The Deepwater Bride & Other Stories Read online

  He did not understand why Anton gagged.

  The Deepwater Bride

  In the time of our crawl­ing Night Lord's as­cend­ancy, fore­told by ex­odus of star­light into his suck­ing as­tral wounds, I turned six­teen and re­ceived Bar­bie's Dream Car. Aunt Mar had bought it for a quarter and crammed fun-sized Snick­ers bars in the trunk. Frankly, I was touched she'd re­membered.

  That was the sum­mer Jam­ison Pond be­came wreathed in cau­tion tape. Deep-sea hag­fish were wash­ing ashore. Home with Mar, the pond was my haunt; it was a nice place to read. This habit was banned when the sag­ging antlers of angler­fish il­li­cia joined the hag­fish. The De­part­ment of Fish­er­ies blamed global warm­ing.

  Come the week­end, gulp­ers and vam­pire squid pu­tre­fied with the rest, and the De­part­ment was non­plussed. Global warm­ing did not a vam­pire squid pro­duce. I could have told them what it all meant, but then, I was a Blake.

  “There's an omen at Jam­ison Pond,” I told Mar.

  My aunt was chain-smoking over the stovetop when I got home. “Eggs for din­ner,” she said, then, re­flect­ively: “What kind of omen, kid?”

  “Amassed dead. Salt into fresh wa­ter. The eldritch pres­ence of the De­part­ment of Fish­er­ies — ”

  Mar hast­ily stubbed out her ci­gar­ette on the toaster. “Christ! Stop yap­ping and go get the heather­b­ack candles.”

  We ate scrambled eggs in the dim light of heather­b­ack candles, which smelled strongly of salt. I spread out our journ­als while we ate, and for once Mar didn't com­plain; Blakes went by in­stinct and col­lect­ive memory to au­gur, but the re­cords were a fa­milial chef d'oeuvre. They helped where in­stinct failed, usu­ally.

  We'd left trib­ute on the porch. Pebbles ar­ranged in an Un­for­giv­able Shape around a can of tuna. My aunt had ar­gued against the can of tuna, but I'd felt a sign of mum­mi­fic­a­tion and pre­served death would be aus­pi­cious. I was right.

  “Pres­ence of fish en masse in­dic­ates the deep­est of our quin­tuple Great Lords,” I said, squint­ing over notes hun­dreds of Blakes past had scrawled. “Con­tinu­ous ap­pear­ance over days… plague? Pres­ence? What is that word? I hope it's both. We ought to be the gen­er­a­tion who di­git­izes — I can ref­er­ence bet­ter on my Kindle.”

  “A deep omen isn't fun, Hester,” said Mar, vi­ol­ently re­arran­ging her eggs. “A deep omen seven hun­dred feet above sea level is some horse­shit. What have I al­ways said?”

  “Not to say any­thing to Child Pro­tect­ive Ser­vices,” I said, “and that they faked the Moon land­ing.”

  “Hester, you — ”

  We re­cited her shib­boleth in tan­dem: “You don't out­run fate,” and she looked settled, if dis­sat­is­fied.

  The eggs weren't great. My aunt was a com­pet­ent cook, if skewed for nicot­ine-blas­ted taste buds, but to­night everything was rub­bery and over­done. I'd never known her so rattled, nor to cook eggs so ter­rible.

  I said, “ ‘Fun’ was an un­fair word.”

  “Don't get com­pla­cent, then,” she said, “when you're a teen­age seer who thinks she's slightly hot­ter shit than she is.” I wasn't of­fen­ded. It was just in­cor­rect. “Sea-spawn's no joke. If we're get­ting deep omens here — well, that's spe­cific, kid! Re­appear­ance of the un­der­deep at noon, con­tinu­ously, that's a her­ald. I wish you weren't here.”

  My stom­ach clenched, but I raised one eye­brow like I'd taught my­self in the mir­ror. “Surely you don't think I should go home.”

  “It wouldn't be un­wise — ” Mar held up a fin­ger to halt my protest, “ — but what's done is done is done. Some­thing's com­ing. You won't es­cape it by tak­ing a bus to your mom's.”

  “I would rather face in­es­cap­able lap­pets and wa­tery tor­ment than Mom's.”

  “Your mom didn't run off and be­come a dental hy­gien­ist to spite you.”

  I avoided this line of con­ver­sa­tion, be­cause ser­i­ously. “What about the omen?”

  Mar pushed her plate away and kicked back, pre­cari­ously bal­anced on two chair legs. “You saw it, you doc­u­ment it, that's the Blake way. Just… a deep omen at six­teen! Ah, well, what the Hell. See any­thing in your eggs?”

