The Darkhouse Read online

  It goes on and on. Just her face, tearful, listening, her fingers dabbing her eyes and mouth, running across her smooth skin, her eyes blinking, looking aside, looking down.

  This is Shannon. I could watch it forever.

  The video squeals and lurches and returns to normal speed. The picture opens up, as if I’d been hugging her and have stepped back for a better view. There’s a man beside her, standing so close that their shoulders press one against the other. The picture expands. Shannon and the man are holding hands. Gripping each other’s hands.

  I’m aware of the sound of a man speaking in the background. Not the man pictured in the video because he’s not talking, only gripping Shannon’s hand and staring into space. It’s a flat voice with a broad American accent describing events that have nothing to do with Shannon. “… an emotional plea from the parents.”

  The picture switches to the façade of a house. A large elegant place with an abundant garden. The picture widens and rolls to show that the house sits behind a high black gate, beside other similar properties and across the street from much smaller houses, more like the kind you’d find on the island, with broken porches and weedy lawns.

  The flat voice continues to speak. “The small, close-knit community of Beachport is on high alert.” The video shows a road sign — Beachport, Maine, Where the sea takes your breath away — then a large, bustling harbor set against a coastline, then people standing in a pretty town handing out or taping up signs. A photo is copied on the pages, but the video image is too far to make out what it is.

  I wait, anxious, for the story to go back to Shannon, and it does. There’s her face again, casting about, searching for some kind of answer, as the man beside her starts to speak. For some reason, I want to hate him — maybe for owning Shannon with his shoulder and his gripping hand — but his face draws me in. A true expression in his eyes, muscles slack with true emotion, voice speaking truly.

  “We just want our babies back. Please, wherever you are, please bring them back to us.”

  My hand reaches out to the screen. But before I can touch him, the picture switches to another man. Formal in a suit, he sits in front of a blue screen, looking straight ahead, speaking to the camera. It’s like he’s talking directly and only to me: “That was Dr. Kevin Birkshire and his wife, Shannon. Understandably distraught after their twin baby girls, four months old, were stolen from their home. They are pleading for their safe return.”

  A photo comes onto the screen beside his face. His voice echoes in my head: Twin baby girls, four months old, stolen from their home.

  “Anyone with information is asked to please come forward.”

  Two names appear underneath the photo: Lindsay and Leah Birkshire.

  The photo gets larger and larger until it fills the screen. Two baby girls together: two little faces, two matching green frog blankets bundled around them, pink bows tied to scraps of hair, shining earrings dotting their ears. Shining silver birds flying off their tiny ears.

  My body catapults and slams into the wall. Some part of me hits the bulb and smashes the glass. The room goes dark as I drop to the ground and curl into a ball.

  My heart slaps so hard, it stings every inch of me and shakes me like a thousand hands. I can’t feel or move. There is no sense in my head or sounds in my mouth.

  Sweat covers me and turns me into a slug. Shivering and shaking, slippery, I cower on the floor.

  Each second is a slide under a microscope: the clay wall, the clay wall, the clay floor.

  Sunbeams through the window sting my eyes,

  pick their way down my body to my feet,

  move off somewhere else,

  leave me in shadow.

  I am safe here. If I don’t move, everything will be the way it used to be.

  I don’t know how many hours later, the climbing rope brushes my face. My eyes shift from the floor until I see the rope dangle in through the opening. Something — maybe the wind outside — makes it move about. With no thoughts telling me to do it, my hand grabs hold.

  All I see is my hand on the rope and then my other hand on the rope and then myself getting pulled off the ground. Somehow, I get all the way up and stand on my feet.

  Somehow, I make it to the window and my hands find the ascender devices clipped to the back of the harness. I lock both ascenders to the rope like Scotty taught me — right one first, left one underneath — then attach them by their slings to my harness. My body pulls itself upwards until I’m standing on the sill. I turn around, ready to go up. The cliff is in front of me, the sea is at my back, wind swirls around me, maybe rain is coming, maybe heavy rain tonight.

