Hemlock Grove (15 page)

Shelley met his eyes and nodded gravely.

“I am in my best girl’s debt,” said Pryce, “and even more deeply if she gives me a smile.”

She grinned.

“I suppose we should turn back. You never know what you’ll run into in the woods these days. And I don’t suppose you’d have room for a slice of pumpkin pie?”

She nodded vigorously. They turned back on the path and a low-lying branch caught in her hair.

“Oh dear,” he said and stood on a large rock, gently disentangling it. He brushed away dry leaf particles.

“I’m so proud of you, you know,” he said. “It’s not for nothing. Your time in this incubator.”

Her cheeks flashed dimly like lightning behind cloud.

*   *   *

Destiny stood at the sink and unscrewed the lid and reached in and pulled out the worm, which she rinsed under the faucet. It had gone from white to a pale blue-red, and while skinny before it now bulged lasciviously.

“Down the hatch,” she said and tipped her head back and swallowed it whole. She sat down and nodded to Peter. On the kitchen table were two leather belts. Peter looped one belt around her abdomen and arms and fastened it tightly. She crossed her ankles and he bound them to the chair with the second belt.

“Are your feet ticklish?” he said.

“It would be your last act on this Earth,” she said. “Don’t go far. This can get a little bumpy.”

Peter stood behind her, bracing her shoulders. Suddenly she sucked in her breath as though at sharp abdominal pain.

“Be quick,” she winced. “It passes fast.”

Just then her head whipped forward and both belts strained taut, catching Peter by surprise and causing him to lose his grip; he only just managed to catch the back of the chair before it tipped forward. Her breathing now hoarse and erratic, she snapped back upright and her hair lashed Peter’s face; her spine arched rigid and her extremities strained as she panted through her nose and began to wrench violently from side to side; the chair lurched and rocked in Peter’s grip. Then she fell limp and the breath rolled down her nose. Her hair draped forward so all he could see were her lips, a loose strand of spittle issuing.

After a moment Peter said, “Can you talk?”

“Yes.” Her voice was brittle and diaphanous, like the wings of a dead insect.

“What can you tell me?”

“I hated butterscotch. I was good at trig and liked to sew. All my life I was more afraid than anything of swimming where you couldn’t see the bottom but one day I just wasn’t anymore. I was planning on giving Scott Buford a blow job on his birthday but would have chickened out. My parents always loved me more than my sister. I hope they get that sorted out.”

“What can you tell me about your death?” Peter said more specifically.

“I came to Hemlock Grove because of the invitation. It was dark, and I didn’t see anyone else, but I thought that was part of it. So I parked a little way off and doubled back, like it said. And there he was. I couldn’t tell what it was at first, waiting there in the mist. I’d never seen anything like it. But I wasn’t afraid, not yet. I was in a dream. And then he came to me, but slowly. Like a friend. I could see now it was a dog, but not like any other dog. He was so big. So big and so black. He came to me and I reached out and held out my hand for him because I’ve always had a way with dogs. This close I could see how tall he was, his head was as high as mine. And so skinny it hurt my heart. Skinny but still strong. Some animals you can just feel it in the air around them, how strong they are. But I wasn’t afraid. I have a way with dogs. I reached out to pet his cheek, and that’s when I saw those eyes. Horrible yellow eyes.”

“What was the invitation?” said Peter. “Where were you?”

Destiny convulsed. She looked up at Peter through eyes that looked far past him.

“The way he looked at me with those eyes,” she said. “That helpless way a dog looks at you when it can’t tell you what it needs.”

Just then Destiny belched once and then twice and her head dropped and the worm slid out of her mouth and slopped to the floor. She looked at Peter.

“Let me up,” she said.

*   *   *

After cleaning up, Destiny put a hold-on hand to Peter’s arm at the door.

“Another thing,” she said. “How much do you know about this place, Hemlock Grove?”

“It’s a place,” he said, trying to look terribly blasé.

“You can play Mr. Big Stuff with me but I’ve seen you cry your eyes out when Nicolae said the utilities guy was Leatherface,” she said.

