The Deepwater Bride & Other Stories Page 6

It was huge and hideous with a mal­formed head, pinned with its belly fa­cing whitely up­wards and its maw hanging open. The tree groaned be­neath its weight. It was dot­ted all over with an ar­ray of fins and didn't look like any shark I'd ever seen at an aquar­ium. It was brack­eted by a sag­ging in­flat­able pool and an aban­doned Tonka truck in someone's back­yard. The se­cur­ity lights came on and ha­loed the shark in all its dead majesty: ooz­ing mouth, long slimy body, bony snout.

  One of the win­dows rattled up from the house. “Hey!” someone called. “It's you.”

  It was the girl with shiny hair, the one who'd danced like an ex­cited puppy in the rain of salt. She was still wear­ing a sur­feit of glit­tery eye shadow. I ges­tured to the shark. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “It's been there all af­ter­noon. Gross, right?”

  “Doesn't this strike you as sus­pi­cious?” I said. “Are you not even slightly weirded out?”

  “Have you ever seen Punk'd?” She did not give me time to reply. “I got told it could be Punk'd, and then I couldn't find Punk'd on tele­vi­sion so I had to watch it on the You­Tubes. I like Punk'd. People are so funny when they get punk'd. Did you know you dropped your cer­eal? I have it right here, but I ate some.”

  “I wasn't aware of a finder's tax on break­fast cer­eal,” I said.

  The girl laughed, the way some people did when they had no idea of the joke. “I've seen you over at Jam­ison Pond,” she said, which sur­prised me. “By your­self. What's your name?”

  “Why name my­self for free?”

  She laughed again, but this time more ap­pre­ci­at­ively and less like a stu­dio audi­ence. “What if I gave you my name first?”

  “You'd be stu­pid.”

  The girl leaned out the win­dow, hair shim­mer­ing over her One Dir­ec­tion T-shirt. The sky cast weird shad­ows on her house and the shark smelled fetid in the back­ground. “People call me Rain­bow. Rain­bow Kipley.”

  Dear God, I thought. “On pur­pose?”

  “C'mon, we had a deal for your name — ”

  “We never made a deal,” I said, but re­len­ted. “People call me Hester. Hester Blake.”

  “Hester,” she said, rolling it around in her mouth like candy. Then she re­peated, “Hester,” and laughed rauc­ously. I must have looked pissed-off, be­cause she laughed again and said, “Sorry! It's just a really dumb name,” which I found rich com­ing from someone des­ig­nated Rain­bow.

  I felt I'd got what I came for. She must have sensed that the con­ver­sa­tion had reached a pre­ma­ture end be­cause she an­nounced, “We should hang out.”

  “In your back­yard? Next to a dead shark? At mid­night?”

  “There are jelly­fish in my bathtub,” said Rain­bow, which both sur­prised me and didn't, and also struck me as a unique tac­tic. But then she ad­ded, quite nor­mally, “You're in­ter­ested in this. Nobody else is. They're piss­ing them­selves, and I'm not — and here you are — so… ”

  Limned by the se­cur­ity lamp, Rain­bow dis­ap­peared and re­appeared be­fore wav­ing an open packet of Crunch­eroos. “You could have your cer­eal back.”

  Huh. I had never been asked to hang out be­fore. Cer­tainly not by girls who looked as though they used leave-in con­di­tioner. I had been us­ing John­son & John­son's No More Tears since child­hood as it kept its prom­ises. I was dis­trust­ful; I had never been pop­u­lar. At school my greatest leap had been from weirdo to per­ceived goth. Girls ab­horred oddity, but quan­ti­fi­able goth­ness they could ac­cept. Some had even warmly talked to me of Nightwish al­bums. I dyed my hair black to com­plete the ef­fect and was nev­er­more bul­lied.

  I feared no con­tempt of Rain­bow Kipley's. I feared wast­ing my time. But the lure was too great. “I'll come back to­mor­row,” I said, “to see if the shark's gone. You can keep the cer­eal as col­lat­eral.”

  “Cool,” she said, like she un­der­stood col­lat­eral, and smiled with very white teeth. “Cool, cool.”

  Driver's li­censes and kiss­ing boys could wait in­def­in­itely, for pref­er­ence. My heart sang all the way home, for you see: I'd dis­covered the bride.

  The next day I found my­self back at Rain­bow's shabby sub­urban house. We both took the time to ad­mire her aban­doned shark by the light of day, and I com­pared it to pic­tures on my iPhone and con­firmed it as Mit­sukur­ina ow­stoni: gob­lin shark. I noted dead grass in a broad brown ring around the tree, the star-spoked webs left empty by their spiders, each a pro­clam­a­tion a mon­ster dwells. Some­how we ended up go­ing to the park and Rain­bow jiggled her jelly brace­lets the whole way.

