Dividing Earth: A Novel of Dark Fantasy (22 page)

Mary and Robert did not speak as they prepared. Mary drove the truck to the lakeside and expertly backed the boat trailer into the water. Together, they wordlessly unlatched the boat and pushed it into the water. Robert stood there beside it, feeling useless and shocked, as Mary moved the truck to a nearby parking spot. When she returned, she took his hand to steady herself as she climbed in. He took it, trembling all over, then settled into the boat opposite her. She she started the engine, and, smiling gently, steered them out into the channel while he craned his neck, tried to take it all in.

The view was breathtaking. Carla had mentioned the houses built into the cliffs, but nothing had prepared him for the mansions, some propped on massive stilts, hanging from the side of Mt. Renier. A few loomed over the water, and one had a rope vine attached to its roof, another a long, winding slide. “When did you move here?”

Steering lazily, Mary didn’t look directly at him. “This was Grady’s dream.” She said this as if her own were impossibly out of reach.

“You both work here?” Robert asked, wondering what her dream might be.

“Yep,” she said, and positioned the boat into what seemed to be the middle of the lake. She shut off the engine, tossed the anchor over the side.

“Why are you so calm?” he asked finally. “I mean, for all you know—”

“I’ve seen you every night.”

He could only blink at her.

She leaned forward. A stiff, cool wind worried her hair. “Dreams,” she said.

“I don’t understand,” he told her, but he did understand. He understood perfectly.

“I’ve had several years to think on it, years to piece it together.”

Nearly in shock, Robert dragged his mind to Veronica, to Jenn as an eight-year old, to his diagnosis, to the missed time, to the living shadows and the scales over his eyes, and to the dreams. “You first.”

“For the longest time I dreamed only of a beach, or these weird clouds.”

He nodded, thinking,
No. Fucking. Way.

Her smile widened. “I knew I was right.” Her hair streamed back over her face. “Until you disappeared all I saw was this beach, a strange sky, and a figure at the opposite end, a person waving to me.”

Robert ran a hand over his face, shook his head, tried to find something pithy or wise to say, but he had nothing.

“But then, after you left . . .”

He held up his hand, closed his eyes. “I swear, Mary, I didn’t—”

“Leave on purpose, I know.” Again, she only smiled, this time brighter, somehow truer. “And the reason I know is that I saw you.”

It suddenly occurred to him what she might be getting at and he thought,
Why would she be involved in this and why would my mother have reached out to her as well?

“Every night, the figure at the other end of the beach got closer, maybe walked a few yards, or maybe I did, but every night the figure crept out of the shadows a little more.”

“It was me,” he said, still disbelieving.

“It was you, even though at first I didn’t recognize you.”

“Because I was like this,” he said, pointing to his torso.

“You weren’t sick in my dream,” she said, nodding. “I told Grady about it, and of course she had lots to say about my mental health, so I shut up. For a while, anyway. Whenever I mention it, she gets pissed.”

Robert wondered if Mary knew the truth of why this so angered the spiky blonde. He’d known the moment he’d seen Grady that she was in love with Mary, but Mary seemed, although older and more worldly, guileless. “How often did you have that dream?”

“Oh, not every night. I guess three or four times a week.”

“And what was I doing?”

“Well, at first I had the same dream. You were looking down from a cliff, at this huge ocean. It was weird water, though; it didn’t really move.”

Robert felt cold all over. “Then you saw me traveling through a forest, through this strange—”

“Through this huge valley covered in boulders and stones, yeah.” Mary was nodding excitedly. Their eyes locked. “I do have a question.”

“Just one? I have thousands.” Although it seemed inconceivable, Mary was connected to him. Or to his mother. He shook his head again. It was all too strange.

“Just the one.”

“Anything,” he answered. He didn’t understand his emotions, couldn’t fathom his heart. He thought that perhaps this was because he suddenly wasn’t alone in this anymore. For whatever reason, Mary had seen the place, too. And not only that, but for some reason only she and God knew, she had taken care of his little girl.

And then Mary said it: “Who was the woman who rose up out of the water?”