“What should I know?” he said.

“You need to be very careful around Roman Godfrey and his mother,” she said.

“The little prince has no teeth,” said Peter. “And the queen is an actress. Underneath the mask she’s just bored.”

“He has no teeth yet. But I could see with my Third Eye a trouble with his Anahata chakra, and just like I knew there would be, there’s a dangerous conversion of his fate line and his heart line. He is going to face the hardest choice he will ever have to make, and however he falls will have very very large consequences for anyone around him.

“And you should watch your step around an actress whether or not she’s
upir.
Because you never know how many masks that crazy bitch is wearing.”

Peter nodded. She tightened her grip.

“Make no mistake about their kind,” she said. “I was in love with an
upir
once. Someday when I’m drunk enough I’ll tell you about it. But please take my word for it: Never forget what he is. Especially if he has.”

“Okay,” said Peter, impatient. There being no naturally occurring balm for exactly your own doubts quite like the implication that you don’t have them under control.

He paused.

“What do you think of angels?” he said.

“Angels are messengers that help us understand God,” she said. She looked at him. “Why are you asking me about angels?”

“There’s this girl at school,” he said.

“What is it with you and crazy girls?” she said.

He didn’t have an answer. He wished he did.

No Upward Limit

That evening Roman stood nude facing the bathroom mirror with the blade of a box cutter pressed just to the side of his pubis, and he made a small incision. He was in the habit of on occasion cutting open—nothing excessive—his chest or his abdomen; not to release any inner pain or cause a fuss, but simply because he liked to, liked the feeling of hot blood trickling down his belly or his legs or his cock, liked the complementarity of it, that life was in essence liquid, not solid. He watched in the mirror the rivulet curve with his hip down his inner thigh and the hairs of his legs stood, the warmth of it versus the cold of the tile under his feet. He tightened his core and clenched his buttocks to increase the flow.

“Bloody invigorating!” he said.

Then his phone rang; the ring was the song “Common People.”

“Shit,” he said, reaching for a hand towel.

Downstairs, Roman told his mother he was going to pop off to Letha’s. She searched his face, and finding a trace of that subtle glow his cousin tended to awaken in him that he was not sufficiently artful in mendacity to fake, said, “Fine.”

He continued past but she stopped him. “Just a moment, darling, you’ve got an eyelash.”

She put a hand to his face and looked into his eyes.

*   *   *

“Where’s Peter?” said Letha.

“Otherwise engaged,” said Roman.

He lay on her bed and she sat Indian-style on the floor.

“So you have dirt for me,” he said.

“In spades,” she said. “I was actually surprised I could get Dad to go into it, but he’s just carrying so much these days he seemed relieved to have an excuse to talk about it. He can’t get away from it, you know. It’s on all sides. But he’ll get through it. He’ll get through it when he holds my baby.”

Roman did not respond.

“So it turns out before Pullman saw the attack he was a test subject in a sleep study at the White Tower,” she said. “He thinks it was connected with an experiment called Project Ouroboros where he was killed and brought back to life.”

“Huh,” said Roman, thinking of Pryce’s unexpected call. “What’s your dad think?”

“He doesn’t know what to think. Considering there were no tracks, if what this guy thought he saw was actually a hallucination it … makes a lot more sense that you guys are right.” She looked down and picked at fringe on the carpet. “That it’s a person.”

Roman nodded. Then he stopped abruptly and looked at her with a blank expression.

“What?” she said.

“The institute is one of the most advanced medical centers in the world,” said Roman. “The only thing that matters is where the baby will be safest.”

A moment passed and Roman continued to nod, but now with some confusion. She was confused too. They looked at each other. It passed. Letha turned her head to the side, cracking her neck, and reached back to squeeze a knot in her trapezius.

“Want a back rub?” said Roman.

She scoffed, as a selfish person offering an unselfish gesture can expect.

“Come on,” he said. “You can’t tell me those tits aren’t murdering your shoulders.”

“Shut up!” She folded her arms around her chest.

Roman patted the blanket. She bit her lip.

“Your token display of resistance fools no one,” he said.