  I bought a news­pa­per and pored over local news: the head­line read GLOBAL WARM­ING OR GLOBAL WARN­ING? It quer­ied al­kaline con­tent in the rain, or some­thing, then ad­vert­ised that no fewer than one sci­ent­ist was fas­cin­ated with what had happened on Main Street. “Sci­ent­ists,” said my com­pan­ion, like a slur, and she laughed gut­tur­ally.

  “Sci­ence has its place,” I said and rolled up the news­pa­per. “Just not at present. Sci­ence does not cause salt bliz­zards or im­pale­ment of bathy­de­mersal fish.”

  “You think this is cool, don't you?” she said slyly. “You're on it like a bon­net.”

  There was an un­seemly curi­os­ity to her, as though the town hud­dling in on it­self wait­ing to die was like a celebrity scan­dal. Was this the way I'd been act­ing? “No,” I lied, “and nobody un­der sixty says on it like a bon­net.”

  “Shut up! You know what I mean — ”

  “Think of me as a re­porter. Someone who's go­ing to watch what hap­pens. I already know what's go­ing on, I just want a closer look.”

  Her eyes were wide and very dark. When she leaned in she smelled like Speed Stick. “How do you know?”

  There was no par­tic­u­lar fam­ily jur­is­pru­dence about telling. Don't ap­peared to be the rule of thumb as Blakes knew that, Cas­sandra-like, they de­fied be­lief. For me it was simply that nobody had ever asked. “I can read the fu­ture, and what I read al­ways comes true,” I said.

  “Oh my God. Show me.”

  I de­cided to ex­hibit my­self in what paltry way a Blake can. I looked at the sun. I looked at the scud­ding clouds. I looked at an oily stain on our park bench, and the way the thin young stalks of plants were huddled in the ground. I looked at the shad­ows people made as they hur­ried, and at how many spar­rows rose startled from the wa­ter foun­tain.

  “The old man in the hat is go­ing to burn down his house on Sat­urday,” I said. “That jog­ger will drop her Gat­o­rade in the next five minutes. The po­lice will catch up with that red-jacket man in the first week of Oc­to­ber.” I gathered some saliva and, with no great ce­re­mony, hocked it out on the grass. I ex­amined the res­ult. “They'll un­earth a gi­gantic ruin in… south­west­ern Aus­tralia. In the sand plains. Seven ar­chae­olo­gists. In the winter some­time. For­give my in­ex­actitude, my mouth wasn't very wet.”

  Rain­bow's mouth was a round O. In front of us the jog­ger dropped her Gat­o­rade, and it splattered on the ground in a shower of blue. I said, “You won't find out if the rest is true for months yet. And you could put it down to co­in­cid­ences. But you'd be wrong.”

  “You're a gypsy,” she ac­cused.

  I had ex­pec­ted “liar,” and “nut­job,” but not “gypsy.” “No, and by the way, that's ra­cist. If you'd like to know our fu­ture, then very soon — I don't know when — a great evil will make it­self known in this town, claim a mor­tal, and lay waste to us all in cel­eb­ra­tion. I will re­cord all that hap­pens for my des­cend­ants and their des­cend­ants, and as is the agree­ment between my blood­line and the un­known, I'll be spared.”

  I ex­pec­ted her to get up and leave, or laugh again. She said: “Is there any­thing I can do?”

  For the first time I pit­ied this pretty girl with her bright hair and her Chucks, her long
-limbed soda-col­oured legs, her in­genu­ous smile. She would be taken to a place in the deep, dark be­low where lay un­named mon­stros­ity, where the de­vour­ing hun­ger lurked far bey­ond light and there was no Katy Perry. “It's not for you to do any­thing but cower in his abyssal wake,” I said, “though you don't look into cower­ing.”

  “No, I mean — can I help you out?” she re­peated, like I was a stu­pid child. “I've run out of Punk'd epis­odes on my ma­chine, I don't have any­one here, and I go home July any­way.”

  “What about those other girls?”

  “What, them?” Rain­bow flapped a dis­missive hand. “Who cares? You're the one I want to like me.”

  Thank­fully, whatever splut­ter­ing gaucherie I might have made in reply was in­ter­rup­ted by a scream. Jets of sticky ar­ter­ial blood were spurt­ing out the wa­ter foun­tain, and tentacles waved del­ic­ately from the drain. Tiny oc­topus creatures emerged in the gouts of blood flood­ing down the sides and the air stalled around us like it was hav­ing a heart at­tack.

