Cauchemar (24 page)

The woman swept her hair back into a ponytail. “Never mind that. I'll sit with you awhile, at least until your man comes home.”

Hannah opened her mouth to protest, then closed it. The woman's tall frame and perpetually wry expression still put her at ease, as it had when she was a child. She handed her a pack of stale cookies.

They took their steaming tea into the living room, and Hannah sat in Mae's chair, as far away from the radio as she could manage. Martha snapped her fingers and Hannah wormed her feet into her lap. Her callused fingers scraped against the hard patches on Hannah's heels. “Jesus, girl, your feet are callused hard as rocks.”

“It's hard to reach them. I can't even tie my own laces.” Hannah covered her belly and squirmed in the chair. There was a permanent depression where Mae's weight had settled in over the years. It made her feel cradled by Mae's shape, and when the baby came, it would be doubly held, by two generations. Distantly, she wondered if Christobelle had sat there once, stroking her own swollen belly. “This would be so much easier with Mae around,” she said, and her voice cracked.

Martha smiled fondly at the curve of Hannah's belly. “You're doing fine, girl. Look at you, you're big as houses. You know, I have yet to meet that man of yours in his official capacity as father. I've heard he's a bit of a drinker,” Martha said, and Hannah pulled her feet away.

“We all are,” Hannah muttered. She thirsted for a sip of wine, or a splash of amber rye crashing against an ice cube. “It's the regional pastime.”

Martha's mouth broke into a grudging smile. “Sure, if you believe the stories. That and gator hunting. Last week, an old alligator practically climbed up into the boat with me. My boy nearly upchucked into his bowl when I told him what he was eating. He worries me, that one. He says he's vegetarian now.”

Hannah looked reflexively toward the kitchen door, imagining how an alligator's spine would feel, then wondering how the creature's would be different. The phosphorescent presence that lay patient in the tall grass. She made a sound of assent.

“Do you know who else has been seen drinking around town?” Martha asked, her voice betraying her loneliness, her eagerness to gossip. “That girl, Sarah Anne.”

Hannah tightened her grip around the mug of tea. “I've seen her.”

“The two of you used to be thick as thieves. Doug mentioned that she even came to pay her respects to Mae. Sweet of her, don't you think?”

Hannah's hands began to tremble so hard she spilled tea on her shirt. She laughed to cover the tremor. “Yes. We only talked for a bit.”

Hannah looked toward the ceiling light, convincing herself that it hadn't flickered again. A fog was lifting from her mind, and memory sliced her like a blade. How the fire had covered the swamp in ghost-white smoke and the singular smell of burning flesh.

Hannah had run through the woods away from the house, skinning her knees on sharp branches and gravel when she slipped, just beginning to taste the shame that would follow her always.

“I heard that her uncle rented out the old Wilson place. Funny thing is, no one's seen the uncle in months.” Martha was saying. “Bit strange of them to rent that property in particular. They found Mr. Wilson in the basement. His heart just gave out at thirty-eight. Rumor was, he'd lost a third of his body weight in five months.” Martha frowned at the ceiling and shivered. “He was hanging around that mother of yours.”

“Mae was my mother.” Hannah's voice came out bitter.

“Of course she was, love,” Martha said quickly. “I didn't mean to imply—well, anyways. It's the town's dark little secret, how many of the men that take up with her end up dead, but I guess most towns have a few strange characters in their history.”

Hannah thought of Christobelle's men, their disappearing bodies. She thought of Callum's ribs. “I'm tired,” she sighed. “You can leave me, really. I think I'm about ready to pass out right here.”

Martha inched closer to the chair and stroked Hannah's hair. “Poor love,” she whispered. “Just rest your eyes.”

Hannah twitched against sleep, but the woman's hand gave her a sense of safety she'd missed for many months. Her body sunk into the chair, and each time her eyes fluttered open, she saw Martha, stalwart and unmoving.

