Black Light (14 page)

In the middle of the night I woke. The crickets had fallen silent, and the night was given over to the wind. Just a front blowing in, but hard enough that the windows rattled and I could hear tree limbs rapping at the walls.

Hhhhhhhuuuhhh…

I pulled the paisley spread tight around my shoulders and held my breath, listening.

Hhhuuuu…

Dread seized me then—dread but also a sort of exultation, an unbearable longing. The realization that something was going to happen, was happening
now.

This is a weird place…you hear all kinds of stuff at night…

I remembered how Jamie had looked sitting on the jukebox with light welling up around him like a wave; and the shiver of recognition when I realized I had never seen anything so beautiful, so
solid,
in my life.

Outside the wind rose louder still. With it there came another sound, the wail of a train making its way southward past the far shore of Lake Muscanth. I lay on my back and focused on the beating of my heart, the rhythm of my breathing: anything so as not to hear the wind.

The next thing I knew I was wide awake. Something had disturbed me, a sound like the nervous tapping of a foot. It came from within my room, and even in those first hesitant moments of wakefulness I knew absolutely what it was
not
—not the sound of water dripping, not a mouse moving within the walls, not one of my parents padding to the bathroom. This sound was at once more subdued and more insistent. There was a manic quality to it, like a restless child rapping for attention, but a child who has forgotten why she wanted your attention in the first place. I sat and listened, sleep falling from me, and waited for the sound to fade away.

It did not. Neither did it grow louder, but as the moments passed the rhythm of the tapping quickened. I could see nothing, not even the pale outline of my window. My breath came harder; I began to suck air through my mouth as loudly as I could, trying to drown out that sound. But I could not.

Nor could I look away. And very slowly I began to see something take shape within the corner of the room. The relentless tapping continued, but now I could see that the noise was connected to blots of darkness jumping within the gray, and tiny silvery sparks. The flickering interplay formed a pattern, and I had the terrible feeling that I should
recognize
it, that it should somehow make sense.

And then, in one awful flash, it did. The thing in the corner was a man. Not a man, but
half
a man, bisected down the middle so that I saw one side of its head, one arm hanging loosely beside its truncated torso and worst of all, one long pale leg hopping like a pogo stick. The jots of black I had discerned were its eye, its rib cage, the broken crescent of its mouth. There was no hint of carnage. No bloody shreds of flesh, no shattered bones.

And somehow that was worst of all. That this cloven thing should be within a few feet of me, jigging mindlessly as a scarecrow in the wind, for no reason whatsoever.

But it was not mindless. Because now the asymmetrical features of that face began to come into focus. A swollen scar of an eye like a bullet wound; the white triangle of its bifurcated chin; a lopsided mouth curving into a leer: all cohered into the dark reflection of a face I knew. The eye blinked; the mouth grinned. The rhythm of its movement grew suddenly, obscenely clear as I recoiled on the bed.

“No—”

It was Axel Kern. His grin widened, a poisonous quarter-moon. I thrashed across the bed until my back jammed against the wall. The black shape bobbed up and down, up and down. With each moment it drew closer to me, until I could smell it, animal musk and the odor of charred leaves. It was close enough now that it could touch me: its single arm lifted, fingers knotted and dark as it reached through the darkness.

“Lit…”

I screamed and kicked out. A hand tightened around my ankle, nail and bone biting into bare flesh. With a shriek I tried to fling myself from the bed. Then there was light everywhere, and someone shaking my shoulder.

“Lit! Lit, wake up!”

“No—god, let
go
—!”

“Lit!”

I looked up to see my father in his pajamas, hair awry, eyes wide but bleary with sleep. “Lit—are you all right?”

“No! No, there’s—”

But of course the room was empty. My India print spread lay where I had dropped it. Beside it
Greek Plays for the Drama
crowned a heap of dirty clothes and record sleeves. My father stared down at me, his face torn between concern and annoyance. “Charlotte. I think you had a nightmare.”

“Yeah…” I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess I did.”

He glanced pointedly at the clock. It read three-twenty. “Well, your mother has a six o’clock call. I’m going back to bed.”

“Right. Sorry, Dad, sorry…”

He stumped back to his room, switching off the light as he left. I watched him go, then sat up in bed watching the numbers flip over on my digital clock while the window went from black to violet to gray. When I woke, the room was filled with light, and my father was pounding on the door, shouting that I was going to be late for school again.

