The Keeper (2 page)

L
iz Marley was a pretty girl with brown eyes and brown hair. Her attractiveness came less from her looks than from a generosity of character. When people spoke, she listened. When they needed comfort, she overcame her natural shyness and offered words of consolation. These qualities, easy to overlook, can make a plain face beautiful. But underneath her eyes were chronic dark circles, the result of too little sleep and bad nutrition. Over the years she had tried the cabbage diet, the protein diet, and the toothpick diet, all supplemented by late-show nachos and Cheez Whiz. Throughout these diets, her body had remained an adamant fifteen pounds overweight. In bed at night she sometimes squeezed the extra inches of fat on her stomach, silently accusing her body of betrayal.

It was an early Thursday morning in March, and the sun would not rise over this stretch of northern Maine for several hours. Liz Marley was standing inside the wrought-iron gates of the Bedford Cemetery. She blew out a deep breath, and watched the cloud of it billow in the cold air, and then dissipate into nothing. Down the hill the town still slept, and in front of her the cemetery was veiled in a layer of the most recent snow. Though this visit was a somber occasion, she was giddy with courage. Being here was a brave secret that no one would ever know.

In the center of the cemetery, a large stone angel presided over William Prentice’s body. One of its wings was missing, and over the years the features of its face had been ground smooth. William Prentice had invested heavily in the Clott Paper Mill, and for a long time, it was his vision that had allowed the town to prosper. But the mill closed last month, and “For Sale” signs now adorned the houses on Nudd, Chestnut, and Mayflower Streets like decoration. The stone angel reminded Liz of a poem she’d read in English class about a forgotten king in a wasteland, warning all to look on his works, ye mighty, and despair, in a place where lone and level sands stretched far away.

Liz walked to the back of the cemetery. At the far corner, she found what she was looking for. The stone was smaller than most, and there were fresh red roses, their petals clinging closely together, at the foot of the grave. The inscription might have read
husband
or
father
or
skinny asshole,
but it said none of those things.
Ted Marley (1963–2001),
it read, and that was the best way to remember him: a name.

“Hi Dad,” she said. “It’s me. Lizzie. The daughter who isn’t crazy.”

She waited, almost expecting him to say hello back.
Hi, princess!
he might say. In her most perfect fantasy, he would call her princess and look at her with eyes full of pride like those dads on the WB:
I’m not really dead. I was just sleeping. But now I’m back and I’m going to make everything right.

She sat down on the wet ground, and snow seeped through the nylon of her jacket. In the months after his death, Liz’s mother had quietly embarked on a mission to erase Ted Marley. She donated his clothes and Red Sox caps to the Goodwill in Corpus Christi, and took down the photos of him, even family photos, from the end table in the television room. The rest of his things she stuffed into boxes and abandoned at the public dump.

Despite her mother’s best intentions, Liz remembered a lot of things about her father. He used to drink Rolling Rock because he said it was worth the extra fifty cents, rather than choking on a Bud. He’d smelled like skunk from working around hydrogen sulfide fumes all day at the mill. Each night he’d showered with Irish Spring soap, and then announced at the dinner table, “Fresh as a daisy, ladies and gents.” On his days off he’d worked in his garden, planting beans and spinach and cucumbers that they had eaten all summer long. After dinner he used to have her sit on his lap. He’d say things like: “Don’t worry Lizzie Pie, you’re okay. And all those nasty girls who say you have cooties are gonna be toothless and pregnant by the time they’re sixteen, so don’t you worry.”

Really, she liked almost everything about him. It was just the other things, the things he did to Susan. There had been a time when she wondered if it had happened to her as well. But eventually she had accepted that for some reason, she had always been safe. For some reason, she was the lucky one whose stomach he had not scored with bruises.

And maybe she had it all wrong. Maybe none of those bad memories were true. Just stuff you invent when you’re feeling blue. Susan was not normal. Long before things with their father went wrong, Susan had been strange.
I can fly if I want,
she used to tell Liz.
I just have to move my arms really fast. I can make myself invisible. I can see things you can’t.

