“The old man once said the eye is like the dessert,” Emma whispered. “Or maybe I heard him think it. Anyway, he told me to save the eye for last. But I don’t take orders from him.”
Emma stiffened her thumb and pointer finger and dug them into the sheep’s eye socket with expertise. The eyeball plucked out without a sound. Apollo reached out to stop her hand, but when he moved, he dropped the domed lid, and it bashed to the ground, then went end over end down the sloping curve of the pit, and the clangs echoed in the darkness. He scrambled two steps down the slope to catch the lid, but the stones were loose so he only slipped and fell on his side. The bottle of Brennivín in his coat pocket made a dull thump, then its shape went flatter, and he knew it had broken open. The fumes rose and overwhelmed him, he swam in a cloud of spiced gasoline. He got on his feet to escape the odor, but it had soaked into his coat and his pants so he carried it with him.
Meanwhile, casually, Emma tossed the first of the sheep’s eyes into her mouth. It looked as if she was sucking on an enormous lozenge. She closed her lips and pursed them. She didn’t stop staring at the cave opening even as Apollo caused all this chaos. Apollo gagged as he watched Emma eat the eye. And finally she pursed her lips and spat out a small stone bit, like an olive pit, and it plinked across the rocks below her. The last of the eye went downhill as Apollo scrambled back up.
Emma dug two fingers into the meat around the now-empty eye socket and pulled at a hunk of flesh. She slipped it into her mouth. She swallowed, almost without chewing. She remained vigilant in her view of the cave.
Apollo looked down into the pit. The serving lid had come to a stop not twenty feet from the cave mouth. He crawled up until he could sit next to Emma. She didn’t seem bothered by the Brennivín stink. Perhaps she was beyond caring.
“I’ve been searching for you,” Apollo said.
She took up another portion of meat, swallowed it without expression. “Well, this is where I’ve been.”
“Not the only place you’ve been,” Apollo said. “I’ve been to the island. I met Cal.”
Apollo watched his wife’s profile. Her eyes were glassy with weariness. Her hair had grown tangled and long.
“When’s the last time you had any rest?” he asked. “Where do you sleep?”
She reached for one last pull of meat that remained around the eye socket, but Apollo touched the back of her hand, and she dropped the meat and pulled her hand back to her lap. She looked up at her husband.
“I never sleep,” she said. “Sleep is the cousin of death.” She pointed at the mouth of the cave. “I keep watch through the night so Brian will stay safe.”
He wanted to reach out and hold her hand. More than that, he wanted to cradle her in his lap. Let her rest her heavy head.
“When I was eight months pregnant,” Emma said, “this woman came up to me on the street. She had this big smile on as soon as she saw me but I didn’t know her. She stopped me and told me once the baby was born, I’d never have a life without stress again. She said I’d never have a good night’s rest once I was a mother. She seemed so happy to say it to me. Like she thought the anxiety was a badge of honor. I wanted to scratch out her eyes.”
Apollo kept his hands flat on his thighs. No quick movements, voice calm. “When I first saw you in the woods you were glowing,” he said. “You had a blue light all around you. But when I spoke to you, it went away.”
“Is it still there?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “I can’t see it anymore.”
“?‘You’re what’s wrong with our family,’?” Emma said. “?‘You. Are. The. Problem. Go take another pill.’ Those were the last words you said to me.”
Apollo lowered his head. “I—”
She spoke over him. “That’s the first time you took my light from me.”
“You could rest tonight,” Apollo said. “I’ll stay awake.”
She looked at the cave, then at her husband. She brought two fingers to the sheep’s head but didn’t pick at it. Her finger, he noticed, trembled. “You’re sure?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Go down and look at the stones,” she said. “When you’re ready, you go down there and really look.”
With that Emma’s puffer coat seemed to deflate, as if she’d slipped right out of it. That’s how small she shrank. She brought the arms of the coat together across her belly and lowered her head until the hood covered her face. It was like watching a pill bug curl in on itself.
“Apollo,” she said, her voice muffled through the material.
“Yes.”
“If this turns out to be a trick. If you’re working with those men and try to betray me—”
“I’m not,” he said. “I won’t.”
She wasn’t asking for reassurance, though. She spoke almost with nonchalance.
“If this turns out to be a trick, I will take you with me to hell,” Emma said.
APOLLO FINALLY BELIEVED Emma had fallen asleep when her wheezing became regular and deep. In sleep she sounded like someone going through a prolonged asthma attack. If she looked exhausted, she sounded truly unhealthy. The fact that she was alive at all seemed like an act of will beyond comprehension.
Eventually the rhythm of her snoring worked on him like a sleep aid. If he stayed there next to her, listening to her, he might be drawn down into the same deep slumber. So finally he stood and went down the slope of loose stone. Ten feet down, and he looked back at Emma. He couldn’t see her face, only her shape, but he felt safer knowing she was there. Already he felt a little happier because he wasn’t doing this alone.
When Apollo turned back toward the bottom, he focused on the domed serving lid rather than the rocks. Twenty feet farther down lay the entrance to the cave. Was this really the same one from Jorgen’s story? Where a baby named Agnes had been abandoned by her own father? Twice. And what of all those other children whose pictures hung on the wall? He felt dizzy at the idea, a soul-deep nausea. To find such a place in the middle of Queens. To find it anywhere on earth.
In order to avoid the cave and the rocks, Apollo made for the serving lid. He lowered his ass almost to the ground so he could scoot forward without risking another spill. When he reached the lid, it felt like an accomplishment. So much so that he turned and held it up toward Emma, like a child trying to impress. But doing that meant he looked away from the cave, and the sudden feeling of terror that hit him felt hot as sunlight against the back of his head. He looked to the cave mouth and after a moment realized it wasn’t only fear making him feel warm but an actual burst of hot air. It felt as if the cave itself had breathed on him. Or something deeper within it.