Knife Lake
By Jonathan Curwen
Copyright 2011 Jonathan Curwen
Smashwords Edition
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One
Before she saw the beheaded woman, Artemis painted a red lake.
Artemis worked the undiluted hues with her index and middle fingers, pressed together as if she were an angel from a pre-Renaissance painting, granting a blessing on a Mary and Jesus. A bloody blessing it was: her fingers looked like she’d jabbed them in a wound. The lake spread out over the bottom of the canvas, an oblong of crimson glistening underneath the crude green trees and blue-white sky.
“Fabulous,” said Artemis.
She finished the lake with a flick of her fingers, spattering her thigh with paint.
She sighed. Already it was noon, and the sun shone hot on her head. Natural light was supposed to be the painter’s friend; but now its only gift was a revelation of how bad an artist she was. The September sunlight revealed her painting as crude, slapdash. The bold strokes and wild color, executed in fits of inspiration, now seemed the work of an amateur. She'd intended the red lake as avant-garde, but now it just struck her as silly.
“Shouldn’t be hard on myself,” Artemis said aloud. “Maybe.”
She stood from her chair, a creaking slung-canvas affair that barely supported her weight. She stuck her toes back into her sandals and took a few steps back, keeping her eyes on the picture. And yes, even from a distance, seen through squinted eyes, the painting was bad. It was a swirl of diluted color, save for the arterial gout representing the lake. If Artemis had seen the painting hanging in a gallery, up for serious sale, she would have laughed out loud.
She shielded her eyes and looked out at the lake. Noontime, a sun-blighted day, early autumn, and there wasn’t anyone else there but her. Should have been at least a fisherman on the water, if not a few people tubing or waterskiing, trying to extract the last pleasures from the summer. A half-assed breeze scribbled fleeting hieroglyphs on the water's surface. Leaves around the shore had just now begun to change to oranges and yellows and crimson.
“Can hardly wait to see what you’re going to think of this one, Maura,” said Artemis, turning back to the canvas. “Where you’d hang this in your house. Or if you would.”
Artemis had an urge to pitch the thing in the nearest dumpster. No use throwing it away, though, if she’d spent hours on it. Besides, she’d told Maura that her day would be spent painting, and wanted something to show for it.
Artemis sighed, and started cleaning up her brushes and paints and other assorted art crap. After some consideration, she brought two brushes down to the waterline. She squatted and dipped the red brush in the water, swirling it over the pebbles on the bottom of the lake, and then wiping the bristles against her jeans, leaving pink smears.
She stuck the white paint brush into the water, and wondered if the paint was toxic, would hurt the fish. As she splashed around she glanced idly down the shoreline and saw the man and the woman.
She frowned, shook her head.
"Great," she muttered.
The solitude had settled in with her, and now she was loathe to share it. Last thing she needed was a couple of late-season swimmers wanting to share the beach, coming over to gawk at her painting, asking stupid questions.
The couple were about fifty feet away. They must have been walking in the woods before she saw them, rambling through the thickets of poison ivy and creepers. They walked hand in hand, their arms forming a V between them.
The man was shirtless, skinny, and pale as birch bark. The woman wore what looked like a denim dress with long sleeves, and black shoes. Her hair was gathered in a loose bun. Looked like an extra from Little House on the Prairie.
The man stared straight ahead, smiling at something, while the woman looked all around her and scratched her head with her free hand.
Artemis finished wiping her brush and stood. The couple stopped a few paces out from the treeline and froze, as if posing for a picture. This gave Artemis an even better look.
The man’s hair had a razor-straight part down the middle, and his face was smooth and unlined as a teenager’s. In fact, looking at him, she saw that he was no more than eighteen or nineteen, maybe a senior from this last graduating class. As she watched, he turned to the woman and whispered, smiling as if sharing a joke. The woman didn’t respond except to nod, and her shoulders shrugged as if in an exaggerated sigh.
Artemis kept the couple in her peripheral vision as she packed up the canvas and the brushes. They didn’t look like anyone she knew from town. Could have been people passing through, but that was kind of a rarity. People would rather go to the ocean than the lake, if they weren’t locals.
She shook her head, frustrated with her less-than-friendly feelings toward them. Thinking like a small-town girl again. Wary of strangers, even if they were just from the next town over. She wouldn’t fall into provincialism, one of the hazards of growing up in New England. She told herself to keep her mind open, to keep the iron gates of insularity from springing up around her.
Perhaps she would even go over and talk to them.
Maybe.
Or maybe not.
“Not this time,” she said.
By the time Artemis had gotten all of her brushes and paints together, she felt she could comfortably ignore the couple, perhaps stay on the beach a little while longer. Couldn’t hurt. Not like there was any rush to be home. Might as well put all of the painting stuff in the car.
She had bagged all her brushes and was was taking down the easel when she saw them walking toward her.
Yes, it was clear: they weren’t wandering into her general vicinity; they were aimed straight at her, as if a pair of hunters making a beeline to their felled game. Artemis pretended to still be absorbed in taking down her easel, but she felt her cheeks reddening. She wanted to turn her back, walk to her Mercedes in the nearby parking lot, run away home.
But they were already too near. They stopped within ten feet of her.
"Dammit," said Artemis.
She forced herself to look up, give them a tentative smile.
Before she could do anything, the man spoke.
“We’ve been away for a long time,” he said. “My name is John Fairbrother. Is this still called Life Lake?”
The man’ s face could barely be called a man’s: it was even smoother up close, as if his skin were a viscous liquid. A smile disordered his face, as if he were about to lose his composure and start laughing hysterically. The woman kept her face away, and Artemis saw that her hair was a strange yellow, black and brown, like the fur of a calico cat. The woman’s bun was tight on the back of her head and shone like a glazed pastry.
“Yes,” said Artemis, careful not to look into his eyes. He was skinny, as well, looking muscular but somehow undernourished, with protuberant ribs and and a sucked-in belly. He wore some kind of cutoffs, not jeans but sunbleached canvas. Barefoot, too, with yellowed toenails.
