Dead Of Winter (The Rift Book II) (10 page)

“So what’re you thinking now?”

Shirley smiles. As with Alex, the father, she is beautiful.

“She feels like a Marcy to me,” she says.

*
 
 
*
 
 
*

A midwife passed her body through. She backed up. Her eyes darted around the room, from the parent who held the baby to the stack of greeting cards on the nightstand that offer congratulations. She then lifted her eyes to the spot on the ceiling where the black cloud had disappeared. There was a soft, furry paw in her hand, and when she looked beside her, she saw Trudy there, licking her nose. She pointed at the child.

“Is that…” she began, but her words were choked away.

“Yes, Lady. It is you. And your parents.”

“My name’s Marcy.”

“Of course.”

“I…remember. Sort of.”

“It will all come back, Lady. You will understand how much they loved you. You were their one and only.”

The scene began fading away. Marcy shook out of Trudy’s grip and sprinted towards the hospital bed. Her parents, those she could almost remember, flickered out of existence.

“No!” she screamed. “Come back!” The room started to spin. She closed her eyes and shrieked.

“Calm down, Lady,” said Trudy. “You must be careful. If you become too emotional, your safe place will crumble.”

She felt the cat-child climb up her leg and latch onto her back. Its claws dug into her flesh, though not in an aggressive way, and her shakiness faded along with the scenery. An old tune entered her memory. She swayed, hummed, and let the soothing grip of the music set her mind at ease.

“Now, Lady,” said Trudy, “open your eyes.”

She did, and was astonished to find that they were in the antechamber again: coffee table, four walls, and four doors. She noticed the door that she’d just entered seemed different somehow. It was sealed shut, without a knob. The ridges melded with the wall, becoming one with it, as if it had been painted there.

“Where are we?” she asked finally, after nothing remained of the door but a burgundy shadow.

“We are in your safe place,” said Trudy, her hiss-like cat voice blowing into her ear. “The place you created long ago.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Is this a dream?”

“No. Perhaps.” The creature shrugged. “It is what it is. There are many levels of existence, Lady. This is only one of them. It is as real as anything else.”

Marcy grunted. Frustration and confusion had found her.

“That’s fucking great,” she said.

“Do not fret, Lady.”

“Don’t tell me what to feel,” she said. Anger brewed in the pit of her stomach. “You don’t know the first thing about me.” She let loose a humorless chuckle. “Shit,
I
don’t even know that much about
myself.
”

Trudy hopped off her back and circled around to face her again. “It is not true what you say, Lady. You know who you are, you have simply forgotten. And I know you very well. I know everything about you.”

“Tell me about me, then.”

“I cannot. You must discover for yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because it is something you must do on your own. I can show you the way, but I cannot make you understand. It would not be real, even if I tried.”

“So what do I have to do?”

“You must remember the seeds which formed you. You must see how you came to arrive here.”

“How am I gonna do that?”

Trudy pointed a clawed finger at the second door. “Go through. I showed you how. It is easy.”

Marcy sighed and stepped toward the second door with defiant compliance. She opened it. Memory took over from there.

*
 
 
*
 
 
*

She sees herself again, and she is four years old.

Marcy sits upright in her bed with knees hugged tight to her chest. The bedroom is dark save a single nightlight, which shines like the beacon of a faraway lighthouse on a foggy night. Stuffed animals surround her, their lifeless eyes staring straight ahead. Rain pelts the roof above her. The floorboards creak with night terrors.

The little girl rocks back and forth. “Rain, rain, go away…” she sings in a soft, sweet voice.

The quavering of a rattlesnake’s tail appears, joining with the rain’s pitter patter to form a fearful percussion. She picks up her head and stares into the far corner of the room. Despite the suddenness of this audible intrusion, the expression on her face, with eyes wide and lips turned downward, says this is not the first time she’s heard such things.

Across from her, the shadow of a shadow stirs. It slithers across the wall, ostensibly two-dimensional, and expands both up towards the ceiling and down onto the floor. It approaches the little girl with the directness of hungry flames yet never fully exposes itself.

“Go away,” Little Marcy whispers.

A disembodied voice speaks from the swelling darkness.
It is all right, my dear, I do not want to hurt you. I only want to play
.

“Nuh-uh,” she replies. Black tentacles skate across the ceiling. “You wanna hurt me. I know you do.”

Why would you say that, sweetheart?

“’Cause you’re bad. Like Percy in
Madeline
Lake
. A bad, bad crocodile.”

That is not true, my love.

