The Glittering World (9 page)

“You all set, then?” Stanley said, looking at him askance. Blue could barely meet his eyes, afraid that the man would see the panic there, which would make the fear all the more real.

“Sure. Let’s go.”
Go. Leave. Now. Go. Go.

“Why don’t I run down and get the paperwork?”

“That’s okay,” Blue said. “I can sign everything in the car.”

A painful minute later, the other man climbed into the driver’s seat, Blue already inside. “Sorry,” Blue said, “I just remembered I’m late for something. Really late.” Stanley put the key into the ignition, turned it once, twice, a third time.
Please go
, Blue prayed, sweaty palms gripped onto his knees in the crash position.
Please. Please. Please.

The engine caught. Blue closed his eyes and drove his palms into his eye sockets, where a jagged electrical storm flared at the corners of his vision. Finally, the Suburban lurched and began to roll forward, downhill toward the main road.

The drive was interminable. After a few brief and fumbling
attempts at small talk the agent stopped trying, and they rode the rest of the way in silence.

At the bottom of Maureen and Donald’s hill, Blue signed the authorization papers for the sale in a daze. He didn’t feign reading them, only scrawled his messy signature on dozens of dotted lines throughout the thick stack of legal documents.

“Congratulations,” Stanley said. “You just sold a house.” He handed Blue his copy of the contracts, as well as a large packet from the estate lawyer. “And last but not least,” he added, producing a separate envelope, “the cashier’s check. Keep an eye on that, it’s like cash.”

Blue, without thought, slid the envelope into his breast pocket and opened the passenger door. He tentatively touched the toe of his boot to the road, afraid that something might reach up and grab him, pull him down into the earth like Amy Irving at the end of
Carrie
. His mind stuttered: at once he thirsted for the truth behind the newspaper clippings, and the memories that had surfaced in the basement. But a moment later he wished it would all just go away.
I should have listened to my mother
, he thought, and the words hummed in his head as he headed up to the house.
I should have listened.
The knowing and the not-knowing was splitting him in two.

He made his way toward the MacLeod House, Gabe’s halo of blond curls visible over the porch railing. Halfway up the hill, Blue whipped out his cellphone and dialed his mother’s number in New York. It took three tries for the call to finally connect.

“It’s me,” he said. His voice was flat, that of a stranger. “It’s Michael.”

“Mickey? What is it, baby?” his mother croaked; she sounded sicker than ever. “What’s wrong?”

“What happened to me, Mama?” How long it had been
since he called her that, since he cried out for her the way he had in that basement, so many years ago. “When I was little? When I was taken? What happened to me? Who took me? Do you know?”

“Where are you?”

“The cove. I’m here, in Starling Cove.”

“Oh. Oh, my baby boy. Why did you go back there?” She stifled a cough, blew her nose, and wept. He buried his face in his free hand, the paperwork from the sale pinched beneath his elbow, as the photo album had been not one hour earlier. “It’s not what you think,” she said meekly. “You came back to me. To the world.”

“Did I?” He was crying now himself. “Are you sure?”

“She lured you, Mickey. I told you! She lured you back, just like I knew she would. Even dead she won’t leave it alone. Even dead . . .”

“Mama, what am I?” he said. “Tell me what I am.”

“An angel, baby. You’re my little angel. Always have been, always will be.”

we

are not

of the fallen

A voice in his head, spoken in the otherwords.

though

we

have been called

many things

“Mickey?” his mother said. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” he said, numb. “I’m here.”

we

have always been

here

The voice was no longer solitary but part of a chorus of voices, a multilayered incantation. Blue’s vision began to refract, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

here

before the first traveler

here

with only

the sound

of rushing wind

and buzzing bees

and insects that

burrow and bite

and so

we

shall always be

It was the greatest truth Blue had ever known.

“Fly back,” his mother was saying, but it was hard to hear her, interference jamming the line. Or was that the sound of the voices in his head? “Hurry back to . . . and we can be . . . again.” She coughed and inhaled. “You were never supposed . . . I knew it would hurt, when you finally . . . I just didn’t know how much.”

“Hello? Mom? Can you hear me?”