“Hmmm.” The man looked to the woman. “Charity, Charity. We’re back. We’re here. The Knife Lake.”
Artemis felt her skin prickle.
The woman–Charity, Artemis supposed–didn’t respond. The wind played with tendrils of her hair that had fallen from the bun. Charity’s neck was longer than Artemis had previously thought, and skinny, with webs of veins close to the surface.
“That’s right,” said the man, still looking at Charity. “Knife Lake, where everything is going to be right.” At the end of his sentences, the man rushed his words together: gonnabeallright.
Artemis saw something that had been nagging at her subconscious, perhaps refusing to be acknowledged: the top half of the man’s right ear was missing. A clean horizontal line marked the space between his flesh and nothingness; there was no ragged scar tissue, no keloidation. Three or four gold rings glittered like coins on the cartilage.
“Yes,” said Charity, her voice scratchy. “I believe in you, John.”
“And I believe in you as well, darling of my life, catching mitt of my spurting cock.” The man–John, now–then used his free hand to reach over to Charity. Artemis watched as the man first grabbed a piece of her dress. Then with the same hand he gave her right breast a hard squeeze.
Artemis’ heart kicked into gear. “O-kay,” she said, backing away. That had certainly been unexpected.
“Oh, Charity,” said John. “Charity, let’s have relations here on the beach. If you could call this little fuck of sand a beach. A fuck of sand! Isn’t that hilarious?” His hand clenched and unclenched on the woman’s breast.
“Hilarious,” said Charity.
Artemis looked away from them. Her face burned hotter than sunburn. Clenching her teeth, she picked up the bag of brushes and paints. The easel still stood in the sand, along with the painting. If need be, she would come back for them later. Best now to get away from these people, whoever the hell they were. Maybe they were on some kind of drugs, or were mentally disturbed. Maybe they were homeless. Artemis cursed herself for staying on the beach after seeing them. Grief–that’s what you get for trying to open yourself up to the world, she supposed.
As Artemis took the first step away from the couple, the man-boy called John looked toward her. She saw the sun catch the rings in his ruined ear as his head moved. His plastered hair remained motionless.
“Aw, sorry,” he said. My enthusiasm for this place...” John gestured at the lake with his free hand. “We go back a long way. And the world-knife is going to love it, too.”
“Love it,” said Charity, itching the side of her nose.
“Great,” said Artemis, her heart beating so hard it made her teeth chatter. She didn’t meet the guy’s eyes, but felt them boring into her skull. “Well, see you later.”
Artemis turned toward the car. She rubbed her face with her free hand, as if she could wipe away her intense blush. Stupid kids, stupid people. Should be caged for the summertime, if not year-round.
“Wait, wait,” called John after her. Artemis heard their shuffling steps behind hers.
She didn’t respond, kept walking.
“Really, wait,” came Charity’s scratchy voice.
Artemis made a fist with her free hand. Her heart slammed at her throat.
Stupid kids didn’t know when to quit.
Though her Mercedes was in sight, glittering blue in the parking lot, she decided to confront them. Otherwise they might follow her to the car. God knew what they’d do there.
She turned around, clenching her fist at her side. The bag was heavy in her hand, but not too heavy to swing if the need arose.
“What?” she said.
This whole course of action surprised her. She wasn’t given to confrontation at all. But something in the way these people acted–something dirty, something that repulsed her–awakened an instinct of fight, not flight. It was as if part of her knew they wouldn’t leave her alone, and running would only put off the inevitable conflict.
Fight? she thought. I’ve never been in a fight in my life.
John smiled, splitting his face open. It was and ecstatic expression, so full of relief and goodwill, that it put Artemis slightly off of the defensive.
But only slightly.
“Sorry,” he said, again rushing his words together. “We’re just very very excited to be back here, and we figured we’d have some intercourse on the beach. Sorry.”
“Sorry,” said Charity. The woman was no longer looking away. Her face was older than John’s. Her eyebrows joined in the middle, a single graceful brown sweep over her eyes.
“We’d like to make up our offense to you,” said John. “What can we do to make it up, Charity?”
“I need to go,” said Artemis. She shook her head. “Just leave you guys alone, do whatever you want to do. See you later.” She started to turn around again, walk back to the car. Her heart beat so hard that it made her voice vibrate. Sweat broke out in her armpits and coursed down her flanks.
Then, John said: “How much do you weigh? Two-hundred? Two-ten?”
Artemis froze.
She felt like she’d been punched.
Her mouth open, she turned to John, whose smile didn’t falter. Charity had looked away again, her gaze on someone’s scabby old canoe beached and chained to a boulder.
“What?” said Artemis.
John licked his lips and giggled. His ribs juggled up and down on his chest. “I was wondering how much you weighed,” he said. “You look like a nice fuckable fat girl. Lots of pillowing, lots of cushions. I bet I could bounce my cock off of you.” John put his finger in his mouth. “I think I’m falling in love with your body,” he said. “I can make you independent of your body, just like Charity here. She doesn’t need her body to live.”
“True, I don’t,” said Charity.
Artemis blinked rapidly.
“What?” she said.
John’s free hand messed around with the loops of gold in his ear.
“Would you like to have a threesome here on the beach with us, fat girl?” he said. “I bet Charity wouldn’t mind, now, would you darling?”
Artemis felt her vision grow dim. Memories, all unbidden and unwelcome, came back to assault her:
James Delaney in her senior year, telling her at prom that she looked like a pig wrapped in butcher paper. Tabitha Greene slipping diet pills through the air vents in her locker, and the pills cascading out when she opened the door, skittering over the linoleum like insects. Tabitha laughing with her clique of awful friends, and then Artemis slipping on the pills and falling on her stomach. “Get in shape, fatty,” Tabitha had crowed. “Maybe you won’t fall all over yourself next time.”
Terrible memories. Little pieces of Hell from her past.
Artemis wiped her eyes. “What?” she said.