Little Marcy reaches behind her and grabs a doll. It is a stuffed white cat with soft, downy fur. She hugs it close to her chest, shuts her eyes, and starts again to sway. She hums. The trespasser’s shadowy feelers are almost on her; phantoms that slink in from above and below.

Little Marcy prays. The doll in her arm begins to glow. She opens her eyes. There is no fear in them any longer. Instead, a sparkling brightness appears that seems to cry out in anger. She hoists the doll with outstretched arms. A spark of light materializes
 
at the base of her bed. It starts out the size of a pin, and it pulsates. Before long, it’s as big as a beach ball.

A shape comes forth. It is of human form, curled into fetal position. Fur sprouts on its body. A tail grows from its rear. The brightness it emits forces the interloper to pull away its smoky appendages. This strange new being uncoils. It is half child, half feline. It licks its paw and stands up. Eyes like emeralds stare at the little girl. Thin rays of light spring from the ends of each white hair on its body. It appears to be smiling.

The new being turns to face the black smudge that is the interloper. It lifts its paws. Its face scrunches in concentration. The bedroom grows brighter than ever.

Tell it to stop, darling
, says the incorporeal voice of death.
Tell it to leave. Do not be afraid of me.

“No, Percy,” Little Marcy says. A grin spreads over her lips. “Just go away.”

An inhuman roar fills the air. It causes the fabric of existence to shudder. The blackness then retreats, its tentacles withering like slugs sprinkled with salt. With the dexterity of a living oil slick it disappears behind the Care Bears poster hanging from the bedroom door. A wave of relief washes over Marcy’s tiny features.

“Thank you, kitty,” she says.

The cat-child approaches her and curls in her lap. “I am here to protect you,” it says. Its voice purrs. “I can be Trudy for you, the one who always protects Lady Madeline from the evil Percy. I will do so forever.”

Little Marcy tilts her head. “You’re pretty, Trudy.”

“As are you, Lady.”

The little girl smiles.

*
 
 
*
 
 
*

A typhoon of living memory surged through Marcy as she watched her young self. Her knees buckled. She collapsed against the wall and slid down it. She covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. Images rolled through her brain, riding the wake of a tsunami she was helpless to stop.

Landscapes shifted and changed in the blink of an eye. She saw herself at the dinner table with her parents, eating supper and laughing at the stories they all told; experienced her early years of schooling, feeling the shame that came when her schoolmates poked fun at the awkwardness of a young girl who had become the tallest kid in her class, all the while wondering how they could be so cruel; recalled the elation that rushed through her the first time she picked up a crayon and put it to paper, watching the creativity spring from her little fingers like an extension of her soul; watched the transformation from unsure and clumsy child to talented preteen whose brushstrokes captured the knowledge of color’s vibrancy as only a prodigy could produce; saw the expressions on her peers’ faces when she would play her favorite game, guessing what number they’d written on a hidden piece of paper, and remembered how no one believed it wasn’t just dumb luck when she was never wrong; sensed the relief of finally being accepted by her classmates and garnering the attention of boys; experienced the awkwardness of her first kiss, with a shy, pimpled kid named Travis; suffered the fear that came when every night Percy showed up, the serpent in the darkness who tried to tempt her with its exotic mystery, and appreciated that Trudy never once left her side; sensed the fear of having to keep this ordeal a secret, until she broke her silence at fourteen, only to be ushered off to therapy when her parents and doctors thought she might be schizophrenic; watched her grandmother die, the woman who was her inspiration and the only person who did not judge her when she discussed the fear that visited her every night, and experienced all over again the pain and sorrow that comes with the realization that sometimes, when people go away, they don’t ever come back.

This all happened in a matter of seconds, but it seemed to go on forever. Her head ached from the sudden rush, but oddly enough no fear accompanied the act of reminiscing. It was an experience akin to watching a movie she loved but hadn’t seen in years.

The world spun around her. Colors blended and amalgamated until they became abstract streaks. She went with it, excited to see what revelation lay around the next bend in the road.

It was
him
.

She saw him standing at the podium in a school auditorium, with long hair draped over a thin frame rigid with tension. A look of civil disobedience stretched across his mysterious yet handsome face. She saw herself in the audience, staring up at this odd boy with a glint of the passion she would experience when she was older smoldering in her eyes. All around her, peoples’ mouths had dropped in shock.

“Fuck, shit, ass, motherfucker, these are what I say,” the boy said. He was reading from the notes before him. “Cunt, pussy, clit, slit, these are what I lay.”

He was angry and defiant, and this act of insubordination struck a chord within her. She imagined that she had finally discovered a person who felt as she felt, who desired what she desired, whose goals could be one in the same with her own.

While he was led off the stage by the angry principal, inside she cheered.