White Horse (31 page)

The second best thing about being in a grocery store is that there’s
a ready supply of plastic bags. I rip open a box of oatmeal and pour it into a neat heap on the floor for Esmeralda before reaching for a fistful of sacks. And I apologize for the burden I’m about to bestow on her.

She doesn’t seem to care.

It’s the chocolate that catches my attention. I can almost taste the sweet, smooth confection before I peel away the packaging and cram it into my mouth. Flavor explodes and my taste buds shiver with orgasmic pleasure. Moments later, there’s a rolling sensation in my belly as my baby somersaults. I laugh and unwrap another bar—some kind of wafer layers with chocolate pressed between. I scrape off the top wafer with my teeth and shamelessly lick the others clean. Soon my fingers are sticky and there’s that feeling of insubstantial fullness that only comes from ingesting mass quantities of junk food. My body hums as I surf the sugar high; I’m Superwoman shoving boxed foods and luxuries like toilet paper into bags.

And then Esmeralda stops snuffling the ground and begins the soft-shoe shuffle of unease.

My entire body tenses. Even my baby holds still. The thought is fleeting: how sad it is that my child has to come into a world where there’s no chance for normal, no pretense even of safety.

The word floats in on a malevolent draft from beneath the blue door:
Abomination
.

A taunt.

If not for the donkey’s agitation, I could convince myself my mind had manufactured the word using my fears as tools.

Someone is out there. The cleaver takes on new weight, reminding me it’s ready and waiting should the need arise.

The wall presses against my back as I take a measured step closer. Gravity works its magic and eases me to the ground. My bones creak in appreciation. From here I can see the front door and both windows. There’s no other way in or out. I balance a candy bar on my belly and wait for dark to come.

Minutes tick by. They huddle together to form hours. I don’t know how many, only that the sun shifts slowly in the sky.

The heat grows, but down here on the concrete floor I can feel the
cool of the earth seeping into my skin. When Esmeralda dumps her oats, I try not to care about the smell.

Wait. Watch. Listen.

Eventually, the night strides in
and forces the sun from her comfortable chair. As she’s unseated, so am I. For hours there’s been no noise beyond the usual sounds nature makes. No more whispered taunts, no breathing that doesn’t belong. But I don’t trust it so we have to leave under the cover of dark and hope that gives us enough of an advantage.

The truth is I could leave Esmeralda, cut my way through the land with just me to worry about, but I don’t want to. Her company makes me feel less lonely. One by one, everyone I’ve cared about has been stripped from my life, and yet I can’t stop feeling a bond with this beast. Please let me be able to keep her safe.

We ease out of the building, onto the barren road. Hugging the curb is a necessity because I can’t see my way back into the bush without light. Risking a fall is not an option. Whoever is out there is likely watching anyway. For now, all I can do is make that task more difficult by hiding in the shadows, the baker’s long-handled peel held in my hands like a magician’s staff.

At first there’s a gentle wind that stirs the leaves making a soft
wikka wikka
sound. This swallows our footsteps, so I welcome its presence, until a short way down the road it dies, leaving us exposed.

I stop. A half a beat later, there’s the faint echo of another footfall. We’re being followed or pursued. Is there even a difference? One implies a sense of urgency, while the other says,
Hmm, let’s wait and see how this plays out
. Either way, I don’t like it, nor does my central nervous system; it’s shooting adrenaline like my body is a firing range.

On the heel of my boot, I turn and scan the pitch.

It’s just a flicker in my peripheral vision, like the fluttering of a panicking insect when it realizes it’s just flown into a spider’s web and become entangled. That’s all it is, nothing more substantial than that.
Look!
my senses scream. As my neck twists, I glimpse it: hair blond and neatly fitted to a smooth skull. Hair that belongs to a ghost.

The adrenaline seizes control. Propels me toward the twisted olive trees. I half run, half walk, deeper and deeper into the wild land. Esmeralda stays close without complaint, more sure-footed than me. Guilt washes over me; she trusts me to keep her safe and I hope I can honor that.

