The Thirteen (16 page)

FOURTEEN

I
ZZY WAS PARKED OUTSIDE
the Chapman house, waiting for dark. She ached for darkness, wanted only to hide under black skies. She had ill work ahead of her and no desire to see it performed.

The foliage, once scrubby and sparse, had grown thick and wild around the house. The drive had grown over too, and a broad patch of brown grass ran up the middle, mixed with thistles and stinkweed. Twenty years of tire marks had compressed the earth, turned it grey. In spite of the (mostly abandoned) farmland around her, there was no greenery here, just blank, empty fields.

At the foot of the drive was the fading post that bore the house number: 362. Someone had long ago scratched over it with a key or a knife. It could barely be made out now. The house stood alone at the edge of Haven Woods.

It would be dark soon.

The thumping from the trunk had stopped. The car was still. Since the house was close to the river, she should have been able to hear spring peepers and crickets, but the yard was silent, as though nothing living could possibly stay for long.

It didn’t matter how often she came here or how fated her connection, every time she was filled with fear. Izzy, who inspired her own kind of fear in her women, sat in the car with the windows rolled up and watched fretfully, knowing that the random, uncontrolled evil that permeated the very boards of the house, and the earth around it, could turn on her as easily as it gave. Even with her gift of flesh today, she was in arrears, and it could all turn.

The house looked different now. The yellow crime-scene tape was long gone. The windows were broken, rocks thrown by teenagers on a dare.

But a girl never forgets her first time.

Do you know that house?
her grandmother had asked her. She had taken a knife from her drawer in the bedroom and pressed it to Izzy’s side, under her left breast. The slice was fast and clean. Izzy had gasped and stumbled back with the impact, placing her hand there, covering it. The wound began to bleed through her fingers.

I was there
her grandmother said, beaming at her.
Before this. Long time ago, your mother dragged me away
. The old woman’s mind was wandering, her expression faraway for a minute.
Things fell apart. We weren’t strong
.

She pushed the bedroom door closed behind Izzy. The room was illuminated only by the brown light coming from a dirty bulb under a dirty lampshade in the corner. Izzy pressed back against the door.

Her grandmother raised the knife, not as a threat but to emphasize.
You must have thirteen. At all times.

women

find them yourself

She put the knife back into the bureau and took out a photograph, held it out to Izzy.
My sisters
. She pointed a frail finger at a smiling woman with dark hair.
This is Aggie. Find Aggie. She’s still there, waiting. Find her, and she’ll be your first
.

You’ll have everything you ever wanted
the old woman said again. Then she reached out and put her finger to the bloody wound in Izzy’s side. She held it up.

He will want flesh. Do everything He asks and you’ll have everything. You hear?

After that she’d been sent to the Chapman house, dragging a heavy bag that made a wet sound when it banged against her leg. What was inside the bag was unthinkable, killed by her grandmother as an offering to Him. Next time Izzy would have to do her own killing.

everything you’ve ever wanted

The wound under her breast ached, burned, where the knife had penetrated. At first it hadn’t hurt at all. When the old woman sliced between her ribs, she’d been afraid that she had cried out and her mother would come rushing in.

you crazy stupid old woman get back get away from her

But her parents and the kids hadn’t come back yet. When Izzy left the bedroom, the rest of the house was still empty, dark, the television off.

Once she’d seen her mother wale on her grandmother with the cord from the iron. Because the old woman had struggled her way into the kitchen and blown something ground up and fragrant towards her mother’s tea.

don’t you dare pull that bullshit

If Izzy’s mother had come home at that moment … But she hadn’t, and Izzy had left her parent’s home that night to do dark things.

The wound, she was sure, had seeped blood through her blouse. Soon it would work its way through her coat. She’d driven like that through the city, all the way to Haven Woods, to the house, the dead thing in the bag on the floor in front of the passenger seat. She went up the walk to knock on the door, the bag in her hand heavy, awful. She was terrified but

everything you’ve ever wanted

she was doing as she’d been told.

The door opened as she was climbing the front steps. A perfectly ordinary but very large hand, fingers spread, pushed it wide. She stopped on the middle step and looked up, her heart pounding so loudly under her coat she was sure he could hear it.

In the doorway of the Chapman house stood a large, large man, with hands like catcher’s mitts. His jaw was square and shaded with the beginning of a beard. She could hardly see his eyes; his overhanging brow shaded them.

This is a threshold
he said to her sternly.
You have to ask your way in
.

May I come in?
she asked. She hadn’t said, as her brothers might have,
I’m coming in, eh?
or
Whatta ya want? I’m coming in
. It was polite, the way she said it. And saying it that way made what she carried in the bag seem that much more of an offering. Made her feel brave.

The big man grinned broadly. She saw that his teeth were very white, and that two at either side, just inside the cheek, were sharp, like a wolf’s.

He stepped back and, with loaded gallantry, threw his arm open to gesture her inside.
Mi casa es su casa
he said. She didn’t know what he meant, and he’d laughed.

Once inside she felt the heat of the place, unpleasant, like a fever. She held the offering in front of her, away from her, like a shield.

She followed the man deeper into the house until he said
Stop
and she did. It was dark and her eyes hadn’t adjusted to it; she could see nothing, just the faintest outline of his head against a window. He lit a match, and the shock of it made her gasp.

He said
I smell you
. The blood had seeped out of her, soaked through her blouse and coat. She could smell it too. Blood dripped at her feet. From the bag.

He said,
Look
.

