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? I say.
“Hey,” she replies quickly. “Gene.” There’s a plaintive quality to her voice. Then the elder coaxes Sissy forward. The group proceeds down the cobblestone path. I watch as they blink into darkness before reappearing, smaller and diminished, in the cone of the next streetlamp. At the last streetlamp, Sissy turns to look at me. Her face is small and pale. She is mouthing words to me. Come to me. And then she falls out of the light and into a darkness that swallows her whole.
18
ASHLEY JUNE COMES to me in my sleep. It is a strange dream that skirts the hazy line of a full-blown nightmare. I am back at the Heper Institute, in the isolated library where I stayed. The musty stench of dust, moldy books, and yellowed pages fills the air. Ashley June emerges from the darkness in a crinoline hooped wedding dress. She descends from the ceiling, her face iridescent white and unspeakably sad. Her eyes are preternaturally large, brimming with black eyeliner and tears. But she is not crying as she takes my hand. No, she does not take my hand, but my wrist, and this is the first sign that something is very wrong.
We glide along the brick path toward the Institute. On each side, rows of staffers stand watching us, their faces somber and disinterested, their bodies slouched over with fatigue. As if they have been waiting for a very long time for us to pass through. No one speaks. Even the wind that kicks up ghouls of sand in the desert plains is silent. Then we are entering the main building of the Heper Institute. In the foyer, as we step on the carpet (the touch of the silk on my bare feet is seductive and the threads seem to individually stroke themselves against my soles), the hunters are there to greet us with silent acknowledgment. They are hanging upside down, scratching their wrists unhurriedly, their bodies swaying slightly like carcasses hung in the breeze. Their wounds from our last violent encounter gape at me, thigh wounds and cratered holes in their chests and heads. Crimson Lips hangs still impaled by the harpoon. Her lips are bright red as they whisper, over and over, Gene, Gene, Gene. All the time, Ashley June holds my wrist, not my hand, her fingertips shockingly sharp, scratching my skin. As if all of this is so very funny, a long, drawn-out joke. But eyeliner is now streaking down from the corner of her expressionless, dry eyes.
She guides me down the stairs, both of us gliding down with ease. The wintry chill intensifies, the blackness concentrating until it feels like we are pushing through cold black gel. Ashley June’s wedding dress, glowing white, is like a white flame falling into a dark well.
At the Introduction, she ties me to a post. She is meticulous but bored as she fastens rope around my wrists and ankles, securing me. I am not afraid, not in the least. She is here with me. She examines the knots, then flows away from me, drifting like an apparition to the manhole lid that leads to her chambers, the Pit. The manhole cover lifts up as she draws closer. She disappears inside, like a genie back into a bottle. The light from her dress is swallowed up, the cover rims shut, and the arena plunges into an impenetrable blackness.
And now I am afraid.
I pull against my restraints and to my surprise they fall away like strands of melting lard. I try to find the manhole cover, but I am blind in the darkness. I stretch my arms before me, fingers spiked outward.
Ashley June.
But then things muddy in my mind. I fumble her name.
June Ashley.
No, no, I think, shaking my head. Ash Junely. Ash July. Come to me, help me.
And then I am somehow in her chambers, inside the Pit. I know it by the proximity of the wet walls, my presence like a thick dry tongue inside a tiny mouth. “July Ash!” I cry. “July Ash!”
She emerges from the darkness; her face is all I see. But it is the face of someone else, and I am momentarily confused. Then I realize it is her, but the image is ever shifting and evolving, the eyes shrinking and angling, the cheekbones enlarging and drooping down her cheeks, the bridge of her nose widening then thinning, the color of her eyes like a prism shifting from green to yellow to black. It is her. Then it is Frilly Dress. Then it is Abs. Then it is Crimson Lips.
She speaks. Gene, Gene, Gene, whispered over and over, at first with urgency and fear, then subsiding with a resignation that blurs her enunciation. Gene-Gee-Ge … Until it no longer sounds even like Ashley June but an amalgam of all the voices of the village girls, at first smiling and sonorous, then infused with an energy that builds into a frenzy, like an audience chanting. Faster and faster, louder and louder, the voice splintering and building into a fevered pitch.
I shake my head, trying to clear it. But the darkness of the Pit has oozed into the folds of my brains. I no longer understand, no longer remember. And that is the horror of the moment, what finally snaps me out of the nightmare.
I can no longer remember her face. I can no longer remember the sound of her voice.
