Ruby Read online

  “‘Then she leaned down and kissed Flora McFlimsey on her round rosy cheek and whispered something ever so softly in her ear. It was something about love, but only Miss Flora McFlimsey heard her.’”

  In the morning, the children discover Flora, giving her all the love she has dreamed about for so long.

  I closed the book quietly. I couldn’t look at you. I stood up to leave.

  Your voice sounded strange and I realized that your teeth must be clenched. “Is that it? Am I supposed to believe in miracles now? Was that children’s story supposed to somehow give me a pathetic shred of hope? Where is my angel, Ruby? Is it you? Or do you see yourself as the little mouse?”

  I turned to look at you, ready to answer with the same sarcasm until I saw your face. It was wet with your tears.

  So I went back downstairs without saying a word. You were right.

  Who do you think you are, Ruby? His friend? His savior?

  The Christmas tree resembled the one in the book, diffused by the glow of its own lights like a watercolor painting. I wanted to tell you that Flora McFlimsey was me, not you. Wishing for an angel. All I had were demons.

  WE CALL IT the pit.

  It is actually a pond in the middle of an old rock quarry. Sometimes I wish I could stay there for an entire year and watch the changes. Autumn: the air smells of smoke and the leaves dress the water in gowns of red, orange, and gold. In winter, the trees are black against the white snow, the world a silhouette as we skate over the ice. By springtime, everything is budding and blooming, the ground squelchy with rain. We sit on the rocks and drink beer, smoke joints, wait for the water to get warmer, because in the summer humidity, we will take off our clothes and plunge into the blue.

  And now it is summer. The air is hot and heavy like in midafternoon, even though it is the darkest part of night. The water is as slick and dark as a black lacquered tabletop and the sky is just as dark, because the moon is gone.

  You take off your shirt and then your jeans and shorts. I watch you dive off a rock into the water and disappear. Your head pops up.

  “Come on!”

  I remove my dress, aware of the fact that I am naked beneath it and that you are watching me. When the water touches me, I gasp at the cold against the heat of my skin.

  “It’s better if you get everything wet!” you shout. You are just a glow in the darkness.

  My body is prickling with goose bumps and I can hear my teeth clattering together.

  I tread water and turn in circles. It’s as if there’s no top or bottom to the world. Everything so dark—the pool, the sky, the walls of the cliffs surrounding the water’s edge.

  Suddenly I want to be nearer you. I see you bobbing in the water, and I swim in your direction. I splash your shoulders with the chill water. I am thinking how different you look from behind in the darkness in the pit.

  You turn slowly to face me. It takes a moment for my brain to understand that it’s not you at all.

  The man is disfigured in a way I have never seen. Leaves grow from his face. His eyes are as bottomless as the pit itself, as bottomless as the sky.

  He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. The space just getting wider and wider until the face disappears, and everything—water, trees, rocks, sky—is rushing into that abyss.

  WHEN I WAKE, I put my hands to my face, expecting to feel leafy growths. There are only smooth planes, but it is not enough to return my pulse to normal or allow me any more sleep that night.

  I suppose the dream was some kind of punishment for going where I should not go.

  the mother

  FOR THE REST OF THE TIME that Isabelle and Phillip were away I hardly spoke to you. Neither of us apologized for what had happened, but I hoped my silence would let you know I was not going to interfere again. And the softness of your voice made it clear you hadn’t meant to hurt me, either.

  I wouldn’t have tried the spell at all if your nurse, Marie-Therese, hadn’t stopped me in the kitchen one morning. I tried not to flinch when she took my hand and stared into my face as if I were a pool of water. She hadn’t paid much attention to me before this.

  “Ruby? Ruby is it?” She had a thick, slow Haitian accent.

  I nodded. Isabelle had, of course, introduced us before they left. She was the woman I’d seen leaving the cottage the first night I’d come for dinner.

