Rising Darkness

Chapter Three

EARLY ON THAT bright spring morning, Mary continued with obvious reluctance toward her ex-husband as he stood in front of her house.

“Oh that’s flattering of you,” Justin said with a grin. “Good thing my ego is so preened and shiny. Good morning, and screw you too.”

“You show up uninvited, you get what you get,” she said. Her voice sounded rough. She cleared her throat. “For pity’s sake, man. It’s not even seven o’clock yet. I never talked to you this early when we lived together.”

“Then why don’t you answer your phone?” he said in exasperated reply. “If you’d pick up, I wouldn’t have to stop by unannounced.”

She squinted at him then jogged up the stairs to unlock her front door, while he followed her at a slower pace. “Because it didn’t ring.”

“Is it even in the house?” he retorted as he came up behind her. He peered past her at the riotous mess inside. “How can you tell? The hood of your car is cold but you weren’t answering when I knocked. I was going to let myself in to make sure you were all right.”

She sighed. “Don’t make me regret giving you that key.”

“You’ll have to arm wrestle me to get it back, and you know I cheat.” Once they had both stepped inside, he looked at her again more closely. Something in his face changed, the humor dying away. “Are you okay? You look really pale.”

“I’m fine.” She removed her sunglasses and rubbed at her face. She could still feel creases on her cheek from the cloth she had slept on. The pounding in her head had grown worse. She turned to walk to her kitchen and said over her shoulder, “I need coffee. Do you want a cup?”

“Yeah.” Justin followed her. “Look, do me a favor. Make an appointment to see your doctor, okay?”

“What? No. I said I’m fine.” Mary stopped in the middle of her kitchen and looked around in confusion. She knew exactly where she was, but everything still seemed alien, incomprehensible.

She didn’t belong here. Panic clutched at her again, like a drowning victim trying to pull her underwater. She flung it off, shaking herself hard like a wet dog as she headed for the coffeepot.

“I don’t think you’re as fine as you say you are.” Justin frowned at her.

She waved a hand as if to brush away his words. “I had a day from hell yesterday. My shift was twenty-six hours long. We had a multiple car accident and a couple of gunshot victims.”

He shook his head. “That’s rough. What happened?”

“The accident was a pileup on I-94. No fatalities, thank God. The shooting was a different story. Some girl found out her BabyDaddy had another BabyMama. She borrowed her brother’s nine-millimeter and emptied the clip into the pair while they sat outside at the local Dairy Queen.” She glanced at Justin, her expression grim. “Now she’s in jail facing murder charges. BabyMama Two is dead and BabyDaddy is in ICU. He may or may not make it, and all the babies have been taken by Child Protective Services, which, when you think about it, might be the best thing that’s happened in their little lives.”

Justin’s voice turned hushed. “I heard about that on the news.”

She yanked open a cupboard, pulled out the coffee and a filter. She said over her shoulder, “To top it all off, I got maybe four hours’ sleep, so of course I look like shit. It’s no big deal.”

He sighed. “Look, I don’t have time to argue with you. I’ve got twenty minutes to get to work—so just promise me you’ll go get a checkup and shut up already.”

She filled the coffeepot with water, poured it into the reservoir and switched on the machine then slammed the pot onto the burner. “Seriously, Justin,” she snapped. “Do I come over uninvited to your house and tell you and Tony what to do?”

“Honey, I’m sorry,” he said in quick contrition. She startled as he put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It’s just—hell, even I know you’re never supposed to talk to a woman about her weight, but you’ve lost weight you couldn’t afford to lose. You were always a little bit of a thing, the original five-foot-two-and-eyes-of-blue gal.”

She gave him a grim smile as the pungent aroma of coffee filled the kitchen. “Don’t start inflicting Dean Martin songs on me again at this time in the morning, or I swear I won’t be responsible for my actions.” She pointed at him. “And that’s what I’ll tell the police when they arrive with the body bag.”

He didn’t smile back. Instead his handsome features took on a mulish expression. “I’m being serious here. You’re not looking good, Mary. You’re all bones and nerves. If you won’t have a rational conversation about it, I’ll have to make an appointment for you myself to go see Tony.”

“The hell you will.” Her smile turned to a glare.

He pulled out his cell phone, turned his back and ignored her. After a few moments he started to speak on the phone. He moved down the short hall to the living room.

Mary felt the urge to scream. Instead she blew air between her teeth, like steam escaping from a pressure cooker. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took it to the table. As she shifted a stack of magazines and mail off of a chair, she discovered the cordless phone.

She clicked it on and listened. No dial tone. The battery had gone dead. She had a cell phone, but she used it for work, and Justin didn’t have the number. She hung up the phone to recharge it and sat to put her elbows on the table, resting her forehead on the heels of her hands as she hunched over her coffee.

Her mind arrowed back to her dream. She was dreaming with more frequency and they were getting more vivid. This time the bodies of the seven creatures in the circle were translucent. Ribbons of colored light had streamed from them, flowing and moving in the air as if the creatures were some kind of alien anemone. The poison had tasted bittersweet and smelled like cloves.

