NON-RETURNABLE

—RICK HAUTALA—

Manda knew it meant trouble as soon as Jason, the manager of the Borders where she worked, asked to see her right after the Monday morning staff meeting before the bookstore opened for the day.

No way it could be good news.

It never was.

After finishing her coffee and the donut she had left over from yesterday, she walked into the back room, thinking this might be it.

This time she might actually get fired.

Jason was standing by the returns station, leaning with clenched fists against the desk as he stared at something on the computer screen. A faint, bluish glow underlit his features, making his skin look ghastly pale.

Manda walked around the full pallet of boxes that no one had bothered to open on last night’s late shift, and stopped a few feet from him.

How bad can it be?

She didn’t have long to wait. She saw the book—the special order—on the desk in front of him and instantly stiffened.

“If you’re not going to buy this,” Jason said without looking away from the computer screen, “then you should return it. Today.”

He seemed to be trying to maintain an “all-business” tone, but she caught the glint in his averted eyes. It might just be the reflection of the computer screen in his glasses, but it sure seemed like he was enjoying the hell out of this.

He always did.

Holding the book out at arm’s length, he carefully studied the front and back covers. There was no dust jacket. Just a faux black leather binding with the title and author stamped in cheap gold foil. The left corner of Jason’s mouth kept twitching. Finally, unable to hold back a sniff of laughter, he opened to the first page and read the title out loud.

“Psychic Black Holes.”

His voice dripped with derision, and he cleared his throat before continuing to read the subtitle.

“An exploration of the ‘event horizon’ and mental abilities.”

Glancing at Manda, he repeated the words, “Event horizon,” before dropping the book onto the workbench. “I don’t blame you for not buying it—especially for eighty dollars.”

“There’d be the employee discount,” Manda said meekly, not quite daring to look her boss in the eyes.

“Not on special orders, there isn’t,” Jason snapped automatically. Straightening up, he turned and glared at her, the overhead fluorescent lights glinting in distorted white bars on the lenses of his glasses. “You don’t really believe this crap, do you, Manda?”

Manda tried not to wither under his steady glare, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like her boss, and she knew he didn’t like her. Especially since she turned him down when he had asked her out last winter.

Still, there was no reason to be so mean to her. She tried to look past the glare off his glasses and into his eyes instead of staring at the floor and feeling like she had done something wrong.

“Not really,” she said, her voice hushed. “It’s just... kind of interesting.” She shrugged. “I like to keep an open mind about things.”

“I’d rather see an open wallet. So if you don’t have the eighty bucks, get this book out of the inventory. ‘Kay?”

Manda thought—not for the first time—that what she should do is pop the book into her backpack and walk on out of the store with it, but she would never do something like that. She couldn’t. It was bad karma to steal from work, even though she knew several employees who had plenty of books and CDs on ‘permanent loan.’ Besides, now that Jason had made such an issue of it, she knew he’d be watching her.

Without another word, Jason dropped the book onto the returns table and strode past her. Seething with resentment, Manda watched as he walked out onto the sales floor.

He wasn’t such a bad guy, she thought. Underneath it all, there might even be a human heart, but he acted like such a hardcore, corporate dickhead. As if eighty dollars was going to make or break the inventory.

Music suddenly blared from the overhead speakers. The Beatles’ White Album.

Good choice, Manda thought as she bopped along with “Back in the U.S.S.R.” and started straightening up her work area. Someone on the late night crew had left a teetering stack of books on her chair. Glancing at the computer screen, she saw that Jason had been looking at the returns information for Swann Press, the publishing house that had sent her the copy of Psychic Black Holes.

“Thanks for the help... dickweed,” she muttered.

The back room door slammed open as Chris and Billy came out to get a load of books for their sections. On most days, Manda would have taken a few minutes to talk with them, but she was still fuming about Jason as she turned to the shelf beside her desk where she kept an assortment of padded book bags for returns.

“Goddamned cock swallower,” she whispered as she grabbed a bag that would fit her book. When she pulled the envelope down, her hand scraped against the rough edge of the wooden shelving. She cried out in pain as a splinter of wood sliced her wrist open as cleanly as a razor blade.

Billy looked over and asked if she was all right.

