There Will Be Lies (9 page)

She looks down at the rock as if she doesn’t know how it got into her hands, as if it materialised there.
Nothing
, she says.
But we need to switch cars
.

Luke is still walking, facing away from us, and Mom speeds up, still holding the rock.

I don’t think: I just snap my foot out, putting my weight on the CAM Walker, and trip her. She goes down on one knee, the rock clatters off and comes to a rest by the stream. She stares at me.

What the hell, Shelby?

What the hell, MOM? What were you
…
were you going to knock him out? Was that your plan?

No
.

Bullshit
. I’m furious, all the pent-up confusion and frustration of the last twenty-four hours boiling over inside me, brimming past the point where I can contain it.

Mom is pissed too, she stands up and puffs her chest out, primal, facing up to me. Then she seems to catch herself, and I see something departing her eyes, like a sparrow taking flight, leaving her behind, and all the anger is suddenly gone from her and she kind of slumps.

But it’s not like that’s going to stop me – I mean, after everything that’s happened, this last day, I feel like someone’s pulled a rug out from under me. I hate it, and I’ve had enough of it.

For God’s sake, Mom
, I say.
Have you thought about this AT ALL? That rock could have killed him
.

She shakes her head.

Yes. And how do I know you’re not going to try to, I don’t know, tie him up tonight or something? That’s your plan, right? Steal his car and then we can
–

But Mom isn’t paying attention, she’s staring at something behind me, and there’s a cold crawling thing on my spine, and I realise I got turned around on the path, and what’s behind me is –

Luke
, says Mom.

I turn.

He’s been watching me, watching me speak; his mouth is open. But mine is not.

Because I don’t speak with my mouth, I have not been speaking with my mouth to Mom.

Wait
, says Luke, looking at my hands.
You’re deaf?

So yes, BTW, I’m deaf.

And Luke knowing that I’m deaf is SUPER AWESOME. Because now he’s got a whole load of stories about deaf people getting hit by cars and stuff like that, and he tells them all as we have lunch at this little truck-stop diner. There’s a particularly sweet tale about a cyclist who got dragged under a semi-truck because she didn’t hear it coming – Luke uses the word ‘hamburger’ when he describes her body.

Worse still, Mom is on his side – she’s all, like,
yes I worry about her so much on the street
.

She doesn’t add that I don’t go anywhere without her, maybe even she thinks she might be a tiny bit overprotective sometimes.

I have ten per cent hearing
, I say. Of course I do: I wouldn’t be able to lip-read so well otherwise.

Luke looks blank.

She says she can hear a bit
, my mom translates, interpreting my hand gestures.
But not much. Sorry, she doesn’t like speaking. Because she can’t really hear herself, you know, her voice sounds weird
.

Yeah, thanks, Mom, I think. Way to build up my confidence.

I get that
, says Luke.
But you could have told me, you know. I mean, it’s no big deal, but just for safety, you know? It’s nothing to be ashamed of
.

No, I think. No, it’s not. Actually, I’m not sure why we didn’t tell him; we both just kind of fell into it, or maybe my mom led me into it. Looking back, yes, I realise, she was the one who said something about me not speaking much. Cover, I guess, because my father is looking for someone with a deaf daughter? I make a mental note to ask Mom later.

Anyway, we’ve blown that cover now, and with all of Luke’s gross stories, I’m kind of wishing by the time the cheque comes that I had let Mom brain him with this rock, which is totally what she was planning even though she denies it now.

The sun is already setting when we go back to the car – it was a late lunch, and Mom and Luke talked and laughed for a long time in the diner, like teenagers. It was, like everything to do with over-weight glassy-eyed Luke, THE BOMB. Especially when she touched his arm when he was speaking. I have made a particularly highlighted mental note to myself to NEVER DO THIS when I’m speaking to a guy.

If I ever speak to a guy. Which if my mom gets her way is unlikely.

We get in the car and this time I go in the back so the two of them can talk in front – I can’t see their lips so I don’t know what they’re saying.