* * * * *

Robert did his best to get through it. Mary followed his story, soaking up each detail more avidly than the last. She asked logical questions so that he had to back up and fill in gaps sometimes, and in the retelling it all became clearer to him, as well.

He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. She leaned against the slumbering engine as she listened, running her fingers through her hair and encouraging it to flutter in the wind. He didn’t think she knew how beautiful she was, how breathtaking. He nearly opened his mouth to tell her, but stopped, ashamed of himself. He hadn’t seen his daughter yet, but was quick to consider hitting on the first girl who’d been nice to him in a long time. What an asshole he was.

Except it wasn’t that simple. Here was this girl, woman really, who’d been so utterly kind to his daughter. And why?

Then came the kicker: She had listened to a story that any educated, self-respecting woman would have considered to be, at best, utter bullshit, and at worst evidence of severe mental deficiency, but her only response was a smile.

“Got somewhere to stay?” she asked.

He blinked at her, dumbfounded. “Ah, no, I’m not—”

“Of course you’ll stay here. You need all the help you can get, Mister.”

“But, I’m—”

“You’re staying with us. Jenn is one pissed-off teen, and you’ll have to reintroduce yourself at some point. It won’t be easy.”

“I’m scared to death.”

“Good.”

“What about Grady?”

Mary laughed, a high-pitched giggle, and said, “She’s such a teddy bear, it’s ridiculous.”

* * * * *

They headed back, and Robert’s heart beat faster and faster. His hands were ice, he couldn’t feel his feet, and he was shivering even though it wasn’t cold.

When they returned to the bungalow, Mary grabbed his hand, pulled him up the stairs and through the front door.

Grady headed them off at the kitchen. She glared at Mary. “Now he’s welcome in our home?”

“I guess we should talk.”

Grady’s eyebrows rose and her mouth twisted into a mocking sneer. “You think?”

Mary turned to him. “We’ll be a few,” she told him sweetly.

“Okay,” said Robert, took a look around for a place to sit, but Mary grabbed him by the arm.

“Your daughter,” she said. “She’s upstairs.”

He nodded, took a deep breath.

2

“What in all of hell do you think you’re doing?” Grady said hotly as soon as they were outside.

“That’s his daughter upstairs.”

“Yeah, and he hasn’t—”

Mary put a restraining hand on Grady’s shoulder. Grady stood there breathing hard, her eyes burning. “He was very sick. Remember when Jenn was eleven? The bathroom that morning?”

Grady relaxed, cocked her head, rolled her eyes. “You know I do.”

“She was burying the bird we’d bought her and sobbing, hyperventilating, almost.”

“Oh God, don’t do this, come on—”

“And we tried everything to calm her down, but she couldn’t get a hold of herself for hours, and then—”

“Yeah, I know, bonehead me.”

“You mentioned her father, and boy did the tears stop.”

“Yeah, long enough for her to fly into a rage,” said Grady triumphantly.

“True, but that’s when we both realized she hadn’t buried her father. We all thought he was dead, Grady, don’t you remember?”

“Actually, I remember that Mary and me thought he’d kicked the bucket, but you, oh but you had other ideas, didn’t you?”

“Don’t laugh at me.”

“Okay,” said Grady, meekly.

“Jenn had to have closure.”

“Come on, don’t you think—”

“Ever wonder what not hating your father might be like?”

Grady’s face went flat. She clenched her fists.

“Just because you hate yours,” Mary continued, “doesn’t mean we all should.”

Grady’s eyes were wide, her pupils dilated. She grated her teeth. “And when’s the last time you saw yours, Mary? Or your mother, for that matter? Huh, Miss Perfect? When?”

Mary stared, blinking, and tears filled her eyes.

3

Robert had gone to her bedroom door, but Jenn had screamed at him to go away before he’d even knocked. Then she had suggested a specific destination.

Although he’d expected this reaction, he was deflated. God, but he wanted to see her. He couldn’t believe how her voice had changed, grown richer; he’d wanted to continue talking through the door just so he could hear her yell some more.

Coming down the stairs from her room, he wanted to weep. His body wouldn’t cooperate, so he was left with a hollow feeling, an emptiness. He retired to the couch by the front door, slumped and deafeated. he didn’t even hear Grady and Mary arguing on the porch.

