The Darkhouse Read online

  I go to the laundry closet in the kitchen and get clean sheets, a blanket, and a pillow, and bring them all to the back room. I release the bars of the cot and open it, then dress it as nicely as I can.

  Soon Jonah will come home. No matter how determined he is, Jonah won’t be able to hide if he knows Marlie. He’s been thinking about my mother for as long as I have.

  When the cot is made as inviting as I can make it, I join Marlie in the living room. She’s still asleep on the couch, so I sit in the chair opposite her. After a while, I drink her tea.

  The sound of the front door jangling wakes me. When I open my eyes, Jonah is staring at us. Actually, he’s staring at Marlie, who’s still asleep. I jolt to immediate attention.

  Jonah walks deeper into the room so he can stare more closely at her. “What’s this?” he says, as much to himself as anyone.

  Anxiety and eagerness muffle my voice. “She came on the morning ferry. You didn’t see her?”

  Jonah looks only at her. “The Spirit was acting up. I was busy.”

  I repeat what I’m supposed to know. “This is Marlie Luellen.” But it’s a test for Jonah. “She’s a writer from Toronto.” I watch carefully for his reactions — his cheek movements, his pupil dilations, his color.

  Nothing changes.

  “Oh,” I say to no one. My breath unwinds like a dropped spool of thread.

  Maybe I have to face the truth: that Marlie is just another tourist. A meaningless occurrence.

  Jonah says, not looking at me, “A writer from Toronto? What kind of writer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “A reporter?”

  “No.” Disappointment holds me under water and I don’t have the power to fight it. “Invented stories. Like Lucy Maud Montgomery.”

  Jonah thinks for another minute then says, “And she’s taking a nap?”

  “She’s sleeping off a faint.”

  “A faint?”

  “I found her by the lighthouse. Out cold. I brought her here when she came to, and she fell asleep.”

  “I see.” He looks at me for the first time. “Okay. Well, Peg should have her under observation —”

  A high ting interrupts him.

  Reflex makes Jonah jerk his head around and check the kitchen. I follow his gaze and see the red glow of the alert light blinking above the back door.

  Before he started his vole experiment, Jonah insulated the back-yard lab and had it temperature controlled. He installed the alert system and set up timed feedings and reward devices and cameras that monitor the voles twenty-four hours a day. If anything goes wrong or changes, the alert lets him know. If it goes off when he’s not home, it tings once a minute until he comes back. I’m not allowed to turn it off, but have to note the time it started and mark it down. I’m not allowed to go into the lab because “human contact must be kept to a minimum or the whole experiment is ruined.”

  Jonah checks through the window. “Storm’s started.”

  And then I remember down at the lighthouse when I was holding Marlie: muddy clouds rolling in, a change in the wind, a sudden hush. Now I hear the tick-tick against the windowpane. “Ice storm?”

  Jonah looks back at Marlie. “I don’t have time for this.” His eyes narrow, annoyed. “I have to check the lab.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I think she just needs to rest.”

  Jonah leans first on one leg then the other. “Ferry is likely stranded tomorrow.”

  “We have plenty of food and an extra room.”

  “Extra room? Where?”

  I lead the way to the back room and flick on the overhead light. With the cot all dressed up in clean sheets and a blanket, it looks comfortable. Pushed off his guard, Jonah crosses his arms. I cross mine too. “Marlie needs help,” I say. “We have to help her.”

  “No,” he says. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  The alert gives another ting. Jonah glances at the blinking light. The voles are always more important.

  I never tell Jonah what to do; life is easier when I go along with whatever he wants. But he will say himself that being curious about a thing — a cocoon, say — means you’re there to see it split and offer its butterfly. I want to rip the cocoon open. The thought terrifies me.

  “We need to help her,” I say.

  “I have to go,” Jonah says.

  The couch creaks, and we both turn to look. Deep in sleep, Marlie has rolled onto her side. She pulls the blanket under her chin and Aidie’s stuffed mouse springs from the woolen folds onto the floor. I take a breath and don’t look at it. But Jonah has seen it. He steps forward and picks it up. I want to lunge in and protect the mouse, but I fight to still my legs. If I touch it, it will only make things worse.