Back at the campsite, Luke parks the car and then busies himself making dinner on the stove, to repay us for the burgers. I think it’s some kind of chicken. He has cans of sauce and little plastic plates.

My foot is killing me, after the walk in the reserve, so I snag my backpack from the car. Mom packed me a make-up bag when we
left the hospital and I put my two bottles of codeine in it – now I take two pills out and wash them down with a bottle of water from the front seat. Then I go back to the fire.

The whole time, I’m wanting to talk to Mom, grill her about, oh, the whole bashing-in-Luke’s-head-with-a-rock thing, but I never get the chance because there’s no way to get her on her own. Instead, we all sit together by the light of a fire that Luke has built and eat, and I wonder how soon I can say I’m tired and go to bed.

I say bed.

I mean car.

Because I totally sleep in a car now, with a woman who thinks nothing of picking up a rock to smash someone’s head in. That is my life. And it is super!

To be clear, I’m being sarcastic here. It is not super AT ALL. It is so not super that I feel like I’m going to cry, only the tears won’t come, and anyway you don’t want to hear about that. It’s depressing.

After a while, it’s obvious that neither of them is paying much attention to me, so I get into the car and close my eyes.

When I open them, there’s a blanket over me, and it’s full night. I sit up – Mom isn’t in the front seat, but I see the glow of a flash-light or something from Luke’s tent. And I see two shadows in there, kind of intertwined. Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Not only is Mom no longer Shy Mom, but she’s being un-shy over there in LUKE’S TENT. WITH LUKE. UGH, I think. And then an image flashes in my mind of Luke’s double chin and I think, UGH, again, UGH X 10,000.

I die inside a little, that very moment. This is my mom, who has lectured me my whole entire life about being careful of men, about what they want, and how they get it, and here she is in Luke’s tent.

At the same time, I’m worried about her. I mean, I know how it is. I know how much more Luke weighs than her, even though she’s big. I know he could do anything he liked to her, hurt her, kill her.

Men are dangerous – I know that. Mom told me, but I watch a lot of TV, I could have worked it out for myself. I mean, the serial killer is never a woman, right?

So what is Mom doing putting herself in danger?

What is happening to her?

What is happening to me?

I think about those fairy tales Mom used to tell me, the ones about the changelings, where fairies would take a human child because they found it beautiful, and replace it with a fairy baby. Right now, though, it feels like Mom is the changeling, like she’s been taken away and replaced with some other mother, some simulacrum, some clockwork woman.

I lie there, and I think how screwed up my life is, and I wish I could just be back in our apartment in Scottsdale, doing the same thing every day, living the old routine. I promise, I tell myself, closing my eyes. I promise, I’ll never complain about going to the Grand Canyon again, or college, or whatever, if I can just go back to my old life.

Then I open my eyes again and I look out of the other window of the car and I see Mark standing there. Right out there, his feet on the pine needles. His eyes are kind of glowing. He is wearing the black jeans and white shirt he always wears, and he is smiling at me. I think about Mom, telling me how no one named Mark worked at the library. How no
man
worked there at all.

Blink.

Still there.

Of course, I say to myself – I’m dreaming. Mom isn’t really in
Luke’s tent, doing whatever it is she’s doing with him. Mark isn’t really standing on the forest floor outside the car. Everything is totally fine! Apart from the little fact that the father I always thought was dead is after us, and evidently has the power to check hospital records. Which is totally not fine!

But since this is a dream, just like the hospital, and so it makes zero difference what I do, I open the car door gently and get out, banging my storm trooper CAM Walker on the door as I do, only when I walk my leg doesn’t hurt at all, which tells me it really is definitely a dream, to the MAX, because when Luke was driving it felt like someone was hammering nails into me.

Mark does not move, just keeps gazing at me with those glowing eyes as I approach. I’m on the other side of the car from Luke’s tent, so they couldn’t see me even if they weren’t, ugh, busy.