  “You’ve got it, girl.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not saying what isn’t already known. You have to use it.”

  Then she walked away. She hardly spoke to me again after that.

  THERE IS A STREAM DEEP in the forest. I hear it and smell it before I see it. The water is calling me. My head full of its whispers and green dampness.

  I take off my shoes. I take off my cloak and drop it on the moist earth. In my pouch is a purple candle, a vial of rosemary oil, a large shell, a small, round earthenware vessel, and a bottle of purple paste I made with shells, dried herbs, and oils from Isabelle’s shop. I anoint the candle with the rosemary oil and light it.

  “Lady of the Forest, I need healing power for another, injured and weak. I seek you, Healing Mother.”

  I close my eyes and wait. I hear sounds, faint, strange. It seems to be the vibrations of the trees. When I open my eyes, I see sparkles, as if someone has tossed a handful of silver glitter into the air. A hazy form approaches and materializes, as she moves closer, into a tall, graceful woman with dark skin and flowing hair, a veil over her face. She stops and points to a grouping of rocks that form a shelf. The water pools there, then spills over the edge and joins the stream below. I find myself walking into the stream. My thin gown is soaked, so I stop and take it off. I stand naked, with my head bowed. The veiled woman is now holding the large shell filled with the purple paste. She dips her finger in the paste and begins to draw on my back. I feel the spiral motion of her finger. When she is finished, she takes the vessel and holds it under the running water. Then she pours the water over my back. It is warm, and the tension in my muscles dissolves. When I look at the water spilling off of me, I see that it is a poisonous yellow color.

  I turn to ask the woman what is happening, but she is gone. There is the sound of leaves crunching and branches snapping behind me. A gray animal is running into the brush. I think the animal is a wolf. I take the vessel and fill it with water from the stream.

  Suddenly I realize that I am cold.

  I am standing naked in the middle of the forest, in the middle of winter, holding an urn of water and a shell filled with purple paste.

  sympathetic magic

  THE DAY WAS THE SAME as every other day. Marie-Therese came and went as usual, without a word, just those eyes watching me. When it was dark and the full moon had risen high above the cottage, I arranged the items on a tray and walked up the stairs very slowly, to the room where you slept. I put the tray on the small table near the window, where the moon’s light touched it.

  Your room looked different. There were pieces of cloth, covered with beads and sequins, spread across the furniture and over the windows. There were small jars with things floating inside of them—things I couldn’t make out in the dim light. Candles were burning in each corner of the room. Marie-Therese had been working some spells of her own.

  I anointed the candle I had brought and whispered the call as I lit the wick. Then I unrolled and spread a large piece of thin paper on the floor by your bedside. I dipped my finger into the jar of purple paste and traced the outline of a man’s body on the paper. When it was finished, I began to draw the spiral in the center of the man’s back. On the third loop, you stirred in your bed, and my hand froze as if you had seized it. I knew if you woke you’d be furious. This was so much riskier than reading a children’s story. You might send me away and I’d never have another chance.

  But you were still again.

  I struggled to catch my breath and continued the spiral slowly, as tenderly as if I were actually touching you, all my energy focused on an image of y
ou standing upright, fully healed. That was what healing was, I thought. Don’t imagine the broken part at all. Only see the image of the whole. It is already whole because of your love. Love does not fragment.

  There were strange tingling, burning sensations going up and down my arms, out my fingers, waves of energy flowing through my spine, down my legs and up to the top of my head. I finished the spiral and went back to the tray to get the water. I poured it over the image of the man. Watching the spiral bleed away, I imagined it was pain slowly dissipating. The sensations in my body were so strong now that I wondered if I was actually vibrating.

  You cried out softly, a gasp, almost as if you were coming.

  I’d never heard anything like that before. It came from somewhere so deep and hidden. I wanted to cry out with you. The vibrations were more intense in me now, coming faster and faster one after another.