Holding her wrist tightly with her other hand, Manda nodded as she stared at the wound. It wasn’t as bad as it had felt, but tiny drops of blood were beading up along the thin, two-inch gash. It had a little sting to it.

“Yeah. Just caught a splinter,” she said, shaking her hand.

“Whoa! Workman’s comp time!” Chris called over his shoulder. “You’ll be sitting in the sun, sucking down brews, and watching HBO.”

Manda sniffed as she held her hand up and carefully inspected the wound, making sure there weren’t any splinters in it. It looked all right, and she decided not to bother cleaning it or bandaging it. After wiping the blood on her jeans leg, she turned back to the worktable.

“Damn it,” she muttered when she noticed the tiny drop of blood on the cover of her special order. She reached out to wipe it away, but before she could, the tiny red dot disappeared, absorbed into the slick, pseudo-leather cover, gone without a trace.

“Did you see—” she started to say as she turned around to her co-workers, but Billy and Chris had their handcarts full of books and were already heading out onto the sales floor. By this time, the Beatles were halfway through “Dear Prudence.” Manda had a mountain of returns to send out, so she put the whole thing out of her mind and got to work.

*    *    *

 “Hey, you,” Rob, Manda’s boyfriend, called out as she stepped into the apartment and eased the door shut behind her. She latched the dead bolt, even though they had never had any trouble in the two years they had lived on Munjoy Hill.

“Hey me,” she replied automatically as she slumped out of her jacket and hung it on the peg by the door beside Rob’s sweatshirt. “How was your day? How’d the writing—”

She stopped herself when her gaze shifted down to the faded, peeling linoleum floor of the entryway. The braided rug her grandmother had given her as a high school graduation present was gone. She glanced into the closet by the front door, but it wasn’t there, either.

“Hey, Rob...? Where’s my rug?” She stayed where she was, unable or unwilling to move until she found out what had happened. The rug had been special to her. It was the last hand-braided rug her grandmother—who had died almost six years ago—had made.

The scuffing sound of Rob’s bare feet on the floor drew her attention. He appeared in the doorway, a crooked half-smile on his face.

“Rug...?” he said, cocking his head to one side and looking like a dog listening to a high frequency whistle.

“Yeah. My hand braided rug.” 

Manda fought back the urge to shout. It had been a hard enough day at work. The cut on her wrist was still stinging, and she didn’t need this right now.

“You know... The one my grandma made for me. Remember...?”

Rob gave her a blank stare. No longer smiling, his mouth hung open, making him look absolutely stupid.

“The blue and gray one... with the three roses in the middle...”

Rob looked at her expectantly as though waiting for the punch line of a joke he wasn’t quite getting.

“Come on, Robbie. Stop teasing. What’d you do with it?” Rob took a tentative step forward, then halted as though not feeling entirely safe getting too close to her.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, Manda.”

He looked past her, focusing on the wall for a moment, then shifted his gaze back at her.

“Jesus, Rob! It’s been in front of the door since before you moved in. You can’t tell me that you don’t...”

Her voice trailed away as she studied Rob’s confused expression. It wouldn’t surprise her if he’d been smoking pot instead of writing today. Maybe he was putting her on. His eyes seemed clear enough, but she could never tell for sure with Rob.

“Tough day at work, huh?” he asked as he stepped forward and gave her a hug and kissed her lightly on the cheek. He placed one hand on the back of her head and pulled her close.

“You might say that.” Manda’s voice was muffled against his chest. “A real bitch! That bastard Aceto started in on me first thing this morning, and he didn’t let up all day.”

“I’m telling yah. You should talk to a lawyer about charging him with sexual harassment or something. That asshole’s been making your job... What’s the legal term for it? ‘An unsuitable work environment.’ Yeah, that’s it. He’s making that place an unsuitable work environment for you.”

“To hell with him,” Manda said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. She broke off their embrace and walked into the living room. Letting out a low groan, she eased herself onto the couch and just sat there, staring blankly out the living room windows. In the corner of the room, away from the distracting view of the city outside the window, was Rob’s writing desk, cluttered as always. The desk light and computer were on, so it sure looked like he had been working.

Manda jumped and let out a little squeal when Muggins, her three-year-old, grossly overweight tiger cat, jumped up onto the couch and started rubbing his head against her thigh.