  “We have no choice,” I say, staring at Aidie’s mouse hard enough to boil milk.

  “No, Gemma,” Jonah says, “we have a choice in everything we do.”

  Ting. The red light blinks.

  “You don’t think about both sides.”

  “What do you mean, both sides?”

  “The two sides of a story. You don’t think about the other side.”

  “There aren’t two sides in this. There’s only what’s right.”

  “No,” I say, biting down. “There’s only what’s right for you. You only ever think of you.”

  Jonah looks at me, shocked. “This isn’t about me.”

  “Yes, it is. It’s always about you.”

  Ting.

  “Gemma, that’s enough.” The mouse twists between Jonah’s hands, its plump body thinned to starving, its tail binding the blood in his finger.

  “No, it isn’t enough.” I lower my voice. “You need to do the right thing. The thing that’s not best for you. The thing that will help someone else. For once, that’s what you need to do.”

  Outrage distorts Jonah’s face and his hands strain apart. He starts to say something. “If you don’t stop —” But the tail of Aidie’s mouse rips off and droops in his hand. In his other hand, the body with its pointed ears and stitched whiskers is reduced to nothing.

  In an instant, all fierceness inside me is gone.

  Jonah looks at the broken mouse like it’s garbage, then throws the pieces to the floor. His face smoothes into a smile. “Gemma,” he says with deliberate calm, “you’ve lived your whole life on the island. You’ve never been exposed to the negative aspects of the real world.”

  I can’t look at him, but only stare at the dismembered parts of Aidie’s mouse.

  “And that’s because I protect you,” he says. “We live here because I do what’s best for you.”

  I don’t let any expression come over my face.

  “Do you think,” he says, “I would have lived here, like this, if I were choosing for myself?”

  Ting.

  “This is for you,” he says. “Do you see that?” I stare at my feet. “Do you?”

  Jonah lets the room go quiet while I consider my mistake. Tonic immobility. When an animal under threat pretends to be dead.

  But I rouse myself. Just a little. “We can’t just throw her into the storm. What if she gets hurt? Or dies? Everyone will blame us.” I pause. “Everyone will blame you.”

  Jonah looks from me to Marlie. The muscles in his face twitch and contract.

  Ting.

  Ice rain beats at every window.

  After a moment, Jonah approaches Marlie. I don’t say another word but watch him carefully. He ignores me and bends over and lifts Marlie from the couch. She flops a bit in his arms, and he has to secure her against his chest. He carries her to the cot in the back room and, very carefully, lays her down. He arranges the sheet and blanket over her and tucks all her parts underneath. When he’s sure she’s fully asleep, he wheels around, heads into the kitchen, and goes through the back door to his lab.

  Nothing — not rage, not the weather, not any person on earth — can stop Jonah from protecting his experiment. A moment later the alert light goes black and the t
ing stops.

  I check on Marlie. Her sleeping face is so trusting. She’s just an ordinary girl.

  I shut the door, pick up Aidie’s mouse, and go upstairs to my room.

  It doesn’t take me long to reattach the tail. I sew a hundred stitches so it will never come off again. I nuzzle its mousey nose and apologize for Jonah’s behavior and my sharp needle. Its threaded eyes stare back at me, unblinking.

  When I’m done, I return it — rattier than ever — to Aidie’s pillow in the closet. Before Aidie can say anything, I turn away and fall into bed. Outside, the night goes dark and ice rain continues to tap hard against the house.

  Aidie taps my shoulder. I ignore her.

  Jonah is lonely.

  “No, he isn’t.” Aidie knows as well as I do that Jonah has his voles.

  That’s why he’s so angry. That’s why he squeezed your wrist. You remind him that he can’t love your mother.

  “I’m tired, Aidie.” I close my eyes. “Go to bed.”

  That’s what keeps him here. Loneliness. He doesn’t know anything else.

  “That’s ridiculous. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  You’re lonely too. That’s why you love Scotty. You want him to touch you.