After the confrontation with Jacob in Sarah Anne's bedroom, Hannah didn't see her friend for weeks. She'd been struck by a fever that even Mae's broths and oil-infused steam baths couldn't shake. Hannah relived Jacob breaking through the bedroom door so often during that sweat-soaked stupor that it became unreal. When the fever finally broke, she was five pounds lighter and convinced that it had been a nightmare. After all, why would Sarah Anne's gentle brother try to harm her?

Mae slowly built Hannah's strength back up with blood-sausage stews and escargot set in flaky pies. Once Hannah was well enough, Mae started asking when she'd see Sarah Anne again. Hannah could only shrug.

Instead, she helped Mae in the kitchen. Hannah made her first bisque, a savory mix of yams and crabmeat, which came out watery and stale tasting, but Mae praised her. Oregano, dry sherry, and hard-boiled eggs became turtle soup in her eager hands, as she stirred in minced celery and a generous pound of turtle meat. The tough flesh turned tender before her eyes.

One morning as Hannah was eating breakfast, a furtive tapping sounded against the front door. When she peered through the peephole, Sarah Anne's curls were magnified on the porch.

Hannah opened the door enough to make a slit and regarded the girl. “You haven't been around. Not at Sunday school, or in town,” Sarah Anne trailed off. She drew circles on the wooden boards with her feet. “Are you mad at me or something?”

Hannah shook her head and turned around, letting the door fall open behind her. She heard the girl follow, and the door close with a thud.

“Well, then, what? Are you mute?”

“After what happened in your room … with Jacob.”

“He was just hungry, that's all. Just a little fit. You can't let it scare you.”

“He hurt you,” Hannah insisted. She wanted to search the girl's back for new bruises, but refrained from touching her.

“No,” Sarah Anne said slowly.

Hannah stepped closer. “I thought—” Words failed her. “I don't know.”

“Forget all that. I'm sorry, and I miss you,” the girl said, lacing her fingers around Hannah's. “I think you should come over.”

Hannah hesitated. She couldn't shake the feeling that Sarah Anne was hiding something, but the girl's smile was friendly and sincere. Mae was visiting with Doug, and the house was uncommonly silent, all its groans suspended for a moment as it waited for her decision.

The girl's black eyelashes quivered like a Venus flytrap around her expectant eyes. “Well?”

Hannah nodded, her head bowing to the girl's gravity. She admitted to herself that there had never been a question.

Hannah scribbled a note for Mae while Sarah Anne packed a loaf of freshly baked andouille bread, the scallions and ripened cheddar still sizzling, in aluminum foil. “Mae left it for me as a snack,” Hannah told her.

They ran along the edge of the swamp, Hannah's scuffed sneakers expertly mounting swollen tree roots.

Hannah was stopped at the outskirts of Sarah Anne's backyard by the pillared birds' nests, standing sentry in their verdant carpet. There were no chirps or whistles, and when she glanced inside, the nests were empty.

“The nests got overcrowded,” Sarah Anne said. She scooped her finger into the piled hay and pulled out a blood-stained twig. “Apparently, birds are so aggressive, they'll attack nearby nests. That's why they're supposed to hide their nests and take care of their babies out of sight of other predators. This was a bloodbath.” She gestured Hannah over to look into a nest, where three speckled eggs lay cracked, insides pooled and cooked by the sun.

Hannah swallowed her nausea and looked up at the house, the windows darkened by drawn curtains. “Is Jacob home?”

“Somewhere. He was hiding this morning,” Sarah Anne said, either not noticing or ignoring Hannah's wary tone. “Come on.”

Sarah Anne's parents greeted Hannah cursorily, her mother putting a proprietary hand on her daughter's shoulder. Her bearded father sipped steadily from a glass of bourbon, and the whites of his eyes were marbled red.

Sarah Anne waited until both her parents retreated to their corners of the house before pouring her father's scotch into a water bottle and replacing it with apple juice. “He'll notice,” she said, “but he'll think I'm being altruistic.”