  It took me forever to ap­proach the foun­tain, wreathed with frondy little tentacle things. It buckled as though be­neath a tre­mend­ous weight. I thrust my hands into the blood and screamed: it was ice-cold, and my teeth chattered. With a splat­ter of red I tore my hands away and they steamed in the air.

  In the blood on my palms I saw the fu­ture. I read the po­s­i­tion of the dead moon that no longer or­bited Earth. I saw the bless­ing of the tyr­ant who hid in a far-off swirl of stars. I thought I could fore­cast to mid­sum­mer, and when I closed my eyes I saw people drown. Every­one else in the park had fled.

  I whipped out my note­book, though my fin­gers smeared the pages and were so cold I could hardly hold the pen, but this was Blake duty. It took me three abort­ive starts to write in Eng­lish.

  “You done?” said Rain­bow, squat­ting next to me. I hadn't real­ized I was mut­ter­ing aloud, and she flicked a clot of blood off my col­lar. “Let's go get McNug­gets.”

  “Miss Kipley,” I said, and my tongue did not speak the mu­sic of mor­tal tongues, “you are a fuck­ing lun­atic.”

  We left the foun­tain gurg­ling like a wound and did not look back. Then we got McNug­gets.

  I had never met any­one like Rain­bow be­fore. I didn't think any­body else had, either. She was in­ter­ested in all the things I wasn't — Se­ph­ora hauls, New Girl, Nicki Minaj — but had a strangely mag­netic way of not giv­ing a damn, and not in the nor­mal fash­ion of beau­ti­ful girls. She just ap­peared to have no idea that the gen­eral popu­lace did any­thing but clog up her scenery. There was some­thing in her that set her apart — an ab­sence of be­ing like other people — and in a weak mo­ment I com­pared her to my­self.

  We spent the rest of the day eat­ing McNug­gets and wan­der­ing around town and look­ing at things. I re­cor­ded the ap­pear­ance of na­ked fish bones dangling from the tele­phone wires. She wanted to prod everything with the toe of her sneaker. And she talked.

  “Fa­vour­ite color,” she de­man­ded.

  I was peer­ing at anemone-pocked boulders be­hind the gas sta­tion. “Black.”

  “Fa­vour­ite sub­ject,” she said later, lick­ing du­bi­ous McNug­get oils off her fin­gers as we ex­amined flayed fish in a clear­ing.

  “Phys­ics and lit­er­at­ure.”

  “Ideal celebrity boy­friend?”

  “Did you get this out of Cosmo? Pass.”

  She asked in­cess­antly what my teach­ers were like; were the girls at my school lame; what my thoughts were on Ebola, CSI and Lonely Is­land. When we had ex­hausted the town's sup­ply of dried-up sponges ar­ranged in un­know­able names, we ended up hanging out in the movie theatre lobby. We watched pre­views. Neither of us had seen any of the movies ad­vert­ised, and neither of us wanted to see them, either.

  I found my­self telling her about Mar, and even al­luded to my mother. When I asked her the same, she just said off­han­dedly, “Four plus me.” Con­sid­er­ing my own fi­lial reti­cence, I didn't press.

  When even­ing fell, she said, See you to­mor­row, as a fore­gone con­clu­sion. Like ten-ish, break­fast takes forever.

  I went home not know­ing what to think. She had a bunny man­i­cure. She laughed at everything. She'd stolen or­ange soda from the movie theater drinks ma­chine, even if every­one stole or­ange soda from the movie theater drinks ma­chine. She had an un­seemly in­terest in mummy movies. But what ir­rit­ated me most was that I found her lik­ing me com­pel­ling, that she ap­peared to have never met any­one like Hester Blake.

  Her in­terest in me was most likely bore­dom, which was fine, be­cause my in­terest in her was that she was the bride. That night I thought about what I'd end up writ­ing: the des­pot of the Breath­less Depths took a local girl to wife, one with a be­dazzled Sam­sung. I sniggered alone, and slept un­easy.

  In the days to come, doom throttled the brittle, in­creas­ingly de­sic­cated town, and I cata­logued it as my com­pan­ion caught me up on the plot of every soap op­era she'd ever watched. She ap­peared to have aban­doned most of them mid­way, fur­nish­ing un­fin­ished tales of many a shock preg­nancy. Mar had been sar­castic ever since I'd broken her rose­mary ward so I spent as much time out of the house as pos­sible; that was the main reason I hung around Rain­bow.

