There Will Be Lies (16 page)

And on either side of us, the herd moves as one.

The snakes come at us fast, angry. They slip between the legs of the elks, and I see their fangs, and the elks stamp their feet, snorting, mouths foaming, eyes rolling. But they keep going, as scared and as
thrashing as they are. The moon is behind clouds. Above us are only stars, sharp and shining as teeth.

I see an elk to my left go down, suddenly, like its legs just aren’t there any more – it rolls, once, then disappears under the water, and I just catch a glimpse of its hooves as it tumbles down the rocky rapids.

Then another falls to my right, and another.

I hold my breath, terrified, and I see that Mark has blanched, his face drained of all blood. I can see the other shore, only ten feet away now …

Five …

My elk, the leader, stumbles, and I’m thrown forward towards the water –

but then his head comes up again and I cling on, as he pushes on.

Three …

And then we’re through, and on the bank, and the elk walks me up and away from the river, before dropping his forelegs so I can scoot down and off. Mark alights too, and many of the elks shake water from their tails and flanks beside us. At least five, though, are gone.

I’m sorry, I say.

The leader looks up at me. We are many, he says. We are Elk. The herd survives.

But his voice is sad.

One of the other elks snorts, in alarm, and I turn. Mark is tense, poised, looking at the river. I see it. A pair of eyes above the water, a snout. Sharp teeth. A wolf.

And another.

And another.

There is a pack of wolves, swimming across the river towards us. They see that we have spotted them and begin to swim faster, their eyes shining. The snakes are leaving them alone: in fact I can’t see the snakes at all.

Wolves serve the Crone, I think. And snakes serve the Crone.

The elks turn, panicked breath misting the air, looking for somewhere to run, but there is nowhere, only a narrow path, all curves and switchbacks, that runs up the other side of the canyon, and will only fit them single file.

Mark looks to the river, at the onrushing forms of the wolf heads. They are getting close now; I can see the sharpness of their teeth. The mineral hardness of their eyes, glinting in the starlight. I can hear them snarling madly as they swim, their mouths foaming, mingling with the foam of the river.

Very well, says Mark, as if to himself.

Then he closes his arms around his chest and –

and
collapses into himself
, his body folding like paper, his skin shifting, blurring into fur, bristling, his jeans and T-shirt melting away, his jaw extending, his fingernails pushing out into claws until …

… until there is a coyote standing there, beside the river, a huge coyote the size of a man – a coyote that a second ago
was
a man.

Behind me, the lead elk lets out a kind of bellow, but I can’t tell if it’s one of rage or surprise or triumph, because at that moment the wolves hesitate, I see them slow in the water, and they sniff at the air in confusion.

But then the biggest of them snarls and their eyes flash again, and they come forward, reaching the shallows now, scrabbling for purchase with their paws on the riverbed. They rush up on to the sand then, bursting out of the river, spraying droplets of water as they charge at us, mouth open wide and slathering, eyes full of murder.

The coyote twists and, in Mark’s voice, says, Stay back. Stay behind me.

Then it catches the first wolf with a blow of its red paw, just as the wolf leaps, smashing it down in a cloud of sand. Immediately the coyote – Mark – whirs around and jumps into the air, closes its jaw on the throat of the biggest wolf, and in less time than it takes to tell it, tears out a great hunk of flesh in an explosion of red, and the wolf falls twitching to the ground, missing half of its neck.

There are three more wolves, and they hang back now, whimpering, their snouts downturned. They glance at one another, seem to draw some strength from each other, some resolve, and then all three of them hurl themselves at the giant coyote together.

But the coyote is ready.

It dives under one wolf, twisting its body as it does so, and its claws rake up, eviscerate the wolf as it moves through the air, its guts falling steaming to the sand. Another wolf jumps over it, and it snaps at the air and misses, the wolf hitting the ground hard and careering towards me, towards the elk, jaws wide open –

But the coyote has spun around, too fast to be possible, and sunk its teeth into the wolf’s back leg – the wolf stops as if anchored by a steel cable, its head crashing into a rock that is lying in the sand, and it is instantly still.