“Hey, guy,” she muttered, reaching down and scratching the top of his head. Muggins flopped onto his back and began kneading her leg with his claws. Within seconds, the room filled with his motor-boat loud purring.

Manda leaned back and closed her eyes, lost for a moment in the comfort of her cat. She didn’t even think about what Rob might be doing. Maybe he was looking for the missing rug, but she couldn’t believe him, pretending like he didn’t know what she was talking about.

Silence settled into the room, broken only by the Muggins’ steady purring and the muffled sounds of traffic through the closed windows. Before long, Manda slipped off into a deep sleep.

*    *    *

The rest of the week went about as well as Manda could have expected, considering her boss was on her case about every little thing he could think of. He criticized her for the way she handled a cash return with a particularly rude customer; he threatened to write her up for taking too long a break on Wednesday; and he complained several times in one day that she hadn’t gotten all of the returns boxed and shipped fast enough. 

She didn’t care. 

Even if he fired her, she was sure she could find another job—a much better paying job, too—without too much effort. If Jason gave her any more grief, she was ready to quit on the spot. What she wasn’t ready for was when Psychic Black Holes, which she’d returned to Swann Press on Monday, showed up at the store in Thursday’s mail.

“Christ on a crutch,” she muttered as she regarded the padded book bag stamped “Return to Sender” in bright red letters, front and back. She had been shift leader for three hours yesterday because Tim, one of the assistant managers, had called in sick. There were mountains of returns she hadn’t had time to scan out of the system, so her first response was to toss the package onto a shelf until she could get to it. Maybe it’d still be there when she got the nerve to quit. The next person in charge of returns could deal with it. 

But she hesitated, hefting the package in one hand, knowing it contained a book she really wanted to own. Hesitantly, she placed it down on her desk beside her now-cold cup of coffee. The back room was deserted, so she sat down at her desk. Sighing, she leaned forward and cupped her chin with both hands, staring long and hard at the package. 

“Who would know?” she muttered, glancing around the vast, book-cluttered room. 

It would be so easy to slide the book into her backpack and walk out with it. Even if, sometime in the future, Jason noticed that the return credit never showed up, she would claim that the book must have gotten lost in the mail, or maybe imply that the publisher was trying to screw the store out of the money. 

Either way, she’d have the book, free and clear... clear, that is, except for her conscience. 

“Yeah, damn it.”

She huffed as she reached past her cold coffee and picked up the package. A terrible sourness filled her stomach. Her hands were clammy as she wedged her fingertips under the stapled flap and started to rip it open.

She let out a cry when an upraised prong of a staple sliced the underside of her forefinger. Dropping the package to the desk, she shook her hand to relieve the sudden sting of pain, then held her finger up to inspect the wound.

It wasn’t so bad.

Not even an inch long.

But the staple had cut deeply. The wound spread open like a tiny eye slit with a bright red bead of blood for an eyeball. Placing the wounded finger in her mouth, she gently sucked on it. The faint, metallic taste of blood teased her tongue.

When she pulled her finger from her mouth and looked closely at the cut again, she decided that she didn’t even need a Band-Aid. Her breath caught in her throat when her gaze shifted down to her desk. A corner of the returned book was sticking out of the padded envelope, and two drops of her blood glistened like miniature rubies on the edge of the black, faux-leather cover.

As she reached to wipe the blood away, something peculiar happened. Later that day, Manda all but convinced herself that it had been simply a trick of the light, or maybe there was something wrong with her eyesight; but as she stared at the book, the rich, black tone of the leather cover darkened and swelled. A momentary wave of dizziness swept over her, and before she could react, she watched as the fake leather absorbed the two tiny drops of blood. After they were gone, a hint of deep, dark scarlet swirled inside the textured black cover.

“That is so weird,” she muttered, taking a quick step back.

“What’s weird?”

The male voice, speaking so suddenly behind her, startled Manda. She let out a sharp squeal and spun around to see Billy, crouching beside his book bin next to a cart stacked with books.

“How long have you been here?” Manda asked, gasping.

Billy grinned and shrugged as he shot her a lopsided grin.

“Whaddayah mean? I’m just loading up my cart.” He hesitated, then added, “All right. You caught me. I was reading on the job.” He held up a book, but Manda couldn’t read the title. “Promise you won’t turn me in to the big bad boss.”