She had dreamed in color several times but she had never before dreamed a smell or a taste. Was that development somehow connected to her hearing voices and seeing impossible things?

Panic tried to grab hold of her again. She flinched away from it. No, don’t go there right now. Pulling her hands down, she stretched them out in front of her and stared at her fingers. Slender and dexterous, they were an advantage in the OR, but at that moment, they looked strange, as if they belonged to someone else.

Justin walked back into the kitchen with a brisk stride. He poured himself some coffee then came over to pat her on the back as he gulped hot liquid. “Tony moved some things around. He can see you this afternoon at three. And,” he added, “I don’t trust you to go on your own so I’m leaving the office early to take you myself.”

“I was such a needy rabbit when I married you,” she said. “But hey, pre-med plus law school equals the American Dream, right? Thank God those days are gone.” Thank God she had stopped trying to create a lifestyle for herself that looked normal on the outside.

“What are you talking about, doctor girl?” Justin said. “What needy rabbit? You’re the original Marlboro Man. Except for the cigarettes, the ten-gallon hat and the penis.”

She slanted an eyebrow at him.

“Well okay, you’re quite a bit not like the Marlboro Man.” He grinned. “But you’ve got this brooding, silent hero thing going on, with a hint of something tragic in your past, except I know your past and it’s as ordinary as dirt. It’s very sexy. I’d always wanted to marry a doctor—and if you’d only had that penis . . .”

“Therapy has made you too cocky,” she said.

“Which Tony appreciates,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes. “Get out. Go to work.”

He sobered. “I’ll be back this afternoon at two thirty to pick you up. Be ready or I’ll do the he-man thing and throw you over my shoulder.”

“Quit being so damn patronizing. I’m not going.” Her mug was empty. She stood and headed for the coffeepot.

“Whatever,” Justin said, eyeing her. “I guess Tony isn’t going to care if you haven’t shaved your legs.”

“For God’s sake!” she exploded, turning on him. He scowled at her, looking as mutinous and adorable as a two-year-old. She tried to rein in her impatience. “Look, I appreciate your concern. It’s sweet of you.”

“Sweet.” He snorted.

Her expression hardened. “I’m warning you, I’m not putting up with your stubbornness and interference, and I am not going to go see Tony, of all people.”

“But why not?”

“Because he’s your partner and I socialize with him, dimwit!”

“Well, you kind of don’t, you know,” he pointed out. “You haven’t been over to visit with us in forever. When I try to set you up on a date, you won’t go. As far as I can tell, you don’t socialize at all. That’s the problem with brooding, silent Marlboro Man types. They’re not much for talking.”

Mary closed her eyes. It would do no good to ignore him. He cheerfully refused to acknowledge any silent messages that didn’t suit him.

She snapped, “Today is my first day off in a very long time, and I don’t want to spend it in a doctor’s waiting room.” She paused. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

The lie reverberated in her throbbing head. She was cracked down the middle to her foundation. Whatever her mysterious internal ailment was, it was getting worse. If she didn’t figure out what was wrong she was going to break into pieces, deep inside where nobody could see but where the most vital part of her lived.

He ran a hand through his hair and glanced at his watch, looking hassled. “I don’t have time to argue with you.”

“Good,” she retorted. A belated curiosity struck. “Why did you come over this morning anyway?”

“Oh. Yeah. I wanted to know if you could dog-sit Baxter again. I needed to know, and you weren’t answering your phone.” He hesitated, and she listened to nuances shift in the silence. “Tony and I got invited away for the weekend, but we don’t have to go either.”

“I didn’t answer my phone because the battery is dead. It didn’t ring.” She repeated it with as much patience as she could muster. Then she remembered what she was doing and poured a second cup of coffee for herself. She held it to her nose, closed her eyes and let the steam warm her chilled skin.

He was right. Somehow between her work and preoccupation, Justin, Tony and that dog had become her entire social circle, and she hadn’t been to see them in months.

She would have to add another item to her to-do list. Fix toilet. Fix lamp. Fix self.

Out loud she said, “Of course I’ll watch Baxter for you. I love that dog.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” He glanced at his watch again. “I’ve got a deposition and I really have to run. But I’m coming back, and we’re going to duke this out later. I’ll see you at two thirty.”

She felt the bones in her body compress with the urge to smack him over the head. She gritted her teeth instead. The quicker she stopped arguing with him, the quicker he would be out the door. “Hurry or you’ll be late for work.”

“Oh hell.” He bent forward, kissed the air by her cheek and dashed out of the house.

Mary moved to the large living room window to watch with narrowed eyes as he drove away. She tapped a fingernail against the glass. “You can come,” she whispered to his retreating car. “But I’m not going to be around when you get here.”

SHE FOLDED HER laundry, put it away and straightened her bed. There was another load of colorful cloth scraps waiting in the laundry room. After she put the scraps in the washing machine, she tidied the living room.