There are pine needles on the ground and it feels like floating, as I walk over to Mark. I move smoothly, despite the CAM Walker. I still have my sweatpants on, with a slit down the side to accommodate the enormous boot. Mark stays very still. I can see his breath, turning to vapor in the night air, as if something inside him is smoking.

I’m really close now – I could reach out and touch him, but I don’t really believe he’s there. I think this is a dream again, like the child in the hospital. Maybe every time I’ve seen Mark it’s been a dream, and I’m actually deeply mentally ill, maybe –

Mark reaches out and takes my hand.

Hello, Shelby
, he says with his mouth.

I touch Mark’s cheek, still convinced that this isn’t real.

He lets go of my hand.

How are you, Shelby?
he says, in sign.

What?

How are
–

I heard you
, I say.
But I mean … what? What the hell? What are you doing here? Mom said there was no one at the library with your name. Who ARE you?

Mark blinks his beautiful eyes and I see that they weren’t glowing, before, they were just reflecting the moon.
You shouldn’t trust everything your mother says
, he says.

I think of the coyote, saying
there will be two lies and then there will be the truth
. Was that the first lie then? Or was it … was it Mom telling me about Dad chasing us?

I hold Mark’s gaze.
You’re saying she was lying?

I’m not saying that. I’m saying you shouldn’t trust everything she says
.

I shake my head.
I can’t deal with this
.

I tried to save you
, he says.
Outside the library. I tried to pull you back from the car. But I wasn’t quick enough
.

It’s OK
, I say.
It’s just my leg. Don’t worry about me
.

But I do worry about you
, he says.

Well, stop
.

No
, he says.
It’s my job to worry about you. That’s why I came
.

I close my eyes. I kind of hope when I open them he will be gone and I can go back to normalcy, but he’s still there, still VERY there, I can smell the warm scent of him, weirdly comforting.
I don’t understand
, I say.
Why are you here exactly?

He smiles, but it’s a sad smile.
I’m here to take you to the Dreaming
, he says.

I’m not dreaming now?

No
.

No?

This scares me somehow, though I don’t really know why. I mean, him saying it’s not a dream doesn’t mean anything; even if it were a dream, he’d probably say that. But there’s something disturbingly real about the pine needles and moss below my feet – my foot, I should say, because only one of my feet is bare, the other is encased in a massive white exoskeleton – about the breeze on my face, Mark’s cheek when I touched it, faintly raspy with stubble.

What the hell is going on?

Calm down
, says Mark.
It’s all right. I’m here to help you
.

Why?

Because you need help
.

I hold his gaze without looking away. His eyes are like tunnels into forever.

Take my hand
, he says.

He holds out a hand to me, like it’s obvious to him that I’m
going to do whatever he says, and maybe he’s right, because I take it.

We’re stepping sideways
, he says.
Through the air
.

I don’t know how to
–

We step sideways, through the air.

For a moment, I’m still a girl.

Then I disappear, slowly, a Polaroid picture in reverse, washing out of existence. I look down to see my hands fade away, then my arms, then my body.

I am nothing but electrons and empty space between them, eons of space. In my eyes are pinwheels, blazing against the skylike darkness that is everywhere and everything, and at the same time is just my mind, spooling out to erase the world.

When I open my eyes again, the world has come back. Or some world has come back, because I sense instantly that we’re not in the same place.

We’re in a forest, still, but it’s
more
forest. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s like … like seeing a movie in 3-D. It’s just …
more
.

Or, OK, like when the first day of summer comes, and you forgot that the light could do that, flood everything, submerge it in brightness; except that here it’s night, and the stars are doing the illuminating, a trillion stars, glowing brightly like dust in the sky. The colours are more vivid than the forest I left behind, the leaves are more finely traced, more detailed. It’s crazy.

The cars have gone, and the gravel, and we’re in a tiny clearing and it’s just trees in every direction, and thorny undergrowth, and the light of the stars is very dim because of all the leaves above us, making a lace brocade of glow on the forest floor. I notice that the trees are kind of brown and sick looking.