Ghosts of Eden (4 page)

* * *

In the living room she watched TV, alone, listlessly flipping channels, when she heard the cat mewing at the window. Her heart lurched in her chest. She jammed her thumb down on the soft button of the remote, silencing the television. She was sitting small in the middle of the giant couch. On the other side of the room, a lamp with many heads grinned its bright smiles at her. To her right, the large bay window seemed suddenly vulnerable, flimsy against the storm. The cat mewed again, just on the other side of the glass, scratching feebly to get in.

Kayla stood. She was being silly. It was the neighbor’s cat—a brown calico—she sometimes fed scraps of lunchmeat to and it was caught in the rain. She stood and crossed to the window. Her legs felt numb and awkward beneath her, as if they weren’t her own. The cat watched her mournfully, as she fumbled with the window, then it dove into the house before she’d properly opened it. For a moment, she could hear the full violence of the storm—the pounding waters and the wind shrieking, calling her out—then she pulled the window closed. Kayla hurried away. The cat shook itself in the middle of the living room. The cat (she didn’t know its name) immediately began to ram its cold and slimy head up against her legs, purring unsteadily. Its fur was greasy and matted with dirt. “Ick,” Kayla said, as the cat smeared grime across her ankle. “Hang on. Ick.” She dodged away from the cat and towards the kitchen.

The cat followed her, its purring beginning to rev more confidently. She opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a packet of sliced turkey, peeling it open. The cat’s purr became a trilling hum. She pushed one whole slice into her own mouth and, while she began to chew the first, tore a sliver from another for the cat. The cat watched the dangling meat intensely, purring and purring.

Something sparkled at the corner of her vision and seemed to vibrate. She turned. Then the air began to thicken and waver like the phosphorescence of an invisible fabric—and the silvery veil fell over the world again. The cat’s purring stopped in an instant and the animal began to pace in circles. Its ears flattened. The cat let out a piercing meow, then turned, and ran out of the kitchen. Kayla watched the cat flee. She was scared, but a part of her also felt relief—if the cat could sense it, she knew she must be fully awake and not dreaming. She wasn’t crazy. This was really happening.

A warm breeze, like the breath of a prehistoric animal, struck her and enveloped her body. Her eyes slid to peer up the stairway. It was a dark ascending tunnel, with a faint magical candlelight flickering down to her from atop, beckoning. She knew the old woman was waiting for her, in her warm room at the top of the stairs, and Kayla was glad to go to her. Now she would get some answers.

At the bottom of the stairs, she could see the ancient door was partially open. Wide eyes peered at her, the old woman’s eyes, through the cracked doorway. As she began up the stairway, the eyes blinked and darted out of sight. She knew the old woman would know what was going on. The old woman would clear everything up, of course she would. She counted the steps as she climbed. Five. Six… Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen…

When she reached the door, she pushed it aside with a creak, and her heart suddenly came alive. In the small, candlelit library room, the old woman cowered, cringing back from her. The old woman had taken on a sallow look, lost considerable weight, her skin hung on her face and arms like tattered drapery. She looked sick, and the fright etched across her face seemed impossible—this woman was strong, had seen so much: how could anything bring about such debilitating terror in someone so wise and powerful? The old woman backed into the corner.

There was only a single candle lit on a stack of books at the center of the room and it flickered as Kayla stepped into the room. Like a sigh, the air shifted, and the door swung shut behind her. The candle went out. Kayla was suddenly in complete darkness. She turned to get out, but she was really badly scared and her outstretched fingers flailed and found nothing.

Somewhere, as if on the other end of a long dark hallway, the old woman whimpered.

The scratching of her panicked steps echoed, as if the tiny cylindrical room were much larger than it was supposed to be. Something moved in one of the chairs in the dark, something snickered, something large. “Please,” she heard herself saying. “I don’t belong here. I…”

Something glided towards her. She could feel its presence, its stealthy movement. And she knew it was the thing that had been looking for her, the thing she’d thought she’d seen or dreamed of seeing the night before, the first time she’d come up the stairs to this room. In order to get her, the thing had warped the room, turned it evil somehow.

