Poe (27 page)

“Lisa,” I say quietly, “do you think it’s possible someone can really be possessed?”

Before she can answer, the light overhead flickers on. My eyes squint, trying to adjust—either ghost girl isn’t following orders, or my Victorian apartment has dangerous wiring. A hard call.

“Oh Christ, your feet!” says Lisa.

I look down, and the blood is much worse than I would have thought possible from stepping on broken glass. Maybe I should invest more in plastic.

“You’re
so
going to the emergency room,” she says briskly with just a hint of relief, as if she’s glad my feet are bleeding, so we can safely change the subject.

“Hell, no. It’s not that bad, really. I have Band-Aids, and you know a thing or two about nursing, right?”

“I’m a
receptionist
,” she says. “And you probably need stitches.”

“Not going to the hospital. Not gonna happen.”

She glares at me, but I hold my ground. A standoff.

“Fine,” she finally says, “but if it gets infected, you’re
going
to the hospital.”

I open my mouth to protest.

“Or you can pull the glass out of your feet yourself and I’ll just go back to sleep.”

Heartless wench. “Fine,” I grumble.

“Can you walk?”

“Now that I see how profusely my feet are bleeding, I think not.”

“Well, you’ll need to get yourself to the edge of the bathtub so I can clean the cuts. Can you crawl?”

“Only if it turns you on.”

She unwraps my arm from her shoulders and gives me a look. “You’re completely
impossible
, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” But then I’m out of jokes, and as I lean over to the floor to get down on all fours, I knock my head against the wall.

“Karma,” says Lisa smugly as she slips into the bathroom.

I manage to crawl the ten feet to the bathroom and haul myself up to the edge of the bathtub, gingerly placing my feet inside. Just looking at the blood makes me lightheaded. Lisa, however, is all business; she’s got my Kmart special first-aid kit open and is sorting through its contents, pulling out alcohol wipes, gauze bandages, white medical tape, and long tweezers. She gently lifts my left foot, peers at it closely, and then picks up a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

“This is going to sting a bit,” she says, pouring some over the sole of my foot.

Understatement of the century—it’s like someone has dipped my foot in acid. The peroxide fizzes and drips into the tub basin, a
nauseatingly cloudy pink. “
This
…
is
…
not
…
a
…
bit
,” I manage to say through clenched teeth.

“Oh, so you want to go to the emergency room now? Or would you rather let your feet get infected, contract sepsis, and
then
go to the emergency room?”

Damn the woman and her valid points. Just as I start to feel woozy from the blood and searing pain, she starts to gently dab at my foot with a ball of gauze. “Now I can see,” she says, picking up the tweezers. She pulls out a large piece of thin glass, about the size of a quarter, and drops it into the small metal trash can.
Clink
.

“So,” I say, staring at a tile in the tub, which has come loose from the caulking, “you had a nightmare that I died? You seemed pretty upset about that.”

Lisa ignores me, and with more force than I would think necessary, pulls out the next piece.

“Are you trying to help me or kill me?”

“Impossible,” she mutters in the direction of my toes.

“I’m just saying,” I continue, “you must have some feelings for me, right? To get that upset about me dying.”

Holy mother of God!
I think she just pulled out a tendon.

She expertly places a square of gauze under the heel of my foot, tapes the sides neatly. “I like you.
Sometimes
.”

“It’s the pad, isn’t it? A veritable booty lair.”

She lets my foot drop. Ouch.

“Until you say stupid shit like that,” she replies, grabbing my right foot.

I’m seriously reconsidering the hospital visit, because she’s treating my flesh like it’s a game of Operation.

“So what exactly happened in your dream?”

For a moment she says nothing, peering intently at a smaller sliver of glass. Then she picks up a sharper pair of tweezers. “Why can’t we talk about normal stuff? Like regular people.”

“Since when have you wanted to be like regular people?”

She sighs with a note that hits somewhere between exasperation and exhaustion.

“Okay, fine, I’ll start,” I say. “How about those Mets?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dimitri, I dreamed he killed me,” she says hollowly.

Well now I feel like a moron. “
Christ
, Lisa. I’m sorry.”

