The Drowning Girl (22 page)

“Well—and I hope this doesn’t sound too freaky—but I think it’s kind of neat. I mean, how many people ever experience physical transformation on the level you have? Starting off one thing and becoming another thing. Making that choice. You’re brave.”

She stared at me a moment, then said, “I’ve always been a woman, Imp. The hormones and surgery, they didn’t change me from one thing to another. That’s why I hate the phrase ‘sex change.’ It’s misleading. No one ever changed my sex. They just brought my flesh more in line with my mind. With my gender. Also, not so sure there really was a choice. I don’t think I’d be alive if I hadn’t done it. If I
couldn’t
have done it.” She didn’t sound angry or put out with me. She spoke patiently, though there was something weary in the back of her voice, and I wondered how many times Abalyn had explained
this, and to how many different people. “I don’t think it even means I’m brave,” she added.

I felt stupid, and started to apologize, but I didn’t. Sometimes, apologies don’t help at all.

When Rosemary killed herself, the hospital apologized to me. When Caroline killed herself, Rosemary didn’t apologize, and it was better that way.

“I still think it’s neat,” I said. I said lamely. “Even if you had to, even if there wasn’t really choice, and if they didn’t really change your sex.” Truthfully, though, I didn’t understand, but I would. In the weeks and months to come, surviving Eva and surviving Eva, I’d learn a lot more—too much—about being one sort of being on the inside and another on the outside. About being held prisoner by flesh, and wanting to be free so badly that death finally becomes an option, the way it became an option for my mother and grandmother. Trapped in a body, trapped in a mind. I don’t think the one’s so different from the other. No, I am absolutely
not
implying that Abalyn’s being transgender was the same as Caroline and Rosemary and me being crazy. There are traps everywhere I look, and I’ve read the stories about coyotes chewing off their paws to get out of traps. Coyotes and bobcats and raccoons and wolves. And wolves. And wolves. The steel jaws clamp down, merciless, unforgiving, and you hurt until you do what has to be done if you mean to survive. Or leave the world. Which is why, even now, I can’t hate Eva Canning. Or any other ghost.

“Maybe,” Abalyn said. “I’m not insulted if that’s how it strikes you. Someday it’s not going to seem so strange to people. At least, I like to hope it won’t. I like to believe that someday it will be generally understood it’s just how some people are. Gay. Straight. Transgender. Black. White. Blue eyes. Hazel eyes. Fish. Fowl. What the hell ever.”

“Crazy or sane,” I said.

“Sure, that, too,” and she smiled again. It was a less reserved smile than the first time, and I was glad to see it. It made me feel less awkward.

“Have some more Trix,” she said, holding the box out to me. “You know, for kids.”

“Silly rabbit,” I said, then sat picking out a bunch of the lemony yellow ones.

She began talking again, and I just crunched my handful of cereal and listened. She hated her voice, but I miss it so badly some days I don’t want to hear anyone else’s.

“When I was a child, I used to have this dream. Back before I was even sure what was going on. I must have had it a hundred times before I got the message. I’ll tell you, if you really want to hear.”

I nodded yes, because I don’t like to talk with my mouth full.

“Okay, and this is at least as personal as your short story, and don’t try to tell me it isn’t.”

I swallowed and promised her I wouldn’t.

“Okay, when I was a child, before I figured out I wasn’t a boy, I used to have this dream. I’m not gonna call it a nightmare. It was scary, but it never struck me as a nightmare.” Abalyn reached for her pack of cigarettes and took one out, but she didn’t light it. She never smoked in the apartment. “You know the story of Phyllis and Demophoön?”

I did, because I’ve always loved Greek and Roman myths, but I lied and told her I didn’t. I figured it might ruin her story somehow, if she knew that I was familiar with Phyllis and Demophoön.

“Demophoön was an Athenian king, and he married Phyllis, who was a daughter of the king of Thrace. Right after they were married, he had to leave to fight in the Trojan War. She waited and waited for him to come home again. She stood at the seashore and waited, but years passed and he didn’t return. She finally hung herself, thinking he’d been slain in battle. But the goddess Athena took
pity on her, and brought her back to life as an almond tree. But Demophoön hadn’t been killed, and when he came home, he embraced the almond tree and it bloomed.”

“That’s not how I heard it,” I said, and she stopped and glared at me.