  Soon after that you whispered my name in your sleep. An icy wind battered the cottage, blowing clouds across the moon, and I was glad to be inside, basking at your bedside the whole night. Maybe it was the wind but I kept thinking I heard animals that night. Cats yowling as if they were in labor or dying or both, the scurrying feet of a frightened squirrel.

  WE RETURN HOME from a restaurant dinner. A big storm is coming. The wind rages through the rooms when we open the front door. At the far end of the house, where Opal sleeps, we hear the window bang open and closed, panes of glass rattling. My father runs past us into her room.

  The painting he gave her is on the floor in fragments. It is the image of a woman in a pink taffeta dress, reclining in front of a window. There is a letter on the floor beside her. Her face, pale with moonlight, looks distraught. I used to wonder what the letter said. Maybe it was from her lover.

  It is a special gift, my father always reminds Opal, fragile, painted meticulously on glass. He only gives things like this to my sister, never to me. I never want them anyway, and when I see the broken pieces, I am gladder than ever that the painting wasn’t mine.

  But with the relief, comes guilt. Because I see the look in my father’s eyes as he goes toward my sister who is cowering in the corner among shards of glass.

  “You left the window open!”

  There is the sound of crying, slamming, breaking, hitting all night. These are the words I remember my father screaming at my sister:

  “Valuable!”

  “Irreplaceable!”

  How can he use those words about a thing, now, as he smashes his own child?

  ISABELLE AND PHILLIP came home the next day. Isabelle dropped her bags at the doorway, ran to me, took my hands in hers, and looked into my eyes like a young girl searching for something precious she had lost.

  “Is he much better, Ruby?”

  I realized suddenly the magnitude of the hope they had attached to me. They had expected some kind of miracle and I had failed them. I couldn’t meet Isabelle’s eyes.

  Just then, Marie-Therese came in from your room. I had never seen her smile before. It completely transformed her face. She put her arm around Isabelle’s shoulders.

  “There’s something I think you should come and see.”

  THE MOONLIGHT WAS SHINING through her dress, so he could see the woman’s body beneath the fabric. He could see the outline of her high, round breasts and the darkness between her legs. She was standing at his side with a kitten perched on her shoulder. There were other cats, too, watching him from the shadows, and a squirrel in the branch of a tree. He didn’t exactly see them but he knew they were there with her. Slowly he felt himself lifting and turning until he was floating on his stomach. He wondered how this could be, but he didn’t question it for very long. He could smell the green, sodden scents of the forest, and the sweetness of melting wax, and the woman’s fragrance, light and musky at the same time. Where was he? Where had she taken him?

  Her hands were on his back; that he knew. He could feel the gentle pressure of her fingertips and the cool thickness of some substance. Paint? She was tracing circular shapes around his spine, and wherever she touched, the warmth seemed to intensify, so even though it was night he could feel the sun.

  Why did he get those bloody tattoos inked onto his lower back and abdomen? It was such an arrogant thing to do. As if he believed his body would stay young and strong forever. And then, just a few months later, he was an old man already, his spine smashed, sun broken. But he was feeling the heat now, from the woman. And it was spreading, deep into the skin, muscles, tendons. Deep to the bone. And then, as the cool water washed over him, he could feel his mind lighting up and his groin coming alive.

  ALL HE COULD THINK when he woke was how hungry he was. He hadn’t felt hunger for months now. He had decided it suited him to be empty because that is how he was since the accident. Hollow. Like a smashed shell.

  Someone was always badgering him to eat. He simply remained silent until they gave up in frustration. Just as well, he had thought, they ought to know what it’s like for me every day. Then he would feel guilty at making everyone as miserable as he was. Misery does not love company. Misery wants to be bloody left alone.

  But this morning was different. He felt like he used to after swimming in the lake the first hot day of summer. Fresh. A layer of coolness evaporating off of his clammy skin.

