“I don’t care about philosophy,” I said, frowning. “I’m talking about physics.”
“So was he,” Rafe smiled, approvingly. “Physics and philosophy, science and stories, are more intertwined then some”—he looked at Matthew—“might make it seem. Those fables about your family aren’t nothing. They’re clues. They’re a way to move through time, both figuratively and literally.”
“So instead of moving in the straight line, you want to start doubling back,” I said, nodding. “To start moving in spirals.”
“Exactly! For decades scholars have thought it was words that held the secret to entry,” said Rafe. “But it seems clear to me it’s movement. It’s presence that’s needed. Physicality. Skin”—he winked—“on skin. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Yes,” I said. “Physicality. Of course.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
I wondered how much Rafe actually knew about me. He showed no sign of having been aware of my existence before our first encounter in the graveyard. I was certain that Peter had taken great pains to hide any connection between the research he published as the Toymaker and the anthropological work that he did under his own name. Rafe’s language was likely haphazard, his discussion of the physical meant not to frighten me but rather to provoke the response he must be used to from girls softened by his smile. Still, I felt anxious. I tried to appear normal. I kept my fingers hidden in the sleeves of my jacket. I shifted in my seat so that Rafe would not accidentally touch me while gesticulating. He did seem quite clever. I hoped he hadn’t guessed.
“Here,” he had said, outside that café at the edge of the highway, leaning down to pet a dog tied next to Marlowe. “Let him sniff your fingers, Maisie, he’s a sweet one. Come give him a pat.”
“Here,” in Matthew’s car, passing back a paper bag, “it’s just dried fruit and nuts, if you’re hungry.”
“Look! Go pick that flower. The color would be gorgeous in your hair.”
He doesn’t know, I told myself. How could he?
The Undiscovered Country
Deep in the wood, Imogen stalks a roaming roebuck, its tufty bottom a white shock against tangles of green. Her feet are blistered, her gut aches, yet she follows, for she feels she must do something, find some semblance of release for the pressure that has tightened her spine since the black-eyed girl awoke.
This wood makes all the women hunters. They know the animals within can never die, but cannot help but make chase. There is no better show of human power than to be proud purveyor of death, to attempt slaughter. To kill for sport, for indulgence, speaks to the infinite depths of human desire, an innate need to demonstrate the irreversible, to have lasting effect. Here, where time flows like honey, where their own deaths have died, the women need and they need, and it frightens them. During the hunt, that need abates.
The buck crashes into the black-eyed girl’s grove, paying the frozen child no mind, crossing a short distance and then pausing, looking back in hopes that stillness will lull his pursuer to submission. A yellow butterfly dances about his black nostrils, forcing him to sneeze in a sharp burst of breath.
Although Imogen does stop short when she breaks into the clearing, it is not because of the buck. Her impediment is the black-eyed girl herself, still lying motionless and silent on her pallet. Imogen sees the girl and stumbles, hands clutching her large, laden stomach. The color drains from her face. She crosses herself, whispering a prayer of protection.
Once Imogen has withdrawn her attention, the roebuck decides the chase has passed. Several hundred feet away, he nibbles at a bush, grunting as he digests, while Imogen stands staring at the black-eyed girl. Her anger shifts to something less tangible, water to mist.
Suddenly, the buck coughs and emits a distressed bleat, full-throated and low. He collapses, foam erupting from his mouth. Imogen watches. Nothing sickens in this shadow wood. In her centuries in residence, she has seen nothing die. She goes to the roebuck, strokes his neck and coos to him. She notices a cluster of bright berries tucked under the leaves where he had stopped to eat.
The animal twitches, his back leg manic, splayed at an improper angle, hummingbird quick. And then the convulsions slow until they cease altogether, the last notes of the roebuck’s life played out. His glassy eyes remain open.
Imogen runs a finger along the short fringe of his lashes, the knobbled stubs of his velvety antlers, the jaunty tips of his shapely ears. She goes to the roughage and plucks a stem of three ovular berries, their red almost translucent in the light. She rubs the branch between two fingers, spinning it, making the berries dance. She carries them to the black-eyed girl.
Solemnly, fully aware of the sin she is committing, Imogen holds the fruit to the black-eyed girl’s mouth. The black-eyed girl cannot turn her head or curse her. She cannot spit the sweet back in Imogen’s face, which is stoic as she exits the clearing.
The black-eyed girl blinks. She swallows the berries, relishing their juices. What might kill a roebuck will not harm her, not here in this wood. A different hunger gently prods her, a patient reminder, polite. Soon, she tells it, soon.
She wiggles her largest left toe.
13
Rafe was emphatic that without traveling each stop along the path, we’d be accomplishing nothing, which meant first one long twisting trek through muddy fields and sparse groves, and then another as we made our way back along the outer rings, walking in the opposite direction. Only then, said Rafe, could we fully explore the spiral’s center. Matthew said the whole affair reminded him of groups that went in search of missing bodies. Rafe whistled as we walked, his spirits high.
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve been set on doing things correctly,” he said, grinning. “Whether showing all my work at complex math problems when I was a kid, or slaving over ancient runes’ translations during my graduate studies. Better to do it slowly and correctly the first time than have to start all over, am I right? It’s always bothered the bejeezus out of my mother, who’d ask why I needed so long to tie a shoelace, or why I was ignoring my little sister’s scraped knee. I’d tell her I wasn’t ignoring anything, just focused. I’d say to get what you want out of life, it’s important to have singular focus, wouldn’t you?”
I was behind him, so he didn’t see me nod.
Matthew, who’d gone on ahead of us, unconcerned with proper foot placement, was not yet so far that he could not hear Rafe’s speech. He didn’t make a sound, but in response strayed deliberately from the path, so that rather than tracing a spiral he was walking toward our ultimate location in a diagonal line.
It was dark by the time Rafe and I joined him back at the outer edge of that first spiral, where we had left the car.
“We’re going to call it a night,” Matthew said. “It’s too dark to do anything else.”
“Too dark to look for Peter? But he might be in trouble. We should keep on through the night, just in case.”
Matthew shook his head. “We’ve waited this long already. And we’ll be more effective at . . . whatever this is . . . with a few hours of sleep.”
“Why don’t you rest here, and Maisie and I will head back into—” Rafe started.
“No,” said Matthew. “We’ll stick together, and we’ll wait until it’s light.”