  My left foot finds the foot strap, my right hand lifts the clamp. I keep my weight hanging off the right sling and let my left leg do all the work. Up and up I go. No thoughts inside my head at all.

  Wind races up the cliffs, and wind roars inside me. It makes me shiver so much I can hardly keep the equipment between my hands. It dries the tears and snot that bubble out, and I have to wipe the crust from my face so I can see, so I can breathe. The cliff rock blows cool, sharp air against my cheek. I don’t know how I manage to climb, but somehow everything moves without my knowing.

  The sun slips over the sky. Dusk is on me. On the island, time is a loop of sun always changing the light.

  At the top by the lighthouse, I rip off the rope and harness and bend over, panting over my knees. I am a boat rocking.

  I throw up. Everything comes out from deep inside me. It wrenches out of me, on and on, until I am empty. I spit into the grass.

  There is still no ferry in the harbor.

  The keeper’s house is gray and old and looks like somebody left it out in the rain.

  Jonah’s van isn’t in the driveway.

  When I walk through the back door, the alert for the voles is blinking red and the alarm tings. Me trespassing into the lab must have triggered the system. Marlie isn’t anywhere on the ground floor, but I hear her moving around in the bathroom upstairs.

  The phone starts to ring. I walk into the kitchen and pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Gemma.”

  His voice — the fact of him — makes me recoil.

  “I’ve been phoning and phoning.” I don’t say a word, and after a pause, Jonah says, “Bad news.” He waits, then says, “Yes, I’m afraid … I’m very, very sorry to say that the ferry has run into some problems and it looks like, unfortunately, I’ll be stranded on the mainland for the night.” Nothing fills the space between us, and so he says, “I feel just awful about this whole … disaster.” Jonah has never felt awful about being stranded on the other side. “Just terrible.”

  The vole alert tings again, and Jonah says, “What’s that?” I open a drawer and take out the scissors. “Gemma?” With the phone still to my ear, I pull a kitchen chair to the back door, climb it, and cut the wires to the alert. “Gemma? What’s going on?” The red flashing bulb goes dead. “Is Marlie there? Put her on the phone, Gemma. It’s urgent I ––”

  The blades cut through the telephone cord, and two broken wires spill out like veins. The silence is cold relief. I stab the scissors into my pocket and reach for the grocery jar and empty it of all the money — small bills and coins — and leave the kitchen. I climb the stairs to my bedroom. The air smells sickening, like dust and mold.

  I go to the closet and pull out my old schoolbag and pack it with the money and some clothes — I add my favorite pink sweatshirt and jeans, now soiled with red dirt. Aidie’s stuffed mouse sits on her pillow. I stroke its downy head then put it in the knapsack.

  Piled on the chair beside my bed are the notepads I used for my lessons with Peg. The top pad is the one I use now to while away the time. Random words and nonsense sketches. So much time filled up and wasted away.

  I pick it up and an old book of maps tumbles down. For so many years, I’d pored over those maps, memorizing the cities and towns and routes to and from other places. Always dreaming about where my crazy
mother might have gone. I add the book of maps to the knapsack.

  I stand in front of the dresser and look at the person in the mirror, then pull the scissors from my pocket and snap the blades a few times. The silver metal shines and cuts the air.

  An unthinking motor, I grab a hunk of hair. The scissors chop it off. I grab another hunk and another. The scissors cut and cut. Hair falls or floats to the floor. Soon the face underneath is free and the reflection looks back. Ragged head, dead eyes.

  I touch an ear. A tiny scar in the lobe. I see it in the reflection. It was never in the reflection before. I touch the other lobe. A scar there too.

  I reach inside the pocket where I hid the tiny flying bird and pull it out. I pull the lock off the back and stab the sharp end through the closed-up hole in my left ear. There is no pain when it goes in, but I do feel warm blood spurt over my fingers. The reflection in the mirror must feel something because its muscles wince and its skin drains to green while blood drips down its cheek and neck. I push the earring all the way through and lock it into place.

  “Hey, honey.”