“Yeah yeah,” she said and climbed next to him, lying prone. He straddled her and took a seat on the cushion of her posterior and tucked her hair to the side.

“You’ll have to excuse me if my performance isn’t one hundred percent,” he said. “I’m not used to doing this through a shirt.”

“You’re so gross! If I wanted to hear about your whoredom I’d pay more attention in the girls’ bathroom.”

He dug his thumbs into her trapezius and made slow semicircles, radiating outward to her deltoids. She inhaled sharply and let it out in a long slow breath. He worked his knuckles into her scapulae.

“You
are
good at this,” she said. “Gross!”

Her nose wrinkled from an itch and she rubbed it with the back of her hand. He took her wrist and regarded the ring on her finger.

“What’s this?”

“A prize. Peter said it was good luck.”

Roman said nothing. He worked his thumbs incrementally down her spine, then slid his fingers under her shirt and kneaded her waist and the dimples of flesh on either side of the small of her back.

“Right there. Ohmygod right there,” she said.

There was a clipped knock and then Marie Godfrey entered before waiting for a response.

“Honey, that dancing show you like is on,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom,” said Letha.

Marie hovered at the door, in a conundrum over her disapproval and lack of theoretical ground to protest.

“Ooh, am I next?” she said with a laugh of unpleasant brittleness that her ears regretted registering as her own.

“Absolutely,” said Roman, giving her a wink that made her wish she was carrying a hatpin.

“Oh, Mom,” said Letha, “I think I’m going to see about switching treatment to the institute. I know Dad will have a conniption, but it’s one of the most advanced medical centers in the world, and the only thing that matters is where the baby will be safest.”

*   *   *

Dr. Godfrey sat with the phone to his ear, drumming his fingers on a jar on his desk containing two fist-sized skeins of intricately woven crimson fibers: the blood vessels of the brain cast in colored polymer—a gift from the Women’s Psychiatric Society for his generosity to their cause. He inquired of his wife what precisely he was supposed to do about it.

She apologized. “I meant to call someone with some kind of control over what happens under his roof,” she said.

Dial tone filled his ear. His hand fell away but he did not replace the phone in the cradle. He sat regarding the dead pinholes of the receiver.

*   *   *

“How very goddamn
mysterious
,” said Olivia.

She closed Godfrey’s office door behind her.

“The monsieur summoned?” she said.

He didn’t get up from behind his desk. She sat on the couch, reclining.

“What is Johann up to?” he said.

“Why on earth should I know?” she said.

“Anytime I try to pick up his leash he goes hiding behind your skirts. Why is that?”

“Because as long as I’m apprised of quarterlies, I concern myself as little as possible with … whatever it is Johann does,” she said.

“My daughter has decided she’d like to pursue treatment at the institute,” he said.

“Sensible,” she said.

“It won’t happen while I’m alive.”

“You’re looking at me like I’m supposed to argue about something that’s none of my business.”

“What about the bid to buy me out? That’s your business.”

“If someone wants your share, it’s news to me,” she said indifferently.

“When you’re lying about something I know you know, exactly what do you want me to believe?” he said.

She rose and went to his wall cabinet and took out a bottle of scotch.

“From what I’ve seen, people believe exactly what they want to, independent of your encouragement,” she said. She poured a glass.

Godfrey looked at her. The first time she had been in his office since she was a patient. Eliciting the same response she always had then, never replicated by another: outrage over his own inability to control his feelings.

“How can you not care after what he did to Shelley?” said Godfrey, ears flushing with a rising anger happier than any drunk. “Do you have antifreeze in your veins?”

She didn’t reply.

“What kind of mother are you?” he said, unfair, awful, and exalted.

She replaced the scotch on the shelf, putting the bottle on its side without screwing the cap back on and shutting the door. She returned to the couch as the liquid began flowing from the crack in the door down the paneling and puddled on the carpet.

Godfrey rose and went to the couch, standing over her.

“Stand up,” he said.

“Thank
God
,” she said. “I was worrying you only had me over because Marie doesn’t listen anymore when you’re feeling boorish.”