Echoes Page 5

  It started with taste. She had put a spoonful of sauce in her mouth and suddenly the taste of it in her mouth was . . . off. It wasn’t the taste, really, but the feeling of tasting. Like a wire had crossed in her brain, and now having food in her mouth felt like she was looking at a bowl overflowing with water. The world had suddenly gone strange—she had gone strange. She saw Michael’s shoulders beneath a too-white undershirt hunched over his grading, and it was like someone had control of a dimmer switch on the brightness of the world, and they had turned it higher and higher and brighter, and she couldn’t swallow, and she simply took the sauce out of her mouth, as though it were a solid thing, like taking a bone from a dog. And she had held her hand in the steam above the boiling pasta water and—Something inside of me makes me do things I don’t want to do, 10!—she didn’t want Michael (who was now, somehow, her mother’s voice, dressed in a T-shirt and grading papers but still all of that was her mother’s voice) to see her hand dirty and dripping with sauce and—I find that I can make physical pain go away, 10!!!—she had watched her hand plunge through the swirling mist and break the surface of the water, and she saw her hand rest there amid the many broken and scattered reflections of herself that rose in violent effervescence around it as the phone dropped from her, and her mother’s voice was pulling her away, Michael was pulling her away, and the pain that had been so dim and distant suddenly became clear. And it was the ragged-throat shrieks of her own screaming.

  “I’m okay,” she said now, handing Michael back the glass of water. “No difficulties.”

  • • •

  The next morning, after a breakfast of chicory coffee and scones, they decided to venture into Great Smoky Mountains National Park and find a trail to hike. They piled into Michael’s Jeep—boys up front, girls in back, just like any old-couple quorum—and drove down the mountain. They’d decided on Laurel Falls—an easy hike, two hours tops with a gentle slope—much to Michael’s chagrin.

  “I’ve been on that trail. It’s fucking paved,” Michael groused, still not giving up as they drove into the park proper. “It’s the kiddie ride of trails.”

  “Suck it up, buttercup,” Derek said, screwing a lens onto his camera. “Mal says the falls, we’re going to the falls.”

  The Laurel Falls trail was a narrow thread of black asphalt that traced the mountain’s outer edge. There they joined a motley parade of young couples, lone hikers, and families encumbered with little kids who had to be constantly shouted back. At certain points, around stone outcroppings and sharp bends, Lori could see for hundreds of yards before and behind them, a line of people steadily climbing or descending, pilgrims with Polaroids. She examined the faces of those coming down for some sign of what lay ahead, but she couldn’t read a thing.

  “Company halt,” Derek said. He jogged a few paces ahead, turned, and aimed his camera. While he worked the lens, people swung past them like water diverted by a stone. Michael slipped his arms over Lori’s and Mallory’s shoulders. Lori tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, dropped her hand to her side, then let it rest on his stomach. “Say cheese!”

  “Shitty trail!” Michael said. In passing, a mother with a frosted perm and a fat little boy scowled at them.

  After Derek snapped the picture, they continued up the trail. Like traffic, they kept to the right, hugging a wall of exposed dirt, rocks, and roots that supported a deep forest rising above them. At one particularly sharp curve stood a small red sign that read: WARNING: FALLING HAZARD. Lori drifted to it, stepping her feet to the asphalt’s edge. The earth peeled away, gradually at first, thick with underbrush and bare trees, but steeper as it went until the land disappeared altogether. Far below she could see a river, fast-flowing with the March snowmelt, rippled white in some places, smooth as glass in others. It was so clear, so close-seeming, that she could almost hear the water, the current brushing over polished stones with a sound like the wind rustling leaves, growing louder, not like wind at all but something solid charging through the forest behind her.

  Lori turned just in time to see a shape, wild and bucking, spill out onto the trail. She felt the rough heat of an animal body brush by her. She heard a snort and saw one panic-huge eye streak across her field of vision like a black comet. It was a full-grown deer, and it had launched from the woods behind her as if chased, skittered across the trail, and pitched itself over the edge. She watched it turn twice in the long silence of the fall before it hit the water in a soundless spray. Lori’s hands sought Michael, Mallory, anyone, but found nothing. A cry caught in her throat, and her heart thundered in her chest. She looked for help.