Somewhat more gently, she plucks out another shard.

“We were in these woods, and it was snowing. He had a knife to my throat and his eyes were black, completely black, just like last time. You were there, but you didn’t do anything. Like you were frozen. Like it was all—frozen. It was all so dark… so
cold
. But when he slit my throat I could feel how warm my blood was, and all I could think was how strange it was to notice that. Then suddenly I was above myself, watching my body die. Daniel was walking toward you, taking his time. And he had this terrible smile… I was screaming at you to run, but you didn’t do anything. You didn’t move.”

Her hand trembles slightly as she pulls out the last sliver. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I was invisible. Like a ghost.”

“Great,” I say, trying to tease out another smile. “Just what I need: another ghost in my life.”

“Oh
Christ
, Dimitri, it was horrible. Can’t you take anything seriously for once?” Her voice is edgy and hoarse.

“Look, if I take any of this seriously, I
will
go crazy. Because it hasn’t exactly been the best year, if you know what I mean.” My throat constricts at this last word, so I pick at some of the loose caulk and crumble it between my fingers to avoid looking her in the eye.

Lisa is pointedly quiet. She pulls out some Band-Aids, applying them to the smaller cuts, and then finally gives me a half smile. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”

I reach out, lift a strand of her hair, and twist it between my fingers. She turns on the tap for the bath for a minute to rinse it out, and I watch my blood swirl in lazy circles before it turns the water a cloudy pink, then drifts away down the drain.

If ever there were a moment to tell her about the pages I borrowed (or stole, depending on one’s perspective) from Daniel’s room, the bootprints at the base of the trees, and my ring, which somehow Rasputin used to wear, this would be it. But she doesn’t seem to be exactly in the mood for more talk of the supernatural. Which gives me the oddest feeling—that we can be so far away and so close.

“Do you want to talk—”

“No,” says Lisa brusquely. She roughly grabs a towel and dries my feet. “It all feels like last time. Exactly like last time.” Then she throws the towel at the wall.

I reach out, firmly grab her hand in mine, and pull her toward me until our foreheads touch.

She swallows. “If I say run—”

I kiss her lightly on the lips, stopping her. “You won’t have to.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. But you will have to help me stand up, because I’m not all that good around blood. Particularly my own.”

Lisa reaches around my waist and helps me up. The pain in my feet still throbs, but it isn’t as intense.

“I don’t have the energy to try to clean up that glass,” she says, sounding like she’s far away. I’m somewhere past exhausted, and I nod my head loosely in agreement. “Let’s see if we can fit on the couch.”

She helps me hobble over, and when I collapse onto the couch, its stubby legs shudder but hold.

“Scooch over,” she commands. And I do. Then she curls in next to me, so lovely, so warm—I feel safe, protected. She says something else, but by then she’s too far away, and I’m too far gone into sleep.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: AFTER I’VE GONE

I
’m sitting in a Volkswagen van. In front of me is Aspinwall mansion, definitely not in its forties glory. The front lawn has almost completely been taken over by wild blackberry bushes, the front porch is rotted and sagging, and most, if not all, of the upper windows are cracked.

But there’s a tall aluminum ladder perched against the peeling stucco, and a small swath of weeds has been cleared for a haphazard assortment of paint pails, two-by-fours, new windows, and gleaming copper pipes. A friendly-looking beagle pants on the front step, and it’s hot—that sweltering, humid, New England kind of heat. From somewhere inside the mansion, I hear hammering and the tinny sound of a radio playing something funky.

I open the van door, it groans in protest, and I discover that the outside of the Volkswagen has been handpainted with rainbows, dolphins, ocean waves, and peace symbols. Worse still, I’m wearing faded, torn bellbottom jeans, an embroidered purple tunic, and on my wrist is some kind of hand-tooled leather bracelet with a yin/yang symbol. My chin is itchy, and when I reach up to scratch I find a scraggly beard.

Oh, the
horror
. I’m Shaggy.

“Hey,
namaste
!” calls out an airy woman’s voice from the deep interior of the house. Into the sunshine steps a true flower child, with floaty blond hair, some kind of baggy paisley dress, light freckles, and a wild Susan tucked behind her ear. She beams and drifts
out to where I’m standing, girlishly grabbing my hand. “You saw the sign?”