She said something else but it was garbled, an onslaught of digital scratches and pings.

“Listen, I’m losing you,” he said. “If you can still hear me, I’ll call you from the landline.”

Blue wiped his face, filled his lungs with great big gasps of air, and let his breath erode the thoughts racing through his mind. A histrionic jolt of opera music thundered from one of
the small cabins beside the trail, and he reflexively looked heavenward. Clear skies. He took another minute to collect himself before continuing up the hill.

“So, how did it go?” asked Gabe, rocking on the porch swing with his feet upon the railing. “What was the house like?”

“Nothing special.” Blue was shivering; unable to look Gabe in the eye, he stared out at the cove instead. “It was a dump. You didn’t miss anything.”

“Was it two stories? Did you walk around the property? Is it really on ten acres? I want details.”

“Yes, no, yes. Nondescript, really. Kind of depressing. I signed the papers, so it doesn’t much matter anymore. Happy?” That Gabe tried and failed so miserably to hide his injured pride melted right through Blue’s hastily erected armor. “Sorry. I just . . . I guess I’m weirded out by being up here.”

Don’t tell
, he heard; was this his mother’s voice, now?
Don’t even tell yourself.

“Going into my dead grandmother’s house,” Blue hedged, “when I never got around to seeing her alive? It’s a shitty feeling.”

“I wish you had let us go with you,” Gabe said. “Just to, you know, support you.”

“That would have been smarter. Thanks.” Blue moved next to the swing but couldn’t bring himself to sit, so he dropped the contracts from the sale down in his stead. “I don’t belong here,” he said, and it was as if someone else had spoken through him, made him say the words. “I have to go.”

“So we’ll go,” Gabe said, his blue eyes brilliant with empathy. “We’re out of here. Tomorrow.”

But that wasn’t what Blue meant. He didn’t belong in New York, either. And he didn’t know where in the world to go next.

“It’s beautiful here,” he managed to say. “Almost painfully so, you know? But I’m ready to get the hell gone.”
And never look back.

A loud crash echoed down the hill. Gabe jumped up, and Blue looked to the road to see if there’d been a smashup. There was another crash, and then another, a clatter like glass breaking, only duller and coming from Maureen’s studio. A figure emerged: Donald, arms flailing and disoriented, the glint of the setting sun caught in the squares of his eyeglasses before he disappeared back inside. Another racket ensued, the sound of more pottery being shattered, until Donald reappeared and staggered down the path into one of the small cabins on the far side of the drive.

“What is he doing?” Gabe said. “Should we do something?”

The screen door of the MacLeod House flew open. Jason rushed down the porch stairs in a half stride, half jog, face grim with his eyes fixed on the cabin down the hill. Elisa, barefooted, followed soon after, Gabe and Blue along with her. The three struggled to keep up, as if they were merely bouncing along yet another hiking trail with Jason as their intrepid guide.

“Donald?” Jason called out as he entered the cabin. “Donald, are you all right?”

Blue and the others stood in the doorway, the subdued light at dusk doing little to illuminate the forlorn space. Donald sat in an office chair, hunched between a framed poster from a production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s
Iolanthe
and an open rolltop desk, which held what looked like a ham radio. He combed the fingers of one hand through his thinning gray hair, while the other clutched a book, the words
Entomologia Generalis, Vol. II
printed in gold on its cracked purple cover. His bird dog, Olivier, ran against Donald’s trouser legs, first one side, then the other,
a figure eight of brown fur. Jason placed a gentle hand upon the older man’s shoulder and crouched to whisper in his ear.

“I hear you,” Donald replied. “But there’s only so much time I have left.” He removed his glasses, resting them upon the book. His voice was weak and feverish; he appeared newly ancient. “I can’t find the hive without my memories. My . . . maps? Is that what they’re called? They were penciled inside one of my books. But this is the wrong volume. And it’s all going now . . .” He pressed his eyes closed and shook his head. “They’re only going to grab what they want and be gone, so how can I ever find my way back now? There’s smoke on the air already . . .”