The last wolf doesn’t even make for me, it turns its tail and flees – or it would, if the coyote didn’t chase it to the water’s edge, and end it in a swirl of water and blood.

The elks behind me are whickering and wheezing, distressed by the smell of blood, which is ringingly metallic in the air around us, the whole atmosphere turned to iron. I half turn to them and their eyes are rolling and staring. Some of them have tried to escape up the narrow path but have got stuck, feet drumming at the ground, antlers locked with hooves.

The coyote leaves the water’s edge and begins to walk towards me.

But no.

That wasn’t the last wolf. The last wolf surges out of the water upstream of me, a grey wave, and it is huge. It bounds, snarling, past the coyote and towards the elks that are jumbled together at the foot of the path up the canyon wall. It is fast, this wolf, and it is snarling, eyes gleaming, getting closer and closer.

The coyote reacts, but maybe not fast enough, turning from me and throwing itself in the wolf’s direction –

Shelby Cooper, come back in here
, says the elk closest to me, its eyes bulging.

What? I say.

Another elk takes my shoulder with its hand; I feel the fingers digging into my flesh.

What the –?

Then the rocky ravine drops away like a curtain falling, and
there is forest behind it, dark forest, and my mom swings me around to face her. I stumble, but she catches me.

It’s two a.m
., she says.
Come inside
.

I stare at her. I’m thinking about the trapped elks, the wolf closing in on them, wanting to lock its teeth on their flesh, and I want to go back and see if they’re all right, I want to know why Mark is SUDDENLY A COYOTE. But I can’t very well try to step back over there into the Dreaming, not with Mom right here beside me.

OK, Mom
, I say.

The next morning, the smell of bacon wakes me. I get up and CAM Walk into the kitchen, a kind of rolling walk that I’m sure looks really cool, where Mom is bent over the pan. A thought goes through my head: This woman is a murderer. But I grab it and push it down, burying it. I raise my eyebrows into a question.

Vacuum packed
, says Mom.
There are croissants too. Frozen
. She indicates the oven where they are cooking. Outside the window there is a pale moon in the blue morning sky, and it makes me feel like I don’t know what is real any more and what is a dream.

I sit down and soon she brings me over a plate, a mug of coffee.

Thanks
, I say. I stare at her.
What do I call you? Anya? Shaylene?

She frowns.
Call me Mom
, she says.

My fork stops on the way to my mouth. I nod slowly.
So, what’s the plan?
I ask.

We’ll hold tight here a while
, says Mom.
There’s a ton of food. And the judge won’t be here for a long time
.

And then what?
I say.
It’s not sustainable long term
.

Mom hits the table with her knife; it makes me jump.
I know, Shelby
, she says.
I know. I’m working on it, OK?

OK
, I say.
Fine
.

Have I ever let you down?
she asks.
Have I ever not looked after you?

No, Mom
, I say.

Well, then
.

We sit in silence for a while, finishing our bacon and croissants.

I’m going to get some firewood
, says Mom.
Read a book or something
.

OK
.

She clears away the plates and mugs. She washes them in the sink and I pick up a towel, and when she has finished washing she silently hands me each item and I dry it – we make a good team.

After that she leaves the room and I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth – Mom bought toothbrushes and deodorant and stuff from the gas station. When I hit the living room, Mom isn’t there, and I guess she’s outside, chopping firewood. The image is so incongruous, so
Little House on the Prairie
, that it makes me laugh.

It’s weird – I don’t know what my laugh sounds like.

I look at the bookshelves but it’s all
Stories of the Hopi
and
Navajo Firelight
and
The Mythology of the Major Native American Tribes
. Nothing that appeals to me. I look around for a moment, sweeping the room, and that’s when I see an Apple computer on an old nineteenth-century desk in the corner, inlaid with green leather tooled with gold.

