Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror (37 page)

"Were you scared?" Not what I mean to ask, but it slips out anyway.

"I still am. But—I don't mean to sound all support-group here, but it's true—I'm not alone. Not just the way counselors say you're not alone. I can feel the others, like white noise in the back of my head. I know how that sounds," he says with a grimace, making a vague woo-woo gesture.

He leans forward, squinting as he catches my eye. "You don't really believe me, do you?"

"No." The flickering light is giving me a headache. "Which doesn't mean it isn't true," I add, a half-hearted sop toward professionalism. "But you're not the only person Dor—Dr. Muñoz asked me to talk to. Maybe I'll understand it better after I've spoken with everyone else."

"Why are you doing this?"

"I'm an anthropologist. Recording stories is part of my job. Dr. Muñoz thought this would interest me." Dora always joked that I became an anthropologist to learn how to talk to humans. We both knew it wasn't really a joke.

"Good luck." Aaron reaches for his glasses, and his myopic black eyes sharpen as he studies me. "Maybe I'll see you again."

§

That night I sit cross-legged on a hard hotel mattress, squinting at the transcript on my laptop. The recorder lies on the fantastically ugly floral bedspread, feeding Aaron's words back to me. My own words, distorted and strange coming from outside my skull. I grimace at the catch in my voice when I said Dora's name.

I never should have agreed to this. Never mind that Dora is paying for my travel expenses, that I was sick of ramen and job-hunting and staring down my student loans, and would have leapt at any excuse to get out my stifling apartment. Never mind that I still wake up horny and lonely more than a year after Dora left, or that I've only had a handful of dates or one-night stands since.

Not that I had so many more before Dora. But then the inevitable end of every relationship rarely bothered me. Maybe I missed the sex, or someone to split the bills with, but the person— I hadn't really known how to miss someone, before Dora.

Oxytocin. Dopamine. Nothing but chemicals. Quitting smoking was easier than quitting Dora Muñoz.

I never should have agreed, because Dora is crazy. The kind of passionate manic brilliance it's too easy to get caught up in. She took trips at a moment's notice—South America, Asia—chasing after weird plants or fungus that might be the cure for cancer, or impotence, or the common cold. I envied her that—not the travel, but the drive. The way her eyes lit up when she caught a scent. Too often the trails led nowhere, though, and eventually funding dried up. But not Dora's passion. Until one day she vanished after a lead and never came home. I received a stream of e-mails, then a trickle, then nothing except enough money to break our lease, and one final message telling me she was going off the grid. Leaving me to pack up her stuff and explain things to her friends and colleagues, most of whom proceeded to tiptoe around me like I was a widow, or like her crazy might have rubbed off on me.

That should have been my cue to move on with my life. But then came a string of cryptic e-mails and invitations. A trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow like a lost child. And here I am.

§

"What is this, like
Humans of New York
?" The girl named Anne drags on her American Spirit, taps ash onto her empty saucer. We're well within fifteen feet of the café's front door, but no one has told her to stop yet.

I smile, like I haven't heard that a hundred times since I decided to do a photographic census as my thesis project. "Something like that. I'll listen to your story, if you want to tell it." The sun creeps slowly across the sidewalk, pushing the shade away from our table. Sweat beads on the back of my neck, and the dregs of my iced latte melt into milky translucence.

Blue eyes narrow behind a curl of smoke. Wary, intense. Anne doesn't fidget the way Aaron did, but this is her third cigarette. She lifts long brown hair off her neck one-handed and blows a stream of smoke into the sky. She smells of tobacco and cinnamon and espresso.

"I got the caps at a party. I'd never met the guy before. He cornered me and my roommate and started talking about human consciousness and interspecies communication. Pretty interesting stuff, actually. I thought he just wanted in our pants, but at least he was entertaining. He gave me a bag of mushrooms. Said they'd give me a new perspective. I'd heard all that before, but he didn't even ask for my number.

"The next night my roommate and I took them. She got sick early on, puked her guts out. Didn't bother me, though. It was… a weird trip. Not bad. Intense. I spent what felt like three hours lying on the living room floor wondering if I'd ever be straight again." She stabs her cigarette out amidst scattered muffin crumbs. "Turns out I won't."