A face flickered before her, thin and sallow, with large round eyes; things wriggling around its shoulders; yellowing horns protruding from its forehead. “I’m sorry for this,” the thing said. “It can’t be helped, unfortunately. It’s better if we take care of things now.”

“Please,” Kayla said.

The thing stepped closer—its animal scent washing over her, making her head swoon—and gave her an effortless push. She wheeled backwards into the dark. She stumbled the length of the room, bracing herself to impact with the stack of books the candle had been on or one of the chairs, but they weren’t there. She continued to stumble, there being no longer a wall to stop her. The darkness was very large. She threw her weight forward, but had no way of knowing in which direction or if she was even moving at all. “What’s happening?” she said in a voice that no longer sounded like her own. “The old woman said she’d help me.”

“I don’t think so,” the beast thing said. “She’s in there with you and Father. No use to anyone anymore.”

A sudden square of light appeared in the distance as the beast thing opened the door to leave. Kayla scrambled forward, but it was impossibly far. Behind her, the jungle loomed and vines wriggled like severed tails. She ran as fast as she could, not wanting to think what would happen when the door closed, how she’d be trapped in the total-dark forever. She pumped her legs as fast as they would go, her breath ripping in and out of her lungs. But the door was already closing. She could see the hourglass pupils of the thing’s bestial eyes leering at her in reflected shadow. The door shut with a
thunk
, leaving her in the utter dark and she could hear the large thing’s slow breathing. She wheeled about, pushing forward, pushing away from the sounds of that labored breathing, and the rising snicker, that soon became wet, sloshing laughter.

* * *

Later, she opened her eyes to a column of light. She crawled, because that was all her ebbing strength would allow. She dragged her numb and heavy body along the smooth and featureless floor. She came up to the light and it was the door. It had been left cracked open. She pulled at its base; it was heavy. She lifted herself, finding strength in her newfound hope. She flung the door wide and collapsed on the stairs and into the house.

See, Kayla. Everything’s fine. I only need you to understand what can happen if you stray from your appointed path.

She was unable to remember later how she managed to reach the hallway and the bed in her room, but when she did she was soon asleep and slept soundly and dreamlessly through the night.

* * *

In the morning, the house was empty and silent. Kayla’s family had been killed in an accident the night before.

KAYLA’S BROTHER

ONE

When Garty found the jar, it was seemingly by accident, and, stashing it aside in his tent, he soon forgot how he came by it.

For the first couple of days, the rave had been a party—it had been a blur. By the fourth day it had become something else: this patch of New Mexico desert had been leveled, carnival wreckage pounded into the dust amongst the footprints and tire tracks. At night, the desert became a wonderland of lights and relentless pounding beats and the people came out in force, driving the desert beneath their dancing, swirling, jumping feet; the stage was a flashing wonder and the people, all those people, brought their energy and their drug-fueled optimism into the uninhibited fray. On one side of the stage there were cars, a never-ending sea of motor vehicles parked at all angles in the sand. On the other side, people had pitched their tents—a makeshift community: clustered lumps of fabric spread out for miles—where people passed out, and cooked hot dogs on little gas grills, and drank beer, and sold drugs, and had sex, and bustled about—excited—and lived in the moment: Sun Village, it was called. By the fifth day, what began as a celebration of youth and freedom, became a demolition zone, people wandering about in an aimless, shell-shocked daze, like survivors after a mortar bombardment.