“Yeah—sorry,” she said, feeling more than a little humiliated. “I was just...” Her voice drifted off, and she chanced another glance at the book on the table. “You startled me, is all.”

“Yeah. I do that to a lot of people.” His charming grin spread across his face and in a goofy cartoon voice, he said, “It’s what Tiggers do best.”

Manda couldn’t help but laugh at his impersonation. It was actually quite good. She always found Billy amusing, even when he was cracking crude jokes that many of the female employees found offensive. It was only because of him, she realized, and a few other employees, that she stuck with her job here. They were about the only thing that made it tolerable.

Just then, the backroom door swung open so hard it banged against the wall. Jason strode over to the returns station. His gaze immediately fixed on the returned book, and he glared at Manda.

“I thought I told you to return that.”

Looking past him, Manda caught Billy’s eye. Jason’s back was to him, and Billy was twisting his face into a sassy, sour expression. He looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon.

“Yeah, I—I’ll do it first thing today,” she muttered, avoiding eye contact with Jason because she knew if she looked him in the eye, she would either start laughing hysterically or else run, screaming, out of the store.

*    *    *

Later that evening, when she got home from work, Manda did scream. She had put in an extra hour at work trying to catch up and, as a result, had missed the bus she usually took home. Almost two hours later than usual, just as the sun was setting, she got back to the apartment and discovered that Rob wasn’t there. She found a yellow Post-it note stuck to the refrigerator, informing her that he had gone out to Gritty’s for a few beers with Marty and Sheena. She should join them, if she wanted to.

“As if,” Manda mumbled as she crumpled up the note and tossed it toward the trashcan. She missed but left it where it had landed between the wastebasket and the refrigerator. Opening the refrigerator, she scanned the shelves for something to eat. When her gaze alighted on the half-opened can of cat food covered with Saran-Wrap on the bottom shelf, she realized that Muggins hadn’t greeted her at the door. Turning quickly, she scanned the darkening apartment.

No dark blob on the couch where Muggins usually slept...

No silhouette on the windowsill, looking longingly out at the city lights...

“Muggins...?” she called out, her voice twisting up as she moved into the living room. She couldn’t ignore the icy clutching sensation in her stomach.

“Muggsie...?”

No answering meow from the bedroom...

She glanced at the floor by the window where she kept Muggins’ litter box. The litter was undisturbed, exactly the way she had left it this morning before rushing off to catch the bus to work.

“Damn, if that jerk let Muggsie get out...”

Manda stomped to the front door, undid the deadbolt, opened the door, and glanced up and down the dimly lit hallway.

Of course, the cat wasn’t there.

Muggins was an indoor cat. Living in the city, he had to be, but Manda knew if he ever did manage to get out, he’d be off chasing pigeons and rats, or wandering the alleys. A dull, burning sensation stung the back of her eyes. Her vision blurred as tears gathered.

“Muggins...?” she called out softly, looking up and down the corridor once more, then drawing back into the apartment and closing the door.

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, fuck! Goddamn!” she shouted in frustration.

She clenched her hands into fists and pounded her upper thighs. It’d be just like Rob to space off something like this. Muggins had probably slipped out without him even realizing it... probably darted between his feet and bolted when he was leaving to meet up with Marty and Sheena at the bar.

Or maybe that’s why Rob had gone down to Gritty’s... because he knew Muggins had gotten out, and he didn’t want to face Manda’s wrath when she got home and found her cat was AWOL.

So mad she was sputtering, Manda strode over to the portable phone by the couch, grabbed it, then fished the telephone directory out of the desk drawer. She looked up the number for Gritty’s and hurriedly dialed. A woman answered on the third ring. Manda asked if she would check to see if Rob Stone was there. The woman wasn’t very helpful. She said they didn’t have a PA system, but Manda told her it was a family emergency, so the woman said she’d check.

Crossing her arms tightly over her chest, Manda stalked back and forth across the living room floor while waiting for the woman to get back to her. She was surprised when she heard Rob’s voice above the background din of the pub.

“Hey, what’s up, babe? You comin’ down or what?”

“Where’s Muggins?” Manda snapped, so suddenly and loudly it sounded to her like a bark over the phone.

