The Complete Collection (15 page)

Claudia
sits in the yard alone often.

Sam is preoccupied with
his own thoughts.

It’s amazing to Claudia
that she feels less alone in an empty yard than she does when talking to Sam.

Both of them are
anxious for the baby’s arrival, though. Perhaps both of them, in a kind of
naïveté, feel the baby will bring them back together.

Hope is a foolish
thing, isn’t it?

Babies don’t bring
people together in this house.

Still, Claudia hopes.

Today, she walks over
stray rocks and branches just beyond the tree line that borders the yard. Her
palms are pressed together, her fingers interlaced.

Suddenly, she stops.

Her heart tightens
painfully in her chest.

Her breath is caught in
her throat.

The color drains from
her face.

Before her, propped up
and stacked together, are gravestones.

Gravestones removed
from their graves.

There are four or five
aged ones. The names etched into them are hard to make out, with letters worn
away. Claudia does not want
to read the names, but she has to.

J  SI

BR WN

And one that seems more
recent.

AINSLEY PRICE

Suddenly, it’s clear.

Claudia turns back to
the yard—the serene, grass-covered ocean of death—that now seems to
yawn before her.

Everything is a lie.

“Sam, you lying
bastard,” she mutters, “what else have you lied about?”

She turns back to the
stacked gravestones.

Shapeless shadows
appear.

Before her are those
she can only imagine are the grave’s occupants.

A young woman holding a
baby in what appears to be century-old clothing. She is smiling. Claudia knows
her. She has seen her before—in the rocking chair.

Another young woman in
more modern clothing.

And then finally before
her is the monster.

I smile.

“Murderer,” she
whispers.

Now, I laugh.

Run away, little
girl.

A tall man, all in
black with piercing blue eyes, stands with the others.

The Blacksmith
.

He reaches a hand out
to her and, this time, she knows what the invitation means.

As she turns to run,
Claudia begins to feel pains.

She falls to the grass and
her water abruptly breaks.

As Claudia passes out,
she wonders whose restless, buried bones her nurturing umbilical fluid is being
wasted on.

The earth seems to heave
a sigh as the precious juices of life moisten the poisonous ground—a
feast for maggots.

Sam
has been gone for days.

He found Claudia lying
in the grass and screamed for help, but—of course—no one came.

No one ever does.

Eventually, an
ambulance arrived and took them both to the hospital.

Sam finally came home
today.

Alone.

I smile.

He goes into the house
and a little while later, the phone rings.

“Hey, Mom.

“Yes, she’s finally
stabilized. The baby is fine. They want to keep them both for a few more days
for observation, but they’re both on the road to recovery.

“Yes, I was worried,
too.

“I know. I’m sorry I
didn’t call sooner.

“No, Mom. Now is not a
good time for a visit. I know you want to help, but give us a few days.

“Yes, a food delivery
would be great.

“Okay, I’ll call you in
a day or two.

“No, we haven’t picked
a name yet.

“Thanks, Mom. I love
you, too.”

Sam hangs up the phone
and pours himself a drink.

He sits down wearily on
the couch.

Claudia is better
physically, but not mentally.

She still hasn’t talked
about what happened in the yard.

He doesn’t want to push
it. Really, he doesn’t want to talk about it because he is not sure she’d like
what he has to say.

Her health is delicate
enough.

And now they have a
baby to care for.

Their daughter.

His
daughter.

The love he experienced
when looking into his daughter’s eyes was like nothing he’s ever experienced.

Something has to
change.

He has to fix this.

Sam takes his drink
with him and goes into the nursery.

It’s a room he’s
strangely avoided for some reason.

Maybe he felt it was
Claudia’s space.

Maybe he felt like an
outsider.

He goes into the
nursery and sits in the rocking chair.

And rocks.

He closes his eyes.

He prays for peace.

He’s suddenly filled
with an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Of desperation.

Of love for a child—a
child for whom one would sacrifice almost anything.

Sam thinks of his child
in the hospital. Of his wife, trying to recover.

His eyes spill salty
tears.

He hears whispers.

Sam listens quietly.

He can feel me.

Then he speaks.

“I can’t do this anymore.
I have to stop this. I should have stopped it a long time ago.”

Still, he rocks.

You will never stop
the cycle of death and sorrow.

“I have to.”

Sam leaves the rocking
chair and walks back down the stairs.

He knows what he has to
do.

Leave the past behind.

Sam
sleeps.

His bed is empty and
inviting.

Sleep draws his mind to
his daughter. To Claudia.

But he can’t break from
Ainsley.

Sam is sweating. He
wakes and his head is pounding.

It’s a dark night.

But isn’t it always,
my darling?

Sam gives up on sleep.

He gets up and goes to
the bathroom.

His face is haggard in
the mirror. His guilt is aging him.

It’s tormenting him.

He wonders if it is
eating away at his insides, like how Ainsley ate away at so many.

He thinks that maybe
this is her way of victimizing him like all those men she buried before.

It makes sense since
all their deaths were his fault.

Is being eaten less
painful emotionally?

Probably not.