Fate steps in, reaches out and places a hole where ground should be. My ankle twists. Pain shoots through my shin and I fall. The last thing I see is a woman emerging from the black, her face scarred, her hair that of a madwoman.

The Medusa of Delphi.

NINETEEN

DATE: THEN

T
he city has fallen into an endless hush. Silence is a sponge soaking us up. Shoes slap silently on the sidewalks. Coughs fade before they’ve left their irritated throats. The only noise comes from vehicles moving through the streets: occasionally passenger cars, sometimes buses with a handful of riders staring hopelessly ahead.

“Where are you going?” Morris asks one day. The bus is straddling the broken yellow line. The driver stares at us expectantly and shrugs. He thrusts a thumb at his fares.

“Wherever they want to go.”

“Any place in particular real popular right now?”

He shrugs. “Airports, mostly.”

“What’s there?”

He looks at her like her brain just dribbled onto her khaki T-shirt.

“Birds. Big silver ones.”

“They’re still taking passengers?”

“Hell if I know. I just drive the bus. Nothing else to do except sit around and wait to die.”

The bus doors sigh and hiss as he eases his foot off the brakes and keeps right on following the yellow line.

“Oz,” I say.

Morris peers at me over the top of her aviators.

“
The Wizard of Oz
. Did you ever see that?”

“Sure I did. Those flying monkeys freaked me the hell out. What about it?”

“Have you heard any planes lately?”

Head shake. Expectant look.

“Exactly. They’re all going to meet some wizard who doesn’t exist, in search of brains, a heart, or whatever it is they need.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

I turn and head back toward the old school. “Nope.”

“You’re losing it. You should go talk to —” She stops dead.

“Nick. Don’t be too much of a sissy to say his name. I can. Nick, Nick, Nick.” I hold up my hands. “See? I’m okay with it.”

But I’m not okay with
it. My heart’s been bruised before, battered and bandied about by others. Boys at first, then Sam’s death. And now Nick. But this is different. Bigger, like a bubble of grief that holds me within its thin walls. No matter how fast I run, the bubble moves with me. Hamster in a wheel.

I take to walking the streets on my own. I have a gun. I know how to use it; Morris taught me. There’s a knife in my pocket and I know how to use that, too. Can I, though? I don’t know. But I have it—my cold, hard, metal insurance.

Other things go into the pockets of my heavy coat: food, money, and my keys. I can’t break that habit.

And Nick’s unopened letter. All I have left of him.

DATE: NOW

Do you love me, Mommy?

I do
.

Why?

Because you’re mine
.

Why?

Because I’m lucky
.

Then why don’t you look happy?

Oh baby, I’m happy about you, but I’m sad, too
.

Why?

Because I miss your father
.

Do you love him, too?

I do, baby. I do
.

Then why isn’t he here?

We’re going to him, baby. Soon
.

DATE: THEN

There’s treasure in this basement
. Bars of gold wrapped in plastic, their crumbs packed tight around a chemical core. Their value is immeasurable. I open a box. Slip a precious bar into my pocket.

“You’re actually going to eat that?” Morris says behind me. “I quit them years ago.”

My body jerks with surprise, and the Twinkie falls to the ground with a shallow thump.

“Supplies,” I say. “I was on my way out.”

“Again? What do you do out there?”

“Walk. Window-shop. Go out for morning tea with the girls.”

She steps into the pantry. It’s a room the size of my apartment filled with food. Little Debbie’s entire line of food is here; good eats at the end of the world. Morris plucks a golden cake from the box, unwraps the confection, crams it into her mouth. And a second. When she’s done eating, she grins at me with cake-crumbed teeth.

“Damn, I forgot how good these are. Did you open Nick’s letter yet?”

“No-o-o-pe.”

“That’s mature of you.”

“Says the woman who just crammed a whole Twinkie into her mouth.”

“Two.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Tara Morris, Twinkie-eating champion of what’s left of the world.”