“I’m going to give you a gift, because I’ve fallen in love with you,” said John. “Your body stinks of the dead. You won’t need it.”
John reached for her.
She had never been in a fight before, and surely no male had reached for her. Now, both events seemed to be happening at once. A combination of her rage and fear and humiliation welled up within her, and her body reacted almost without her knowledge. Electricity shot lightning-like through her nerve, and she reared back her hand and punched John squarely in the face.
The blow hit and she heard a smack like a handclap.
John’s head snapped backward. He didn’t let go of Charity’s hand, and the other woman looked at them with her single eyebrow raised in surprise and her mouth open, revealing little teeth that were the yellow of popcorn kernels.
As her fist skidded from John’s face, Artemis felt herself overbalancing. She had put her entire weight into the blow, and now she was falling forward. Desperately she wheeled her arms, trying to right herself, but momentum overcame her and she crashed onto her stomach. Again she heard Tabitha’s shitty voice in her head, taunting her as she skidded across the lobby of Cumberland Valley High School, every pair of eyes following her.
“Oh, no,” she heard Charity say, her voice flat, as if nothing was wrong.
Artemis scraped across the beach and stopped a couple of feet short of the water.
She froze for a moment, eye-to-eye with the green border of the lake.
“Ow,” John said.
Artemis made a strangled noise. She pressed her palms against the sand, pushing herself up. Must have thrown something out in her back, because pain stabbed her between the shoulders like a knife in her vertebrae.
Nonetheless she got up faster than she thought possible, the sand pouring from her body. She turned around and saw John and Charity still standing there, holding hands.
They had turned toward her. Charity covered her mouth with her free hand. John clutched at his cheek.
“Fucker,” was the first thing that came out of Artemis’s mouth. Even as she spoke, she felt another surge of shame. Her tears made the world into a wobbly cataract of color and light. She pawed at her eyes to clear them.
John just stared at her, as did Charity. Her hand itched to punch him again, to feel the knuckles connecting with his chin, perhaps knocking out some teeth and shutting him up for good.
But instead, she said, “I need to get out of here now.”
Artemis shuffled over to her bag, picked it up, feeling the couple’s eyes on her. She shot them one more glance, and saw that John had taken his hand away from his face. A red spot burned on his cheek. It would be one hell of a bruise.
And the, alarmingly, John laughed.
“I am in love with you now,” he said, as Artemis hustled over the beach, toward the parking lot. Never in her life had she wanted to be in her car as badly. To be in the air-conditioned, new-car-smelling cocoon, and insane druggies and their awful girlfriends left outside. Drive away and forget about this. Never come to the beach again.
“I would like to show you something before you leave,” John called.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Artemis said. She was halfway off the beach. “Leave me the fuck alone, you asshole.”
“No, wait, I have to show you,” she heard.
And Artemis tripped again.
As she lifted her foot, she felt a pressure on the sole of her shoe, as if a hand had reached from the sand and pushed. She went over onto her side this time. As pain shot through her hip and spine and her breath left her, she rolled over onto her back, already struggling to sit up. The humiliation was now like a migraine, stabbing the backs of her eyes.
“What the fuck?” she managed. “What the fuck are you doing...”
“Please,” said John. “I can show you what I can do. I can make you independent of your body, like Charity. I’ve fallen in love with you.”
“Fallen in love,” said Charity.
“Even though you stink of the dead,” said John.
Artemis forced herself to sit, and then froze. Her eyes went to John’s hand.
The knife had appeared from nowhere. It was a foot long, with a dark blade that looked like a piece of metal wrenched from a car wreck. Its edge shone silver and white.
“Watch this,” said John. “This is what I can do for you.”
“Watch,” said Charity.
Before Artemis could run, rise, or even breathe, John had the knife at Charity’s neck. The woman’s smile never faltered, and she never stopped holding John’s hand.
With a twitch, John shoved the blade into Charity’s flesh.
The blade cut halfway through the woman’s neck, stopping underneath her chin.
“See?” said John. “Look!”
Artemis could not move, though she felt her limbs shaking.
And Charity still smiled, still waggled her one eyebrow. And there was no blood.
“See!” said John again. His free hand went to the top of Charity’s head, and grabbed the bun. He held it like the handle on a pot lid. His knife-arm twitched and the blade cut through the other half of her neck, jutting out of the other side with a flourish.
“See!” said John, like an excited kid. “See see see!”
“See?” said Charity. Her voice sounded flat, bored.
“She doesn’t need her body, and you won’t need yours, either. I promise you,” said John. “I’ve fallen in love with you.”
And then John pulled on Charity’s hair, removing her head from her neck. Once again, there was no blood, no great gouts of red like the lake Artemis had just painted. And Charity’s body didn’t fall; it stood there, hips slightly contrapposto under the long denim skirt, skinny fingers on her waist. Artemis saw one of the vertebra, on the open wound of Charity’s neck like a roll of sushi.
‘I don’t need my body,” said Charity’s head, dangling from John’s hand.
“That’s right,” said John.
Artemis sat in the sand. She became vaguely aware of her eyes blinking, of her feet scrabbling in the sand before her. Charity’s head blinked at her, and smiled again.
“What’s the matter, dear?” the head asked. “Scared?”
Artemis found herself on her feet. She did not feel her body; it was as if she’d had a massive injection of novocain. Her hand went to her face as nausea came upon her, and vomit burned at the back of her throat.
Surely this couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be. It was a hallucination, from dehydration and long hours in the sun and the creative work she’d been forcing her brain into completing. No reality lurked behind this. It was a grotesque fantasy, from a bad horror movie seen years ago and absorbed into her subconscious.
She felt herself bend over and take her bag. The gesture felt too normal, given the circumstances: just packing up, taking off from the beach after a normal day painting in the sunlight. Perhaps going to get some ice cream, or for a burger at McDonald's. Then home, and watching TV till she fell asleep. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“Don’t leave,” said John.