  “Stop!” There’s real violence in my voice. I yank the blanket over my head to contain it. But, like lightning, Scotty appears. I see him and feel him as surely as I’ve ever known any person alive. He stares into my eyes with his blue-blue gaze. His hands reach for me and soothe my skin. The realness of it is tormenting. It makes me reach my body up against the sheets. Against my will.

  I toss the blankets off. Aidie is still there, waiting.

  Why is Marlie here? she says. Who is she?

  “I don’t know.”

  You have to find out.

  “I don’t care who she is. She’s nobody.”

  Maybe she’s running away from something.

  Frustration clings to me. It fuels my anger. “Maybe she’s here to ruin everything.”

  Don’t say that, Gemma. She’s just sad.

  “How do you know? When you’re sad you can’t fall asleep, and she’s out cold.”

  Maybe she’s enchanted.

  “By what?” I say, irritated. “Her sadness?”

  Yes.

  “I want to go to sleep now, Aidie. Please, just go to bed.”

  Marlie knows what it’s like off the island. Better than anyone. She can help you.

  I bolt up. “You don’t think he’d let me leave if I could, Aidie? We don’t stay here because Jonah is lonely. We stay because,” and I separate my words as if she were slow, “I’m — not — safe — off — the — island.” Aidie and I lock eyes. I say, “Do you think I want to be here forever? Talking to you about the same stupid, unreal things? You’re the reason I’m crazy!”

  The color drains from Aidie’s face. She looks like an old black-and-white photo.

  I roll away from her and make my back a solid wall. I can hear the feeble wheeze of her breath marking time. In and out, in and out.

  It doesn’t take long before I hear the hollow, creaking steps of her walking back to the closet and then the rustle of her crouching on the pillow and cuddling her mouse.

  Before she closes the door between us, she says, I’m sorry.

  Even though the door is closed I say, “I’m sorry too.”

  In the morning, I can tell by the opaque glaze over my bedroom window that the house is frozen solid with us inside it. Everything will be iced over from the storm: the doors, the windows, the flues. If the rain has stopped — and the quietness makes me think it has — then we’ll have to jimmy our way out.

  I get dressed in warm working clothes and go downstairs to make breakfast. The door to the back room where Marlie is sleeping is still shut.

  Jonah is in the kitchen on the phone. The long yellowed cord is a necklace from the phone down to the floor and back up to his ear. Before I come in, he says goodbye and hangs up.

  “Is the ferry grounded then?” I say, squeezing past him to the fridge.

  “It is,” Jonah says. He picks up his cup of tea and looks out the back window, which is crystalled over with ice.

  “How are the voles?”

  “Fine.” He stares through the crystals toward their home.

  I pull out the cast iron pan, put it over the burner, and oil it. While the pan heats up, I put three slices of bread into the toaster and crack six eggs into a bowl. We usually just have toast or cereal for breakfast, but eggs will get us ready for a day of heavy work.

  Jonah clears his throat. “Did she say why she came to the island?”

  I look at him carefully. “No.”

  He puts a finger to the windowpane. “Her driver’s license confirms her hometown.” I glance back into the living room — Marlie’s purse is still on the couch where I left it. I know it’s not right for Jonah to be rifling through her things. “Turns out,” he says, “she didn’t give you her real name.”

  “Her real name?” I say.

  “She gave you her first name, but her last name is Frasier, not Luellen.”

  As I fork the eggs into a froth, I remember Marlie lying by the light-house, a tear rolling from her eye, her words about someone who never loved her.

  When they come here, tourists don’t need to pretend they’re some-one else. They never bring sorrow with them. They’re too busy taking pictures and being delighted with the scenery.

  “Maybe,” I say, testing Aidie’s theory, “she’s running away from something.”

  He taps at the ice-glazed window. “Like what, for example?”

  “Like maybe she’s running away from something sad,” I say. Then I repeat Doris’s word. “Heartbreak.”

  “Heartbreak?” Jonah says the word like he genuinely doesn’t understand it. “Interesting.” He stares at the whipped eggs in the bowl and says again, “Interesting.”

