Circle Nine (12 page)

It’s been weeks of this mourning and not mourning
because Abby, she’s still with us — don’t you see? Soon we’ll go out West and it’ll be OK. All three of us! That’s what she wanted; we’ll give it to her.
And nervous agitation and nightmares, so I convince Sam to change things up. We can only take so much of our old routine, and everything feels stale now anyway. I once loved the long, languid hours of it, but now it only makes me sick with unease. My stomach has turned more nervous, and I’m always sick, sick with constant pains that keep me in the bathroom forever and because of it, my appetite has shriveled up into a walnut, old and weathered. I am desperate for change.

So I tug Sam’s arm and whine until he agrees. We are to go to the cinema. The word is delicious in my mouth. He agrees and I am like a child! I am so excited. But there’s also the thrill from the danger of it. We are going to the cinema, which is in Circle Nine, which of course is horribly dangerous. Sam hopes, I think, to drive away my restlessness with one night of recklessness.

I dress up sexy for the occasion. Amanda has left behind a black slinky something that isn’t quite a dress, more a bandage that wraps my body tight to the thighs as if everything above that is one big sore it needs to protect. Sammy won’t be able to see it much, though, because it’s black night out, so my dress and the air around us and everything we see will blend into one black haze. That’s why Sammy agreed, anyway. The cinema is a night thing we found out about in the layers of newspaper that wrapped our fresh fish dinner the other night. It was printed in ink: outdoor night cinema on the big screen, given by a local documentary film club — and the ink rubbed off on our fillet’s underbelly as if we were meant to eat the headlines, too. And so Sammy has agreed because in the night we are more protected, and it is likely we will be safe from the horrible things that haunt Circle Nine in the day. Which is why we go for food and our other things we need mostly just in the night. And now our Date will be in the night, and we’ll be like a normal couple, the kind we read about in Sam’s novels. I hope the cinema will become a regular thing.

I slather on lipstick, the pink stuff, and put green sparkles on my eyes. Traces of Amanda on my face. When I am done my eyes match my peacock-feather boa. Sam looks at me and part of him smiles, but then he removes the boa and makes me wipe my lips on the fabric of his dark sweater, where the pink turns into nothing but a greasy smudge.

If you want to go unseen,
he says,
you’re hardly trying.

I just got carried away.

Then we are walking through the trees for fifteen, twenty minutes until the trees break and we are on the border of a beautiful wide park. I can feel Sam’s hopes for me waxing in every step. He thinks this film will cure me of my nightmares and make me docile again, content with only our little nucleus. But when I see the rows of people stretched out in an ocean before us, I am anything but. I am more intoxicated by Circle Nine, even if I am still frightened as ever. I pause.

Is this the same place as before?
I ask him.

What do you mean, before?

Before. With the fire. Are we in the same town?

No.
I feel Sam’s hand clench mine tight.
We’ve left that place behind. We’re somewhere different now. This is the town I go to for food sometimes. The town where Sid lives, you remember?

But where?
I only want to get my bearings.

North, Abby. North of there. Don’t worry about it. Let’s go before we’re late.

Sam clutches my hand as I move forward, drawing me back toward the trees.

We stay here,
he says. He points to a grouping of rocks just outside the trees, far back from the crowd.
Crowds are dangerous,
he reminds me. So we keep our distance.

As the film flickers on, there’s nothing I can concentrate on so much as the people in front of me. They turn their attentions to the screen, but if I look closely, I can see more than that. There are girls scooted backward between their boys’ legs, couples like Sam and me. And they curl into each other like we do. They don’t look so dangerous.

There are groups of girls my age laughing with each other. There are picnic baskets spread at their feet, and they reach for cheese and crackers at the same time, brushing knuckles without taking their eyes off the screen. It’s an intimacy I can’t have with any girl. It’s something I could never have had with Amanda, who was always too cunning to relax into me, threading her affection with mine like these girls do, even when we were getting along. It’s something I think I might feel with the girl from my dreams.

I try to think about the movie and enjoy Sam because that is what I came here to do. It is our big Date. But somehow I feel sordid and sick again in my slinky dress and heels. The other girls are wearing jeans and cotton shirts and they look lovely, and it is I who is the ugly thing here, not Circle Nine. I make big efforts to stop thinking; thinking so much all the time is what Sam hates most about me. And so I bring my eyes to the screen. It is a documentary.

A selection of short films,
Sam whispers in my ear. He has found a program which has drifted from somewhere along this summer breeze.

Which one are we on?
I ask.

Birdcalls America,
he says. I am transfixed for a while as I watch a man in a kayak paddle across a long, wide stream, probably very dangerous, with creatures that would gobble him alive, in search of the elusive ivory-bellied woodpecker. He finds him without much trouble, although he’s whispering most of the time so as not to disturb the bird, and so the camera doesn’t pick up much of what he says and I barely know what’s going on. Then after his victorious moment in which he wades across the stream (and I’m not so much frightened anymore as exhilarated) and snaps a shot of the woodpecker, and then becomes famous across bird-watching circles in America, the screen fades out.