Then John turned his head toward Charity’s. The head smiled as John swung it toward him. They looked into each other’s eyes, intimately as any lovers Artemis had ever seen. The gold earrings glittered.
“To Knife Lake, and to our new lover,” said John.
“Yes,” said Charity.
They kissed.
“Oh my God,” said Artemis, choking and falling back.
Artemis felt the vomit splash from her mouth. It tasted vaguely of the chicken salad sandwich she’d eaten hours back. She leaned forward in time to dump it all onto the sand.
Charity’s head and John Fairbrother remained locked in a passionate kiss. His head gripped her hair tightly, the muscles in his thin arm taut.
Artemis straightened up and felt her body moving backward, her legs working in the sand that now dragged at her legs like quicksand.
If the lovers heard her, they didn’t react. Their lips smacked. Charity’s tongue darted out and licked John’s chin.
And Artemis stepped back, back, until her body turned around. The parking lot was less than twenty feet away
She found herself running for the first time in years. Her sandals barely clung to her feet as they smacked her heels and sprayed sand.
Then she was on the pavement. The impacts sent shockwaves from her legs, made her breasts bounce painfully. Then she bounced to a halt at the driver’s side of her car, fumbling with the key at the door. The car had an automatic locking mechanism, and she’d never actually manually unlocked the door. But now in her panic she stabbed key into lock and twisted so hard her knuckles cracked.
She dropped into the seat, bouncing the car on its stiff shocks. She slammed the door shut, and scrambled to thrust the key into the ignition.
“Oh, shit,” she said, her voice loud in the cabin. Her hand trembled so badly that her keys jingled, but she finally found the ignition slot. The Mercedes' engine roared to life.
Artemis looked up, out of the windshield.
“Oh shit shit shit,” she said again.
On the edge of the parking lot, there stood John and Charity. Walking towards her.
And Charity had her head.
The woman’s neck showed no sign of trauma. No red seam marked where John’s knife had bitten through her. Indeed, she was smiling, and once again holding John’s hand. Her bun had mostly disintegrated, leaving her calico-patchwork hair to cascade over her shoulders. John, walking beside her, smiled a lazy post-coital smile.
Artemis’ hand slipped from the gearshift, as she tried to jam the Mercedes into reverse. Cursing, she wiped her sweaty palm on her shorts.
John’s eyes met hers. He shrugged his shoulders, as if to say What the hell? And he raised his right hand, showing her an object that he’d impaled on his knife.
Her painting, its colors gaudy in the sunlight.
On the second try, she got a firm grip of the shifter and threw it into reverse. Artemis jammed on the accelerator. She backed up without turning her head, chirping the Mercedes’ wheels.
She jammed it into drive, and looked again to John and Charity, who now stood about twenty feet away. Charity had again lapsed into looking over her shoulder, apparently disinterested in all the action around her. A brown bird, a starling or a sparrow, flittered by, and Charity pointed to it.
John continued to hold up her painting, as if it were the skin of a slaughtered animal. His mouth moved. Of course Artemis couldn’t hear him, being inside the car’s near-soundproof cabin, but she did see the distinct shape of his lips and the words they formed:
See you later.
“Fuck you,” Artemis said.
She jammed on the accelerator pedal. The car responded enthusiastically, and she shot through the parking lot.
She took a hard right out of the lot, fighting the urge to floor the accelerator. Soon she was on the road, driving fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. The pavement blurred as tears came again.
Artemis didn’t look back, didn’t spare one glance in the rearview mirror. As she drove, lightheadedness attacked again. Her breath came shorter and shorter, until she gasped for air as if she was drowning. Sweat ran into her eyes, and her hands trembled so violently she was afraid she’d lose her grip on the wheel. Her foot jiggled up and down on the accelerator, making the car lurch and sway. If a police officer saw her, he’d pull her over for suspected DUI.
She drove blindly, nearly unconsciously, for some time. She crested a small hill, and saw a white building with an empty parking lot. It was a little ice cream place called Walt’s, boarded up for the summer.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” said Artemis as she swung into the parking lot. Her voice trembled as much as her hands. She needed to calm down. If she continued driving in this state, she’d crash for sure. And there was no way that John or Charity could walk the distance she’d put between them in less than ten, fifteen minutes.
Artemis pulled up next to the building, parked at the pick-up window. She put the Mercedes in park, and turned up the air conditioning, aiming the vents directly toward her. Her body burned, and sweat bathed her. The feeling of detachment, of disconnection with herself and her emotions, came again, and strongly. She’d had panic attacks before, of varying severity, but this topped them all. This was shell-shock, the kind that no amount of rationality could assuage.
She leaned forward, put her head on the wheel. As the A/C vents blasted her, she hugged herself and closed her eyes.
Deep breaths, slow breathing. That was the first step.
After maybe ten breaths, she had her heart rate and respiration calmed somewhat. Her mind still felt like a spatter painting, thrown against a blood-colored canvas. But after a few more breaths she’d regained even more control.
Images danced on the back of her eyelids: John, Charity, the knife, Charity’s head, her painting impaled on John’s knife. The red spot of the lake in her painting, like the red spot on Jupiter, the storm the size of three-hundred Earths. Brown birds flying by.
She opened her eyes and took her head off the steering wheel. Her sweat left a dark stain on the leather. Beside her, she saw the white paint that had spilled from her bag and onto the floor. It was bright white, as if a bird had taken a crap next to her.
Another deep breath, and she repeated aloud: “I am fine. I am fine. There is nothing wrong. I am fine.” You were supposed to say that in moments of panic; sort of sweet-talking your subconscious into passivity.
“I am fine, I am fine, I am fine,” she repeated.
But saying it was one thing, and believing it something else entirely.
And what the hell had just happened?
Had it been a hallucination? She had never taken LSD before, or any other drug stronger than aspirin, for that matter. The chances that it was a vision were slim, unless someone had slipped her a seriously time-delayed dose of the most potent psychotropic drug imaginable. And from what she’d heard, drug fantasies were a kind of disorganized phantasmagoria; this had been linear, exact, real. She’d punched the man in the face, for Christ’s sake. Her knuckles still ached from the impact. He’d developed a bruise on his face.