After a short pause during which all she could hear was the background noise of the crowded bar, Rob spoke up.

“Huh?”

Manda exhaled loudly, imagining for a moment that her breath was a ball of dragon’s fire that could melt the mouthpiece of the phone.

“Muggins! My goddamned cat, you moron! You didn’t let him get out this morning, did you?”

There was another pause, longer this time. When Rob finally spoke, he sounded confused and tentative, like he thought she might be playing some kind of practical joke on him.

“I—ah, look, Manda.” He didn’t sound at all sure of himself. “I... umm, I have no idea what you’re talking about, ‘kay? A cat?”

“Jesus, Rob! Yes! A cat! My cat, Muggins! He wasn’t in the apartment when I got home from work. If you let him get out, I swear to God I... I’ll...”

Her voice trailed away because, in fact, she had no idea what she would do. Probably end up plastering PET MISSING posters on the telephone poles in the vicinity of their apartment building. Over the years, she had seen plenty of missing pet posters around town and had always considered it a touching but futile gesture.

What were the odds that a missing pet would ever show up?

The city had more than its share of stray cats and dogs, and if a pet was really valuable, chances were it had been stolen to be resold.

But Muggins was no prize. As much as Manda loved him, he was nothing but a “mutt cat,” as she lovingly called him. If Muggins was gone and missing, it meant only one of two things—either he was wandering around scrounging for food... or else he was dead, maybe flattened by the same city bus she had taken home from work that day.

“Manda? Honey?” Rob said.

Manda could barely hear him above the music and laughter in the bar. She took a steadying breath, trying hard to focus.

“Muggins... is... missing,” she said, enunciating each word so there would be no mistake. Tears spilled from her eyes and ran like drops of heated oil down both cheeks. “If you know what happened to him, just tell me. Even if you fucked up and let him get out or something, just fucking tell me, okay? Otherwise... otherwise...”

“I haven’t got a fucking clue what you’re talking about, babe,” Rob said. Manda detected a slur in his voice and guessed that he had been at the pub for a while. “As far as I know, we don’t—you don’t even own a cat.” He sniffed with laughter, like he was still half-expecting a punch line. “You always told me you were allergic to them, remember?”

“Wha—”

Manda’s voice choked off. She had no idea what to say to that.

Had Rob gone nuts?

Or did I?

What the hell is he talking about, no cat?

She glanced over her shoulder at the refrigerator. Moving swiftly, she walked over to it and flung the door open. Bending down so fast both of her knees made loud popping sounds, she started to reach for the can of cat food on the bottom shelf when her hand suddenly froze.

It wasn’t there.

The opened cat food was gone.

The only thing on the bottom shelf was Rob’s twelve pack of Miller Lite and something that looked like either very old meat or very new cheese.

“Where’d it go?” Manda whispered into the phone. Her voice was like metal filings, shredding the inside of her throat.

“What’s that babe?” Rob yelled. “I can’t quite hear you.”

Manda backed away from the refrigerator, pausing in the doorway to glance into the living room to the corner where she kept Muggins’ litter box.

It wasn’t there, either.

Moving slowly, like she was walking in a dream, she went over to where the litter box should have been and stared down at the threadbare carpet. Even if Rob had taken it out and emptied it, which wasn’t very likely, and then forgotten to put it back, there wasn’t a trace of litter in the corner from when Muggins scratched the fake sand to cover up his poops.

“What’s going on?” she mumbled, no longer aware that she was still talking into the phone. “Jesus Christ! What in the hell is going on?”

“You gonna join us or what?” Rob asked. His voice buzzed like an insect in her ear, but Manda made no attempt to understand what he had said. Her hand felt suddenly heavy and numb as she lowered the phone from her ear, switched it off, and let it drop to the floor. When it hit, it sounded like the plastic casing cracked, but she didn’t care.

Leaning back against the wall, Manda covered her face with both hands and sobbed as she slid slowly down into a sitting position. Bending her knees and leaning her head forward, she started crying and kept crying as the apartment grew steadily darker with the descending night. And whenever the thought hit her that Muggins was gone—really gone!—she didn’t have the strength to scream as she stared into the deepening darkness that seeped like dense smoke through the living room.

