The Deepwater Bride & Other Stories Read online

  I wondered if this was meant to sting, be­cause it didn't. I felt no pain. “Your next ques­tion's go­ing to be, How do we let other people die?” she said and pulled her even­ing ci­gar­ette from the packet. “Be­cause I'm me, I'll un­der­stand you want a cop­ing mech­an­ism, not a Sunday School lec­ture. My ad­vice to you is: it be­comes easier the less you get in­volved. And Hester — ”

  I looked at her with per­fect non­chal­ance.

  “I'm not out­run­ning my fate,” said Aunt Mar. She lit the ci­gar­ette at the table. “Don't try to out­run other people's. You don't have the right. You're a Blake, not God.”

  “I didn't choose to be a Blake,” I snapped and dropped the pie plate on the side­board be­fore storm­ing from the room. I took each stair as nois­ily as pos­sible, but not nois­ily enough to drown out her holler: “If you ever get a choice in this life, kiddo, treas­ure it!”

  Rain­bow no­ticed my foul mood. She did not tell me to cheer up or ask me what the mat­ter was, thank­fully. She wasn't that type of girl. Fog boiled low in the val­ley and the townspeople stumbled through the streets and talked about at­mo­spheric pres­sure. Stores closed. Buses came late. Someone from the north­east sub­urbs had given in and shot him­self.

  I felt numb and un­touched, and worse — when chill winds wrapped around my neck and let me breathe clear air, smelling like the beach and things that grow on the beach — I was happy. I nipped this in its emo­tional bud. Rain­bow, of course, was as cheer­ful and un­af­fected as a stump.

  Mid­sum­mer boiled closer and I thought about telling her. I would say out­right, Miss Kipley. (“Rain­bow” had never left my lips, the cor­rect method with any­one who was je m'ap­pelle Rain­bow.) When the ocean lurker comes to take his vic­tim, his vic­tim will be you. Do whatever you wish with this in­form­a­tion. Per­haps she'd fi­nally scream. Or plead. Any­thing.

  But when I got my cour­age up, she leaned in close and combed her fin­gers through my hair, right down to the un­dyed roots. Her hands were very del­ic­ate, and I clammed up. My sul­len si­lence was no bar­rier to Rain­bow. She just cranked up Taylor Swift.

  We were sit­ting in a greasy bus shel­ter op­pos­ite Wal­mart when the man com­mit­ted sui­cide. There was no show­boat­ing hes­it­a­tion in the way he ap­peared on the roof, then stepped off at thirty feet. He landed on the spines of a wrought-iron fence. The sound was like a cock­tail weenie go­ing through a hole punch.

  There was nobody around but us. I froze and did not look away. Next to me, Rain­bow was equally trans­fixed. I felt ter­rible shame when she was the one to drag us over to him. She already had her phone out. I had seen corpses be­fore, but this was very fresh. There was a ter­rible amount of blood. He was ir­re­par­ably dead. I turned my head to in­form Rain­bow, in case she tried to help him or some­thing equally de­men­ted, and then I saw she was tak­ing his pic­ture.

  “Got your note­book?” she said.

  There was no fear in her. No con­cern. Rain­bow reached out to prod at one mangled, out­flung leg. Two spots of col­our bloomed high on her cheeks; she was lu­min­ously pleased.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” My voice soun­ded em­bar­rass­ingly shrill. “This man just killed him­self!”

  “The fence helped,” said Rain­bow help­lessly.

  “You think this is a joke — what reason could you have for think­ing this is okay — ”

  “Ex­cuse you, we look at dead shit all the time. I thought we'd hit jack­pot, we've never found a dead guy… ”

  Her dis­tress was sulky and real. I took her by the shoulders of her stu­pid cropped jacket and gripped tight, fear a tinder to my misery. The rain whipped around us and stung my face. “Christ, you think this is some kind of game, or… or a You­Tube stunt! You really can't ima­gine — you have no com­pre­hen­sion — you mind­less jack­ass — ”

  She was try­ing to calm me, feebly pat­ting my hands. “Stop be­ing mad at me, it sucks! What gives, Hester — ”

  “You're the bride, Kipley. It's com­ing for you.”

  Rain­bow stepped out of my shak­ing, feb­rile grip. For a mo­ment her lips pressed very tightly to­gether and I wondered if she would cry. Then her mouth quirked into an un­com­pre­hend­ing, furt­ive little smile.

  “Me,” she re­peated.

  “Yes.”

  “You really think it's me?”

  “You know I know. You don't out­run fate, Rain­bow.”