Years later, when Susan was in high school and the bruises stopped appearing, Susan was still strange. She moved down to the basement and only came up for meals, and she got mean. Like something rotting right in front of them at the dinner table, she got mean.

Susan dropped out of high school and moved to an apartment on the east side when she turned eighteen. Occasionally, Liz saw her taking one of her famous walks through town. Always, Susan would smile at her like they shared a dirty secret. And then she’d turn away, like she couldn’t stand the sight of her own blood.

People in Bedford said Susan was a witch. They said she visited their dreams. They said she was the reason the mill had closed. They blamed her for the rain that came every year, and all the fish that had died in the river. They said she told them things about themselves that she had no business knowing. When Liz let herself think about Susan, which happened almost never, she knew that the people from town were right. Susan
was
a witch.

“You shouldn’t have left us,” Liz said to her father’s stone. “Sometimes I pretend you didn’t die. I pretend you made Susan come home and you fixed her.” Liz sighed, “But then, I also pretend I have friends…. So maybe I’m the one who’s crazy.”

She waited, as if the man now made of dirt and ash would answer back. He didn’t, and she continued. “…I’m not depressed anymore. I don’t watch nine hours of infomercials on the weekends or anything. I met this guy. He’s nice, you’d like him. Well, I don’t know if you’d like him. I don’t know you very well…. Anyway, I guess I was your favorite, but that doesn’t mean I forgive you. I’m going to college soon and I’m never coming back to this stupid town. I came here to tell you that.”

His stone answered her in silence.

“I mean it!” she said.

She waited, realizing now why she had come to the cemetery today. She had hoped he would send her a sign. Lightning would flash in the sky and sever a tree, and she would know that he was listening. She would know that he was sorry. If she heard that, she thought that maybe she could go on. She could leave for college and live a normal life, marry a nice boy, maybe even Bobby Fullbright, and trust what lay ahead of her.

But there was no bolt of lightning, no rose in bloom that fell from the sky. She traced the engraving on his headstone with her fingers and whispered, “I miss you, Daddy.”

As she stood, she looked out onto the northern edge of the cemetery that led to overgrown woods. She spotted movement out there, the color blue. She squinted and saw that the blue was a dress. Beyond the wrought-iron fence a woman watched her. The woman was small with blond hair. Her dress fluttered in the wind to reveal a set of bony white legs, and her skin was as pale as the snow.

A bubble of dread inflated and then began to leak in Liz’s stomach. It filled her arms and legs and chest until she was wet and heavy with it. She walked toward the woods. “Susan? What are you doing?” she asked.

Susan pressed her face between the thick black bars of the gate and smiled. Her teeth were small and white against bright red lips.

“It’s freezing, Susan. Why aren’t you wearing a coat?”

Susan didn’t answer. Instead she pointed at the iron crossbar two feet off the ground, and motioned for Liz to mount it.

Liz shook her head. It was dark over there. Thick trees blocked the rising sun. “You come here, Susan. It’s dead over there.”

Susan continued to point, and Liz wanted very much to walk away. For years she had tried to forge some sort of peace with her sister. For years she had sent letters, and ridden her three-speed Schwinn by her apartment, and waved hello at her in town, only to be greeted by silence. It was because of Susan that people looked at her like she was Jeffrey Dahmer’s drinking buddy. And now, at five in the morning in a cemetery on a cold winter day, Susan wanted her to climb a sharply spiked fence. Sounded about right.

Susan’s small white teeth chattered. Her eyes were wet and dewy from the cold. Crocodile’s tears, Liz thought. But still, this woman was her big sister. This woman was her blood. Against all her best instincts, she put her foot on the first crossbar and hoisted herself up. She didn’t see Susan’s gleeful smile as she jumped down and landed squarely in a snowdrift.

It was dark on the other side of the fence. Light did not penetrate the clouds or dense forest. The air was thick, and Liz’s breath came heavy, as if trying to extract oxygen from water. Even her mind felt different, like someone had disturbed a snow globe full of buried things and shaken them to the surface. There was anger—no, not anger: rage. There was sorrow. There was happiness, a manic kind of joy, and if it had been a color, it would not have been green or blue, but red.