“Oh, fuck,” I groaned. I started from my bed, and stopped.

Something was strewn across the bedroom floor. At first I thought they were leaves, but no—they were the pages of a book, torn and scattered everywhere. Between them were heaps of seed-pods, round and dull brown, almost black, with a tiny raised ridge around the flattened top. I scuffed across the floor, pods rolling beneath the bed. At the window I stopped.

There were more pages here than elsewhere, more dry husks. I crouched, sifting through the mess until I found the book’s cardboard jacket. Its spine was split, the cover scorched so that the twin faces of Comedy and Tragedy were almost unrecognizable.

Greek Plays for the Theater

“Damn it,” I whispered.

I stood and kicked angrily at the pages, snatched one as it came fluttering back down. It was blackened from top to bottom. As I held it, the paper shivered between my fingers, then crumbled into ash. Only a fragment remained, like the damp impression of a leaf, the letters jagged and black as though stamped upon my hand—

Join us
.

A
T BREAKFAST THAT MORNING
I couldn’t eat; only sipped at some orange juice while my father read the
Times.

“You’ll miss the bus,” he said, reaching for his coffee.

I nodded and stared into my glass. I’d made a quick job of cleaning my room, shoving the torn pages into the wastebasket and sweeping most of the seedpods under the bed. Now I felt exhausted and depressed. I’d never been very good at shaking off bad dreams, and last night’s clung to me like a fever. I considered pleading sick and going back to bed, but the thought of being alone in my room was worse than almost anything else I could imagine—except, perhaps, seeing Axel Kern that night at his party.

“Lit?” My father frowned over the top of the Arts and Leisure section.

“Okay, I’m off,” I sighed. “Don’t worry, Hillary’ll drive me—” I kissed him, grabbed the canvas bag that held my schoolbooks and started for the door.

“Your mother won’t be home this afternoon.” My father put down the paper and looked after me, his mournful face unusually pensive. “I have to go down to the city to see a casting agent. Then we’re going to meet your mother for dinner with the Kingsleys in New Canaan, and
then
we’ll all go over to Axel’s for this party. What are your plans, Lit?”

“I dunno.” I hesitated. I would never admit it, but the thought of going to Axel’s party without my parents now frightened me. “Actually, I’m not feeling so hot. I was thinking that maybe—”

My father gave me Unk’s best bone-freezing stare. “I want you there tonight, Lit.”

“But—”

“No ‘buts.’ Be there.”

“Right.” I nodded, defeated. “I’ll just go to Ali’s after school, I guess. Or Hillary’s—”

“Not with his parents gone; not if we’re not here. Call us from Ali’s house if you need a ride up to Bolerium. We expect to see you there this evening, Lit.”

“Yeah.”

I shouldered my bag and headed outside. It was a chill morning. The sky was dark and forbidding; to the east a thin line of blue was eroded by swiftly moving clouds. Alongside the road the trees were bare, save for a few oaks clinging to tatterdemalion crowns. I went next door, slowing to walk through the leaves in front of Hillary’s house. My unease was now fullblown dread: worse than when I listened to one of Ali’s ghost stories, worse than when I took the SATs, worse than anything I could remember. I knew this was ridiculous, but I couldn’t shake it. I stopped and stared down at the leaves, nudging them around to see if I could find the mask Hillary had tossed there the night before. There was no sign of it, and finally I gave up. I let myself in the front door and found Hillary in the kitchen beside the stove.

He raised a spatula in greeting. “Hey, Lit. French toast?”

“Yeah.” I poured some coffee and peeked through the window at my house.

“What’s going on?” Hillary dropped a chunk of butter into a skillet. “Is he, like, watching?”

“I don’t know. Wait—”

I pointed at my father striding out the side door of our house. He wore a long black greatcoat that flapped behind him in the wind, and even from this distance I could see his saturnine face scowling furiously as he swiped leaves and fallen twigs from the car windshield. Against the backdrop of stark trees and lowering sky he looked faintly threatening, like a wicked parson.