  “Why are you telling me now?” Some­thing in her be­wil­der­ment cooled, and I was sens­ible of the fact we were hav­ing an ar­gu­ment next to a sui­cide. “Hey — have you been hanging with me all this time be­cause of that?”

  “How does that mat­ter? Look: this the be­gin­ning of the end of you. Why don't you want to be saved, or to run away, or some­thing? It doesn't mat­ter.”

  “It mat­ters,” said Rain­bow, with in­fin­ite dig­nity, “to me. You know what I think?”

  She did not wait to hear what I ima­gined she thought, which was wise. She hopped away from the dead man and held her palms up to the rain. The air was thick with an elec­tri­fy­ing chill: a breath­less enorm­ity. We were so close now. Color leached from the Wal­mart, from the con­crete, from the green in the trees and the red of the stop sign. Rain­drops sat in her pale hair like pearls.

  “I think this is the coolest thing that ever happened to this stu­pid back­wa­ter place,” she said. “This is awe­some. And I think you agree but won't ad­mit it.”

  “This place is lit­er­ally Hell.”

  “Suits you,” said Rain­bow.

  I was be­side my­self with pain. My fin­ger­nails tilled up the flesh of my palms. “I un­der­stand now why you got picked as the bride,” I said. “You're a so­ciopath. I am not like you, Miss Kipley, and if I for­got that over the last few weeks I was wrong. Ex­cuse me, I'm go­ing to get a po­lice of­ficer.”

  When I turned on my heel and left her — stand­ing next to a vic­tim of powers we could not un­der­stand or fight, and whose com­ing I was forced to watch like a real­ity TV pro­gram where my vote would never count — the blood was pool­ing in wa­tery pink puddles around her rain boots. Rain­bow didn't fol­low.

  Mar had grilled steaks for din­ner that neither of us ate. By the time I'd fin­ished bag­ging and stuff­ing them mech­an­ic­ally in the fridge, she'd fin­ished her pre­par­a­tions. The din­ing-room floor was a sea of reek­ing heather­b­acks. There was even a host of them jarred and flick­er­ing out on the porch. The front doors were locked and the win­dows ha­loed with duct tape. At the cen­ter sat my aunt in an over­stuffed arm­chair, ci­gar­ette lit, hair un­done, a bucket of dirt by her feet. The storm clamored out­side.

  I crouched next to the kit­chen door and laced up my boots. I had my back to her, but she said, “You've been cry­ing.”

  My jacket wouldn't but­ton. I was all thumbs. “More tears will come yet.”

  “Je­sus, Hester. You sound like a for­tune cookie.”

  I real­ized with a start that she'd been drink­ing. The dirt in the bucket would be Blake fam­ily grave dirt; we kept it in a Hefty sack in the at­tic.

  “Did you know,” she said con­ver­sa­tion­ally, “that I was there when you were born?” (Yes, as I'd heard this story ap­prox­im­ately nine mil­lion times.) “Nana put you in my arms first. You screamed like I was killing you.”

  My grief was too acute for me to not be a dick.

  “Is this where you tell me about the omen you saw the night of my birth? A grisly fate? The de­struc­tion of Troy?”

  “First of all, you know damn well you were born in the morn­ing — your mom made me go get her a Mc­Griddle,” said Mar. “Second, I never saw a thing.” The rain came down on the roof like buck­shot. “Not one mor­tal thing,” she re­peated. “And that's killed me my whole life, lov­ing you… not know­ing.”


  I fled into the down­pour. The town was alien. Each door­way was a cold black portal and cur­tains twitched in aban­doned rooms. Some­times the side­walk felt squishy un­der­foot. It was bad when the streets were empty as bones in an os­suary, but worse when I heard a crowd around the corner from the 7-El­even. I crouched be­hind a garbage can as mis­shapen strangers passed and threw up a little, retch­ing wa­ter. When there was only aw­ful si­lence, I bolted for my life through the woods.

  The gob­lin shark in Rain­bow's back­yard had peeled open, the muscle and fas­cia now on dis­play. It looked oddly and shame­fully na­ked; but it did not in­voke the puke-in­du­cing fear of the people on the street. There was noth­ing in that shark but dead shark.

  I'd ar­ranged to be picked last for every soft­ball team in my life, but ad­ren­aline let me heave a rock through Rain­bow's win­dow. Glass tinkled mu­sic­ally. Her lights came on and she threw the win­dow open; the rest of the pane fell into glit­ter on the lawn. “Holy shit, Hester!” she said in alarm.

