Unquiet Dreams (7 page)

The dragon stopped in her tracks. "What's this? You, you of all people, think I should fly?"

"Well, it's better than having you lumber along like this making so much noise."

The dragon blew a puff of smoke in her face, then turned and leapt into the air. Her flight was a winged shape across the stars, like a shadow snuffing and relighting the lights. Colburga smiled to herself. The world was full of magic, if you knew where to look.

 

 

When the voices first appeared, it was during "Jeopardy" and this didn't seem at all like a bad thing. Emma was not especially good at "Jeopardy." She watched all the time, longing for Kid's Week where she could get a lot more of the right answers, well, questions because they did have to be in the form of a question and unlike her mother, Emma believed in following the rules. Her mother would just mutter responses—usually the wrong ones too, Emma was secretly pleased to observe—which were never in the form of a question. Emma always took the trouble to phrase her responses correctly because one day….well, no there wasn't much point in thinking about it, because Hollywood, California was a long way from Traverse City, but someday¬¬—she dreamed—someday she would be there in the television studios saying, "I'll take Potpourri for $100, Alex!" Well, maybe not Potpourri.

But the wonderful thing about the voices was they KNEW the answers. That very important Thursday, suddenly, as if through an earphone from a hidden transistor radio, that cool voice asked, "What is Constantinople?" At very nearly the same instant Phillipa Sanrioco, who would go on to win by a very large margin that day, gave the very same response which added $200 to her total. Emma's jaw dropped. Where did that voice come from?

"You oughta shut your mouth 'fore you start catching flies," her mother snorted from her La-Z-Boy chortling at her own wit. Emma obeyed wordlessly, her eyes rapt on the screen, awaiting another miracle. She did not have a wait

"What is a trifecta?"

"Who was Boadicea?"

"What is an isosceles triangle?"

All correct, all matching Phillipa's correct responses. Emma couldn't believe they were inside her head. She started blurting them out as they were dictated to her inner ear: "What is the Fifth Dominion?" "Who was Christina Rossetti?" "What is Guernica?" Her mother shushed her at first, then turned up the sound with the remote, then at the commercial break before Final Jeopardy asked her, "So what the hell did you have for breakfast, an encyclopedia?"

"No, Fruit Loops." Emma was so dumbfounded with her newfound ability that she ignored her mother's sarcasm. How could this happen? And to her, silly old Emma Bennett, a nobody, and just out of the blue! And when she even got the Final answer right—"Who was J. Sheridan LeFanu?"—her mother's grumbles shrank away to nothing but a wondering stare at her daughter. Helping her mother down the hall, situating her in bed with talk radio turned up, cleaning her dentures and finally doing the dishes, Emma's mind was agog with stupendous disbelief. The voices, each one slightly different from the one that preceded it, fell silent immediately after Final Jeopardy. But as she dried plates Emma tried to feel around in her mind to see where those voices had come from, without any luck. Would they return? She missed them already.

She didn't have to wait long.

The next day at the supermarket while Emma sorted through cantaloupe to find one that wasn't too mushy, they began again. "No. No. No. Yes, that one." Emma thumped it with her index finger and was rewarded with that just-ripe sound. She smiled. Already she knew the voices were her friends; not like the mail carrier at whom she smiled, trying awkwardly to engage him in conversation when he stopped to pick up the neatly stuffed envelopes—"Earn money at home!"—for which, in combination with her mother's meager pension, she made just enough to feed them and pay the electricity. No, the voices knew things, and shared them with her. That was important somehow. The voices were wise.

"That man is an adulterer." Emma looked up. By the sweet corn a man somewhere north of forty stripped husks from the cobs. He caught Emma's glance and smiled. She turned quickly to the onions and picked up a rustling one pound bag. "He meets his oldest friend's wife Miriam at the Best Western every Tuesday afternoon." Emma surreptitiously returned her eyes to the man. Him? With his polyester suit and his big buck teeth? Takes all kinds, she thought. Wonder what Miriam looks like?

"Rather like a horse," came the response. Emma dropped her onions. The man looked at her again, curiosity beaming from his eyes and she hastily grabbed the bag and dropped it into her cart. She wheeled the carriage around, bashing into the cantaloupe stand before scurrying down the baking supplies and crackers aisle. Fortunately, it was deserted at present.