He shifted the light, and on the floor she saw a woman, on her back, arms akimbo, legs spread, skirt pushed up over her knees. The centre of her was black with something, the same something that spread out around her body, all the way to his shoes. The woman’s eyes were open, staring up.

It was not Mrs. Chapman. It was someone else.

Izzy jammed her hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. The man chuckled softly.

And behind you
he said. She didn’t want to look, but her head turned of its own accord. There was Martin Chapman. She recognized him. And near him, his wife. The bullet they said he’d put between his eyes had obliterated much of his face. What remained was a single eyeball, and even that was halved.

A sob escaped her lips.
They’re not really here
she said.

He ignored her.
I like to keep my work about me
, he said.
It’s beautiful work. You’ll come to see that
.

Izzy pressed her eyes tightly shut. The wound in her side was aching and she could feel a trickle of blood running down into the waistband of her skirt. She kept her eyes shut because when she opened them, she could sense others moving in the shadows beyond the light from the match.

The man snapped his fingers and the light rose to near the ceiling, illuminating everything.

Look at me
. He was now sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of her, smiling pleasantly.
What have you brought me?
He held out his hands eagerly.

Izzy reached inside the bag, ignoring the sounds that had begun behind her. Wet sounds, the strangled sounds of dying breath.

The thing inside the bag was cold. She curled her fingers around it and pulled it out. No different than a piece of liver from the market, no different than the steaks she would barbecue after all this was over. Cold.

She pulled out the heavy thing and held it out to him, her neck straight.
I brought flesh
she said.

He took it from her.

Now you
he said.
You must give me you
.

Her skirt was pushed up around her waist, her blouse torn down the front. Blood smeared her stomach from where his hands had been on her, where his fingers had dragged from her open wound across her breasts. The beast had mounted her.

There was nowhere for her to look. Her head was pressed against the dirty floor. If she opened her eyes she would see the woman, whose head had twisted so that the staring eyes were looking right at her. The dead man just to the right of the woman was watching them unsmilingly, teardrops of blood dripping steadily from his chin. If she looked the other way she’d see the child perched on the edge of the stair rail, his arms wrapped around his naked legs, also watching.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut and tried not to feel.

The thing that had penetrated her, it might have been a tail.

Afterwards he bent his head to where her grandmother had cut her. His cold, sharp tongue poked inside the wound, making her squirm with a kind of pain-slash-ecstasy that she bore with blank stoicism. His lips made a seal around the wound even as his tongue penetrated it, he had suckled from her. The sound of it filled the room.

Long fingers were curled around her thigh, nails pressing and releasing with every pull on the wound. It reminded her of when she’d breastfed

(David)

the children.

Her vagina was slick with his offal and her own blood.

It’s always a woman who pays
the old woman had told her.
Because in our way we are gods
.

This is my mark
he said when he lifted his head. His breath smelled like her blood.

you’re not a stupid woman Isadora

This is my mark
. She felt scored where he’d touched her—everywhere, but especially in the wound under her breast, where he’d left a trail of something caustic that burned like acid.

There will be a reckoning
the thing said. The words came out of his mouth wet and heavy.
When this reckoning happens, you will know and you will get down on your knees and thank me
.

Yes
she said.

You must keep your number. Do you understand? You will keep your thirteen about you and you will stay close and true to me. To this place
.

She nodded.
This place. Thirteen
, she repeated for him, like a child.

Thirteen women at all times. There would be gifts for their sacrifices

(everything you want)

Sometimes He would take. He told her so.

Do you love your daughter?
he had asked when he was slaked and panting his cold breath into her ear. He pinched her nipple between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it painfully but thoughtlessly, as though rolling a grape between his fingers. No more than that.

Yes
, she’d said. But she was thinking of David.

Do you love your son?

Yes
, she did, it was true. Even the sound, the thought of his name soothed her. In the worst times it was he who—

And who do you choose?

Without hesitation she said,
My son
,

(I choose David above all David above everything)

her voice shrill with just the beginnings of panic—and something else, of course, something ancient, a protective thread that shot rapidly through her centre. Too late she asked,

(it was later she would realize she’d asked too late—choose David for what?)

reckoning

When the thing left her, it bore no resemblance to who had answered the door, to the large, handsome man who had told her she had to ask her way in. The thing that had crawled atop her, that had plunged into her with pain and ice, had doubled in size. It had the head of an animal and the eyes of goat, slit like a reptile’s.

Before it disappeared it grabbed the naked child’s hand, yanking him up in the air like a doll. “You are mine, as this is mine—”

As it left, it repeated
Thirteen
.

And everything changed.

Sometimes it was easy to forget that any of it had happened, especially after the old woman died. Death had shut those knowing eyes that grinned and smiled at Izzy even as she cackled happily and spit out her non sequiturs. Once she’d even said,
how’s your cunt feeling, Isadora? Is it stuffed full of money yet?

And by then, of course, it was, so to speak. The very day after her visit to the Chapman house, Roger got a job, a good job. Within weeks he’d been promoted twice. Suddenly there was money.

Her parents’ neighbours hardly missed their

(flesh)

puppy.

It was easy to forget. To start anew.

They soon moved to Haven Woods. Izzy found Aggie, who already bore the mark. It was easy enough to recruit the others.

Izzy cut them herself and spread her blood over their wounds, making them all one, sisters. Whatever the beast was, He had kept his promise. Her life grew exponentially better. They had everything she wanted: a good life for her children, a good life for
her
. The city was left far behind.

Haven Woods became Izzy’s as she adapted it to her needs and to the needs of her sisters and their families. The church closed. The hospital had fewer and fewer patients—no one got sick, doctors didn’t stay.