  She was all alone.

  Everyone—the hikers and tourists, parents and kids, Michael and Derek and Mallory—everyone was gone, vanished. It was as if they had disappeared into the woods or careened off the edge or had simply been lifted up and out of the world. Panic rushed upon her, and her lungs took in great sucks of air until she felt so lightheaded she had to crouch to keep her balance. I find myself someplace and I don’t remember how I got there, 10.

  She continued up the trail, moving quickly, constantly fighting back a lunatic urge to run. She heard Laurel Falls before she saw them, the muted cymbal crash of water falling on water. Lori crossed a wooden bridge above a rushing stream fed by the falls and stepped onto an uneven platform of slick bedrock. The falls rose thirty feet above it, the water strung over jagged levels of stone like braids of dirty gray rope. The water and the darkly wet stone behind it formed a shimmering window, inside of which she saw a woman. Lori reached for the water. She felt nothing at first, then an icy coldness began to spread, her veins carrying numbness throughout her, cutting straight for her heart. She cupped her hand, let it fill, and drank.

  “Hey, don’t do that, baby.” Michael’s hand was on her shoulder. She turned, spilling the water down the front of her coat. She clutched her hand to her chest as if she’d hurt it. Behind him, Derek was directing Mallory closer to the falls for a picture, and a woman—the mother with the frosted perm—was pulling her son out of the shot. “You shouldn’t drink that,” Michael said. “Giardia, you know? Protozoa? You could get really sick.”

  Lori laughed softly.

  “Baby?”

  She eased down on the cold wet bedrock, sitting cross-legged and leaning back on her hands. “Sometimes everybody goes away, ten!” she said, loud enough for people to stare. Mallory slowly released her picture pose and motioned for Derek. Other people gathered round. Lori laughed—she wanted to laugh, but the echo sounded more like a scream in her ears.

  IV. Water of Life

  At the cabin, Michael took her coat and started a fire, which she spent the next hour tending, watching sparks fly in brief erratic patterns. She could hear the others murmur conspiratorially in the kitchenette. Michael was apologizing for her, explaining her moods, her “difficulties.” It must be bad, she knew, for them to talk about her in the same room. It must be really bad.

  She heard the refrigerator open, cabinet doors shut. Something—she didn’t know what—made a high whistling sound. She turned her head enough to see Michael and Derek packing food into a cardboard box. So we’re leaving, she thought. I’ve lost my mind and ruined Michael’s trip and now we’re leaving. Tonight they pack boxes and tomorrow, in Tallahassee, I’ll pack boxes. I’ll go back to Mom’s apartment, she thought, where the dark wine really flows.

  “Hey, Lori?” he said. “Derek and I are going to start dinner.”

  He looks so sad, she thought, sad and tired and afraid. Lori lifted her hand and gave a small wave. She felt like a stage actor recovering from a badly muffed line, trying to repair the play by pretending it’s not a play. Still, she forced herself to look him in the eyes, hoping for a smile. God, how she wanted him to smile at her, to give a quick wink and let her know everything was fine, that everything would be all right. Derek carried the box outside and Michael slung the door shut behind them. The Linger Longer plaque shook on the wall, threatening to slip off its n
ail.

  “Hey there, kiddo.” Mallory stood beside her. She offered a cup and saucer. “I made you some tea.”

  Lori took it and sipped.

  “I wasn’t sure how you take it. Would you like milk or honey?” Worry and hopefulness had drawn a crooked smile on her face.

  “You could Irish it up for me,” Lori said, borrowing one of Michael’s phrases. It felt strange to say it, like having a mouthful of someone else’s teeth.

  “Now you’re talking.” Mallory fetched a bottle of whiskey from the counter. She held it out from her chest in her two small hands and cast furtive glances around—the perfect pantomime of a naughty child—and took a swig before splashing some in the teacup. Lori sipped, the whiskey sitting atop the tea like burning oil.

  “My girl,” Mallory said, laughing. She tucked her long gray skirt beneath her legs and sat on the hearth beside Lori. “So, do you want to talk about it?”