"How do you know these things?" she hissed quietly, awe battling with fear.

"We know, that is all."

"Why me?"

"Do you believe in god, Emma?"

She gulped. "What!"

"Do you believe in god?"

"I don't know." A woman entered the aisle near the cracker end, pushing a cart with a small child in the seat. Emma pretended to be looking at cake mixes.

"Emma, we are god and we're here to help you, to open your eyes."

"We?" Emma wrestled with the idea. She remembered how the Trinity was supposed to be three people but really only one, but somehow it never seemed to make sense. And there were more than three voices anyway, she was pretty sure.

"We have seen how you have struggled with a cheerful goodwill to carry your heavy burdens, and we have come to release you from them." Cheerful goodwill—that was how Emma always thought of herself, carrying on with cheerful goodwill despite all her trials. Release! But how? Mother had to be cared for and the only work she could get was in-home envelope-stuffing and there was never enough money to—the lottery! Was she going to win the lottery?!

"No, Emma, it is not that simple. You need to make more permanent solutions; we will have some work for you and when it is done, your troubles will be solved." They read her mind! Emma was overjoyed and barked with delighted laughter. The young woman with the child glanced sharply at Emma, trying to hurry by without appearing to do so.

"She and the child will die in two years time in an accident with a drunk driver." Emma looked alarmed but the woman was already turning the corner to the next aisle. "You cannot do anything about that. Forget your shopping now, and go home. There is much to be done."

Emma abandoned her cart and lurched heavily down the aisle, her mind whirring with excitement that felt like a red mist inside her skull. Randomly the voices would relate tidbits concerning passers-by: "He is wearing his wife's underwear" or "She has stolen those shoes" or "He will live to be ninety-five and never once be happy." It was almost too much; she felt numb. As the automatic doors swung open to disgorge her from the unnatural cool of the store into the stifling heat of mid-morning, Emma realized just how bizarre her day was becoming. It was about to get even more so, quite dangerously so.

At the side door to the little house, Emma puffed from the hectic pace and sweated liberally while she fumbled for her latchkey. The house was marginally cooler because she'd kept the shades drawn. Pulling one of the kitchen chairs out from under the table, Emma sank gratefully onto its squeaking vinyl.

"Where're my Ho Hos?" her mother groused sleepily from the bedroom. Emma sighed and shook out the hanky from the pocket of her dress. Delicately she dabbed the droplets from her face. Her mother's voice came again, insistent. "Emma! Emma! Where're my Ho Hos?"

"First, we have to take care of Mother." Emma sighed and nodded. It would always be the way. "No, not for much longer, Emma." She tried to stifle the hope those words gave her. "It's all right, Emma, feel no shame. We will release you from your burdens."

Emma padded down the hall with a gentle smile on her face, her patience restored. She stopped in her mother's doorway and clapped twice. The light over her bed snapped on. "Where are my HO HOs!" her mother demanded.

Emma searched vaguely for an excuse. "They were all out."

"No Ho Hos? But I want—"

"Put your hanky in her mouth," said the voices calmly. Emma obeyed, balling up the cloth and sticking between her mother's still-flapping lips. The old woman's eyes bulged with alarm but she was finally silenced. Emma couldn't help but grin; how long had she wanted to do that? Not that she'd ever admit it, but oh boy, did I feel good! Her mother made no attempt to remove the gag.

"Mother needs to be rescued. Her soul is in peril. She needs to join us in heaven. You have to help us Emma, be our hands here on earth."

"Yes, I will."

"Good. Get your father's silver straight razor."

Emma blanched. She hated sharp, pointy things. Always cutting herself, she had little trust her in clumsy fingers.

"We will guide your hands, Emma. Have faith and you will be rewarded." She obeyed. At once she was in the bathroom, pulling open the bottom drawer of the vanity and reaching for the green velour case. Soft, so soft, it unrolled in her hands and the razor slid eagerly out into her palm. It almost seemed to smile at her. Emma was surprised she had never realized what a beautiful piece of work it was, clean and smooth and etched with vines and flowers along its handle. With a flip of her wrist it snapped into place, ready for work. Emma saw herself in the mirror and for once did not immediately duck away. She looked purposeful, commanding, even happy. She smiled at herself.