After a few minutes, the girls came in. Grady didn’t so much as look in his direction, but turned into the kitchen. Mary watched her, smiled at her back, and came over to where he sat. “No luck?”

“Did you think I’d have any?”

She shook her head, sat beside him, patted his leg. “The couch okay?”

He smiled, surveyed her profile, thought better of contemplating her motivations again.
She’s kind and gentle,
he thought.
And in today’s world . . .
“The couch will be fine.”

“Do you like chili?”

He grinned. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten in seven years.

She squeezed his knee, leaped up and looked back at him, her green eyes almost glowing through the dusk that permeated the room. “Glad you’re back. Maybe we can get to know each other this time.” The look in her eyes was a strange one.

* * * * *

By midnight, Robert was alone on the couch.

Grady had given him the cold shoulder all night, and had gone up to her room early. By ten, the place was silent, and he and Mary had spent the next hour talking. He expected their conversation to take a weird turn at some point, for her to tell him how upset she was with him, but it never happened. Instead, she did her best to fill him in on the last seven years of his daughter’s life. She had also explained part of the reason she’d wanted to take care of his little girl: shortly before they’d left her parent’s home, she had suffered a miscarriage. Jenn had helped her heal.

There was less than he would have imagined. Jenn had had trouble adjusting to life up here, had gotten into scrapes with schoolmates, but after a couple of years she’d settled in, though there were those times when Mary walked into her room only to catch her staring out her window, deep in thought or memory. Though she’d had more than her share of problems, by and large Jenn had done her best to play the hand that Robert had dealt her.

* * * * *

Later that night, he opened his eyes to the dark, craned his neck to see the clock. It was after three. He hadn’t been sleeping so much as resting his eyes. As the hours had passed, his thoughts had blurred into half-dreams; his mind refused to shut off, so he opened his eyes, shoved his hands behind the pillow, stared at the ceiling, and tried to review his day, to ruminate on Mary, on his daughter, even on Grady, but his mind wouldn’t cooperate. It pulsed, beat like a heart, but wouldn’t really move. He was tired and overloaded.

Something moved on the stairs, and he nearly leapt off the couch. A shadowed figure crouched on them, one hand around the banister. She was crying.

“Jenn?” he whispered. His voice was throaty, unsure.

She continued to cry quietly while running a hand through hair much thicker than he would have imagined.

He waited. His heart pounded, his brow was hot with sweat, his palms damp. He ran them over the couch, waiting, his eyes on the shadows. When she moved, twitched even, he perked up. She wept, he waited.

After a time, she slapped her hand on the railing, pulled herself up. A bland light fell over her. She appeared pale. She’d died her hair black as a crow’s wings. Her ears were clustered in gold, and hoops hung from them. She wore a long black T-shirt that told of a concert she’d been to a year before. He didn’t recognize the band.

She approached him. He thought of standing, but wanted her to feel in control. She got closer than he’d thought she would, and they stared at each other. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the coffee table opposite him. She was wearing a musky perfume.

“Sorry about earlier,” she said.

He propped his arms on his knees, clasped his hands, and told her, “Nothing to be sorry about. I owe you a world of explanation.” His sheepish smile left him then, and he thought it possible he’d never felt so elated, so content, so happy, so present in a moment.

She stared at him a moment longer. “Let’s have it.”

He laughed softly, looked away a second, and was startled to see Grady at the top of the stairs. Jenn turned.

“Hey, Grady, I—” she began, but Grady put a finger to her lips, shook her head.

“Do you hear that?” Grady whispered.

Robert’s eyebrows knitted and he strained his ears, but didn’t hear a thing.

Slowly, Grady descended the stairs. A baseball bat swung from her right hand, forward and back in a lazy arc.

“Did you see anything?” he asked.

“Thought I did. Maybe just a shadow.”

“Do you always grab your baseball bat when you see or hear something in the middle of the night?”

“Yes, I do. Locals don’t creep around in the middle of the night. They know better. People around here carry guns, and they’ll shoot you in the ass as soon as ask ‘May I help you?’ They may ask you later what you were thinking, if you’re not dead, but by then you’re busy digging buckshot out of your spleen.”