We giggle like silly girls, carefree and alive, until reality begins to lap around the edges like a thirsty cat.

Morris turns grim. “Open the letter. Please.”

“I can’t.”

She shakes her head at me, her eyes forgiving though her mouth is not. “You’re scared, and for what? That fear buys you nothing except a whole lot of walking the streets with a pocket full of Twinkies, worrying yourself sick over him.”

“It’s just one Twinkie.”

It’s just one Twinkie
at first
. Then two. Four weeks after Nick left, I take my walk accompanied by three chemical cakes. I pretend he never existed. I believe he’s dead. I pray he’s alive and safe and with his family.

I’m in the library when it happens, the same one where my sister’s dreams died before Pope slaughtered her on an empty street. There are no new lists. The old ones flap with excitement when I push the door open. Look! A person! Then they fall still. The librarian is gone, her haughtiness relegated to the history books as a once-cliché. She’s no longer here to care whether or not I eat near the precious tomes.

I peel away the plastic wrapper.

Crumbs fall onto the pages of the atlas I’ve spread open. I press my finger to the page, then lick the yellow dots. The dry finger of my left hand traces an invisible line across the thick, rich paper, across the pale blue ocean—first the Atlantic, then the Mediterranean—from New York to Athens. From there I creep north, inch by colorful inch, across the splintered states that form the country of Greece.

The name, the name, what was the name? Nick told me the name of the village where his parents were raised, but standing here looking at this swath of unfamiliar places, I’m overwhelmed by their otherness. The names swim on the page until they’re meaningless.

My stomach lurches. The atlas swirls. The bright mosaic tiles rush up to greet me.

Thank God, I miss the books. The librarian would never forgive me.

DATE: NOW

I am dead and this
is hell. Fire licks my face, dances with the shadows, forces its partners into the darkness before taking others. Light plays across the faces of sightless marble men, twisting them into fiends. Soldiers whip their horses,
Faster! Faster!
as they gallop across plaster walls.

“Not hell.” The words are not mine. They come from outside me; I’m awake enough to know that.

“Where?”

“Delphi.” The voice quavers at the edges as though the vocal cords have been slackened by time. She pronounces the word
Thell-fee
, not
Dell-fie
like the corporation.

Moving my body hurts, but I manage to feign sitting. An outsider might see me as a sack of potatoes, and that’s how I feel, my weight constantly shifting, my insides compressed yet lacking the structure a skeleton provides. My perspective shifts. The fire retreats to its pit, leaving the room awash in a preternatural mix of shadows and light. The woman lingers in the half-light.

Two stone men tower over me.

“Who are they?”

“Kleobis and Biton. Heroes rewarded by Hera with the gift of endless sleep.” The words are hesitant.

“Not something you can regift.”

“What is … regift?”

This is Greece, the woman is Greek, and though her words are English, I realize their slowness is a result of translating the words in her head before presenting them to me. I wish I could offer her the same courtesy.

With simple words I explain and she nods.

“Gods give freely … or not at all. Their mother sought a boon and was punished for her pride in her sons.”

Their mother. My hands go to my stomach. “My baby—”

“Still lives inside you. He is strong.”

“He?”

“Or she.”

I close my eyes. The ache is too much—relief that Nick’s child still lives, despair that he isn’t here with me. “At least I have that.”

From the shadows she comes, her face a tangled web of burns. “Snakes,” she says as my gaze slips away from her right side. “A gift from the sickness.”

I look at her and her face, and I know at once what she did. “You burned them off.”

One nod. “Yes. I burn them off with the fire. It was”—she raises a hand to her face, then pulls away as if she dare not touch—“very painful.”

“Like Medusa.”

Another nod. “Of all the figures from mythology, this is the one my body chose. Me who is nobody, just a servant of the gods.”

“The gods? Not the one God?”

“I find more comfort with ones who walked the same path as I. Their feet … mine …” Two fingers step through the air. Then she changes tack. “You know someone follows you.”