What did that leave? Schizophrenia or paranoia or something like that. Losing it mentally. She’d taken pathology in college, and the professor, Dr. James, had included a survey of mental illnesses along with the physical ones. In real schizophrenia, your personalities weren’t split, and you had elaborate delusions. These delusions could take logical forms, like people.
"Oh, no," she said. "I'm not schizo. Not going schizo."
And then there was the worst option: it had been real. John and Charity were real people.
She aimed one of the A/C vents directly at her forehead. The cold air dried the sweat. Suddenly all Artemis wanted to do was to lie down on the seats, take a nap. The adrenaline was burned from her system, leaving her logy.
But she had to do something. What? Go to the police? And tell them what? Officer, there’s this man and woman on the beach. The guy beheaded the woman and made out with her and said nasty sexual things to me. No, the woman’s not dead. She’s fine; it was like she enjoyed being beheaded. Yeah, that would be real effective. They'd lock her in a padded cell and throw away the key.
But she needed to tell someone. Who could she call? Who would understand?
Only half-thinking, Artemis popped open the glove compartment. She took out her iPhone, a recent purchase, with all manner of features she hadn’t used yet. The salesman, like everyone in Life Lake, had known her financial situation, and of course sold her the most expensive plan in the store. She’d bought a protective silicone case, which was red, like the lake in her painting–
–and like the blood that should have fallen from Charity’s neck.
She opened her contacts and scrolled through them. There were only a few names. The first entry to grab her attention was Leigh FUNERAL HOME.
“Got to talk, please, someone be there,” she said, and hit SEND. After a few seconds of digital silence, there were a couple of rings.
Then a male voice said, “Leigh Funeral Home, this is Ray.”
Artemis didn’t say anything for a moment. She opened her mouth, and listened to the silence on the other end. Ray shifted in his chair, and she heard it squeal.
“Hi,” she said. “Um, hi.”
“Hello,” said Ray. “Can I help?”
“Um, Ray?”
“Yes?" Then, as he recognized her voice, "Artemis! Oh, jeez. Thought it was a prank call. Glad it's not. Howdy. How are you?”
Artemis rubbed her forehead. “Um. Ray. I, uh, I don’t know.”
She felt herself redden again. Even through all of the fear and pain, there came a sting of embarrassment at her stumbling attempts at conversation.
A moment of silence. “Artemis?” Ray prompted.
“Yeah, yeah. Here.”
“Artemis, are you okay?” She imagined Ray leaning forward on his desk, putting his right elbow down, like he always did. Maybe he was wearing his blue tie, the one with the gold pinstripes.
She took a deep breath. “Yes, Ray. Yes.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“Um, sorry, Ray. This isn’t the right number, I think. Um, was gonna call Maura, I think.”
“Oh.” Again with the creaking chair. “Okay.”
“Have to go, Ray. Good talking.”
“Uh, okay,” Ray sounded confused, but in an amused way. “I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Sure, Ray. Bye.”
She hung up without waiting for an answer. Then she stared out the windshield a moment, breathing slowly.
She let her fingers tap out Maura’s number, which she knew by heart.
“Artemis,” said Maura, picking up on the third ring. “Are you done with your painting?”
The sound of her sister’s voice broke her down again. She wept.
Artemis couldn’t talk. The tears came in huge choking torrents, coursing down her face. She nearly couldn’t breathe. Soon her tears slicked the iPhone, ran down her wrist to her elbow. She leaned forward into the steering wheel, while hearing Maura make soothing noises.
When she could speak, Artemis said, “Help.”
“Yes, Missy, right,” said Maura. The sound on the other side of her sister walking through her cavernous kitchen, heels knocking on marble tile. "Is it Ray again? More people, they bothering you for money?”
“No, no, no,” said Artemis. “Maura, I’m losing it. Really am.”
“Losing it? Like how?”
“Something just happened. I don’t know. I just don’t know...”
Her sister was silent for a moment. Then: “All right, all right. You just stay where you are.” The sound of her sister’s huge keyring jingling. “Just stay. I’ll be there. Where are you?”
“Lake.”
“Near your house?”
“No, at Walt’s, other side of the lake. I’ll meet you at the house, Maura.”
“Are you sure? All right to drive?” The sound of the door opening, and Eli, Maura’s husband, muttering something. Maura must have covered the mouthpiece then, and said something bitchy to him. Artemis only heard the nasty tone of her voice.
After her sister shut up, Artemis said, "I'm all right to drive.".
“Sure?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Can you tell me? Or do you want to wait until I get there? If it can’t wait, I’ve got time...”
“Tell you at home, Maura. It’s...weird.”
The sound of Maura’s car door opening, the BMW Roadster Artemis had bought her. “All right, honey,” said Maura. “All right. Promise me you’re going to be all right to get there.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll be all right. I promise you.”
Sound of an engine starting. “I’ll be at your house in twenty minutes.”
“I might be a little bit later,” said Artemis. “I’ve got to calm down a little bit. Take some deep breaths.”
“That’s it. Be strong. I’ll see you there, all right? Hold on, okay?”
“Fine,” said Artemis.
They hung up. Already, the sound of Maura’s voice, and her maternal concern, had somewhat smoothed the frenzy in her nerves. No matter what it was–hallucination, insanity, or reality–Maura would guide her through it. If it turned out she was insane and needed a doctor, Maura would hold her hand through the first dose of antipsychotics and beyond. If John and Charity were real people, if reality had distorted and stretched and ultimately popped like a soap bubble, then she wouldn’t have to face the new reality alone.
Artemis tossed the iPhone onto the passenger’s seat, next to the overturned bag. She wiped her face with her hands and shamelessly blew her nose into them. Wiping her snot on her jeans, along with a goodly portion of sweat, she again took the wheel. Everything wasn’t all right; far from it. But at least the situation was improving.