Back in the room, her instruction continued. "Give her a permanent smile with which to meet us, Emma. We like to see our souls smiling." Emma lay one hand over her mother's terrified eyes and with the other, swiped an arc across her neck. For a second she held her breath as a terrific spurt burst forth, spraying her dress and the bed. Her mother's hands leaped up from the bed, waving swirls in the air, but soon dropping back down to her sides. Emma waited. When the blood stilled, Emma took her hand from her mother's face. She used the hem of her dress to rub the razor clean, then gently snapped it shut. She placed it reverently on the nightstand. Her mother's eyes gazed at the ceiling. Emma looked down. They were both soaked with blood.

"This is my blood, Emma, the secret of life. Do not be ashamed or disgusted. Feel it, feel life." She put three fingers into the damp pool under her mother's neck. It felt cool and syrupy. Emma ran the fingers along her cheek—it's like Indian warpaint, she thought, imagining John Wayne movies—and licked her index finger. Salty. Life was good.

"Now we must make her smaller and hide each part separately. The devils are after her and we must not let them find her. You must work quickly."

Emma looked down at her mother's body with dismay. It was so big! How could she make it smaller? But ask and ye shall receive: "Downstairs in the root cellar, Emma, the kindling axe." Ah ha! That would be perfect. Emma scuffed her way down the hall, feeling tired. Her cheap sneakers squeaked on the kitchen tiles. The door to the cellar was swollen by the summer heat and refused, at first, to budge. When at last she tugged it open, Emma was rewarded with a blast of refreshingly cool air. At the bottom of the stairs, wedged deeply into the planks overhead, was the hatchet. She recalled her father telling her the story of The Three Sillies and smiled to think of his rough cheeks and gentle voice. Twenty years; and she could still conjure that memory effortlessly. She used both hands to pull the hatchet out. It gleamed at her in the twilit root cellar. "I could bury her here. The floor's hard, but it's still dirt."

"Very good, Emma. You're very resourceful."

Cutting her mother up proved to be more difficult than she'd anticipated. Her arms began to ache with the effort of chopping through the bones. Little shards flew up and bit into her skin like angry bees. She had to keep stopping to wipe the blade and handle, the slickness threatening to squirt it out of her grasp. When it was finally done, when the pieces were small enough to handle, Emma sank exhausted onto the edge of the sticky bed.

"You need to rest awhile, Emma. Why not go watch some TV?" It sounded like a very good idea. She stopped by the fridge to grab a can of generic diet soda and stumbled into the living room. The curtains were still drawn but it made the room cooler, so she did not open them. Emma sank into her mother's chair with a grateful sigh. She was surprised to find her left hand still gripped the axe and let it drop to the floor with a muffled thump. She clicked on the remote.

"—in Dallas earlier today. In the local news, a Miss Emma Bennett of Ridgeway Drive saved her mother from certain damnation today by her speedy intervention—" Emma fell into a doze, smiling proudly.

She awoke with a gasp. The doorbell had rung, that was all. Emma lurched out of the chair, groaning at her stiffness. What time was it? What day was it? It seemed like a week ago she had sat down here. The bell rang out again and Emma hobbled to the door, unlocked it and swung it open. "It's your favorite mail carrier," the voices whispered in her head, but she could already see that.

"Hello, Miss Bennett, nice weath—" He stopped, gazing at her in horror, his mouth a small o. She blinked back at him, then remembered: she was covered in blood.

"Oh dear, my mother's had a terrible accident! Please, you must help me!"

Gallant to the last, he threw off his mailbag and dashed into the house while she stepped back to accommodate him. "Where is she?! Have you called 911?!"

"In the back!" She pointed. He sprinted off down the hall. Emma walked over to the La-Z-Boy and retrieved her axe. She did not wait for the voices; she was not saving his soul. But it was going to feel good anyway.

 

 

for the man on the 59 bus

I ran into the Buddha on the bus. I know if you run into the Buddha on the road you're supposed to kill him, but I didn't know the protocol for meeting him on the bus. I know it was him, because he was wearing a t-shirt that announced that fact and I always trust in the word of the shirt.