Circle Nine (18 page)

I clutch my chest. My heart’s frantic beats threaten to propel me into a state of panic. As calmly as I can, I place the photo back in the tiny envelope sleeve and put the whole thing back underneath the mattress. Sam won’t be able to tell the mattress is flipped. Even to me, it’s obvious that the “fresh” side is just as filthy as its opposite. I wiggle the notepad back under, about where it fell, hoping against hope it’s in the same approximate spot Sam hid it originally. I only have one option now: to act as though nothing has happened. It will be no easy task if my head continues to spin the way it is.

I busy myself pulling our clothes down from the trees, where they have mostly dried in the sun. If I leave them overnight, they’ll be damp with dew in the morning, and it’s already beginning to get dark. My mind is awash with the knowledge that now, with what I have discovered, I must leave Sam. But the thought of leaving him while he is ill tortures me with guilt, and the thought of being without him at all is still too difficult to really confront. Maybe he will come back from Sid’s with his medicine, and then he will be well, and I won’t have to worry about leaving him, and maybe once I find out the truth about that night, I can return to him and he will forgive me for leaving, even understand. My body feels light with hope.

It has been dark for an hour, and I have just started wondering if something bad has happened when Sam drags in. One eye is half-closed, there is blood all over his face, and he is clutching his side as he staggers inside. I shriek and run up to his side just before he collapses altogether. He is racked with silent sobs. I help him move to the bed, but with my every touch, he howls in pain.

Oh, Sam, what happened?

I didn’t get it, Abby,
he wails in the voice of someone who is tortured.
I didn’t get it,
he says over and over.
What will I do? What will I do?

For a fleeting moment, I wonder if my thoughts of leaving him, my planned betrayal of him, brought this pain upon him, and I feel guiltier than ever before. But I know that can’t be. I dab at his face with a T-shirt (I am beginning to run out of them) and am glad to see the blood made him look worse than he really is. He has a black eye and a broken nose, maybe a broken rib. My heart, so vulnerable from its ups and downs of the day, drops once again as I realize that one thing is certain: I will never be able to leave Sam like this.

We’re nestled up in the tree, laughing, Katie and I. Her round little face is beautiful. I adore her, purely and truly.

Hey,
she says,
look, quick! Look out there!
I peer through the branches and see the deer she’s pointing to. It pauses, ears alert, its fawn behind it, before scampering off beyond the cemetery, back and back to wherever it came from.

What do you think’s out there?
I ask. The forests seem so vast and frightening, and Mama’s always warning us not to wander into them.

I don’t know,
Katie says.
But don’t look so scared. It can’t be bad, if that little deer lives there.

No,
I agree.
I bet it’s magical in the forest.

Of course it is,
says Katie, pressing her cheek against mine, her hot peppermint breath filling the space in front of my nose.
We’ll go there someday, when we’re older. But for now, this tree is our magic.

And it does look magical. We’re concealed by its thick branches, unknown to anyone but the birds that sit above and around us. Even the squirrels don’t seem to mind us by now. But then we come here almost every day. It’s as if we’ve become a part of nature.

Katie has a pen out and is pressing its point into the bark of the tree.

Stop!
I cry.
You’re hurting it!

I’m not, silly. Don’t you want us to be a part of it forever?
I nod slowly, unsure. It looks painful, the way she digs that pen into the bark.

There,
she says when she’s finished,
we’ll have to do it again soon, or the bark will heal.

Like skin. This tree, like me, is a living thing. I wonder if maybe we should leave it alone. I don’t tell Katie this, because she’ll be mad. Instead, I lean my back against hers, where she’s perched behind me in the crook of the largest branch, and we stay there, back-to-back for support, until it’s time to go home for dinner.

It hurts, Abby!
Sam’s voice is urgent, and he shakes my shoulders hard.

Can’t you feel it? It hurts! What’s happening to me?
Now he’s itching all over.

He stalks across the room, scratches his ribs until long red streaks cover his chest, bangs his head once, twice on the wall. I am afraid to enter his radius. He’s been suffering worse than ever since he came back from Sid’s a few days ago without his medicine. It’s as if he’s begun to give up. He looks like a whirling dervish, a beautiful god-creature with sparks emanating from his mouth. But his violence is too familiar to be glorious.

I see only the beauty. I want to go embrace Sam and lie with him on our canopied bed of purple and green and gold, but I know it isn’t safe. The other world — the one we hate, the one we call Circle Nine — is breaking through Sam’s protective armor and turning him into someone else.

That is why, even though I feel light and safe right now, I know I must offer. I look at him, and he meets my eyes, and I know he is thinking the same.

What can I do?
I ask it quietly.

He pauses. Then, through gritted teeth and streaming eyes:
You could go back there. You could go back to Sid’s. Like we did before.
His head jerks back and forth as though he’s shaking the words off, a dog in the rain, even as he says them.

A cold feeling grips me, followed by a wave of heated revulsion so strong it makes me blind. I would do almost anything to help Sam. I thought I could do this. But when I think of that night at Sid’s, think of actually going back there, my body turns off completely. It refuses to work. It refuses to obey my mind. As long as I consider going back to Sid’s, my body will stay rooted to this spot. My body and Sid are opposing magnetic forces. Sid repels me.

I can’t go,
I tell him.
I’m sorry.
I am miserable. The words are knives hurtling from my tongue.