Then, as she looked out the window, she said, “Oh, shit.”
How she could have missed it was a mystery. It was right in her line of sight, stuck to the Mercedes’ hood. Right there in brown and red and white.
A bird. The sparrow.
Dead and twisted.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered.
There was no way she could have hit it, run it over in her flight. The last time she’d seen it, it had flown past Charity. The woman had pointed to it, like a child points at something they want their parent to see.
That woman must have done something to it. If she could have her head removed and still look comfortable, then who knew what other nasty miracles were within her reach?
The bird’s wings were spread. A trail of gore led from its stomach and across the hood. One of its small black eyes was open, staring and senseless.
Artemis felt nothing. Her well of emotions had run dry.
Slowly, she got out of the car. The day was shockingly hot without the air conditioning, and sweat sprang again to her forearms.
The revulsion she felt when she reached out to the little corpse was like a phantom ache, something she barely even registered. She flicked the bird with four fingers, sending it tumbling from the hood onto the pavement. It left behind a green patch, that looked somehow like a patch of grass clippings.
This is what it must be like to go insane, she heard her brain say, as if it were a separate being dictating its observations. Pervasive numbness. Staring into the void.
Moving in her trance, she returned to her seat in the car and closed the door. She put it into reverse and eased backward from the parking spot.
If John and Charity had decided to follow her, they might have been well on their way. For all she knew, they could fly; and would soar down from the afternoon sky, landing on the hood of the Mercedes and smashing her just like the bird.
“No,” said Artemis. She hit the brake and slapped herself, hard enough to sting. “No. Feel again. Go. Get out. Get to your house. Maura’s there. Things will be better.”
Artemis shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. There wasn’t another car in sight down either side of Shore Road, which ran around the lake like a noose around a neck. Her house was five miles away, on the other side of the lake, concealed by pine trees that she could have seen from the beach if she’d had binoculars.
Suddenly she wished that she didn’t have a house on the lake; that she lived somewhere in the middle of the desert, near no water, no ocean, no rain. A place where the sand was cocoa powder and the sky a blue glass. Nowhere near Life Lake.
But no–that wasn't its name anymore.
Now it would be forever Knife Lake.
She made it onto the road all right, and he hands shook only slightly.
The setting sun painted the horizon red.
Two
“I need her,” said John. “I need her, Charity. I have fallen irrevocably in love.”
Charity leaned her head on John’s shoulder. She raked the sand with her toes.
“Yes, John,” she said. “Yes. Whatever you want, John.”
“She was not impressed with us,” he said. “She ran.”
“That is her loss, Johnny.”
John frowned. He set the painting gently down on the sand. The red lake caught his eye again. It was as beautiful as a third-degree burn.
John closed his eyes and sighed with pleasure. Having eyes again was a marvel: darkness and light were merely a blink apart. And when he closed his eyes he saw the woman: wide hips in dirty trousers, squatting next to the water to clean her brushes, lovely brown hair curling down her back.
And if he wanted her, then the Insane God would want her.
He opened his eyes, and his face deformed into a smile.
“We need to go and get her,” said John. “We need to.”
Charity sighed. She rubbed her long neck with her skinny fingers and curled her legs underneath her. “You will have to ask the God,” she said. “Do you think he will want to be bothered?”
“You stupid piece of filth,” snarled John. “Diseased corpse. Slut.”
Charity smiled as he said this, and tapped her teeth with a fingernail.
“If the God didn’t want to be bothered, then he wouldn’t have selected me,” John continued. “Don’t you think?”
“He does love you.”
“I’ve got to ask him now,” said John. He pushed Charity aside, and stood up. Wind hissed in the trees around them, and carved a fine chop into the green water. What a pleasure, the water! So much like blood.
“What I will want, he will want,” John said with assurance.
“He shall want something in return,” said Charity.
John kicked sand into Charity’s face. She sputtered and leaned away and rubbed her eyes, while he threw his head back and laughed.
“I know that.” He helped Charity brush some of the sand from her shoulders and head. “Please, Charity, get up. I need to talk to Him, for he is there whenever I want him. Sometimes even before.”
Charity looked up to John. A shred of dry weed clung to her eyebrow. Her eyes were bright red and bloodshot, as if she’d walked through a burning house. She stood up, her knees cracking, sand tumbling off her dress.
John smiled and took her hand. She smiled back. He saw a flash of the woman over whom he’d salivated over those many years ago:
She had stood outside the cabin, washing her hair in the lake. Her breasts glittered with water in the morning light. Her hands dripping with bright water as if she were producing quicksilver from her fingertips.
So many years ago! He’d wanted her then and he'd gotten her. And now, after many more years, they were back together.
And he’d found yet another love.
Ah, the blessings!
Charity held his hand, and looked back and forth over the beach. The wind stirred her hair. John thought of ripping it from the bun, letting it loose like an animal’s fur, dangling down her back. Perhaps he could take out the knife again...
Then Charity squinted her eyes. She looked toward the wood. Her hand grew tense in his.
“Charity?” said John. The skin on his arms prickled.
“There’s something of His here,” said Charity. “I think He knew what you wanted before you knew.”
John cast his gaze with Charity’s. The prickles on his arms became high-gauge needles, puncturing his skin.
Then he smiled. He squeezed Charity's hand.
“He really does know before we even ask,” he said. “Praise Him.”
Charity pointed into the woods. “There,” she said. “He knew before you even thought to ask. Before you even thought to ask. We are indeed fortunate,”
In the woods, twilight made the trees brown and black stripes, and the leaves flakes of brown paint. The darkness beyond the trees, which he and Charity had stepped through just hours before, had become articulate somehow. It made words, and circles, and symbols that worked their way into John's mind only to lose form and disintegrate like blown ash.
“Indeed praise him,” he said.
Together they watched the darkness. The articulations spun inside of his mind, through the gray coils of his new brain, stretching across his nerves. The darkness did not lighten, but changed color, to a purple like spilled wine.