I go over to the computer and, without even really thinking about it, turn it on. I’m kind of surprised when the Apple logo on the button glows blue, and then the screen flickers on. Soon the home screen appears – no password, which seems foolish for a judge.

I look to see if there’s a modem, but if anything the computer is probably just plugged right into the phone line, for broadband. I
click on Safari and after a moment a window pops up. Google. Wow.

First I search for ‘Anya Maxwell’. There are a ton of pages. Wikipedia, obviously, but also news articles, blogs, discussions.

Images.

I click on the Images tab and the screen is filled with tessellated little photos – a dark-haired woman, shown in old family photographs, thin and nervous looking. She looks like a beaten wife, that’s for sure.

But does she look like Mom?

Yeah, kind of. Same limp hair, same snub nose. The eyes look different – bigger, wider, but that could just be because she’s younger here. Yes, there’s a definite resemblance.

Wow.

I navigate away from the images. I search for ‘vivid dreams’ and ‘dream symbolism’, but I just get a load of new age crap.

And anyway, am I sure it’s a dream? I touch the knife in my pocket, the very real-feeling knife that Mark gave me. No, not sure at all. Only, Mark just turned into a coyote. What was that all about? The whole thing was already weird and now it was twelve thousand times weirder.

I key in ‘coyote’ and hit Enter.

The coyote is a member of the genus
–

Coyote: the trickster archetype in Navajo blah blah blah
.

Prince of mischief, the coyote is seen as a clever
…

If you cross a coyote it is bad luck, you should turn around or
–

I shiver and close the tab; open a new one. But an after-image floats in my inner vision, like the silhouette of something outlined by the sun – the image is the word ‘trickster’. Trickster. Liar. Someone who plays tricks.

Mark.

I shake my head to rid myself of the idea.

Then I type in the address of one of the forums I like to hang out on – a subforum of one of the big discussion sites for home-schooled teenagers. There are a few messages from other users wondering where I have gone – usually I post a few times every night.

Deafgirl97
where you at girl?

Hey
Deafgirl97
you on vacation or something?

I smile. Someone has missed me. But as I scroll down the page I realise there’s nothing here I can identify with. It’s all about Jared Leto and
Pretty Little Liars
and there’s nothing at all on the topic of what to do if you find out that your mother is a notorious murderer on the run from the police.

I’m about to type a reply to one of the messages, to say that I’m fine but may be offline for a while, when Mom walks in. She sees me sitting at the computer and shouts – at least I assume she shouts; she opens her mouth and I hear a faint sound.

She rushes over and holds down the power button till the computer switches off. Then she goes straight into the kitchen, and comes back with a pair of scissors – she leans behind the desk and cuts something, then folds her arms and looks at me.

What did you do?
I say.
What the hell, Mom?

Cut the Ethernet cable
, she says.
What are you thinking?

I was just
–

You were on the internet. You were posting something. They can trace that
.

What? How?

Are you serious? Have you heard of IP addresses?

Huh.

Sorry, Mom
, I say.

And what was that, anyway? A forum?

Yes
, I say.

We need to talk about this
, she says.

Me being on a forum? You’re a murderer!
The words are formed by my hands before I can take them back.

She stares at me, like she’s been slapped.
You cannot believe the things your father did, the things he
–

But even as she is speaking something is clicking into place in my mind, slotting into the right grooves. The coffee cups of wine, the bottle of codeine missing from my make-up bag.

I hold up my hand to cut her off.
You were going to drug Luke
, I say.

What?

The wine
. It is oh so clear in my mind now, crystal fricking clear.
You put my codeine in his wine and that was why you looked all pissed when he said he didn’t drink
.

I didn’t
–

Mom, don’t lie!

OK, fine
, she says.
I put a little bit of codeine in his drink. Just to make him sleep, so we could get out of there, I mean, he was
becoming a problem. He knew us, he knew what we looked like, and he was useful for a while but
–