the bar stools.

  He slid a line of old photographs across the counter. “Which one’s best?”

  Rebecca held the pictures out for judgment. “When did you get up?”

  “Seven.”

  “Couldn’t you sleep?”

  Shawn glanced at her. “Could you?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  She let three of the four pictures fall back onto the tiled countertop. “This one,” she said, handing over the last photo. It was from last Christmas, Erika beaming in a thick, white sweater as she leaned over the kitchen counter, fingers protective around a yellow mug. Matt had snapped it while the kids whipped together a fancy breakfast. “She looks pretty,” said Rebecca. “Happy.”

  Shawn nodded and clipped the photo to an envelope. “Remember how Meg forgot where she hid Mom’s gift, and we ended up quietly tearing the house apart at two a.m.?”

  Rebecca took a chipped ceramic cup from the drainer and filled it with water. While the microwave buzzed in the background, she rummaged for creamer and instant coffee.

  Finally, she said, “Yeah. Of course.”

  There were lines being drawn, and both Shawn and Rebecca could feel the boundaries ink themselves in. They were agreeing on distance. They were agreeing not to say “Mom,” not to connect her to the body on the coroner’s table, not to hurry back to those images, now that they’d survived the first round. If things were calm until the funeral, then they could grieve.

  Rebecca took her cup of hot water out of the microwave and spooned in coffee powder.

  “Shouldn’t we plan the service before the obituary?” s
he asked.

  “It’s done.”

  “What?” She set the mug on the counter, making a crisp click against the tiles.

  “What did you think I was doing all day yesterday?”

  “Getting high? How should I know? Shawn, you knew that I wanted to do this.”

  “You can do flowers. Talk to the priest. I just chose the casket and time. The funeral home is preparing everything today. I thought you’d be relieved.”

  Rebecca stared down at her swirling coffee, lips pressed into a thin line. “When is it?”

  “Friday.”

  “Tomorrow? It’s so soon.”

  Shawn didn’t look at her. “Like you wanted,” he said, tapping his pen against the paper. “Don’t tell me that we don’t have enough time.”

  Rebecca turned away from her own point. She stirred her coffee and picked up the bottle of creamer.

  “Matt took me downtown yesterday,” she said, sounding distant. “There’s a will, did you know that? Dad wanted them each to have one.”

  “Oh?”

  “The accounts are ours now.” Shawn nodded along. Rebecca cleared her throat. “The house is his.”

  Shawn felt his stomach clench. “Matt’s?” he asked, his voice spread thin.

  “Dad’s.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Rebecca didn’t even have the heart to be rude. “You know that I’m not,” she said. “She never changed it after the divorce.”

  “He’ll come and take it from us. You know he will.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, Shawn. He’s not as bad as you think he is.” Rebecca dropped her spoon into the sink. “He’s really upset about all of this.”

  Shawn laid his hands flat against the counter. “You talked to him?”

  “They loved each other once,” she said. “He deserved to know. I invited him to the service.”

  “He won’t come.”

  “He said he’d think about it.” Rebecca sipped her coffee. “Look, Shawn,” she said. “Believe what you will, but you don’t know everything.”

  “I’m not letting you introduce him to Megan.”

  Rebecca frowned but said nothing. Instead, she took a handful of gingersnaps from the cookie jar and left the kitchen. Her brother had drawn just one more line and she knew that whatever she said, this one would never change.

  The queen’s chambers had high ceilings and marble floors. When the king entered, his footsteps echoed, crisp and clean, against the polished tiles. His wife sat straight-backed on a gilded stool. Skirts in deep and violent red spread out around her; her legs, which he saw, touched, kissed only occasionally, hidden deep within a cage of silk and organza. Her neck, long and slender, tightened as she lifted her chin and ran her fingers down the side of her face: thin nose and painted cheeks, lips so red they matched her dress, jewelry glowing gold on sun-licked skin. She did not smile, but the king knew that she admired how she looked, even though she had not seen her own reflection since leaving the High Kingdom. Waving off her handmaid, the queen turned to face her husband, a hand perched to hide her half-curled hair.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “I have business below.”

  “Give my regards to the duchess.”

  “Of course.”

  She turned away again, running a hand over her dark ringlets. “Was that all?”

  “It was.”

  He’d fallen in love with her long after they were engaged, when he’d watched her feeding swans by her father’s lake, and had realized how much she resembled the beautiful imported birds. After their marriage, he’d learned how deep the similarities went: so pretty to look at, so quick to bite. The perfect queen, and yet sometimes he forgot. To love her. To cherish her. To see her as a husband should.

  “This is the rogue,” she said, an afterthought, and flicked her wrist at the handmaid.

  “Highness.”

  The king appraised the girl. Her eyes were green, he could see, and the red of her hair stood out against her skin. She wore pale pink, the queen’s color, for her train. It didn’t suit her.

  “You come from the High Kingdom?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  “It shows.”

  She blushed and turned away before the queen caught her.

  “When will you come home?” the queen asked her husband.

  The king’s attention slid back to his wife. “Tomorrow morning,” he said.

  She lifted her chin. “Spend time with the boys when you do,” she said. “They miss you.”