Liz stood. Though she didn’t know it, she was crying.

Susan’s irises danced, blue against black. The blue got big, and then small. It moved in waves, like the ocean tide. Liz knew suddenly that her sister was insane, and that the feelings she had inside her right now were somehow coming from Susan’s mind.

“Stop,” Liz mouthed, but her voice was trapped in her throat.

In a grotesque parody of a little girl’s curtsy, Susan lifted her dress. She pulled the thin blue fabric over her knees, her hips, her white panties, all the way up to her gaunt waist. On her stomach was a sunset of bruises colored red and orange, black and blue. Some had faded over time while others looked fresh.

“Who did this to you?” Liz whispered. “Did
he
do this?”

Susan dropped the dress’s hem and it fell back down over her knees. When Liz looked up again, she saw that Susan’s face was bloody. A gash opened in the back of her scalp and blood dripped down her forehead and along either side of her neck. Her pretty blue dress became wet. Like menstrual fluid, it trickled between her legs and stained the white snow red.

Liz took a breath. Then another. Another. All in a row. Quick. Another. She grew dizzy, no longer breathing, simply hitching. In the sky, it was as if dawn had receded into night. And were they alone? No, she and Susan were not alone. She could feel eyes watching her from the woods, from the cemetery, from the town. If she looked hard enough, she thought she would see faces.

“What have you done?” Liz cried.

Susan smiled. Clots of blood as thick as phlegm clung to her front teeth. It was an angry smile, a mean smile. A smile Liz knew very well. A hungry smile. In the snow, the stain of blood grew larger.

Liz ran. Her feet sank below the drifts as she charged the fence. She slammed against the metal posts and hoisted herself up. But then, with a strength she would not have guessed possible, Susan yanked her by the back of the neck and hurled her into a snowbank. The wind rushed from her body in a whoosh as she lay dazed on the ground.

Suddenly, something heavy was on her chest. Something was squeezing her throat. She screamed, but all that came out was a muffled whimper. Her air was cut off. All gone. Her eyes felt tight and bulging, and the meat of her tongue flopped in her mouth. What was happening? She tried to breathe, but the air, where had it gone?

She lurched left and then right. Tried to roll. Balled her hands into fists and punched the thing on her chest, the weight. What was this? What was happening? A moment of clarity told her it was Susan. Susan was kneeling on her chest. Susan was strangling her, of course.

She punched harder, but she didn’t have any leverage. Her lungs spasmed in silent screams. They hurt. Everything hurt suddenly. Everything was screaming. She needed to breathe!

She jammed her fists into Susan’s back. Tried to breathe again. Gasped, then sobbed, even though there was no sound. She punched again, but it wasn’t easy. She could hardly make a fist. Her muscles were beginning to cramp. They curled up inside her like basement bugs playing dead in unison.

Overhead, all she could see was the dark sky and her bloody sister’s dancing eyes. She swung her fists again, but this time only reached Susan’s sides. Her eyes hurt so bad, she thought they might have popped out of their sockets. Her throat hurt, too. But she only vaguely knew that part. Only vaguely cared. All she wanted was a breath.

She punched again, more weakly. Again. Again. Still trying to breathe. She punched again. This time she missed completely, and swiped at air. Something thick and wet dribbled across her face and she knew dully that it was Susan’s blood.

Please, God. Dear God. I’m only eighteen. Please,
she thought.

Red and gray sparks filled the air, and her body stopped screaming. She sank deeper into the snow that crumbled around her. She thought about sleep, but she noticed the way the trees weren’t moving. Birds weren’t chirping. Even Susan’s struggles above her were without sound. She kicked up her legs and tried to roll even though Susan had her pinned. It was the sound of silence she fought against. She knew it was the sound of her own death.

A warmth trickled between her legs as her bladder released. Her legs stopped wriggling. She felt herself go loose. Felt herself stop caring. Knew that she
should
care, but somehow, she didn’t. The sparks faded into nothing, and her eyelids fluttered before they closed.

She drifted. Not a good kind of sleep. A terrible one. She didn’t see a light waiting for her. The tunnel was shiny black, and inside of it was her daddy.