  I re-peppered them and we peered at the rub­bery curds. Mine clumped to­gether in a brack­ish pool of hot sauce.

  “Rain on Thursday,” I said. “You?”

  “Yan­kees lose the Series,” said Aunt Mar, and went to tip her plate in the trash. “What a god-aw­ful meal.”

  I found her that even­ing on the peel­ing bal­cony, smoking. A caul of cloud ob­scured the moon. The tree­tops were black and spiny. Our house was a fine, hideous ar­ti­fact of the 1980s, de­cay­ing high on the side of the val­ley. Mar saw no point in fix­ing it up. She had been — her words — lucky enough to get her death fore­tokened when she was young, and lived life court­ing lung can­cer like a boy­friend who'd never com­mit.

  A heather­b­ack candle spewed wax on the rail­ing. “Mar,” I said, “why are you so scared of our le­viathan dread­lords, who lie lurk­ing in the abyssal deeps? I mean, per­son­ally.”

  “Because seahorrors will go ber­serk get­ting what they want and they don't quit the field,” she said. “Be­cause I'm not see­ing fifty, but your over­wrought ass is mak­ing it to home­com­ing. Now get in­side be­fore you find an­other frig­ging omen in my smoke.”

  Despite my aunt's dis­tress, I felt ex­hil­ar­ated. Back at board­ing school I'd never wit­nessed so pro­found a portent. I'd seen every­day omens, had done since I was born, but the power of proph­ecy was bor­ing and did not get you on Wiki­pe­dia. There was no an­ti­cip­a­tion. Duty re­moved am­bi­tion. I was apathet­ic­ally lonely. I pre­pared only to re­cord The Blake testi­mony of Hester in the twenty-third gen­er­a­tion for fu­ture Blakes.

  Blake seers did not live long or dec­or­ated lives. Either you were mother of a seer, or a seer and never a mother and died young. I hadn't really cared, but I had ex­pec­ted more pay­out than so­cial ma­linger­ing and teen­age en­nui. It felt un­fair. I was top of my class; I was pal­lidly pretty; thanks to my mother I had amaz­ing teeth. I found my­self wish­ing I'd see my death in my morn­ing corn­flakes like Mar; at least then the last, in­dif­fer­ent mys­tery would be re­vealed.

  When Style­phorus chordatus star­ted beach­ing them­selves in pub­lic toi­lets, I should have taken Mar's cue. The house be­came un­season­ably cold and at night our breath showed up as wet white puffs. I ig­nored the brood­ing swell of danger; in­stead, I sat at my desk do­ing my sum­mer chem­istry pro­ject, awash with weird pleas­ure. Clutch­ing fist­fuls of mal­formed oc­to­podes at the creek was the first in­ter­est­ing thing that had ever happened to me.

  The birch trees bor­der­ing our house wept salt wa­ter. I found a deer furt­ively lick­ing the bark, look­ing like Bambi sneak­ing a hit. I sat on a stump to con­sult the Blake journ­als:

  THE BLAKE TESTI­MONY OF RUTH OF THE NINE­TEENTH GEN­ER­A­TION IN HER TWENTY-THIRD YEAR

  WEEP­ING OF PLANTS

  Lamen­ted should be green­stuff that seeps brack wa­ter or salt wa­ter or blood, for Nature is ab­hor­ring a lordly Vis­itor: if be but one plant then burn it or stop up a tree with a poult­ice of finely crushed talc, &c., to avoid no­tice. BRACK WA­TER is the sign of the MANY-THROATED MON­STER GOD & THOSE WHO SPEAK UN­SPEAK­ABLE TONGUES. SALT WA­TER is the sign of UN­FED LE­VIATH­ANS & THE PELA­GIC WATCH­ERS & THE TENTACLE so BLOOD must be the STAR SIGN of the MAKER OF THE HOLES FROM WHICH EVEN LIGHT SHALL NOT ES­CAPE. Be com­for­ted that the SHABBY MAN will not touch what is grow­ing.

  PLANT WEEP­ING, SINGLY:

  The trail, move­ment & won­drous pil­grim­age.

  PLANTS WEEP­ING, THE MANY:

  A Lord's bower has been made & it is for you to weep & re­joice.

  My ac­count here as
a Blake is per­fect and ac­cur­ate.

  Un­der­neath in ball­point was writ­ten: Has nobody no­ticed that Blake crypto-fas­cist wor­ship of these deit­ies has never helped?? Fam­ily of sheeple. Fuck the SYS­TEM! This was dated 1972.

  A bird called, then stopped mid-warble. The shad­ows lengthened into long sharp shapes. A sense of stifling pres­sure grew. All around me, each tree wept salt without cease.

  I said aloud: “Nice.”