“He sends us a messenger,” said John.
He let go of Charity’s hand. and strode across the beach, his feet cutting into the sand like blades. The darkness became the purple again, then black, then a red that was too dark to be called a color.
“This is wonderful,” said John Fairbrother. “This will be wonderful. Can you take me to her? To my new love?”
“Yes,” said the articulated darkness.
Three
Artemis pulled into her driveway and saw Maura’s BMW there, tucked next to the huge maple tree. “Thank God,” she said aloud, pulling into her parking space. “Thank God.”
Life Lake glittered behind her house, only a few yards from her back door.
She could have afforded a grander house, but this one had suited her: a sturdy two-story New England Cape, complete with white clapboard walls and black shutters and a brick chimney. She’d added a porch around the entire house, and had some landscaping done, but that was about it for improvements. A smaller house was better for one person, anyway. It gave her a sense of safety, privacy.
Artemis yanked the gearshift into park, and sat for a moment, listening to the silence. The guts of the bird still smeared the hood. She looked away from them.
When she got out of the car, into the shade of the maple tree, her legs felt like they’d been beaten with hammers. Certainly a bruise lurked underneath the legs of her jeans, a present to unwrap tonight, and a reminder that what she’d experienced was real.
She walked toward the house, kicking off her sandals on the way. Grass tickled her feet. Thirst had turned her throat into a furry tube.
And she saw Maura sitting on one of the chairs on the porch, smoking one of her Virginia Slims.
“God, Missy, what the hell?” Maura stood, the muscles in her legs flexing. “You look like utter shit!”
Artemis couldn’t bring herself to cry again.
“So much for painting,” she said, as Maura stormed down the stairs and hustled across the lawn to embrace her.
Hugging her skinny sister was like hugging a pile of sticks wrapped in a tarp. Maura’s bones stuck out at angles which seemed to find every sensitive spot on Artemis’ body, padded or not, and poke them mercilessly. Maura didn’t need exercise to keep her skeletal build; in fact, she ate more than Artemis.
But then, Artemis was glad for the attention. She let her sister fret and rub her back, even though it made her self-conscious of the flab underneath her loose t-shirt.
After about a minute, her sister let her go.
“You cut your hair,” Artemis told her.
Maura smiled. Her sharp nose wrinkled, and her fat lips split over yellowed teeth. Maura’s smiles were more like scowls.
“Eli hates it,” said Maura. “Which was enough reason for me to do it.”
Artemis couldn’t help but smile.
“There, that’s good,” said Maura. She stood next to Artemis, but her arm around her shoulders, started guiding her toward the house. “Had me scared.”
They went inside. Maura pulled up a chair in the small kitchen, forced Artemis to sit.
“You have to lock the doors,” said Artemis.
"Lock the doors?"
"Yes."
Maura stopped fussing in the refrigerator, where she had silently strode and was now fruitlessly hunting for something to drink. “Why?” she said.
“I’ll do it myself,” said Artemis, getting out of the chair. In a moment she’d locked both the screen door and main door, slapping the deadbolt home with unnecessary force.
Artemis sat on the chair once again. She put her head in her hands, stared at her sandy bare feet.
“Not gonna believe a word,” she said.
Maura pulled up a seat next to her. She put her hand on Artemis’s shoulder and rubbed. The gesture was intended to be soothing but it just ended up being annoying. Artemis shrugged her hand away.
“I’m not insane,” she said. Maura looked so different with her her hair in a bob, with gold hoop earrings dangling underneath the severe straight hairline. It was like talking to a stranger.
“I believe you,” said Maura. “Now. Please talk.”
So Artemis talked.
She recounted the series of events numbly, feeling as if she were reading a newspaper report about someone else’s tragedy. There was no feeling of catharsis or relief; just the sense that she was taking dictation off the recordings in her mind.
Maura listened, hand on her chin. Her eyes grew wider when Artemis spoke of the beheading, and the make-out session that came afterward. Maura leaned forward, picking at her lips as if trying to stop the words Artemis knew were waiting on her tongue.
When Artemis had finished, Maura said, “I know who those people are.”
“What?” Artemis said, rocking back in her chair. “How?”
“They came into the shop a couple of times, in this past week. Eli told me about them. And I saw them, too.”
Eli owned Sugar Coat, a chocolate and pastry shop. It was something of a local institution, with a loyal sweet-toothed clientele that kept it afloat. Even though he technically didn’t have to work, Eli was there nearly every day. Sometimes Maura would deign to come in and help, and suck down some of the free chocolate that Eli never seemed to bring home on his own accord.
“Those people are real, Artemis. You’re not hallucinating them. They came in last Friday night, right when we were about to close up.”
Artemis looked to the door again. Yes, it was locked. She felt an urge to pull something heavy in front of the door–a couch, a table, herself, anything.
“The woman, she wore this awful dress, long, like something you’d think one of the pilgrims would wear,” continued Maura. “And he...had these funny eyes. White hair. And he kept saying the most random things you can imagine. Ordered about three pounds of chocolate, too, and I swear to God they ate most of it there. I thought they were some kind of hippies or something, or they were on some kind of drugs.”
Artemis stood up from the chair. She paced around the kitchen, looking out the windows. Outside, twilight. Lights had sprung up like fireflies at some of the houses around the lake. The security light in her yard tripped on, attracting a swarm of flies.
She shivered and hugged herself.
“I don’t know who they are,” she said. “Or why they decided to do that to me.”
“Missy, Missy,” said Maura, from the table. “They were weird. Very weird. But are you sure...”
“Sure of what?”
“Oh, honey, please.” Maura crossed and recrossed her sticklike legs. “Are you sure you haven’t...”
“Haven’t what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Taken drugs, or something like that? Had too much to drink, or too much sun?”
Artemis turned suddenly. “Jesus Christ, Maura. What do you think? None of that shit, you know it.”
“Missy, please. Don’t be like this.”