  Then he remembered seeing her in the gauzy gown and he felt something else he hadn’t experienced in months. Desire. Was it a dream or had she really come into his room in the night?

  sacrifice

  MAMA CAT, STRANGE SQUIRREL, and Unnamed Kitten. For some reason, they were what I thought of that morning when I walked into your room and saw you completely changed.

  CALEB DRAKE WAS A HOG FARMER with a snoutlike nose and skin so thick and leathery it was more like hide. He considered his healthy animals commodities and his sick ones liabilities—that was all. As for cats, they hardly existed as far as he was concerned, except to keep vermin off the property. He barely even fed them.

  Caleb thought I was crazy but he indulged me anyway. I would come over every day to set food out for the cats. Then I went looking for the youngest female, who I figured was probably easiest to tame. Eventually she did come when I called, and let me pet her.

  In the spring, she was getting round in the belly and I knew she was pregnant. So I fed her a little food on the side and kept an eye on the calendar. When she wasn’t around for a few days, I knew she must have delivered and I had a feeling that something wasn’t right. She was such a small animal. I wandered around the barn calling for her, but there was no response, so I went to the machine shed. After a few moments, I heard her. The meow sounded urgent, and when I found her in the far corner, I could tell she was relieved I was there. A kitten had gotten stuck as she tried to birth him. I saw that he was dead.

  I ran back to my house to get a box lined with an old towel. Then I carefully transferred Mama Cat to the box, her head resting on my hand. She fell asleep instantly. I kept waking her the entire way to the vet’s, telling her not to die.

  The vet shook his head when he saw her and asked me if I was sure I wanted to do this.

  I said, “How would you feel if that were you and no one tried to help?”

  I held her head while he removed the lodged kitten, and she began purring with relief.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He shrugged. “She’s thanking you.”

  I couldn’t sleep all night. In the morning, the nurse called and told me that Mama Cat had died.

  WHEN I WAS FOURTEEN, I babysat a little girl named Sasha. We’d go to the park every day from morning till evening and I’d make up elaborate games with her. She’d be the princess and I was the fairy godmother. The park gazebo was our castle, the swings were our flying chariots, and the slide our spiral staircase.

  “You’re so weird, Ruby!” she crooned to me one day, but I could tell by the wonder in her voice that she meant it as a compliment.

  One morning, when we arrived, there was a group of older kids gathered ar
ound the gazebo. After a while, I saw a small animal of some kind on the ground in the middle of the pack. I told Sasha to stay on the swings while I went to investigate.

  The kids had found a squirrel with a horribly misshapen back leg. The animal was full-grown and otherwise seemingly healthy, just slow-moving. I sent the kids away, scolding some and threatening to tell the parents of the ones I knew.

  Sasha and I found a phone and I called animal control, because I knew the kids would be back. The lady who answered reassured me that she would find someone willing to take the squirrel for educational purposes and call me later.

  At five o’clock, when I hadn’t heard anything, I called them again. A man answered. He said the squirrel had been taken care of hours ago. I knew he meant killed. I was so enraged I could barely make any words come out of my mouth. The man seemed to find this amusing, so I hung up on him. I realized my hands were shaking with helplessness.

  WHEN OUR CAT PADDY PAWS was pregnant with her kittens, I knew that I’d better make sure she didn’t have them in the house. She was searching around for a cozy spot, but I was afraid my father would hurt her if she went into labor among his shirts. So I made her a box with lots of old towels and blankets and put it in the garage.

  In the middle of the night, I didn’t hear her cries but my father did. When I woke in the morning and went to check on Paddy, I found her and five kittens snuggled in the box. A couple of them were wet and one wasn’t moving. I realized it had died.

  My father had thrown a glass of water on Paddy Paws to make her stop crying.

  I replaced the wet towels with dry ones and helped her settle in with her new family. Then I went to bury the dead kitten in the field behind our house.

  My father had wanted to name Paddy Paws Jinx. I had refused; it seemed like a bad omen.