“Imp, you just said you didn’t know it.”

I was annoyed at myself for slipping and blurting out the truth, but I told her I’d forgotten I knew it. “Hearing you tell it, I remembered.”

“All right, well, anyway, I think we’d studied the story in school.
Bulfinch’s
Mythology
, or whatever. Maybe that’s how it began.”

“You dreamed about them?” I asked, wishing I’d stop butting in, but interrupting anyway.

“No, I didn’t. And maybe that wasn’t even the right place to start telling about the dreams. It’s just the first thing popped into my head. But I did dream that I was a tree. I’d been walking through very narrow city streets, the buildings so close together I could hardly see the sky when I looked up. It was hard to even be sure if it was night or day. I think it was usually day. It was an ugly city, garbage and rats everywhere. The air was so filthy it made my nose sting. The sidewalks were packed with hundreds and hundreds of people, and they were all going one way, and I was trying to go the other. I was terrified that I’d fall and they’d crush me. I knew they wouldn’t stop and help me up, or even go around me or step over. They’d just stomp me. I came to an alley that was even narrower than the street, and I managed to get loose from the crowd and hide there.”

“But you said you were a tree, right?”

“That part comes later. On the sidewalk and in the alley, I was still just me.”

“You were a boy?”

She frowned and said she’d
looked
like a boy.

“I couldn’t breathe, not after the press of all those bodies. They’d all kept staring at me, really hatefully, like the sight of me made them furious. When I reached the alley, I saw that it was a dead end. There was just a brick wall at the end and more trash cans, so there I was, thinking I’d live the rest of my life in an alley, because I sure as fuck wasn’t going back out into that crowd. But then I saw a fire escape. Someone had left the lowest ladder down, and I went to it and started climbing, just wanting to see the sky again. I climbed for a long time, the building was so tall. And when I passed windows, there were people looking out at me. All the windows had iron bars. Burglar bars, I guess. But it made the people in the apartments seem like they were in jail. Their eyes were white, and I knew they were jealous, even if I didn’t know why. Some of them pressed their palms against the glass. I tried hard not to look at them, and I climbed as fast as I dared. I held on tight to the railing and didn’t look down through the grating. I never wanted to see that alleyway again. Wherever the fire escape led, I was determined I was never climbing back down again.

“Eventually, I came to the top, but it wasn’t the roof of the building. It was a green field. I was so tired from pushing against the crowd, and then having to climb the fire escape, I collapsed in the grass. I wanted to cry, but I didn’t let myself. I lay there for the longest time, smelling dandelions, trying to catch my breath. And when I looked up again, there was a woman with white hair, hair so white maybe it was silver, standing above me. She had the astrological symbol for Mars drawn on her forehead in red. Sometimes, it was drawn in ink, and other times in blood. Sometimes it was tattooed on her skin. Her skin was as pale as milk.”

“That’s also the symbol for male,” I said. “The astrological symbol for Mars. The circle with the arrow. The female symbol is associated with Venus. The circle with the cross below it.”

“Jesus,” she sighed, and glared at me again. “I know that, Imp.
Even then I knew it.” She took back the box of Trix. “You want to hear the rest of this or what?”

“I do,” I told her. “I really do.”

Abalyn set the cereal box down next to the remote control. “So, she stood there over me, this pale, silver-haired woman. And she said, ‘Daughter, which will you choose? The Road of Needles or the Road of Pins?’ I told her I was sorry, but I didn’t know what she meant. I did, but in the dream I didn’t remember that I did. She said—”

“It’s easier to fasten things together with pins,” I whispered, interrupting for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time. But Abalyn didn’t look put out with me; she looked surprised. “The Road of Needles is much more difficult, as it’s much more difficult to hold things together with needles. Is that what she said to you?”

“Yeah,” Abalyn said, not whispering, but speaking softly. The way I recall it, she went a little pale. But that’s probably just my memory embellishing. She probably didn’t, not really. “That’s it, pretty much. You know what it means?”

“It’s from one of the old French folk variants of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ back before it was written down. That’s the choice the wolf gives the girl when they meet in the forest. In other versions, the roads are called the Road of Pebbles and the Road of Thorns. And the Road of Roots and the Road of the Stones in the Tyrol. I sort of know a lot about ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’”

“Clearly,” Abalyn said, still not quite whispering.