  Lori shook her head.

  “Then we don’t,” Mallory said. She shook a cigarette out of a small tin and lit it off a stick of kindling plucked from the fire. “See? Just that easy. How about a story instead?”

  Lori nodded; she thought a story would suit her just fine.

  • • •

  “When the Civil War finally came to Tennessee, a young man named Matthew, great-grandson of a Revolutionary War colonel, volunteered. He went off to defend hearth and home while his wife, Lorelei, watched after their four children and the little hardware store they ran.”

  “Lorelei?” Lori said. She tried a smile that said, Come on, are you serious? Mallory offered a shrug that said, The story’s the story.

  “One evening Lorelei encountered a woman she had never seen before on the ox trail between the store and home.

  “ ‘Are you lost?’ she asked the woman. ‘Do you need help?’

  “The woman made no reply, but Lorelei was worried and cajoled her into coming home with her. The woman didn’t say a word for the three miles it took them to walk in the wooded twilight. Lorelei prattled on about the store and her chores. But when she spoke of her husband at war, the woman suddenly grabbed Lorelei’s face so tightly with her hand that it blocked her air and trapped her voice. Lorelei struggled, but the woman held her fast, just with that one hand to her mouth, as if they’d been joined by a powerful force. The stranger woman said, ‘Let me tell you this story.’ ”

  Lori sipped more of her whiskey. She steadied her gaze at Mallory, who looked back at her with flat eyes, and lips spread into a thin smile.

  “Then she let go and led the way to the house—Lorelei struggling to pace her—as if she’d walked the way a thousand times before. Lorelei, breathless and unable to cry for help, followed.

  “At home the front door of her house shot open—as it did every evening—and her children rushed out, all four of them, oldest to youngest—as they did every evening. But this evening they grabbed the stranger woman by the waist and the hips and the legs, all but disappearing in the folds of her skirts and shouting ‘Mama! Mama! We are so happy you are home!’

  “Lorelei opened her mouth to ask what her children were doing but no words came out. Her tongue would not move in her mouth, her throat would shape no notes. Even the air she forced from her lungs made no sound. She tried to grab her oldest, but the woman they called Mama slapped her hands away. The woman proceeded to tell the children what had happened, but as if she were Lorelei.

  “ ‘Let her stay, Mama!’ they all cried. ‘She can help make dinner, and we are hungry!’

  “And so she stayed. They moved her into the small corner room near the icehouse. The woman bought her servant’s clothes to wear and gave her a servant’s life. No one—not the in-laws nor her own mother, not the neighbors nor her children—recognized her. For the next two years they called the stranger woman ‘Lorelei’ or they called her ‘Mama,’ and they called Lorelei nothing at all.”

  As Lori listened, she felt the day’s confusion find focus, and even a bit of stability in a newfound anger. She didn’t know why Mallory would choose to play such a trick on her—was she bored? A mean drunk? Did she harbor strong and untrammeled feelings for Michael? She snatched the bottle from beside Mallory and refilled her cup.

  “It was winter when Matthew came back,” Mallory continued, oblivious to any change in Lori. “He wore a buckskin patch over an eye he’d lost, but he had survived the war. Lorelei was collecting kindling as she saw him come up the road. She watched her children fly off the porch to hug their father. He knelt, gathering them in his arms, letting them peel back the patch, tickling their ribs, and Lorelei’s heart broke all over. Would her Matthew know her where no one else did?”

  Here, Mallory stopped the story. She took Lori’s drink from her and finished it off.

  “So,” she said. “Do you think Matthew knew his wife? Do you think he wanted to?”

  Lori tried to stand but stumbled; the whiskey had hit her harder than she’d thought. “Do you think I’m stupid? Or do you really think you’ll trick me into thinking that girl was some sort of ghost, trying to take me over?”

  Mallory stood and looked down at her. She raised her hand as if to cover her mouth, then stopped. The hurt and fear slowly fell, and she looked somehow different, rearranged.

  “You tell me,” she said to Lori, walking toward the spiral staircase. “Do you think Michael would know you?”