  “They are princes.”

  The queen frowned. “They are children.”

  The king gave a quick nod and turned to leave. “I’ll give the duchess your regards,” he said, and hurried to the door.

  “Charmed,” his wife muttered.

  Her rogue took up the brush. “Madam?”

  “I may lose him,” the queen told her, “to that bottomland leech.”

  “I should hope not, madam.”

  “Shouldn’t we all?” She sighed. “The world loves him too much, child. And to think that I asked for it.”

  Erika and Jeremiah walked in silence for a long time, but dusk stayed draped around them. Erika had adapted to the twilight here, and the odd way it lit itself without any stars. She kept hoping to see the sky brighten with sunrise. Her imagination had always been quick to add extra eyes and teeth to the black-and-white sweep of midnight. Ever since childhood, she had found daylight an escape.

  They reached another clearing, where a line of downed trees edged out the woods like a flood levee. Jeremiah touched Erika’s arm to slow her. She glanced up and saw, for the first time, a ripe moon beaming down from that blank, slate-colored sky.

  Ahead of them, the smooth forest floor began to break up, fading into a path and then a patio of weather-beaten stone. A low wall, netted with the dry, twisting stems of wintering vines, served as a border between earth and stone.

  A lake lapped at the eastern edge of the terrace while a shuttered cottage marked the other side. Between them stood a trio of statues, all spaced along a weatherworn pedestal sixteen inches high. The stone extended out into a smaller platform in front of each statue, with shallow steps to lead the viewer up.

  Jeremiah climbed over the downed wood and into the clearing. Erika followed, cautious as they approached the statues.

  “Aren’t they beautiful?” he murmured.

  Erika kept her eyes on Jeremiah. “They’re stone,” she said.

  Jeremiah smiled.

  They were women in the refined style of ancient Greece. All three were draped in robes that curled along their arms and fell in waves at their feet. Bursts of lichen bloomed in the hems of their dresses, and in the folds of their fingers and hair. Their heads were tipped forward in mourning. The first had her palms pressed against the hollows of her eyes. The second was the most serene, her hands buried in twists of perfect ringlets, her face stoic. The third clutched her mouth, as if to stifle her own weeping.

  “They’re creepy,” Erika said.

  “Lonely,” said Jeremiah. “Sad.”

  He turned to her. “You need to be very quiet for now,” he said. “You’ll be my ears for a little while. Can you do that for me?”

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He walked up the steps of the second pedestal and ran a thumb along the curve of the sculpture’s closed eyes. “Don’t be afraid, Erika,” he whispered. “They’re here to help us over.” He pressed his mouth against the statue’s parted lips.

  There was a heartbeat of silence and then, with a sigh of stone scraping stone, the carved fingers slid away from their bed of curls. The statue moved slowly, her hands splayed like starbursts. Ropes of hair snaked between the thin fingers that she slipped over Jeremiah’s skin.

  Erika held her breath as she watched, transfixed and terrified. Her own hands pressed hard against the stone wall, her knees locked straight to keep herself from falling. She thought about running away, but realized that she’d become too depe
ndent. This man, or ghost, or demon, was the only one who could tie her back to something she actually understood.

  Jeremiah held still until the statue drew back, hair tucked cleanly behind her ears and a half smile on her mouth. Her hands hung in midair, poised as if in conversation.

  Jeremiah turned to Erika, sharing the statue’s vague smile.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “What just happened?” Her voice came out a little desperate. With every passing hour, the world that she had always known was breaking to pieces in her hands.

  Jeremiah looked at her a little while, silent, and then put a finger to his lips. He led her to the shore of the lake and untied a small wooden boat that waited there. She held tight to his hand as he helped her step offshore. The boat reminded her of the fishing trips that her ex-husband had been so fond of. They had never ended well.

  Jeremiah took the oars and pushed away from the beach. Gentle swells fanned out behind them as he guided the boat farther and farther away from the shore. Above them, the moon sat bright and full in the sky. Its twin laughed softly in a bed of rippling glass.

  It was a small lake, almost a pond, the surface littered with dark flecks of dead plant life and beetles. The spines of reeds and cattails ringed the shore, straight and sharp like quivers full of arrows. The only things alive were moonflowers that pushed down close to the water, blossoms clustered thick and brilliant white through the dark, mouths open and trumpeting to the twilight sky. Behind them marched the trees, bodies straight and slender in their sheer moonlit robes.

  Erika turned away from the shore and stared at the water, her expression blank. She felt so drained, as if all of the sleep from before no longer mattered. Her shoulders sagged and she felt something like guilt and grief surge up from the bottom of her chest. It caught in her throat and settled there, heavy enough to make her sick. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and hunched down, breathing deep and trying to control herself. Jeremiah didn’t seem to notice.

  But of course he didn’t notice, Erika thought. He knew exactly what was happening, even if he wouldn’t tell her, so no panic pressed in to suffocate him. She turned over this idea, wondering why she wasn’t more upset by his secrets, and tried to make herself angry. Anything to take away the nausea that came from thinking about her children. How long had she been gone? How could they possibly find her?