  I hiked into town be­fore even­ing. The bust­ling of people and the hurry of their daily chores made everything look al­most nor­mal; their heads were full of small-town every­day, work and food and fam­ily and maybe meth con­sump­tion, and this banal­ity blurred the nag­ging fear. I stocked up on OJ and suf­fi­cient sup­ply of Crunch­eroos.

  Out­side the sky was full of chubby black rain­clouds, and the street­lights cast the road into sul­fur­ous re­lief. I smelled salt again as it began to rain, and through my hoodie I could feel that the rain was warm as tea; I caught a drop on my tongue and spat it out again, as it tasted deep and foul. As it landed it left whit­ish build up I fool­ishly took for snow.

  It was not snow. Crys­tals fes­tooned them­selves in long, stiff stream­ers from the traffic sig­nals. Strands like webbing swung from street to pave­ment, wall to side­walk. The street­lights struggled on and turned it green-white in the elec­tric glare, dazzling to the eye. Main Street was spangled over from every parked car to the dol­lar store. My palms were sweaty.

  From down the street a car honked dazedly. My sneak­ers were gummed up and it covered my hair and my shoulders and my bike tires. I scuffed it off in a hurry. People stood stock-still in door­ways and sat in their cars, faces pale and trans­fixed. Their ap­pre­hen­sion was mind­less an­imal ap­pre­hen­sion, and my hands were trem­bling so hard I dropped my Crunch­eroos.

  “What is it?” someone called out from the Rite Aid. And some­body else said, “It's salt.”

  Sud­den screams. We all flinched. But it wasn't ter­ror. At the cen­ter of a traffic is­land, ha­loed in the nu­min­ous light of the dol­lar store, a girl was crunch­ing her Con­verse in the salt and spin­ning round and round. She had long shiny hair — a sort of chlor­ine gold — and a spray-on tan the color of Gar­field. My school was pop­u­lated with her clones. A bunch of hud­dling girls in hal­ter tops watched her twirl with mild and ter­ri­fied eyes.

  “Isn't this amaz­ing?” she whooped. “Isn't this frig­ging awe­some?”

  The rain stopped all at once, leav­ing a vast white­ness. All of Main Street looked bleached and shin­ing; even the Pizza Hut sign was scrubbed clean and made fresh. From the Rite Aid I heard someone cry­ing. The girl picked up a hand­ful of powdery crys­tals and they fell through her fin­gers like jew­els; then her beam­ing smile found me and I fled.

  I col­lec­ted the Blake books and lit a jit­ter­ing circle of heather­b­ack candles. I turned on every light in the house. I even stuck a Mickey Mouse night­light into the wall socket, and he glowed there in dis­mal mag­ni­fi­cence as I searched. It took me an hour to alight upon an old glued-in let­ter:

  Re­read the testi­mony of Eliza­beth Blake in the fif­teenth gen­er­a­tion after I had word of this. I thought the ac­count strange, so I went to see for my­self. It was as Great-Aunt An­na­belle had de­scribed, mold every­where but al­most beau­ti­ful, for it had bloomed in cun­ning pat­terns down the av­enue all the way to the door. I couldn't look for too long as the look­ing gave me such a head­ache.

  I called in a few days later and the mold was gone. Just one lady of the house and wasn't she pleased to see me as every­one else in the neigh­bour­hood felt too dread­ful to call. She was to be the sac­ri­fice as all signs said. Every spider in that house was spelling the pres­ence and I got the feel­ing read­ily that it was one of the lesser dis­eased Ones, the taste in the milk, the dust. One of the Mon­ster Lord's fever wiz­ards had made his choice in her, no mis­take. The girl was so sweet look­ing and so cheer­ful. They say the girls in these in­stances are al­ways cheer­ful about it like lambs to the slaughter. The pes­ti­lences and their be­hemoth Duke may do as they will. I gave her til May.

  Per­haps stay­ing closer would have given me more de­tail but I felt that bey­ond my duty. I placed a wed­ding gift on the stoop and left that af­ter­noon. I heard later he'd come for his bride Fri­day month and the whole place lit up dead with Span­ish flu.

  Aunt An­na­belle al­ways said that she'd heard some went a-cour

  The page ripped here, leav­ing what Aunt An­na­belle al­ways said forever con­ten­tious. Mar found me in my circle of heather­b­acks hours later, fe­ver­ishly mark­ing every ref­er­ence to bride I could find.

  “They closed Main Street to hose it down,” she said. “There were cars backed up all the way to the Chinese take-out. There's ma­car­oni n' cheese in the oven, and for your info I'm burn­ing so much rose­mary on the porch every­one will think I smoke pot.”