The mornings were the worst, when you saw what people really looked like, when people’s makeup began to flake and run; all those tired, dragging faces and the reality of the morning: the headaches and that empty-shell feeling; and how drab and gray everything really was; and the sun, how hot and oppressive and dry; and how ridiculous and cheap everything looked—all those colors, fading in the dust; glow-bracelets nothing but cheap white plastic. Garty was no different than the other’s to have survived this long, his brain feeling fuzzy and overused, his eyes bleary and wide. He wandered around, nodding bleakly to the small clusters of people still camped out. The facade had been peeled away; people looked like their usual secret-carrying selves again. He was ready to head back into the city. His friends had all left days ago and his tent looked like a dusty battle flag: inside was a mess of tangled blankets, a dead flashlight, a cooler half-filled with foggy water, paper plates smeared with ketchup and mustard, and dented beer cans; in one corner there was a small pile of used condoms, like mashed silkworms. His drugs, what was left of them—a couple hits of Ecstasy and the crushed remains of perhaps a gram and a half of mushrooms—were in the pockets of his shorts.

Garty stood looking at this mess with the tent flaps whipping around him in the wind. He sighed, rubbed his hair back from his brow. He muttered, “Fuck,” under his breath and began to roll up the blankets.

A tiny porcelain jar tumbled out of his sleeping bag and came to rest amongst the discarded condoms.

* * *

As usual, the beginning was the most memorable.

On the first night, Garty took two hits of Ecstasy and a sugar cube of Acid.

After that, he wandered around meeting people and soon lost track of his friends. He fell in with a small group sitting in a tight circle in the dirt giving backrubs and passing candy around. The guy next to him shuddered and the guy’s eyes rolled back and his head slumped forward. A very small girl appeared behind the guy like a hump, her fingers entangled in the guy’s hair, kneading and pulling; the girl turned her head to look at Garty and she smiled widely, green mascara pooling beneath her eyes like round black discs. Another girl in the circle was talking and he watched her crawl on her hands and knees through the middle of the circle and sit cross-legged before him. She took his hand and began to run her fingers through his. “Are you rolling?” she asked him, her eyes blinking slowly. “Yes,” he heard himself say. The girl had her hair up in blonde ponytails and he reached out to touch one of them. “It’s okay,” she said. “You can pull on it.” And he did. Her head came down into his lap, and he fell back. Her face came up to his, and her lips were soft and smooth, and her tongue was wet and sweet. He sucked it into his mouth.

Later, the girl followed him through the crowd as the music drummed in the air over his ears. When he turned, the girl was gone. He continued through the crowd, listening to the animated chatter, interjecting himself into conversations with ease and welcome. There were rumors. A guy with spiky black hair and a tongue stud told him there was a large man somewhere in the crowd with blinking Mickey Mouse glasses who could juggle up to ten glow sticks at one time. Somewhere else there was a man reciting lines from
The Wasteland
by T. S. Eliot for anyone willing to listen, and the girls he heard this from giggled and thought it was the funniest thing. Someone called Marco was said to have fresh Mushrooms growing in jars for sale. Someone else had a few hits of “Sunshine” Acid leftover from the ‘70s, at $100 dollars a hit, but it was totally worth it. And someone else said there was a drug that opened a gateway to another world. And, if you were in the mood for a more cultured entertainment, there was a woman single handedly performing Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
for a small audience on the fringes of the desert.

Curiosity stirred, Garty went in search of this mysterious woman. After a tip from a hyper blonde girl with pink streaks in her hair, he turned away from Sun Village, away from the dance floor and the people, and set off through the sea of cars. He threaded his way through the vehicles, becoming less and less clustered the farther he travelled from the beating music. After a while, he heard voices to his right and headed in that direction. He came out into a clearing where the cars had been parked to open a circular spot of ground. Huddles of people sat along the edges of this circle, some talking with each other, others watching the woman—at their center, swaying and circling—with glazed, hypnotized expressions. The woman was thin, with straight black hair that fell nearly to her knees, hair that shifted, as she danced in circles, like a curtain or cape. To his delight, as Garty stepped forward to join the group, the woman swung around and stopped in place; she hunched her shoulders, thrust her head forward, and lowered her voice to a growl:
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices that, if I had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again…