*    *    *

As it turned out, Rob did have too much to drink at Gritty’s, and Sheena ended up calling to say that she and Marty were taking him back to their place to sleep it off.

What the fuck difference does it make? Manda wondered after hanging up the phone. It wasn’t like he had a real job to go to in the morning. All he was doing with his time was writing and, judging by the scant pages she had read so far of his ‘novel in progress,’ he wasn’t doing much of that. In the morning, as she got ready for work, she kept one ear tuned toward the front door, hoping she would hear ole’ Muggins meowing to be let in after a night out on the town.

But he didn’t show up.

Tears filled Manda’s eyes as she eased the apartment door shut behind her and started down to the street to catch the bus for South Portland. She considered calling in sick, or at least showing up an hour or two late so she could look for her cat, but that might mean she’d lose her job. With Rob not pulling in his half of the rent, she couldn’t afford to lose her job, such as it was.

Things only got worse when she got to work and found the package from Swann House propped up on her desk. A Post-it note was stuck to the front which read: 

“I TOLD YOU TO RETURN THIS!!!—Jason”

Manda crumpled up the note and dropped it onto the floor. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the package. One of the last things she had done yesterday was repackage the book, check to make sure the publisher’s address was correct, and send it out with the last mail pick-up.

And here it was, back on her desk the next day with the postage canceled and RETURN TO SENDER stamped in bright red letters on front and back.

She started to reach for the package but jerked her hand back, not quite daring to touch it. Leaning closer, she stared uncomprehendingly at the postmark.

How the hell could it have come back so fast?

It had gone out late yesterday afternoon, but here it was with a postmark canceled in Des Moines.

Still not daring to touch the package, Manda leaned close to it, her nostrils widening as she sniffed the air. She caught a faint whiff of... something. She wasn’t sure quite what. Maybe a hint of...

“Burned hair?” she muttered, wincing as she pulled back quickly. Before she could catch her breath, the backroom door slammed open. She turned around quickly expecting to see Jason glowering at her, but it was only Jesse from the café, looking for a carton of napkins. Manda watched him, waiting until he got what he was after and left. Then she turned back to the package.

Her impulse was to toss it into the trash compactor behind the store. So what if the return credit never showed up? As long as the thing was out of her life forever.

Like Muggins, she thought as a chill teased between her shoulder blades. Out of my life... forever... like he’d never even existed.

Manda knew that, one way or another, she had to get rid of the book before Jason saw it. She could just imagine his reaction.

“Wait a second,” she whispered, snapping her fingers and nodding as a thought took shape. “That’s it. Jason’s doing this. He took the package out of the out-going mail and put it back here just to mess with my mind. That has to be it!”

She was tempted all the more to toss the book into the trash just to be rid of it, but then a better idea struck her.

If Jason was screwing with her mind, why not screw back?

Grabbing a box cutter from her desk, she sliced open the back of the envelope. The new blade cut quickly and cleanly through the padded stuffing, exposing the black cover of the book. For a second or two, Manda didn’t even notice that the blade had also sliced into her hand, on her wrist just above the heel of her thumb. It wasn’t until a large, red drop of blood landed with an audible plop on the back of the book that she cried out in pain and surprise.

“Mother-fucker!” she screamed as she reached for a tissue from the desk dispenser and pressed the wad against the fresh gash. Dull, stinging pain spread like poison up her wrist and down into her fingers, bringing tears to her eyes. Within seconds, the tissue was saturated with blood. She grabbed another one to staunch the flow, then blotted the tears that were streaming down her face. After a moment, once she had regained her composure, she lifted the wad of tissues and inspected the wound.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as bad as it felt, but she thought she must have sliced open a vein because the blood was flowing so freely.

“Son of a bitch,” Manda muttered as she leaned back against the table and pressed the tissue hard against her wrist. She could feel her pulse, throbbing in her hand, and she wondered about the possibility of infection. After a minute or two, she peeled back the tissue, glad to see that the blood flow had finally slowed if not stopped entirely. She heaved a sigh of relief, turned, and looked down at the package on the table.

The returned book was lying title side up. Manda couldn’t tear her eyes away from the fake-leather cover. The textured black surface caught the overhead lighting just right, making it swirl with an inward-turning whirlpool of light that was flecked with deep, rich red intermingled with dense, light-less black.

