I see a purple electric light, then feel incredible pain dance through my body. It’s unlike anything I have ever before experienced, as though I am being repeatedly stabbed with a thousand tiny knives. I’m gasping for air, I can’t seem to gulp enough down into my lungs. Before I close my eyes, all I see is Maggie’s face, all I hear is her voice.
“I love you, Baby Girl.”
Seventy-two
In my dream, I am flying.
I am a bird with outstretched wings, soaring and swooping above the waves of a turquoise sea. I am dancing in a cloud-free sky, looking down at the world below and thinking how very small we all are.
Consciousness stirs me a little, enough to permit the sound of a van door sliding closed to invade my dreams. The confusion it creates smashes the sky. Huge, jagged shards of it start to fall down all around me, as though the world were raining blue glass. I don’t fly fast enough, and some of the fragments tear into my wings, red blood staining my white feathers. I start to feel heavy, as though I can’t hold myself up. I decide to dive down into the sea, seeking safety beneath the waves, but they have grown rough, crashing onto the rocks below. The churning water has turned black, and as I continue to dive, getting closer and closer, white spray spits up in my face, blinding me from what lies beneath. I hit the surface hard, feeling the bones in my nose and cheeks shatter first. My body is bent and broken, and the impact has left me folded in on myself, so that I’m even smaller and more insignificant than I used to be.
I open one eye, just enough to make out that the sea has turned into green carpet liner, and that I have been rolled inside. I stay awake long enough to know that I am broken.
When I stir again, I can hear someone coming. I try to lift my birdlike self off the floor, but I can no longer move. I can’t even lift my head and it feels like I’ll never be able to fly again. I black out before I can see or feel any more.
Consciousness revisits and is a little less patient with me this time. My head is throbbing, and it takes a while to remember what happened, and then to wonder where and when I am now.
It’s dark. Completely pitch-black.
My hands are tied behind my back and something is stuffed inside my mouth, so that I can’t close it or speak.
My legs are bent at the knee, tucked up behind me, and when I try to move I realize that I am inside some kind of box. At first I think I am in a coffin, and the idea that I have been buried alive makes it hard to breathe. I start to cry. Tears and snot and drool from the sides of my open mouth stain my face in the darkness. I try to calm myself with logic; the box is too small to be a coffin, and for a brief moment I feel a tiny bit better, but the voice of fear is too loud inside my ears.
It could be a child’s coffin.
I realize that although whatever is shoved inside my mouth has stopped me from speaking, I can still make a noise. The muffled scream that comes out of me sounds so primal that I think that someone or something else must be making it. It seems harder to breathe than it did before, and I wonder how much oxygen there can be in a space this small. I try to kick my feet against the side of the box, and when I scream again, the lid opens.
I blink a few times into the light, my eyes trying to translate the silhouette looming above me.
“Hold on, Baby Girl, we’re almost home,” says a voice that changes in my ears with every distant word. At first the voice belongs to Maggie, then to my brother, then back again. He holds a cloth over my nose. I try to keep my eyes open, but they’re too heavy. I think it is Maggie who holds my hand for a little while before I hear the lid of whatever I am in slide closed, clicking shut.
I am a broken bird again.
I cannot open my eyes or sing or fly away.
I am sinking down farther and farther beneath the surface of a cold black sea.
Seventy-three
I wake up.
My eyes see that I am bathed in daylight, and I realize I am lying on a bed. I try to move and discover that my wrists and ankles are each tied to one of the four bedposts. I look around the room, twisting my head as far as I can, and I’m relieved to discover that I am at least alone. I stare at the crumbling, damp-stained walls, the dirty white net curtains crusted with mildew and age, and the elderly-looking wooden furniture. A faded painting of the Virgin Mary is on the wall in front of me, and a metal statue of Jesus is on the bedside table. I recognize this room. I’m in the house where I was born in Ireland; the sound of the sea in the distance confirms it. I haven’t been here since I was five years old, but the smell of the place transports me back in time, as though it might have been yesterday.
There is a dressing table, covered in a lace doily, with a framed photo on top. It’s me as a little girl, wearing a white blouse, red skirt, and white tights. My hair in the picture is tied in slightly uneven bunches and I look happy, even though I don’t remember ever being especially happy when I lived here. It seems, even at that age, I already knew how to pretend for the camera. There is a mirror on the dressing table, and when I twist my body as far as the restraints will allow, I can see myself in it. I am wearing clothes I don’t recognize. An adult-size white blouse, red skirt, and white tights. My hair has been tied into bunches. Red lipstick is all over and around my lips, so that they look twice as big as they should. The sight of myself like this makes me scream without thinking.
The door flies open and my brother rushes in. He’s dressed as a man, the wig and makeup are gone. He is Ben again, but different.
“There, there, you’re okay, Baby Girl. It was just a bad dream.” He strokes my cheeks and I stare in horror at the alterations he has made to his face.
“Oh, I’m afraid Maggie has gone now. I only dressed like a woman to mess with your head and hide from the police. Why are you looking at me like that? Is it my new face? I thought I’d make myself look more like Jack Anderson, seeing as you find him so irresistible and attractive. Do you like it? Doctors can do almost anything nowadays. Just give them a picture from a magazine, along with a big fat check, and away you go. I was hoping for a nice Jack-shaped six-pack, too, but life made other plans. I’m afraid it’s just you and me again now. Does that make you sad, Baby Girl?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You said that’s what Maggie called you. I thought you liked it. I thought that’s why you left me and never came back. I made you some breakfast.” He lifts a blue bowl and spoon to my lips.
I keep my mouth closed and turn away.
“Come on now, don’t be like that. It’s porridge in your favorite bowl. Do you remember what I told you when it got chipped? Things that are a little bit broken can still be beautiful.”
“Please untie me.”
“I want to. I really do, but I’m scared you’ll run away again. Do you even remember that day? I never ate chicken again after he made me kill that bird.”
“Why have you dressed me like this?”
“Don’t you like it? If you’re upset about the red shoes, I’m afraid they don’t fit anymore. You could say you got a little too big for your boots.” He laughs at his own joke, then waits, as though expecting me to do the same. When I don’t, his smile vanishes and his whole face seems to twist and darken. “If you don’t like the clothes I got you, I can always take them off.” He roughly pulls up my skirt and starts to roll down the white tights.