  I turn around. Marlie stands in the doorway, her hands crossed over her stomach, her eyes red and tired.

  “I knocked,” she says, indicating my door. “When you didn’t answer I got worried. You’ve been gone all day. I looked everywhere for you.” She drops her hands and steps closer. “Your hair.”

  My head is only ragged edges. It looks ugly and mean. I avert my eyes and stare out the window. The sun is setting.

  Marlie takes another step. “Are you okay, Gemma?”

  Stars already pin the deep blue sky. Jupiter picks its spot.

  “I’m sorry about what happened last night. About the drinking.”

  Turbulence from the earth’s atmosphere refracts their ancient light and makes the stars glitter.

  “You have every right to be mad. It was wrong. And I’m sorry.”

  When I don’t answer, she walks away. The sound of her feet creaking over the old floorboards signals her movement. To the bathroom, stopping, coming back again.

  She re-enters my room with a dampened washcloth, a towel, a comb, then goes to the chair beside my bed and stacks the pile of notepads on the floor. She brings the chair to me and sets it down. She pats it: an invitation to sit. When I don’t react, she very gently guides me into it, then capes the towel around me.

  First she dabs the washcloth along the blood on my ear and neck. She murmurs quietly about how it must hurt. She tells me it’ll be okay, I’m going to be okay. When the blood is cleaned away, she bends over and wraps her arms around me. She holds me for a long time, but I barely feel her warmth. She kisses the earlobe with the tiny bird earring. I barely feel her lips.

  She picks up the scissors from the dresser where I set them. She runs her fingers over my ragged head, carefully lifting the chopped ends up, massaging it this way and that. “You have nice hair,” she says and draws the comb through a small section. “I cut my mom’s hair all the time, so you don’t have to worry.” The scissors start to snip. Thorny points drop to the towel and floor. Like the leftover bits from a paper snowflake. Marlie massages and cuts all over. In the reflection, the head between her hands is a moon in orbit.

  Dreamy thoughts whirl inside, puddling over the darkness. You don’t have to do anything. Just like we hoped, a woman came to the island to find us. And we knew she’d take care of us with homemade casseroles and photos in cameras and cleaning blood off wounds and leaving kisses on ears. Everything can be the way it’s always been, but better. No one knows except you.

  “I remember when I was six or seven,” Marlie’s voice breaks over my thoughts, “I decided to have this tea party. My mother wasn’t big on celebrations because we didn’t have a lot of money and she didn’t believe in waste — this was before she got sick — but there was definitely something we were celebrating. It might’ve been my birthday, I can’t remember. And I really wanted to set the table nicely. I found the pretty plates and teacups my grandmother who I never met had given us a long time before. I set every piece in its exact place.”

  She pauses to stroke my hair, then continues. “My mother didn’t say anything when I put out an extra place — three plates, forks, spoons, saucers, and teacups — instead of two, or when I decorated the table with a bunch of junk we had lying around — plastic red and white rosebuds, sparkles from my craft kit, a string of purple beads I’d found in the street. But then she left the house, and when she came back she had this box of Tim Hortons donuts with her. That was a treat for us back then. I remember she made Red Rose tea, and we didn’t say anything to each other while we waited for the water to boil. I couldn’t talk — because, oh my God, this was going to be the most important day of my life.” I let the innocent cadence of her voice lull me.

  “Mom had half a donut in her mouth already,” Marlie keeps going. “I hadn’t touched mine yet because I was waiting. But then she asked, ‘Who’s the extra plate for?’ I said, ‘The plate is for Dad. Because it’s —’ I can’t remember what it was. My birthday? Easter? ‘— and,’ I said, ‘Dad is going to visit today.’ My mom stopped chewing and said, ‘Has your father ever made an appearance here? Ever?’ I said no. She said, ‘So why would he come today?’ ‘Because,’ I said, ‘it’s my —’ whatever it was. And Mom said, ‘He’s never coming so just forget about it.’ I got so mad. I was furious. I mean, what was the point of celebrating my birthday if we weren’t all together? But I couldn’t say that to her, right? And I couldn’t eat any of those donuts, so I pushed away my plate and she finished the box.”