  “Miss Kipley, I'd like to save you,” I said. “This is on the un­der­stand­ing that I still think you're ab­so­lutely fuck­ing crazy, but I should've tried to save you from the start. If you get dressed, I know where Ted at the gas sta­tion keeps the keys to his truck, and I don't have my learner's per­mit, but we'll make it to Denny's by mid­night.”

  Rain­bow put her head in her hands. Her hair fell over her face like a veil, and when she smiled there was a re­gret­ful dimple. “Dude,” she said softly, “I thought when you saw the fu­ture, you couldn't out­run it.”

  “If we can­not out­run it, then I'll drive.”

  “You ba­dass,” she said, and be­fore I could re­tort she leaned out past the win­dowsill. She made a soft white blotch in the dark­ness.

  “I think you're the coolest per­son I've ever met,” said Rain­bow. “I think you're really funny, and you're in­ter­est­ing, and your fin­ger­nails are all dif­fer­ent lengths. You're not like other girls. And you only think things are worth­while if they've been proved ten times by a book, and I like how you hate not com­ing first.”

  “Listen,” I said. My throat felt tight and fussy and rain was leak­ing into my hood. “The drowned lord who dwells in dark wa­ter will claim you. The moon won't rise to­night, and you'll never up­date your Tumblr again.”

  “And how you care about everything! You care su­per hard. And you talk like a dork. I think you're dis­gust­ing. I think you're su­per cute. Is that weird? No homo? If I put no homo there, that means I can say things and pre­tend I don't mean them?”

  “Rain­bow,” I said, “don't make fun of me.”

  “Why is it so bad for me to be the bride, any­way?” she said, petu­lant now. “What's wrong with it? If it's meant to hap­pen, it's meant to hap­pen, right? Cool. Why aren't you okay with it?”

  There was no light­ning or thun­der in that storm. There were mon­strous shad­ows, shiny on the matt black of night, and I thought I heard things flop around in the woods. “Be­cause I don't want you to die.”

  Her smile was lovely and there was no fear in it. Rain­bow didn't know how to be afraid. In her was a curi­ous ex­ulta­tion and I could see it, it was in her mouth and eyes and hair. The heed­less ec­stasy of the bride. “Die? Is that what hap­pens?”

  My stom­ach churned. “If you change your mind, come to West North Street,” I said. “The house stand­ing alone at the top of the road. Go to the grave­yard at the corner of Main and Spin­ney and take a hand­ful of dirt off any child's grave, then come to me. Oth­er­wise, this is good­bye.”

  I turned. Some­thing sang through the air and landed next to me, soggy and for­lorn. My packet of Crunch­eroos. When I turned back, Rain­bow was wide-eyed and her face was un­char­ac­ter­ist­ic­ally puckered, and we must have mirrored each other in our up­set. I felt like we were on the brink of some­thing as great as it was aw­ful, some­thing I'd snuck around all sum­mer like a thief.

  “You're a prize dum­bass try­ing to save me from my­self, Hester Blake.”

  I said, “You're the only one I wanted to like me.”

  My hands shook as I hiked home. There were blas­phem­ous, slip­pery things in each clear­ing that end­less night. I knew what would hap­pen if they were to ap­proach. The rain grew oily and warm as blood was oily and warm, and I al­tern­ately wept and laughed, and none of them even touched me.

  My aunt had fallen asleep amid the candles like some un­tidy Renais­sance saint. She lay there with her shoes still on and her ci­gar­ette half-smoked, and I left my clothes in a sop­ping heap on the laun­dry floor to take her flan­nel pj's out the dryer. Their sleeves came over my fin­ger­tips. I wouldn't write down Rain­bow in the Blake book, I thought. I would not trap her in the pages. Nobody would ever know her but me. I'd out­run fate, and blas­pheme Blake duty.

  I fell asleep tucked up next to Mar.

  In the morn­ing I woke to the smell of toaster waffles. Mar's coat was draped over my legs. First of July: the Deep­wa­ter God was here. I rolled up my pa­jama pants and tip­toed through mol­ten drips of can­dle­wax to claim my waffle. My aunt word­lessly squir­ted them with syrup faces and we stood on the porch to eat.

  The morn­ing was crisp and gray and pretty. Salt drif­ted from the clouds and clumped in the grass. The wind dis­com­fited the trees. Not a bird sang. Be­neath us, the town was laid out like a spill: flooded right up to the gas sta­tion, and the west­ern sub­urbs drowned en­tirely. Where the dark, un­re­flect­ive wa­ters had not risen, you could see move­ment in the streets, but it was not hu­man move­ment. And there roared a great revel near the Wal­mart.