“I hate that story,” I confided, and then I asked, “Which did you choose?”

“I didn’t. I refused to choose. And so the silver-haired woman turned me into a tree.”

“Like Phyllis.”

“Right,” she replied, then didn’t say anything more for a whole minute or two. That awkward silence felt as if it stretched on forever,
but it couldn’t have been more than two minutes. I was beginning to think Abalyn wouldn’t finish telling me about the dream, when she said, “I was a tree for years. That’s how it seemed. I saw the green field turn brown, and then winter came and covered it with snow. And then spring came, and it was green again. Over and over I watched the seasons change. My leaves turned yellow and gold and drifted to the ground. My limbs would bare, and then there would be buds and shoots and there were fresh new leaves. It wasn’t unpleasant, especially not after being lost in the city. I almost wanted to stay a tree forever, but I knew the silver-haired woman wouldn’t allow it, that, sooner or later, she’d be back to ask the question again.”

“What sort of tree?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know shit about trees.”

“Did she come back?”

“She did. And, like I thought she would, she asked the question again, the Road of Pins or the Road of Needles. I chose the Road of Needles, because I suspected she’d think I was a coward or lazy if I chose the easier of the two. I was grateful, for her letting me be a tree, and I didn’t want to disappoint her, or for her to think I was ungrateful.”

“Little Red Cap chose the Road of Pins.”

“And she got eaten by a wolf.”

…to keep my wolves at bay.

“I never actually dreamed of walking on the Road of Needles, not literally,” she said. “Metaphorically, I did. It was all a metaphor, after all.” She looked down at the unlit cigarette between her fingers, and I almost told her to go ahead and smoke. But then she was talking again. “Did I mention that the mark on her forehead wasn’t Mars anymore? It was Venus.”

“I guessed that part,” I told her.

She nodded. “After that, it gets sort of silly. Childish I mean.”

“You
were
a child.”

“Yeah. Still.”

“So, what was so silly? What happened next?”

“She said that I’d learned to be patient. That I’d learned I couldn’t get what I wanted all at once, and it was hardly ever easy. I’d learned I might not ever get it. And this is the way of the world, she told me, and I wouldn’t receive any special favors. But then, she touched the mark on her forehead, and I became a girl. Just for an instant, before I always woke up. I’d lay there, after, trying so hard to go back to sleep, wanting to find my way back into the dream and never wake up again.”

“I don’t think that’s so childish,” I said.

She shrugged and muttered, “Whatever. My shrink was of the opinion I’d never had the dream, that it was only a sort of reassuring story I’d made up to give myself hope or some shit. But I did have that dream, I don’t know how many times. I still have it, but not very often. Not like back then.”

“It doesn’t matter, if it was a dream or a story, does it?” I asked her, and she said she didn’t like being called a liar on those occasions when she was not, in fact, lying.

“It helped, though.”

That elicited another shrug. “No idea. I can’t see how my life would have gone differently without it. My decisions seem almost inevitable in hindsight.”

“You never told your parents about the dream.” It wasn’t a question, because I was already certain enough of the answer.

“Hell no. My mother might have murdered her demon child in its sleep if I’d told her. My dad might have come after me with a hot iron poker.” She laughed, and I asked what she meant about a hot poker.

She laughed and put the cigarette back into the pack of Marlboros. “That’s what people used to do if they thought the fairies had
stolen their child and left a changeling in its place. Fairies can’t stand iron, so—”

“But if they were wrong—”

“Exactly,” she said.

I remembered then about changelings and hot pokers, or tossing children that might be changelings onto glowing coals, or leaving them outside on a freezing night. (See
Strange and Secret Peoples: Fairies and Victorian Consciousness
by Carole G. Silver [Oxford University Press, 1999],
Chapter 2
.) But I didn’t tell Abalyn I remembered. No, I don’t know why. No, I do. It struck me as irrelevant. What I knew and didn’t know, it didn’t have anything to do with this ghost story, which was Abalyn’s and
not
mine. Not mine at all. Except, the bit about changelings, because of what had happened already and what would happen. Seeing an illusion, put there to deceive or protect me, but either way to conceal the truth (or just the facts). Butler Hospital changing its name. Eva and Eva, July and November.
The Drowning Girl
and all those terrible paintings and sculptures Perrault made. In hindsight, as Abalyn said, all these come down to changelings, don’t they?