  Marlie puts the scissors down. They’re littered with sharp bits of my hair. I reach over to pick them off, but instead the blades scrape off flakes of blood that have dried all over my thumb and fingertips.

  “When I was sixteen,” she says while she strokes my head, arranging angles of hair toward my cheeks, my ears, my eyes, “I found this photo. It was just after Mom was diagnosed with MS and I’d been doing this deep clean of our house. I think to make up for the fact that, from then on, her life would never be the same. And there was this box under her bed filled with photos of both of them together. They looked so young, so cool. Mom was completely different, about fifty pounds lighter with no clue she was going to get sick one day. My dad looked gorgeous, even though he was already an addict by then. I don’t know how much you know about drugs and all that, but addiction is a terrible thing, Gemma. Anyway, in those photos, they looked like they would never go through a crappy day in their lives.” She sighs.

  “One of the photos was especially nice, so I took it,” she continues. “Not that long ago, I met him and I tried to match that gorgeous photo to this old, sad man who showed up at my mom’s hospital room. I walked in and there he was, stooped-over and skinny. He looked sicker than her. His face was, like, decayed.

  “Mom introduced us by first names. ‘Marlie, meet Finn. Finn, Marlie.’ That’s when I recognized him as my father whose photo I carried everywhere. I was kind of freaked out because he didn’t kiss me or hug me or anything. And my mom was so tough. ‘He’s asking for money, Marlie. Don’t give him any.’” Marlie imitates her mother’s voice. “‘He’s a user and if you give him money he will die.’ It terrified me — I’d never seen my mother like that. And I had to watch this shrunken old man shuffle away. Even as a grown woman, I was too scared to run after him.”

  Marlie pauses. I’m still petting the blades of the scissors. Splinters of hair flick off and flick back on again. A magnetic attraction.

  “After he left,” Marlie continues, “my mom told me the truth. That Finn wasn’t even my dad. She’d had this one-night stand and gotten pregnant. She didn’t know who my father was, but she decided to keep me — I guess I should be grateful. When I was born, she didn’t want ‘unknown’ on my birth certificate, so she asked Finn to sign as my father. Finn was her best friend back then, a boy in love with boys. An addict who wanted to help her. Signing my birth certificate was the one th
ing he could do.” Marlie takes a sip of air. “I asked her why she kept telling me that Finn was my dad. She said she did it so I would never think she didn’t want me. And I said, ‘So instead I thought he never did.’”

  She lays her hand over my hand that holds the scissors. “I still have his picture in my wallet.” She pulls the scissors away from me, sliding them along the dresser and picking them up. “I don’t keep it so I can cry over it. I keep it because I liked having a father. Even one who’s not there.”

  You don’t have to do anything.

  “Gemma — are you okay?”

  No one needs to know except you.

  “What’s going on?” she says. The scissors dangle casually from her fingers. In her world, everything is okay.

  “I know why you came here,” I say. It’s all so clear now. Her nerves, her shipwrecked body on the cliffs. It was always clear. “You were going to jump.”

  She gives a reflexive gasp. A small, almost noiseless noise. “No,” she says. But her face is pale and her eyes are rooted to the ground.

  “You were going to end it.” It sounds rougher than I intended.

  Marlie blinks her eyes but says nothing.

  There are hushed island stories of the ones who couldn’t go on. Stories I’m not supposed to know. “Love,” I say. “That’s what you want.”

  “No,” she says. Her breath catches in her throat. “Love is something I make up to feel better.”

  “Jonah doesn’t love you either.” Is it as cruel as it sounds? I don’t know anymore. “Get out of here,” I say. “You have to go.”

  The scissors fall to the floor — the crashing sound is so loud — and spin in circles at our feet. Marlie’s face is snow melting. She says in a low voice, “Okay, Gemma. I get it.” A sad laugh seeps out of her before she walks out of the room and down the stairs.