"Did you ever find the guy from the party again?"

"I dream about him sometimes. Whatever this is, he's further along than I am."

The sigh wins this time. I blame the smell of tobacco and a night of restless sleep. "So, what? This is… an alien parasite? A psychic fungus?"

Anne's lips thin. Pale, shimmery lip gloss leaves an iridescent sheen on her cigarette butts. "I don't give a fuck if you think I'm crazy, but Dora said I should talk to you. Am I wasting my time, Dr. Jernigan?"

"I— I don't know. I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound like an asshole. I just don't understand this. For all I know this is an elaborate joke. And if you're going to yell at me, call me Beth." Damn it, Beth. Don't flirt with the crazy psychic fungus lady.

"If it is a joke, I'm not in on it." Anne's narrow face rearranges itself, finally settling into a strained smile. "And you bought me coffee, so I guess I'm not wasting my time. I don't have many other people I can talk about this with."

Silence settles over the table. I turn my glass in careful circles. Condensation drips through the weave of the metal table onto the pavement. People pass us on the sidewalk, bright summer colors and chattering voices. Hands touch arms to punctuate conversation; shoulders brush; a couple rests their hands in each other's back pockets. The little things humans do to keep the chemicals flowing, to fool themselves into believe they're not alone.

If Anne and Aaron are telling the truth, what makes their supposed connection any different?

"Have you considered taking anything? Antifungals?"

Anne laughs, bitter and tobacco-roughened. "I've thought of taking a lot of things. Hell, I've thought of throwing myself off a roof, or in front of a train. My life wasn't so great, but it was
my
fucking life. I'll never get that back. But sometimes the dreams feel so good…"

§

Another night, another city, another hotel bed—inoffensively ugly this time, bland blues and browns. The muted television throws light across the walls. My phone sits on the nightstand, also silent. I broke and texted Dora two hours ago. Still no response.

She's fucking with me. That's the easiest answer. It would justify my anger, let me go home and forget this. Forget her.

Because that worked so well last time.

You'll meet someone else
, a classmate told me once, on a rare occasion when I shared something personal, bitterness over some breakup. I don't even remember with whom anymore. She meant it to reassure, but it left me feeling ill.

Of course I would meet someone else. The world is teeming with humans; you can't avoid meeting them. Some of them are lonely and searching, and see the same in you. So you fumble for connection all over again, hoping that this time it will stick. That this time will be worth it.

Dora was hardly the first to see how hard connections were for me. But instead of being angry or hurt or determined to fix me, it engaged her scientific curiosity. I felt like an alien anthropologist in any relationship; with Dora, I didn't have to pretend otherwise. Was that love?

I roll over, pressing my face into the musty, starch-stiff pillow. My thighs slide together and my pulse throbs softly in my labia. The taste of coffee lingers on the back of my tongue, reminding me of cinnamon and the sheen of lip gloss. I could masturbate until I fall asleep, but I know I'll think of Dora.

One more day. I have my bus ticket for tomorrow. One more of these ridiculous trips. Then I'm done.

§

"I had cancer." The woman named Minette shifts in the booth, tracing nicks and gouges and old graffiti on the wooden table. Hands like white spiders, lovely and unsettling. "After the first mastectomy— It was awful, but it was over. Done. I'd survived. Then we found the new tumor, and I ran out of rope."

Late-morning sun angles through windows dull with grime, seeping between chipped paint and faded flyers to stripe the battered tabletop. Dust motes spiral in the lazy air. Daylight lends the Angels' Share a lonely, abandoned feeling.

"I met a woman. I don't remember where. I saw so many 'alternative health professionals'." She makes lopsided air quotes. "I tried so many things. I was about to give up when I met her. She gave me a little bag of mushrooms. She said they weren't a cure—she said that over and over until she was sure I understood. It wasn't a cure, but it would help the pain."

"Did it?" My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. The bottles behind the bar shine in the dusty light. I didn't bother with the recorder this time.