I nod.

She giggles and then hugs me lightly. She smells like freshly mown grass. “You’re our first. Come in, come in.”

I’m pulled up the steps, past the beagle, which only gives my feet the most cursory sniff, and then I’m in the main entry of Aspinwall. One wall is covered with the ghastly wallpaper I remember from my night there, but the others are still Italianate fresco, although mildew has spotted the figures beyond recognition.

“Wolf!” she calls out. “I’m Celia, by the way. But this month you can call me Lotus. I’ve been feeling very lotusy lately.”

I have no doubt. But then a cold realization strikes—Celia and Wolf, the hippies from Amherst. One of them will die soon.
It’s just a dream
, I tell myself.

A bright-eyed young man with long brown hair tied back by a red bandana, wearing similar bellbottoms and a leather-fringed vest (no shirt), steps out from the kitchen, a hammer in hand.

“You from San Fran?” he says, wiping his hand before reaching out and gripping mine, like we’re long-lost brothers.

What the hell. “Yeah,” I say.

Apparently that gives me some cachet. He’s obviously impressed. “Always meant to get out there, to where the action’s at. But got a little delayed with my woman here.”

Celia is far from a woman—she could easily pass for a fifteen-year-old—but she giggles appreciatively and twists his hand in hers. “You can take your pick on the second floor; there are lots of rooms. But watch out, ’cause there are bad spots in the floor.”

Tell me about it.

“You know anything about wiring?” Wolf asks hopefully.

“No,” I reply. “I’m a writer.”

This, apparently, makes me a god, because his eyes widen. Even Celia takes a step back. “For real?” she says. “I have some poems. I’m
really into ants right now. You know, busy, busy ants. People are just doing, you know? Doing but not thinking. Not
dreaming
.” Her eyes glaze over at the word “dreaming.”

Wolf kisses her lightly on the cheek. “Busy, busy ants.”

They seem like nice people. Disgustingly in love with each other and full of nauseating hope, but otherwise nice people.

“Oh,” says Celia, “I found something in the kitchen!” Without further explanation, she
skips
away.

“She’s a freak in bed,” says Wolf confidentially.

I so did not need to know that.

A cool wind blows through the wide, spacious entry, and the beagle whimpers for no discernible reason, then Celia is back, holding an old saltine tin. The top is slightly rusted.

My heart instantly begins to beat faster. I recognize the saltine tin—it’s the same one Lisa showed me.

“Oh that is
cool
, babe.” Wolf’s got a look in his eyes, like he’d prefer to just ditch the home repairs and explore her freaky side, which probably explains the overall lack of progress on the site.

“Not this,” says Celia, pulling at the lid. “
This
.”

Celia pulls out the pages wrapped in black velvet, shyly proud of her find.

“It’s Greek and some other weird language,” she says. “But I can read the Greek.”

I must look puzzled, because Wolf says, “I rescued her from college.”

“All girls,” adds Celia with a visible shiver. “I was thinking we could get out the Ouija board tonight. Have some shiny time.”

“You’re so
witchy
,” says Wolf, kissing her neck. He really can’t keep his hands off her.

Just as I’m about to open my mouth and warn them, the music in the background changes to a white-noise hum and everything around me flickers, becomes staticky, like I’m watching a TV show with bad reception, and the whole world tilts, gets fuzzy. There’s a
piercingly bright flash of light, and then I hear a singer, a swing band; the night sky is dark with stars and my head pounds—or is that the drums?—and I get a fragmentary glimpse of the Aspinwall driveway lined with intricately carved, glowing jack-o’-lanterns. I distantly hear Amelia’s bright voice calling out over the crowd, “Captain, come join the séance; you have no idea the trouble I’ve gone to,” and then I’m spinning again, falling, falling, falling. When it stops I find myself lying on the weedy front lawn, feeling like I just stepped off a roller coaster, like I can’t find my balance. Everything around me flickers but eventually clears—there, the cans of paint… But the ladder is gone. The beagle cowers on the front porch, whimpering—its eyes wide with terror.