19
I WAKE WITH a shout. The aftertaste of the nightmare lines my cranium like acidic rust. For a moment, I think the fever has returned but my forehead is dry and cool to the touch. I close my eyes and try to fall back to sleep. But sleep has fled, chased away by the nightmare, and will not return this night.
Come to me, Sissy had mouthed to me.
The stars are out in full force. Nothing moves, not a sound leaks from the surrounding cottages as I walk down the cobblestone path. I pass the dining hall, the kitchen, smells of charred meat still lingering in the night air. Right outside the infirmary, I step on larger cobblestones embedded in the path, wide as tree trunks. Earlier I’d seen Ben skipping on them as if he were fording a river, arms stretched out for balance, his laughter breaking out with giddy delight.
A scream rips through the night like a laceration.
So close, I jump out of my skin. Before I can recover, a door to the infirmary opens right in front of me. I slide up against the wall, squeezing into a sliver of shadow.
A dark figure, hooded and hunched, closes the door, passes quickly in front of me. I smell the odor of odd body fluids streaming off it. It’s holding something in its arms, inside a sling of sorts. And then it is gone. But not before I see a short pale leg sticking out of the sling. A newborn’s curled leg, its pudgy toes small as tadpoles, steaming in the cold night air. I hear a faint, muffled cry from within the sling.
The hunched figure heads down the path with haste, the baby’s crying already at a wane.
I follow them at a careful distance. The hooded figure veers off the path and heads toward an oddly shaped, windowless building set back from the other cottages. This building is lopsided and tilted, arching high on one side and falling down smooth as a playground slide.
In a splash of moonlight, the person suddenly spins around, his pale face swiveling toward me.
I recognize him: one of Krugman’s henchmen with heavy-lidded eyes, an aquiline nose, and pock-filled jowls.
I duck behind a cottage, hoping the shadows keep me from detection. The sound of steps comes toward me, soft and swift. I hold my breath, not daring to peer around, not daring to move. The footsteps pause. After a moment, they recommence but away from me, the sound diminishing.
When I peer around the corner, the street is empty. The elder gone. I listen for the cries of the newborn baby, but the street offers no sound. I walk slowly through the stillness, staying in the shadows. All is quiet, all is empty.
Despite the chill in the air, my back is slick with sweat.
Minutes later, even after I’ve left the street of cottages and am walking across the meadows for the farm, I feel on edge. My strides are nervous and quick and the fronts of my boots become damp with night dew. Halfway across, I glance back. Other than the silver line of my own footsteps in the meadows, there’s no sign of anyone else. To my right lies the glacial lake, dappled with moonlit sparkles.
The farm is quiet. I’m not familiar with the layout and find myself in the chicken pen. Only a few chickens are awake, their herky-jerky heads jabbing away at empty air, the rank smell of feathers filling my nostrils. I head toward a small cottage where I think Sissy might be lodged.
But I reverse course as soon as I hear the sound of pigs rooting and snorting inside.
There’s an isolated cottage that abuts the pastures, and I head there. A few cows stand in those pastures, mere silhouettes, their presence oddly calm and pacifying. Frosty breaths flow gently out of their nostrils like smoke from a winter night’s chimney.
Before I’m even halfway there, the front door flies open and Sissy comes sprinting out of the cottage. She doesn’t slow down as she draws closer but leaps into my arms and gives me a fierce hug.
“Damn, it’s good to see you,” she says, her mouth right by my ear. “Once they moved you, I had no idea which cottage to sneak into. Where have they put you?”
“What’s the matter?”
She only shakes her head. “Nothing. Just wanted to see you. I fell into a habit, I guess, of checking on you every night. Making sure you weren’t dead.” She pulls her head back, thumps my chest a few times with her fist. “What took you so long to get here? I’ve been waiting for hours!”
“I’m sorry. Guess I’m still recovering and need the rest.”
She pulls me gently by the arm toward the woods. “Let’s talk. But not here,” she says glancing back at the cottage.
* * *
We walk in a comfortable silence on the silvered grass toward the woods. Her hand slips into my palm, her fingers interlacing with mine. Her skin is cool, smooth, soft. It’s still a jolt for me, the feel of another’s skin on mine. After a moment’s hesitation, I squeeze her hand back. She gives me a sideways smile, her ponytailed hair swaying.
Inside the woods, darkness and silence enfold us like a dome. There’s nowhere to sit, so we stand beside a tall redwood tree. We face each other, our bodies pressed close for warmth. And something else. Our faces so near that our frosted breaths merge into one.
A small bead of moisture sits on her eyelash. I want to reach out and touch it.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