Please,
he whispers. Tears roll down his cheeks.

Sam,
I say,
I just can’t do it; I’m sorry.
I am hurting for him, so sorry to deny him anything.

Sam is silent. He turns away, begins sobbing quietly.

Then I am filled with relief; my hot-and-cold panic subsides. I realize: I can go to Sid’s, after all. I can find another way, make a different trade.

I’ll try,
Sam, I tell him suddenly.
I’ll go to Sid’s and I’ll try.
At this, he turns back to me, his eyes alight with watery red hope.

I knew you would, baby. I knew you wouldn’t make me suffer.

So I have decided to do the one thing I can to ensure Sam’s safety once I am gone. I put my plan into action, gathering supplies, brainstorming a trade that Sid will not refuse. If I don’t come back with Sam’s medicine, if I don’t know for sure that he will be OK, I will not be able to leave. And that is not an option. To stay here will destroy me, too.

When I see Sam’s ugliness — his tortured body and venomous words, the things I used to associate only with Circle Nine — I know I am more a part of that world than this one. I know that my time here is over, and it makes me less afraid. The ugliness I see sometimes makes our canopy bed look like a dirty, stained mattress. It makes our feasts of lamb and roasted pears look like McDonald’s we pulled from a garbage bin. It does evil, horrible things with what we have and to Sam. Sometimes he turns from me and talks to Amanda’s shrine, where it sits in the corner of the room. He talks to the shrine as if it is Amanda herself. Amanda is a good listener, he says. She listens patiently, he says. He says he likes how she does not interrupt like I do. She’s easy. She doesn’t drive him out of his mind. She sits quietly among her possessions.

I know that Amanda is gone. But even still, I have that old worry that Sam loves Amanda more than he loves me. It is all madness.

Sam, I think, I will go get your medicine, and you’ll be OK, and then I can leave you, only for a while, only to do what I need to do.

I think these things, but really I am worried that he will not be able to survive this. I am panicked. I will be able to survive, because now I know that Circle Nine is the world in which I belong. It is where I came from — I know that deep down, from everything I’ve discovered. But Sam may not be equipped to get on without me here. I hope that his medicine will make him feel better, like before, when I first came here with him. But I also know that his magic-potion medicine isn’t safe. I’m suspicious of its cylindrical vial, but I see no other choice.

I leave Sam, thrashing and muttering, behind me, and I plunge into the outdoors. I am less and less vulnerable out here, since now I’ve left many times on my own. It makes me feel strong, empowered. Besides, when everything is still beautiful and the darkness hasn’t crept in, I am invincible.

I trudge over the train tracks, three blocks west to where Sid lives. I have brought Sid a modest gift. I hope it will be enough; it was the best I could do. What happened last time left me feeling dirty, cast me into a bad place. So this has to be enough. It’s my only plan. I’m not sure it’s a good one, though; something feels off, fills me with a desperate panic.

Sid!
I call.

I knock four times. His little house looks so warm and inviting. There are flowers blooming around his white picket fence. There is light streaming from his windows. Marmalade, Sid’s cat, slinks sultry around the corner and rubs against my ankles. She is hairless and adorable. Sid is a true animal lover, Sam told me once. I stroke her chin and she meows and vibrates under my palm. Sid sees me through the window.

What do you want, Abby?
He asks it past the door, while it is still shut.
Back for more?

But he seems afraid of me.

Please,
I say. I stand for a few minutes patiently.

Sid finally opens the door a crack. He looks at me and makes a face like he doesn’t like what he sees.

Go away, Abby.

He shuts it again. But I push the door open and offer him my fists. My offering is hidden inside my right fist. It is very important that he picks the right fist.

Pick one,
I say.

You’re crazy.

Pick one, Sid.

I motion my fists at him again. Marmalade yowls at my feet. She wants me to keep petting her. I nudge her with my toe, hoping it will suffice.

Sid rolls his eyes and points to my right fist. I laugh! I am doubled over with mirth. I knew he would choose that one. I am so excited to give Sid what he picked. It means maybe I will get Sam’s medicine today, after all. I unroll my fingers from where they clutch at my palm. Inside my fist is my offering. I hold it up. Something’s wrong with it.

Sid yells and jumps back. Then he slams the door again.

Freaking crazy,
he mutters through the door.
Get the hell out of here and don’t come back,
he says.
Freak!

I don’t know at first why he reacted like that. His rudeness settles into my gut and makes me sick. It is a crushing disappointment. Maybe Marmalade will like my offering. I kneel down, and she is already nudging her nose against my fist, which I have closed again. I open it slowly and, as she pounces on the tiny dead mouse, I begin to understand. It wasn’t dead this morning; I have clutched it too hard in my sweaty fists. It was sweet and companionable when I caught it — an offering fit for Sid. But now it looks slightly nasty and only fit for a cat. I wipe my palm on my thigh and take a breath. I am angry, but only with myself; my instincts have betrayed me. I need to go back to Sam.

When I return to the cave and Sam sees I am empty-handed, he cries.

I’m sorry, Sammy,
I whisper for the millionth time as the tears roll down his cheeks. Without Sam’s medicine I am trapped. I curl up behind him on our bed, which has turned into the ugly torn cot again. I wrap my body behind his so all of our parts match up. I kiss the back of his neck as he sobs, and eventually we begin to fall asleep. I have let myself down, too.