  Mallory turned slowly and went upstairs. She curtsied from the landing, casting down a cold but toothsome smile before gliding into Lori and Michael’s bedroom. The door slammed behind her just as Michael poked his head in from the deck, holding a pair of tongs. “Dinner’s almost ready,” he said. “How do you want your burger?”

  Without answering him, Lori stood—nearly floated—to her feet. She felt strangely light, free of anger and whiskey and fear, as if whole chambers of her mind had been emptied. Sometimes it feels like there are walls inside my mind. . . . 1? Michael clicked the tongs absently, still a little worried, trying to be hopeful.

  Mallory ducked in beneath his arm, shivering with the cold. “Hurry up and come out here, Lori. Don’t leave me out here with the menfolk all night.”

  “Shall I bring the whiskey?” she said.

  “Uisge beatha,” she said. “Please.”

  Lori nestled the whiskey bottle in her arm like a bunch of long-stemmed roses and carried it to him. “What’s that mean?” she said, walking outside.

  “It’s Gaelic for ‘whiskey,’ ” Michael said as she passed him. “Means ‘water of life.’ ”

  “That’s fascinating,” Lori whispered, kissing him on the cheek.

  She let him take the bottle and stopped near the hot tub.

  “Someone’s thinking ahead,” said Derek. Michael appeared beside her, working buttons, and the water came to life. Two pinkish-blue spheres of light popped on, and she watched the water foam and bubble, the fumes stinging her eyes. It was snowing now, and she watched the large, fat flakes blow over the deck and melt in the rising steam.

  Submerged in the water, she saw the billowing fabric of the woman’s blue dress and her long black hair fanning out. The woman raised one hand, her fingers just beneath the surface, not an inch away from Lori’s own outstretched hand.

  She watched as Michael rushed up and pulled the woman away from the water, telling her not to drink. The woman, who was wearing Lori’s clothes, swatted his hands away and slipped an arm around his waist. She watched Michael hold her tight as they walked down the trail with Derek and Mallory close behind.

  I want to tell you a story: Sometimes I hear voices in my head that are not mine.

  She saw her hands on a field of blue, her fingernails rimmed with dirt. Her knees were pressed together and her legs poured themselves palely down to bare feet.

  “Sorry, Jesus—you.” The woman wore her houndstooth sweater. She wore all of Lori’s clothes, wore her hair. Her face.

  Behind her was a door, and behind that door a man’s deep voice asking if the
woman was all right in there. She felt tears spilling down her cheeks, but she could attach no feeling to them. Her dress showed dark, wet circles, but it didn’t matter. It was only water.

  “Let me tell you this story,” she heard this body around her say.

  Whimper Beg

  Lee Thomas

  The theft was a courtesy. At least, that’s how Scotty Collins explained it to himself. After the funeral of his best friend and mentor, and after an hour at the reception, extolling the virtues of Judge Walter Griff to men in fine suits and women in tasteful black dresses, he’d ordered a refill on his scotch and slipped away to spend time alone with his grief. He’d been hesitant to leave the crowd, because he knew the moment he stepped out of earshot, his daughter would become a topic of conversation. For years now, his little girl, Miranda, had provided fertile ground for the weeds of gossip. However, her last instance of recklessness had brought a new level of humiliation to her family. Even Scotty, who had successfully argued many improbable legal defenses, wasn’t able to explain it away as youthful indiscretion. But he knew he couldn’t stop the talk, knew he couldn’t control the world, so he’d excused himself from the mourners and made his way to the study. The door had been closed, but it hadn’t been locked, so when he checked the room—richly decorated with mahogany bookcases and leather furniture—and found it empty, Scotty stepped inside. He meandered around the study, spending time reminiscing and absorbing the atmosphere that now felt thinner without the great man’s presence.

  They’d spent hours in this space, drinking good whisky and talking about work, their families, fishing, and politics. He’d been introduced to two state senators in this room, both of whom had promptly received a check from Scotty, and both of whom he still supported to this day.

  The book on Walter’s desk caught his eye, because its garish, yet worn, paperback cover was so different from the hardbound volumes lining Walter’s shelves. Scotty lifted the book and examined the cover, which showed the purple silhouettes of a man and his dog, standing before a glistening body of water.