  “One of the pela­gic kings has chosen a bride,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Evid­ence: rain of salt at the gate, in this case ‘gate’ be­ing Main Street. Evid­ence of rank: rain of salt in mass quant­it­ies from Main Street to, as you said, the Chinese takeout, in the middle of the day dur­ing a gib­bous moon not­able dis­tance from the ocean. The ap­pear­ance of fish that don't know light. A dread bower of crys­tal.”

  My aunt didn't break down, or swear, or any­thing. She just said, “Sounds like an old-fash­ioned apo­ca­lypse event to me. What's your plan, champ?”

  “Doc­u­ment it and testify,” I said. “The Blake way. I'm go­ing to find the bride.”

  “No,” she said. “The Blake way is to watch the world burn from a dis­tance and write down what the flames looked like. You need to see, not to find. This isn't a god­damned murder mys­tery.”

  I straightened and said very pa­tiently: “Mar, this hap­pens to be my birth­right — ”

  “To Hell with birth­right! Je­sus, Hester, I told your mom you'd spend this sum­mer get­ting your driver's li­cense and kiss­ing boys.”

  This was pat­ently ob­nox­ious. We ate our ma­car­oni cheese sur­roun­ded by more drib­bling heather­b­acks, and my chest felt tight and terse the whole time. I kept on think­ing of comebacks like, I don't un­der­stand your in­sist­ence on mean­ing­less bull­shit, Mar, or even a poin­ted Mar­garet. Did my heart really have to yearn for li­censes and los­ing my French-kiss­ing vir­gin­ity at the park­ing lot? Did any­thing mat­ter, apart from the salt and the night out­side, the bul­ging eyes down at Jam­ison Pond?

  “Your prob­lem is,” she said, which was al­ways a shitty way to be­gin a sen­tence, “that you don't know what bored is.”

  “Wrong. I am of­ten ex­quis­itely bored.”

  “Un­holy mat­ri­mon­ies are bor­ing,” said my aunt. “Plagues of salt? Bor­ing. The real­iz­a­tion that none of us can run — that we're all here to be used and ab­used by forces we can't even fight — that's so bor­ing, kid!” She'd used sharp ched­dar in the mac n' cheese and it was my fa­vor­ite, but I didn't want to do any­thing other than push it around the plate. “If you get your li­cense you can drive out to Denny's.”

  “I am not in­ter­ested,” I said, “in fuck­ing Denny's.”

  “I wanted you to make some friends and be a teen­ager and not to get in over your head,” she said, and speared some ma­car­oni sav­agely. “And I want you to do the dishes, so I fig­ure I'll get one out of four. Don't go sneak­ing out to­night, you'll break the rose­mary ward.”

  I pushed away my half-eaten food, and kept my­self very tight and quiet as I scraped pans and stacked the dish­washer.

  “And take some Band-Aids up to your room,” said Mar.

  “Why?”

  “You're go­ing to split your knee. You don't out­run fate, champ.”

  Stand­ing in the door­way, I tried to think up
a sting­ing ri­poste. I said, “Wait and see,” and took each step up­stairs as cau­tiously as I could. I felt a spite­ful sense of tri­umph when I made it to the top without in­cid­ent. Once I was in my room and yank­ing off my hoodie I tripped and split my knee open on the dresser drawer. I then lay in bed al­tern­ately bleed­ing and seeth­ing for hours. I did not touch the Band-Aids, which in any case were dec­or­ated with Sponge­Bob's im­age.

  Out­side, the moun­tains had for­got­ten sum­mer. The stars gave a curi­ous, chill light. I knew I shouldn't have been look­ing too closely, but des­pite the shud­der in my fin­ger­tips and the pain in my knee I did any­way; the tops of the trees made grot­esque shapes. I tried to read the stars, but the po­s­i­tion of Mars gave the same mes­sage each time: doom, and ap­proach, and al­tar.

  One star trembled in the sky and fell. I felt hor­ri­fied. I felt ec­static. I eased open my squeak­ing win­dow and squeezed out onto the win­dowsill, shim­my­ing down the drain­pipe. I spat to ameli­or­ate the break­ing of the rose­mary ward, flipped Mar the bird, and went to find the bride.

  The town was sub­dued by the night. Puddles of soapy wa­ter from the laun­dro­mat were filled with sprats. The star had fallen over by the east­ern sub­urbs, and I pulled my hoodie up as I passed the hard glare of the gas sta­tion. It was as though even the houses were with­er­ing, dy­ing of fright like prey. I bought a Coke from the dol­lar ma­chine.

  I sipped my Coke and let my feet wander up street and down street, along al­ley and through park. There was no fear. A Blake knows bet­ter. I took to the woods be­hind people's houses, me­an­der­ing un­til I found speared on one of the young birches a dead shark.