  The oil in the pan sizzles, and I splash the eggs in and scrape them into a scramble. Jonah stares at my work for long enough that the eggs set and the toast pops up. “All right, then,” he finally says. He goes to the back room door and gives it a polite knock. “Good morning, Miss Luellen.” I notice he uses her alias. “Breakfast is ready.”

  I divide the eggs and toast onto three plates. Jonah grabs a plate and leans against the counter to eat because there are only two chairs in the kitchen. Before long we hear movement from the back room, the creaking of the cot, footsteps shuffling along the floor. The door opens, but very slowly, as if she’s afraid to come out. Marlie’s hair, rumpled and fuzzy, is the first thing we see as her head ducks around the corner. Her eyes peer out, wide and sleepy all at once. She looks first at me and then at Jonah. Then she comes out from behind the door.

  I prepare myself. Here they are: Jonah and Marlie, face to face. Aidie’s words come back to me: Jonah is lonely. Is it possible?

  Marlie blinks at him and says, “I’m so sorry.”

  “We’re iced in at the moment,” Jonah says. “After breakfast, Gemma and I have to work on getting us out and doing a storm cleanup. If the weather holds, we can have Peg take a look at you afterward. Otherwise, you’re welcome to stay.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Marlie says. She gives herself a cautious hug. “Thank you.”

  I put her plate down on the table and wait for her to sit. She comes slowly toward the kitchen chair. “Smells delicious.”

  To encourage her, I lift my fork to my mouth, as if I’m showing a small child how to eat.

  “I’d be happy to help,” Marlie says as she sits. Jonah and I look at her. “With the storm cleanup?”

  “Of course, Miss Luellen. We’d appreciate it.”

  “Please,” she says, lifting a forkful of eggs to her mouth, “call me Marlie.”

  Jonah has to jimmy open every door, and when we finally get outside it’s obvious how much work there is to do to clean the grounds. Branches have fallen everywhere, broken from the weight of rain falling and fr
eezing. Ice encases every surface and each branch like a clear chrysalis, the imprisoned things still visible and preserved inside. But already it’s warmer, and soon the ice will melt.

  I give Marlie an old parka of Jonah’s and a pair of his galoshes so she doesn’t ruin her city clothes — her flowing brown wool coat, her elegant, precise brown boots.

  We get the wheelbarrow from the side of Jonah’s lab and walk the perimeter of the yard, clearing branches and debris and piling them into the bucket to dump somewhere out of the way.

  We free up the road to Keele’s Landing until the road clears the woods, then we clean the path that leads to the Rock Pit.

  The Rock Pit is a huge geographical basin with ancient red rocks bundled over the ground like bunches of grapes in a bowl. On the north side of the basin, the pit ends in a long wall of high, red-rocked cliffs. On top of the cliffs, a plateau of grassy dirt stretches into another thick wood.

  The cliffs of the Rock Pit are where Mr. O’Reardon taught Jonah to rock climb and where Scotty taught me. As my eyes wander over the familiar rocks and cliffs, I remember Scotty helping me with my climbing gear, tousling my hair before slipping a helmet onto my head, securing a harness around my waist and making me giggle, clipping me to hooks, teaching me how to knot the rope that slides up and down the surface. Keeping me safe. Which was a nice feeling.

  Marlie startles me by exclaiming that the Rock Pit is the most beautiful place she’s ever seen. It calls to mind that the world is very massive, with so many places and parts that will forever be unknown to me. Only real because in theory I know they’re there. If Marlie says the Rock Pit is the most beautiful, there is some consolation in that.

  By the time we’ve cleared the path to the lighthouse, warmer air has already started to melt the ice. Everything is streaming and wet, birthed anew.

  We get to the clearing at the end of the path and Marlie stops and stares up the full length of the lighthouse, entranced by it.

  The lighthouse is so tall that when I was young I used to think it was for getting in and out of the sky. I was sure that one day I’d be able to climb to the top of the tower and jump to the nearest cloud, then hop from cloud to cloud until I’d explored the entire planet. When I learned the lighthouse didn’t touch the sky at all, it didn’t feel like the truth.