Then on again.

The Forgottens: A Story of a Lost Youth.

I sit taller on my rock.

It is all about no ones, kids like Sam and me, without families or attachments. That’s what we know.

But these kids were born with families who were ripped from them, either in tragic accidents or circumstances they couldn’t prevent, like poverty. Or maybe some were abandoned by parents who were sick.

Suddenly a flash enters my skull. It sears in pain. I am trembling. I can feel Sam go stiff beside me.

Let’s go,
he whispers.

No. I refuse. I stay put. He knows he can’t yell because we are close enough to the people to cause a scene. So for once, I have my way.

The documentary is told in ministories that chronicle certain lost souls — orphans and street kids. After it’s over, a melodramatic narrative voice bellows across the lawn from the sound system around us:

As the voice continues in monotone, the camera pans to a neighborhood setting that looks vaguely familiar. Then a photo flashes across the screen: a pretty little dark-haired girl on a tire swing. It looks as if this will be a slide show, in memoriam. I see a date and the beginnings of a name, text that passes quickly under the photo, but before I can see the rest, Sam snatches my hand hard enough that I cry out, and though the sound is mostly muffled, I see some people turn. My arm might be pulled from my socket. Sam is on his feet, blocking the screen from view.

Stop, Sammy! I want to say, but I say nothing. I have never seen him look so monstrous.

We need to leave.
Now.
His tone is harsher than I’ve ever heard, and his eyes glow red, so I follow him because I am afraid.

But part of me feels urgently that I must stay here. I glance back to the screen, which is smaller behind me and partly obscured by the trees we are now dashing through. I am hurt and confused and something in me
needs to see who the dead girl was,
even though my head is begging for mercy.

When we get home, I face Sam in anger. He has ruined my date. Why do I have no choices? He catches his breath and pulls me to the floor, where he sits.

Abby,
he says,
that film was evil. It will pollute your brain. And it was mediocre. We’re above that, you and me. The people who made it must have been dumb. Infantile. Plebeian.
Sam shakes his head in apparent disgust.

But why, Sammy? Why was it so bad?

Everything about that place is bad,
he says.
It disgusts me; it really does. You will become evil if you let it tempt you.

I don’t think it’s so evil,
I say. I am obstinate.
I think you make this up,
I say.

If you don’t believe me, Abby, I can tell you this: you will lose me forever if you begin to desire Circle Nine.

I am silent; there is nothing more for me to say. It always comes down to that, and I can’t argue. He knows I want that least of all, less than I want to explore the world. Our argument is over and Sam takes me tenderly in his arms, but I am still bothered. There was something about that film that seeped under my skin and became a dozen small worms wriggling there. I scratch all over. I need it out. I must find out. I need the truth now, and nothing can send me back to that oblivious state in which I was once happy. I will find out what happened to me, who I am, what came before this life with Sam, regardless of what Sam thinks. Regardless of how dangerous it may be.

I know I must look a sight. Sam passed out cold again after a sleepless, tense night of pacing. When he passes out these days, I can usually count on an hour, maybe two before he wakes up. Leaving is a risk, but I had to try. It took me forty minutes to run through the woods. I don’t have much time.

The librarian is eyeing me warily. I know all kinds of things about libraries, even though I don’t know this particular one. I know it’s where you go when you want answers. I know about the archives, where old newspapers are kept. I think I must have always known, even though I don’t remember when or where I learned it. I think the things I carry with me — bits and pieces of Circle Nine knowledge — stay with me from Before because they have nothing to do with the big blanks of nothingness that are Me, my essence. I have lots of this kind of knowledge. The things I remember are the things I least crave to know.

I had to ask someone where the library was; I’ve only been in this town once before. I went right to the park, the park where we saw the film. I walked right up to one of those Circle Nine demons because I had to know.
Where is the library?
I asked. The demon — it was a girl about my age, holding a baby — didn’t look evil. Neither did the baby. But I know underneath it all, they’re corrupt and teeming with sinister thoughts. I had to do it, though. I had to know about the library. She told me and then she looked at me strangely, as if there was something wrong with
me
instead of something wrong with
her,
but I guess that’s what they do; and I hurried away. She didn’t follow. But I’m still feeling a chill.

Do you have anything about a fire on Orchard Lane?
I ask the librarian. The street name is the only bit of information I have to go on.

The librarian clucks her tongue.
My, what a tragedy that was,
she says. She turns her back on me and begins clicking on her computer, scrawling notes with one hand as she squints at the screen. My mind wanders; I am getting anxious. I don’t know how I know how to speak to the librarian, why the musty shelves feel warm and comfortable instead of unfamiliar. As far as I remember, I have never been here before. Yet I am beginning to get used to this curious déjà vu, this instinctual knowledge I seem to possess. I know I must have been here, or somewhere like this, Before. I fight to remember, but I can’t. The librarian clears her throat, and I jump. She’s looking at me oddly.
Are you OK?
she asks. I nod and take the index card she’s extending toward me.