  There was thrash­ing in the wa­ter and a roil­ing mass in the streets. A tentacle rose from the depths by the high school, big enough to see each sucker, and it brushed open a build­ing with no ef­fort. An­other tentacle joined it, then an­other, un­til the town cen­ter was alive with coil­ing lap­pets and feel­ers. I was sur­prised by their jungle sheen of or­anges and purples and trop­ical blues. I had ex­pec­ted somber greens and fu­neral grays. Teeth broke from the wa­ter. Tall, har­le­quin-striped fronds lif­ted, quest­ing and trans­par­ent in the sun. My chest felt very full, and I stayed to look when Mar turned and went in­side. I watched like I could never watch enough.

  The wa­ter lapped gently at the bot­tom of our drive­way. I wanted my waffle to be ash on my tongue, but I was frantic­ally hungry and it was de­li­cious. I was chomp­ing avidly, flan­nels rolled to my knees, when a fig­ure emerged at the end of the drive. It had wet short-shorts and per­fectly hair­sprayed hair.

  “Hi,” said Rain­bow bash­fully.

  My heart sang, un­bid­den.

  “God, Kipley! Come here, get in­side — ”

  “I kind've don't want to, dude,” she said. “No of­fense.”

  I didn't un­der­stand when she made an ex­ag­ger­ated oops! shrug. I fol­lowed her ges­ture to the porch candles with idiot fix­a­tion. Be­hind Rain­bow, brightly col­oured ap­pend­ages writhed in the wa­ter of her wed­ding day.

  “Hester,” she said, “you don't have to run. You'll never die or be alone, neither of us will; not even the light will have per­mis­sion to touch you. I'll bring you down into the wa­ter and the wa­ter un­der that, where the spires of my palace fill the lost mor­tal coun­try, and you will be made even more beau­ti­ful and funny and splendi­fer­ous than you are now.”

  The candles cringed from her damp Chucks. When she ap­proached, half of them ex­ploded in a chrys­an­themum blast of wax. Le­viath­ans crunched up people busily by the RiteAid. Algal bloom strangled the tele­phone lines. My aunt re­turned to the porch and promptly dropped her cof­fee mug, which shattered into a per­fect Un­for­giv­able Shape.

  “I've come for my bride,” said Rain­bow, the abyssal king. “Yo, Hester. Marry me.”

  This is the Blake testi­mony of Hester, twenty-third gen­er­a­tion in her six­teenth year.<
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  In the time of our crawl­ing Night Lord's as­cend­ancy, fore­told by ex­odus of star­light into his suck­ing as­tral wounds, the God of the drowned coun­try came ashore. The many-limbed hor­ror of the depths chose to take a local girl to wife. Main Street was made over into salt bower. Wa­ter-creatures ad­orned it as jew­els do. Mor­tals gave them­selves for wed­ding feast and the Wal­mart ut­terly des­troyed. The Deep­wa­ter Lord re­turned tri­umphant to the tentacle throne and will dwell there, in splend­our, forever.

  My ac­count here as a Blake is per­fect and ac­cur­ate, be­cause when the le­viathan prince went, I went with her.

  Union

  The wives come strapped ten to a transport, hands stamped by some Customs wonk. Their fingernails are frilled and raised freckles stipple each arm in shades of red and orange. Permit tags list their names: Mary. Moana. Ruth. Myrrh. Huia. Anna. Iridium. Coffee. Kōkako.

  The Franckton crofters stand and watch from behind the barrier. They've knocked off midday work to come. You can practically see the pong of hot mulch and melting boot elastomeric coming off them. There's even a man there from the New Awhitu Listener to take pictures.

  Dripping sweat, the Customs detail sign off their quarantine. The wives seem indifferent to the heat. The air from the transport ruffles the thin plaits of their hair, each strand with its own line of fine bulges like a polyp. Everyone is close enough to see.

  “If the Listener links any of those photos,” Simeon's telling the photographer, “you're dog tucker, mate.” Simeon's got the gist of it already. The man knows Simeon's reputation and is timidly pressing Delete.

  The Mayor signs the receipt of goods slowly. She's asking questions, gesturing at the wives, but she's not getting answers, just filework and shrugging. The Ministry men take the tablet with the signature and you can tell they just want to get the hell out of there before something happens.

  Later on when the croft pores over the paperwork, they discover the wives are lichen splices. No one's ever heard of it.