Artemis leaned against the kitchen counter, which had recently been redone at some expense. Granite countertops, Italian glass backsplash. A pretty penny. More than she had ever been willing to spend before. Now it was just like pocket change; a day’s interest on the balance in her bank.
“I know how it sounds,” she said. “I know. I know. But I swear to you, Maura, it all happened. That man cut off that woman’s head. But she’s fine, now. He said he was in love with me, and that he’d see me later.” Tears came again. “Oh, God, I need something to drink.”
“Artemis, I think you need to think all of this through, rationally.” Maura remained seated, her arms folded in front of her: the very image of their mother, helpful yet disapproving. “Think. Thinking will be the key to unlocking all of this. You have to be rational.”
“I’m ready to be rational,” said Artemis, wiping away another of her tears. Right then and there, she wanted to sleep, to lean against the counter with her head on the cool tile and drift off, let the day slip away into the succor of dreams. Perhaps dream about Ray, or the days she had worked with him in the funeral home. Or that time he took her out to Happy Garden, the cheesiest Chinese place on the East coast, where they'd laughed at the decor of ceramic cats and goldfish, and gotten drunk on the scorpion bowl. A shared scorpion bowl. His smile had burned itself into her brain. She hadn’t wanted the night to end, and in a way it hadn’t, for she dreamed of it often.
“Okay,” said Maura. “Okay. Now, let’s see to that drink you wanted. What kind of booze do you keep in this damn house, anyway?”
“I think there’s some vodka in the freezer. Pomegranate stuff in the fridge.”
Maura was already on her feet, her heels clicking on the floor. The very expensive marble floor, the color of caramel. The floor that cost more than she had made in an entire year at Leigh Funeral Home. Kind of bizarre, here in the little Cape Cod house by the lake, now that she thought about it. Conspicuous consumption, and all that.
Maura was mercifully silent as she made the drinks. Artemis rubbed the bridge of her nose and took deep breaths.
Already there were peep toads trilling on the lake, making late summer noises.
“All right,” said Maura, after a time. She put a tumbler three-quarters full in front of Artemis. By the smell of it, the greater part of the drink was vodka.
Artemis picked up the glass and dragged herself back to the table. The scrape on her leg throbbed, demanding attention.
Maura gave her best condescending smile, and raised her glass. “Cheers.”
Maura sipped hers, while Artemis took a huge swallow, and almost choked. The thing must have been more than half vodka. Even making it with Grey Goose, it tasted like gasoline.
Artemis put down the glass. The booze burned a path through her esophagus, finally settling in her stomach and condensing into a soft fireball. “Strong,” she wheezed.
Maura gave her a tight-lipped smile. Her sister had her legs crossed at the knee, and she made circles in the air with her toes, round and around. It was a tic that Artemis had known about since they were little: a sure sign that Maura was simmering with impatience, and would sink into full lecture-mode before long. Her sister only wanted the best for her; she’d take a bullet for her if needed. But that devotion came with a henpecking motherliness that Artemis could have done without for the time being.
“Now,” Maura said. “Obviously we have to call the police. Have to report these people.”
“And tell them what?” said Artemis. “That there’s some guy on the beach cutting off his–”
“Let me finish. Despite what happened or not, he said some nasty things to you, right? Some nasty sexual things like you said?”
“Yes. But then I punched him in the face.”
“Do you think the cops give a shit? Self-defense. Besides, you’re the woman.”
Artemis sighed. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, her muscles were like deflated balloons. The alcohol ran warm through her veins.
“Yes,” she muttered.
“Get those people kicked out of town, or locked up. Now, Missy.” Maura leaned forward and patted her hand. “Now, we’ve got to talk about what you think you saw.”
Artemis looked past the kitchen, into her small living room. She’d bought new cream-colored leather furniture, that was like sitting in a pile of pillows. What a great end to this shitty day lying on that couch would be.
But she sighed. “I was feeling totally normal. A little fatigued from painting.”
“You were painting?”
“Yes, Maura.”
“Out in the sunlight?”
“Yes.”
“And no...drugs?”
“No, no. Shit, no, Maura. For the umpteenth time.”
“Have to eliminate everything, hon. You were out in the sun. Could have been a hallucination. Have you been worried? Have you been worried about your money? Are people still bugging you for money?” Perhaps unconsciously, Maura’s eyes flicked to the window, where her BMW roadster was in plain sight.
Artemis sighed. “Maura. I really just want to go to sleep.”
But her sister continued. “Or maybe another idea. Remember when we saw those David Copperfield specials when we were kids? And those other magicians on the TV now, like that crazy goth guy...what’s his name?”
“Maura,” said Artemis. “A magic trick?”
Maura shrugged. “I’m just saying. Some of those magicians can do things like that. Things that you wouldn’t believe. Like those two guys who fire guns at each other, and catch the bullets in their teeth.”
Artemis put her head in her hands, looked down at her lap. The scrape on her leg was throbbing, her mind was pudding, and sleep beckoned like a siren. Part of her was still on full alert–what if the couple found their way here? What if they got her in her sleep?–but tiredness had become an irresistible force. No more fighting through it.
“Maura,” she said. “I don’t know. Magic trick?”
“That’s right, dear,” said Maura. “Stick with a realistic explanation, even if it doesn’t seem to make any sense. Magic. Trying to scare you. I mean, really.” Maura laughed, her hand moving to toss nonexistent hair over her shoulder. “It’s either that or it was for real, and there’s some kind of occult horror released on the town.” Maura laughed a little too loudly at the notion.
Artemis shook her head again. She forced herself to stand. Her head felt as heavy as a sandbag.
“Well,” she said. “I don’t know. I just want to sleep, now. We’ll call the cops in the morning.”
“Missy, we really should call them tonight. At least get the paperwork going, the ball rolling or something–"
Artemis silenced her with an outstretched hand. “Really, Maura. Today’s been evil enough without getting the cops in here. Need to sleep, really.”
“Artemis. Are you sure?”
“Sure. Deal all with this tomorrow.”
“Would you like me to stay here?”
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