“He’s going now,” I whispered, as though my father could hear me. He clambered into the old VW squareback and backed it out into the road. I held my breath, fearful that he’d see Hillary’s car still in the drive and realize I hadn’t left. But he didn’t; only turned and headed off for the village train station. “He’s—
gone
.”

“Ali called.” Hillary handed me a plate swimming with maple syrup. “She wants to go to the Elephant’s Trunk. She can’t cut Interdisciplinary again, so I told her we’d pick her up afterward.”

I slid behind the table and ate while Hillary cleaned up. He seemed pensive, even brooding, and with his usual offhand grace had dressed the part—an old tuxedo shirt of Edmund’s tucked into his patched and embroidered jeans, a dark blue naval officer’s jacket. I watched him stalk across the kitchen, loading the dishwasher and gathering his books for school. I said nothing, recalling his anger last night. But I felt uncomfortable—it wasn’t like Hillary to stay mad about anything. When I finished eating we went out to the car, still without speaking, and drove to pick up Ali.

“I need earrings if we’re going to this thing tonight,” she announced as she clambered into the front seat beside me. She shivered dramatically. “God, it’s cold.”

Hillary eyed her outfit—short-sleeved black leotard, black ballet slippers, bell-bottom jeans so frayed her skin showed through. The same thing she’d been wearing yesterday, as a matter of fact. “Maybe you should put some clothes on.”

“Screw you.”

Ali leaned her head against my shoulder. I wrinkled my nose. She smelled of smoke and patchouli oil and something I didn’t recognize, a sweetish, faintly chemical odor. “Didn’t you go home last night, Ali?”

“Uh-uh. I crashed at Jamie’s.” She yawned, and I felt a stab of hopeless envy, seeing her in bed with Jamie Casson. She had dark circles under her eyes; her lips looked swollen and bitten, and there was a tiny greenish bruise on one arm. “You guys didn’t bring me any coffee, did you?”

Hillary snorted. “Yeah, sure, Ali! And pancakes, too!
No,
I didn’t bring you coffee. Wasn’t there any at his place?”

“No. Ralph won’t buy coffee. He says it’s, like, a capitalist plot to steal money from the Aztecs.”

“The
Aztecs
?”

“Or
something
,” said Ali defensively. “Gimme a break, I feel like shit.”

“That’s good. Cause you
look
like shit,” I said, and ducked as she elbowed me.

Hillary drove us to the Elephant’s Trunk, a head shop in Mount Kisco, where Ali bought a little brown vial of amyl nitrite
(
HEART-ON EXOTIC FRAGRANCE,
the label read) and I tried on an orange-and-green paisley Indian print dress. It was low-cut and calf-length; long shirred sleeves, flowing skirt, no tassels.

“What do you think?”

Great,
Ali mouthed. She sat on the floor, eyes huge as teacups, the open vial cupped in one unsteady hand. “Grrr—unh…”

She slumped against the wall. Ignoring her, Hillary stepped over to examine me. He frowned. “It’s sort of a funny color. It’s sort of
two
funny colors.”

“It’s orange,” I said.

“Well, yeah, that’s what I mean. It’s sort of a weird shade on you. I mean, isn’t it sort of a weird color on anyone, orange and green? I thought you were going with your mother—”

I gave him an icy look. “What, to Lord and Taylor? I
like
it—” I ran my hands over the bodice. “It’s cool.”

“Don’t listen to him, it’s great.” Ali got up and stumbled toward me. “And it looks really cool with those boots. But you need a necklace or something. C’mon.”

I picked out a pukka-shell necklace and a handful of silver bracelets so thin and supple it was like wearing a Slinky on my wrist. For herself Ali chose a pair of very large earrings, Mexican silver inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and shaped like peacock feathers. Hillary flipped through a bin of used albums, every now and then holding one up for me to see.

“Wow.
In the Wake of Poseidon
. Do I have that, Lit?”

“Dunno.”

“What about this:
Supersnazz
.”

Ali cozied herself back onto the floor and put on her new earrings. “Cool, huh? Hey, you want some of this?”

She unscrewed the vial of amyl nitrite and inhaled loudly. Behind the register the store manager looked up, glaring.

“Oh,
great
,” Hillary groaned. He shoved the album into the bin, turned to the manager, and smiled apologetically. “Boy, she sure loves that exotic fragrance, huh? I was just going to—”