November????
Almost over now. Can feel it. See it, literally. There’s a mist before my eyes. A pale, half-transparent haze, a cataract in my mind. Everything disappears behind it. I’m fading away into a big and blind nothing!
And nothing I can do about it. Desperately and very literally clinging on to the world. On the edge of my bed, on the desk or even the laptop I’m writing on. But the sounds of the house are getting duller, and in my head I hear the wailing of the wind in the mountains louder and louder. Unbearably oppressive. The disorientation is suffocating. The stiff embrace of the nothing, the impending white of absolute infinity, and the tangible presence of the Maudit just behind my face bring on a horrific, intolerable fear.
I don’t want to live like this, but . . .
Nine days.
Nine days till my surgery.
I can’t bear it that long!!! No choice, but the pressure behind my face has never been this bad. Can’t resist it much longer. Feel like I’m being pushed out of my
2
(later)
Myself again. Soaking with sweat. Took an oxa and am a bit more lucid now. A bit.
Cécile is gone. She walked into the night and disappeared, which means she’s dead. A rescue helicopter just flew overhead, but it went in the direction of the reservoir, not to the Maudit’s valley, and it disappeared almost immediately. Seems more for appearance’s sake than they’re actually starting a search. So they can tell the family they flew out. Two Police Cantonale cops came by earlier and asked Sam some questions. They too left within ten minutes, and took Cécile’s possessions with them. A little while later, a truck came and hauled her Peugeot away, and that was that. The same cover-up as with Augustin. They know people disappear here from time to time. It’s a calculated loss.
Only I can’t just accept that loss. Because I’m responsible.
Sam says Cécile was here to kill me. He said she had run from the hospital last August when she was changing my dressings and that one of the last things she apparently told him was that, since then, she’s been falling. Did that ring any bells with me? Well, no. Sam looked at me for a long time. His gaze unsettled me. Don’t know if he still believes me. And I swear I know nothing about it—cross my heart and hope to die—but how long can I keep telling myself that? If the Maudit did something to her, then it has done so using my head. My mind. The longer I think about it, the more I’m convinced that’s what I saw in Sam’s eyes when he was studying me.
Sam isn’t doing well. But Julia flew over from New York! Thank God. Our guardian angel. And so unexpected. Could turn out for the best, because maybe she can convince Sam to go back with her. Don’t want him here if something bad happens. If what I think is going to happen really happens. Sam must not be exposed to any danger.
Cécile. Dead. I hope with all my heart that she’s found peace. But what did she mean by falling???
Did I
Oh hel peveruthings gone whitr can hardlu see hte kehboard
3
(even later)
Woke up by the creek. No bandages. Pressure receded but mist before my eyes still there. Shivering with cold, I crawled on hands and knees through the snow to the bank and looked at my distorted reflection. The rushing water changed my face into something more monstrous than it already is. Screamed at it. Cursed it for all the ugly in the world.
Something strange happened. I squeezed my eyes shut to get rid of the haze and when I opened them again, I didn’t see my own reflection staring back at me on the creek’s surface but the horned head of an ibex. In a reflex, I raised my hand and felt my face, and in the water I saw my mirror hand touch the grotesquely shattered snout. It was dangling on a stringy strip of skin from a dark, bloody hole. And I recognized her. I looked at her and, unmoving, she looked back at me with her honey-colored goat eyes.
Maybe I’d always known that she’d come back. Everything you’re responsible for comes back to you eventually.
Come to me, the ibex doe said in my reflection. Surrender yourself to me.
She spoke clearly and understandably, even though her mutilated snout didn’t move. I heard her words in the center of my head, in the exact place where the Maudit was hiding. In the exact place where, all those years ago, the Punta Rossa started to speak to me in order to lure me into the wilderness.
It was me.
“What do you want?” I stammered, though I knew exactly what she wanted. I felt the urge to scramble away from the creek but was paralyzed. Couldn’t pull my gaze away from the ibex’s glassy, dreamy eyes.
It is your nature, the creature in my head said, and I heard the hunger in her voice. Embrace it. Then everything will be all right.
Although I still hadn’t moved, I saw her reflection growing. Coming closer. As if she wanted to swallow me up. Her wrinkled horns expanded on the water’s billowing surface. Groaning, with a voice I could hardly recognize, I groped around me. Grabbed a rock. Flung it blindly at her. I spattered the reflection, breaking it apart.
It became quiet.
When I looked again, it was simply my own reflection again in the creek. Over the opposite bank, pine branches hung heavily laden with snow. All was quiet, but I still perceived a faint animal scent in the wind, and I had a sneaking feeling that glassy, honey-colored eyes were spying on me from the woods. I spun round and quickly walked home.
This is not my nature. The Maudit is not my nature. I could have embraced it but I overcame it. That means I still have a chance, right?
And fate has got to be on my side, because as soon as I had gotten out of the shower and warmed myself up, my phone rang. The clinic in Montreux. A slot has opened because there was a last-minute cancellation. As if it were Providence! My scar correction was nine days from now, but now I can be treated the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow! And consultation tomorrow! That has to mean luck is on my side, right?!
There’s something ugly inside me. And from the very beginning I’ve known that it’s connected to that ugly, mutilated face. Go ahead and cut it out, then. Get rid of it. I’m taking a risk, possibly a very big risk, but after what I saw in the house behind Andenmatten’s taxidermy shop, I know this is my only chance.
I’ll take oxas. Immerse my face in ice water before the bandages come off. So it won’t get out. Anything to suppress it. I’m not worried about the surgery itself, because I’ll be out with anesthesia.
Two days should be doable.
Everything seems to be falling into place. The timing. Julia, who’s here to distract Sam, so I can slip out unseen. Coincidence? Maybe, but can’t I believe in fate just a little bit too?
4
November 9