Donald looked up at them. He squinted into the light before his eyes went wide and his jaw slackened. Returning his glasses to his face, he stood and covered his mouth. He was staring directly at Elisa, framed in the light of the doorway. “Barbara?” he said, his voice aquiver.

He reached out to her, hand trembling. The dog barked and darted across the floorboards, unsettling a frayed throw rug. “You’re back,” Donald said. “They sent you back for me . . .”

“Oh. No. I’m—” Elisa tried to back away, but was trapped against Blue and Gabe on either side of her.

Donald’s shoulders heaved, and he withdrew his hand as if he’d touched it to a hot stove. “Don’t!” he shouted, and let out an anguished moan as he lurched toward her. “Don’t leave me here!”

Elisa swallowed hard, then went to him, taking Donald in her arms. He fell against her, and the two of them slid to the ground. He sobbed as she rubbed his back. She shushed him, rocked him like a child with night terrors. Blue thought of the word
sundowning
.

“It’s okay,” Elisa said. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here. I’m here.”

The dog, hungry for inclusion in their circle of two, nuzzled against Elisa, and settled its snout on her calves. They remained in place until Maureen, frantic and soaking wet in a towel, came hurtling across the lawn. “Where is he?” she cried. “Did you see him?” She crossed the threshold and froze at the sight of Elisa and Donald in their tender pietà.

After an uncomfortable silence, she stepped inside and helped Donald up and out of Elisa’s arms. “Darling, we’re going to take a bath now,” she said firmly. “Come with me to the house.” Donald nodded, a reluctant acceptance.

As she walked him out with her arm around his bony frame, she peered at Elisa over her shoulder. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Blue and the others left the cabin in a ghostly silence. The sun had fully set and it was immeasurably darker, as if a curtain had been drawn across the sky. Halfway up the hill Elisa sneezed, then lagged behind; closer to the house she wavered and pressed a closed fist to her chest.

“Shit,” she said. “The dog . . .”

Blue moved toward her, as did Jason, who knocked into Blue in his haste. “Are you all right?” Jason asked her.

“I’m fine.” But then Elisa sneezed again, so hard that she began to cough.

Jason placed a hand on her back. “Why don’t you just take a minute to catch your breath.”

“Because I don’t want to get eaten alive by mosquitoes?” she snapped, and shrugged him off. “I said I’m fine. Let’s just go inside.”

But she wasn’t fine. It was clear an hour later that close proximity to Donald’s dog had cost her. Elisa curled up with a week-old
gossip magazine, prone beneath a quilt on the couch. Blue put a pot on the stove and assembled the makings of a broth, something he could brew with garlic and herbs as a restorative, Elisa’s wheezing audible from the kitchen.

It helped to keep busy: as long as he was at the stove, Blue needn’t think about anything else, and could at least feign a sense of calm. Jason, on the other hand, was visibly restive and at a total loss for what to do, having already foisted tea and Benadryl upon Elisa; it was as if Donald’s manic agitation had gone airborne. Elisa, for her part, seemed to refuse Jason’s care with an almost perverse sense of withholding, until his level veneer began to blister and crack.

“You
swore
to me you were going to get an EpiPen.” It occurred to Blue that he’d never heard Jason raise his voice in anger before, and certainly not toward Elisa. “If it’s not too late, maybe I can find you one in—”

“I don’t need you to find me one!” she shouted between long wheezes; the sickly sound of her voice reminded Blue of his mother and their thwarted conversation. “Stop infantilizing me,” Elisa rasped. “I can take care of myself.”

“But you can’t!” And there Jason was, authentically shouting, his soothing therapeutic disposition evaporated.
Welcome to the other side
, Blue thought, but quickly admonished himself. Gabe emptied the dishwasher, gathered wood for a fire, borrowed Blue’s lighter to hide out on the porch so he could smoke the end of a joint, all to avoid the mounting tension. Blue wanted desperately to join him, but was too wary of risking the crossfire in the living room.

“I wish you could take care of yourself,” Jason muttered.

“Leave me alone already.” She waved him away. With a
groan and an exasperated thrash of his arms, Jason stormed upstairs, his indecipherable grumblings scarcely audible before he slammed a door somewhere overhead.