He whispers her name in
the mirror.

He catches movement out
of the corner of his eye.

Sam goes from the
mirror to the window.

There’s a fire in the
distance—in the yard.

Sam runs down the
stairs and out the back door.

His heart is pounding,
but he must get to the fire.

Slowly, he makes his
way over the corrupted soil toward the light.

“Hello?” he whispers in
vain.

He gets closer to the
fire.

He sees a figure behind
it.

A figure that is tall
and silent.

Now what?
Sam thinks.

Sam is nervous, but
forces himself to confront the intruder—this man
must
have started
the fire.

He grabs the figure’s shoulder
aggressively.

“Hey! What the fuck do
you think you are doing?” he yells.

Sam meets the dark
figure’s ice-blue eyes.

And he knows.

The Blacksmith says
nothing.

Instead, he takes Sam’s
hand and forces it into the fire.

The pain is
excruciating, but Sam cannot cry out.

Instead, he stares into
the fire and sees the body of Ainsley.

He watches as the
flames lick her bones clean of flesh.

Sam feels the burn as
he watches it, tears welling in his eyes.

And suddenly, hers
open.

Sam…

It comes from everywhere.

From the sky, from the
earth, from the fire.

Sam tries to fight, to
free his hand, but the Blacksmith’s grip is immovable.

He watches as Ainsley’s
body curls and twists in the flames.

It is changing.

Horrified, he sees that
she has become Claudia.

She is speechless, but
her eyes are filled with horror.

No
! Sam cries inside.

He realizes: all he can
bring to the women he loves is destruction.

Death.

Horror.

Misery.

Pain.

Nothing.

Still, as much as he
hates himself, his last thoughts are of me.

Ainsley…

Sam
doesn’t need a gravestone to know where I am buried, but he puts it back
anyway.

He puts them all back.

He labors in the
setting sun, replacing the markers one by one.

There’s no more denying
what this is.

Where we are
.

Even if there weren’t a
rose covered in thorns—thanks to Lila’s rebirth in her death—he’d
know.

Our love is stronger
than death.

This time, Sam doesn’t
bother with a glass.

This time he just
brings the bottle.

Sam is good at talking
to graves.

I taught him well.

He sits with his back
to the gravestone marked with Ainsley’s name and drinks.

“Ainsley,” he says.

His mind and heart are
open.

I’ve waited so long.

I’m here, I whisper.

A tear rolls down Sam’s
cheek.

“Help me. Can you help
me?” he asks.

“Help me to die,” he says.

Surprisingly, I
still have the capacity for pain.

I didn’t think I had
any left.

No, I answer.

“Please! I’m begging
you,” he cries. “Ainsley, I have a child now. I love my wife. But I’m no good.”

You love me.

“No, I don’t!” he says
angrily.

Then he pauses.

“Yes, yes I do. And I
can never stop. And it will destroy all of us,” he says.

My invisible tears
flow. They are lifeless and flow through my empty hands.

“As long as I exist, I
will do nothing but bring my wife and child pain. Just like the pain I bought
you,” he cries, and the words are like birth pangs.

“If you weren’t going
to let me live—really live—then you should have just killed me,”
Sam says.

I still can, I say.

“Is that a threat?
Because I am not afraid of you. Did you not hear me? I want to die,” Sam says.

He turns around.

He can see me now.

“Ainsley, I know you
loved me once. Truly loved me. And I owe you this,” Sam says.

“I am sorry for not
knowing how you felt. I am sorry for not understanding your loneliness,”

Stop. I don’t want
to hear it.

We’re ready for you.

It’s too late.

But he goes on with his
apologies.

“I’m sorry for not
realizing you loved me when I should have.

“I’m sorry for not
loving you better.

“I’m sorry for hurting
you.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t a better
friend.

“I’m sorry I didn’t
help you.

“I’m sorry I didn’t
stop you.”

Both of us are
sobbing.

STOP STOP STOP STOP,
I scream. I’m a monster.

“You’re not! That’s
just it. I know you’re not!” he sobs.

I am.

“A monster would have
killed me,” he says. “I know part of your pain is my fault, and that kills me
more than any knife ever could.”

I want to make this
go away. I want to kill Sam. I want to kill myself again to make this go away.

I want to hurt
others to take my pain away, I tell him.

“Ainsley, I know that.
Don’t you think I know that?” he says quietly. “And nothing will take your pain
away more than killing me. Just do it.”

I am quiet.

“Help me, Ainsley.
Please. I’m begging you. I don’t deserve it, but I’m still asking.”

I’m still angry.

Ainsley, echoes a
familiar voice.

I turn to hear my
name.

It’s the Blacksmith.

Let him go, he says.
It’s not your time.

I know he’s right.
He reaches out a hand to me.

Sam doesn’t belong
here, the Blacksmith says. He is not like us.

It is so hard.

I take a last look
at Sam’s wavy hair, which practically glows in the sun, and his brown eyes
filled with tears.

I can’t do this
anymore.

I love you, Sam, I
say.

“Ainsley,” he says.

“I love you, too.”

But he can feel it.

I’m already gone.