Since she lived alone and the two-bedroom house was more than big enough to suit her modest needs, she used the living room as one of her workrooms. She had four quilts in varying stages of completion. The most colorful piece, by far, was the patchwork crazy quilt. She fingered the cloth, but the quilt wasn’t speaking to her. It seemed a lifeless fact, separate from her existence, as though some stranger had left it in her house.

She moved down the hall to the second bedroom, which she had turned into a studio. There she spent two hours trying to capture on canvas something of the elusive imagery from her dream.

Those creatures had shone from within. The colors that had shifted within their bodies and flowed outward in whorls of light were too delicate and strange for her to capture on paper. The colors seemed indicative of emotion or personality, as if the creatures had senses so different from humans, they could actually see the pheromones their bodies released.

She had been plagued with strange dreams for as long as she could remember. The one she had labeled the sacred poison dream was only one of several that recurred on a regular basis. Sometimes the details of the sacred poison dream were vague or just different, but several details remained constant. There were seven people or creatures, of whom three pairs were mates, and an escaped criminal. They always drank poison, and she always felt terror and a sense of appalling loss when she awakened.

She shook her head and frowned. Some people believed each person had a soul mate, but she didn’t. The concept was too convenient, too romantic, without real substance. Since she didn’t believe in it, she could never understand why that was a major recurring theme in her dreams.

People met other like-minded people because they shared things in common and engaged in similar activities. Birds of a feather really did flock together. Either that, or they met by accident.

At least she could be grateful that, no matter how violent or overwhelming the sense of loss might feel in the aftermath of the sacred poison dream, it held her in its grip for only a brief time before fading away. No one could endure that kind of raw anguish for long, at least not that Mary had witnessed. People seemed to suffer intense grief in waves.

When she had been a child, the dreams had not been as intense or vivid, but they had always been unsettling. They had gained in color, detail and emotion as she had grown older.

As a med student at Notre Dame University, in an attempt to put whatever demons existed inside her mind to rest, she’d taken advantage of the counseling offered through the university. For over a year, she and her counselor had explored her childhood and the possible symbolism involved in the dream imagery.

Justin was right. She had lived an entirely normal childhood. She had fallen out of trees, tripped and misspoke in school plays, made cupcakes for bake sales and had sleepovers with friends. She remembered her childhood with detailed clarity. Other than the death of her parents when she was fourteen, there was simply nothing for her to be haunted about. Even then she had gone to live with a loving aunt who had been attentive to the needs of a grief-stricken child.

She wasn’t interested in sex, although for a while she wanted to be. The concept, while intriguing, was less than compelling in execution. Instead of finding intimacy to be emotionally and physically rewarding, she felt clinical, detached and rather repulsed by the act, and she loathed casual dating.

At first she had been relieved that Justin hadn’t seemed to be very interested either in physical intimacy. During their marriage, their sexual relationship had been perfunctory at best. When he had finally faced the truth about himself and admitted that he was gay, she had made an almost seamless adjustment into the role of supportive friend. Their split-up had been a relief for the both of them.

She had tried for a brief time to blame her tendency to isolate on the early loss of her parents, but she couldn’t convince herself for long. There was a reason why she didn’t have a social life, and it wasn’t just because she had a hectic job with irregular hours.

She just knew she had this desperate need for . . . something . . . but she couldn’t figure out what it was. She only knew that other people couldn’t give it to her. She had to find a way to heal herself, to fill her own needs. Maybe then she could make a meaningful connection outside of herself.

When she realized that the therapy didn’t seem to be leading anywhere, she had terminated the sessions. Then she got accepted into med school, and she and Justin divorced. Now she lived in her ivory tower. As far as she could tell the attempt at counseling had been a complete failure.

The painting she was trying to work on was a failure as well. No matter how she tried she couldn’t replicate the impression from her dream.

She lifted the canvas from the easel and set it against one wall to dry. Then she took up sketchpad and pencils, hoping that the change in medium might help her convey some of the delicacy that she could see so clearly with her mind’s eye.

As she worked, an old memory shook itself out of a dark recess in her mind. She paused to let it solidify.

She had always drawn as a child. As soon as her fingers were big enough to clutch a crayon she would draw, over and over again, people in cages.

It became an elaborate secret project over the years. The people acquired names and personalities. They had rooms in their prisons. She would draw crude beds, chairs, bookcases, kitchens, all behind bars. They were her people, and she would never let them go.

Over time, she had stopped with that obsession but she had never spoken of it to anyone, and she’d always destroyed the pictures with a hot sense of shame. What kind of monster was she to daydream about caged people?

Seven. Her breathing hitched. She had always drawn seven people.

How could she have forgotten that?

She sketched, her movements slow as she struggled past the adult’s acquired finesse to approximate something of the child’s crudity as she worked to recapture the details from years ago. A simple triangle of an ankle-length dress, the long sleeves, the curl of hair . . . she hesitated at the hem of the dress and her forehead wrinkled. If she remembered right, she had never drawn hands or feet.

Her college counselor would have had a field day with that imagery. She shut the sketchbook with a sharp slap.