  I didn't want to like her be­cause her doom was upon us all, and I didn't want to like her be­cause she was other girls, and I wasn't. And I didn't want to like her be­cause she al­ways knew when I'd made a joke. I was so angry, and I didn't know why.

  We went to the woods and con­sol­id­ated my notes. I laid my re­search flat on the grass or propped it on a bough, and Rain­bow played mu­sic nois­ily on her Sam­sung. We rolled up our jeans — or I did, as she had no shorts that went past mid-thigh — and half-assedly sun­bathed. It felt like the hours were days and the days end­less.

  She wanted to know what I thought would hap­pen when we all got “laid waste to.” For a mo­ment I was ter­ribly afraid I'd feel guilty.

  “I don't know.” The forest floor smelled cold, some­how. “I've never seen waste laid en masse. The Drown­lord will make his pres­ence known. People will go mad. People will die.”

  Rain­bow rolled over to­ward me, bits of twig caught in her hair. Today she had done her eye­liner in two thick, over­dra­matic rings, like a sleep-de­prived panda. “Do you ever won­der what dy­ing's like, dude?”

  I thought about Mar and never see­ing fifty. “No,” I said. “My fam­ily dies young. I fig­ure an­ti­cip­at­ing it is un­ne­ces­sary.”

  “Maybe you're go­ing to die when the end of this hits,” she said thought­fully. “We could die tra­gic­ally to­gether. How's that shake you?”

  I said, “My fam­ily has a pact with the All-De­vour­ing so we don't get killed care­lessly in their af­fairs. You're dy­ing alone, Kipley.”

  She didn't get up­set. She tangled her arms in the un­der­growth and stretched her legs out, skinny hips arched, and wriggled pleas­ur­ably in the thin and un­af­fec­tion­ate sun­light. “I hope you'll be su­per sad,” she said. “I hope you'll cry for a year.”

  “Aren't you scared to die?”

  “Never been scared.”

  I said, “Due to your brain dam­age,” and Rain­bow laughed up­roari­ously. Then she found a dried-up jelly­fish amid the leaves and dropped it down my shirt.

  That night I thought again about what I'd have to write: the many-limbed hor­ror who lies be­neath the waves stole a local girl to wife, and she wore the world's skanki­est short-shorts and laughed at my jokes. I slept, but there were night­mares.

  Some­times the com­ing rain was noth­ing but a fine mist that hurt to breathe, but some­times it was like shrapnel. The sun shone hot and choked the air with a stench of damp con­crete. I car­ried an um­brella and Rain­bow wore black rain boots that squeaked.

  Mar ladled
out tor­tilla soup one night as a peace of­fer­ing. We ate com­pan­ion­ably, with the ra­dio on. There were no stor­ies about salt rain or plagues of fish even on the local news. I'd been taught bet­ter than to ex­pect it. Fear rendered us ri­gidly si­lent, and any­one who went against in­stinct ended up in a strait­jacket.

  “Why is our per­sonal philo­sophy that fate al­ways wins?” I said.

  My aunt didn't miss a beat. “Self-pre­ser­va­tion,” she said. “You don't last long in our line of work fight­ing facts. Christ, you don't last long in our line of work, period. Hey — Ted at the gas sta­tion said he'd seen you go­ing around with some girl.”

  “Ted at the gas sta­tion is a grudge in­former,” I said. “Back on sub­ject. Has nobody tried to use the Blake sight to ef­fect change?”

  “They would've been a moron branch of the fam­ily, be­cause like I've said a mil­lion times: it doesn't work that way.” Mar swirled a spoon around her bowl. “Not try­ing to make it a fed­eral is­sue, kid, just say­ing I'm happy you're mak­ing friends in­stead of swish­ing around listen­ing to The Cure.”

  “Mar, I have never listened to The Cure.”

  “You find that bride?”

  Taken aback, I nod­ded. Mar cocked her dark head in thought. There were sprigs of grey at each temple, and not for the first time I was mel­an­choly, clogged up with an in­scrut­able grief. But all she said was, “Okay. There were oc­topuses in the god­damned laun­dry again. When this is over, you'll learn what pick­ing up the pieces looks like. Lemon pie in the ice­box.”

  It was oc­to­podes, but never mind. I cleared the dishes. Af­ter­ward we ate two large wedges of lemon pie apiece. The house was com­fort­ably quiet and the side­board candles bravely chewed on the dark.

  “Mar,” I said, “what would hap­pen if someone were to cross the deep­wa­ter demons who have slavery of wave and un­der­wave? Hy­po­thet­ic­ally.”

  “No Blake has ever been stu­pid or saintly enough to try and find out,” said Mar. “Not qual­it­ies you're suited to, Hester.”