Hannah followed Sarah Anne to the basement, where they drank until they fell in a giggling heap.

They lay on a thick shag carpet, watching videos. Eventually, Sarah Anne began to explore the crannies of Hannah's body with a tiptoeing finger.

Hannah squirmed slightly, finding it difficult to play her part of the game. She remembered too clearly how it had felt to be dismissed by Sarah Anne after the last time, and although she knew that stillness was a requirement, jolts of heat were playing the nerves of her body like a xylophone.

Her hands made a blockade over her thighs when Sarah Anne's fingers ventured there, but a single stroke unlaced her fingers like cut vines. Sarah Anne's gaze didn't waver as she unzipped Hannah's pants and traversed the mound of pubic hair.

Hannah sighed when the girl's finger began to move inside her.

Suddenly, Sarah Anne paused. “Do it to me,” she instructed, and guided Hannah's hand under her skirt. Hannah hesitated, blushing, but Sarah Anne's finger found its place again and began moving rhythmically.

“Do you do this often?” Hannah asked, between small gasps.

Sarah Anne's doe eyes were remote. She drew a shuddering breath as Hannah's finger tried to replicate the motion inside her, then whispered, “Not like this.”

Hannah tried to mirror Sarah Anne's movements, but when she focused on the sensations inside herself, her own hands went slack. Something was building—a rockfall, a collapse—and Sarah Anne was dogged, beckoning it still.

The heat of their bodies, clothed and writhing, was all-consuming. Hannah's senses were filled to capacity with Sarah Anne's coconut shampoo. The girl's body flowed and ebbed, squeezed and released against her finger like a throat.

Until there was smoke.

Hannah began to cough. Plumes of smoke were cascading down the stairs. Upstairs, there was a howl.

“Fire!” Hannah cried out instinctively, but Sarah Anne lay there for a moment, her eyes filmed and distant. She raised her head and studied the waves of smoke that were seeping under the door at the top of the stairs.

“We need to get out of here,” Hannah yelled, pulling the girl up by her arms. “Where are your parents?”

Sarah Anne shook her head.

Hannah ran up the stairs and put her hand against the door. A branding, biblical heat lapped at her skin. “Windows?” she called back.

The girl pointed to two shrunken windows beside the fireplace, which was also beginning to spit up smoke. Hannah pushed a plush recliner against the wall, climbed on it, then punched out the bug screen. She grunted as she heaved the window open, pushing aside clumps of dirt. “Climb on me, and then I'll hoist myself up.”

Sarah Anne looked toward the door, the wood blackening like a bruise. Her head whipped around as if slapped. “Jacob!” she moaned, covering her mouth.

“He's probably outside already,” Hannah said, coughing. Even on the tips of her toes, she could only see a slice of the early evening sky, funnels of black smoke obscuring the ruddy clouds. “We don't have time. We have to get out, and then we can look for him.”

This seemed to convince Sarah Anne, who rushed over to the window. Hannah leaned against the wall and made a step with her clasped hands. Hannah nudged Sarah Anne's foot toward her netted hands, and with a single heave, the girl landed on the ledge and wiggled through the window.

Hannah balanced herself carefully on the back of the chair, braced her arms against the bottom of the windowsill, then groaned as she lifted. She swallowed a mouthful of smoke. It burned her throat like cayenne. Sarah Anne grasped her by the shoulders and pulled.

Hannah was almost out when she heard a crash behind her.
Fire
, she thought, and skinned her knees on the window ledge as she kicked herself out.

Smoke surged into the basement, and began to filter out through the window. Hannah peered into the din and saw a shape moving toward them, sometimes crawling, sometimes stumbling onto its feet.

“Sarah,” it sobbed, and Hannah blanched.

“We need to go back in,” Sarah Anne urged. Her curls were matted with soot, and she tripped as she stepped backward, sucking in fresh air. “Jacob's still in there. My parents might still be there. Why are we the only ones out here?” She twirled in the drifting smoke. “Jacob!”