Minette smiles, dark-flecked hazel eyes creasing beneath long translucent lashes. Delicate bones stark beneath too little flesh, pale skin tinged nearly blue. Her hair is a colorless stubble that looks soft as suede. She's dying; that, like her fragile hands, is beautiful and unnerving all at once.

"It did more than that."

"It's not that I don't want to believe you." I shake my head. "All right, maybe it is. But I don't. I can't.

"I understand." Minette slides a plastic bag across the table. "Dora asked me to give you this. She wanted to see you, but she had to leave too early."

I trace one dry, gray-brown tendril carefully through the plastic. "Is this what you took?"

"Yes." She pulls herself out of the booth while I'm still searching for a reply. "Can I get you anything? On the house."

I draw a breath to decline, but fuck it. "Bourbon. Neat." I follow her, leaning against the bar while she takes down a bottle. "Dora wants me to eat these?"

"She said to tell you that it doesn't have to be permanent. You can get treatment after one dose. But it will be enough for the dreams." She sets a glass in front of me. Liquor catches the light, sending a wash of amber over the polished wood. Saliva pools on my tongue.

"After the surgery it was so hard to look at myself in the mirror. I felt like a freak. But now I feel beautiful again. Look."

She turns away and grabs the hem of her T-shirt in both hands, peels it slowly over her head. I swallow, staring at the pale curve of her back. Her vertebrae are a string of pearls under her skin, the shadows beneath her scapulae like folded wings. My pulse sharpens as she turns back.

Her right breast is pale, pink-nippled and blue-veined, small but sagging gently without a bra. The remains of a scar stretch from sternum to armpit where her left once was, hidden now by a tattoo—

No. Not a tattoo.

Whorls of fungus grow from the scar's pink seam, fruiting bodies curling together like rose petals. Ghost white at the center, shading into yellow and teal toward the edges.

I open my mouth, dry tongue peeling off my palate, but no sound comes out. I lift my glass with a numb hand. The whiskey burns all the way down my throat, dissolving all the stillborn things I might have said.

Minette watches, something that might be disappointment narrowing the corners of her eyes. Finally she nods and tugs her shirt back on. "I understand. I need to open the bar. Come back later if you have more questions."

I've hurt her, but I don't know how to take it back. Instead I turn like a coward and walk away.

§

That night I stand naked in front of the steam-clouded mirror, the carpet of this latest hotel room rough and tacky beneath my feet. My hair drips down my shoulders and goosebumps roughen my legs.

The bag waits on the bedside table. If I take its contents, where will fruiting bodies sprout on me? Will it grow through my skin like lace?

Leave, I tell myself. Take a taxi to the airport and go home.

Home to what? An ordinary life of work and debt and fleeting relationships. Recording the faces and stories of strangers, because that illusory connection is stronger than any lasting interaction. More than one ex-girlfriend told me I need therapy—I can't discount that possibility, but I always resisted. Just because I'm not like you doesn't make me broken. Does it?

The bag is nearly weightless. Dull and gray at first glance, but colors linger in the creases, hints of blue and creamy yellow. They would photograph beautifully up close, but the light is bad.

I tried psilocybin once in undergrad. Aside from passing nausea and belching mushrooms for an hour, it was a pleasant evening. The friend who gave it to me promised a life-altering experience, though, and a few hours of pretty lights and floating hadn't delivered.

Maybe that's all this will be. Or maybe it will turn me into some sort of fungus zombie.

I could play this up, make a ceremony out of it, but that would only make me feel sillier. Before I can vacillate any more, I tear open the bag and lay the largest stem on my tongue.

Damn it, Dora.

Dry, rubbery, bitter and cloyingly organic, like earth and decay. My face contorts as I chew. I wash it down with a glass of sour tap water and belch. Then, lacking any better ideas, I turn off the lights and lie down on the bed.

I try not to watch the clock, but it's the brightest thing in the room. Heat fills my stomach. Twenty-two minutes in, my face feels numb. At thirty-five I can't feel my feet, and my arms tingle. The clock face brightens into brilliant emerald lines. I watch them change, certain a message will form.