Reaching blindly behind her, Manda took down a new padded book mailer. All the while, the black book cover held her gaze. The longer she stared at it, the more she could feel herself being pulled into it. The subtle interplay of light and shadows, of black and deep, clotted red danced across the cover like the wind-ruffled surface of a pond at twilight. It looked amazingly three-dimensional. Waves of vertigo swept through her. She felt herself falling forward as she leaned closer and stared, gape-mouthed, into the rippling black surface. She was only vaguely aware of the crazy thought that—somehow—she could see into or through the book into ...

What?

She snapped back to reality when the backroom door burst open, and Chris and Cindy, two co-workers, entered, engaged in an animated conversation. Manda turned her back to them so they wouldn’t see her tear-stained eyes.

“Yo, Manda,” Chris called out. “You still planning to come tonight?”

“Tonight...?” Manda asked, still not turning around and busying herself with the new padded envelope. In spite of the cut on her wrist, she wanted to do what she had thought of.

“Billy’s gig. At Free Street Taverna. It’s tonight. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah... Sure,” she replied, nodding automatically. She had forgotten all about Billy’s gig and was totally focused on getting Psychic Black Holes sealed up and addressed to Jason Aceto’s home.

“That’ll show the lousy son of a bitch!” she muttered.

“You say something?” Chris asked.

“Huh? Oh, no. Nothing.” Amanda shook her head. “Just talking to myself.”

*    *    *

“Rob...?”

The air in the apartment sounded curiously muffled as Manda closed the door behind her, making sure to lock the deadbolt and the security chain.

The silence within absorbed both her voice and the sound of her footsteps as she kicked her shoes off. No lights were on. Only the soft, blue glow of the streetlight outside their building filtered through the unwashed windows, casting a powdery haze over everything.

Is Rob even home? She wondered, stepping into the living room. Maybe he actually got some writing done today and is in the bedroom, taking a nap.

Manda’s hand brushed over the wall switch. The sudden glare of light stung her eyes. Unconsciously, she felt the bulge of the bandage that covered the cut on her left wrist.

“Robbie...?” she called out, louder now, as if defying the darkness to stifle her voice. She walked boldly to the bedroom door, swung it open, and snapped on the light.

The bed was empty, undisturbed, just the way she had left it that morning. She knew Rob well enough to know that he would never have remade the bed if he had come home any time during the day. Chances were, he was still at Marty and Sheena’s, sleeping it off.

Manda listened to the hungry grumble of her stomach and decided to eat something before she called Marty and Sheena and told Rob to come home. Billy’s gig didn’t start until 9:30, but she wanted to get there early enough so she could hang out. After the last few days at work, she needed some serious R&R. Tomorrow was the last day of her workweek, and on Monday, she and Rob were planning to go kayaking with some friends on Sebago Lake.

Her bare feet whispered on the threadbare rug as she walked from the bedroom into the kitchen. Along the way, she snapped on every light she could reach. She wasn’t sure why. Rob always left lights on, and she always complained about it because she had to work to pay the bills while he just hung around the apartment, pretending to be working on his novel.

Tonight, for some reason, she wanted to feel safer, and leaving as many lights on as possible seemed to help.

A little, anyway.

She entered the kitchen and hesitated, glancing over her shoulder to where Muggins’ litter box used to be—should have been—in the living room. She still had no idea what was going on with that whole situation, and she was anxious to find Rob so she could ask him about it.

Why had he acted like she was crazy or something, thinking she had a cat?

Of course she had a cat!

She’d had Muggins long before she and Rob met and moved in together. So what was this bullshit about her not having a cat? And why was Muggins’ litter box missing? Was Rob messing with her mind the same way Jason was?

Manda tried to ignore the waves of paranoia that swept over her, but she couldn’t.

Maybe that was it.

Maybe Rob and Jason were in on this together, trying to make her go crazy or something.

But why?

Rob barely knew Jason, and the few times they had been together, they hadn’t exactly hit it off, probably because Jason had made it so obvious that he wanted to sleep with her.

Manda heaved a heavy sigh as she opened the refrigerator and inspected her prospects for at least a half-decent meal. They weren’t very good. A wave of helplessness swept over her when she stared at the bottom shelf and—still—didn’t see the half-full can of cat food she knew, she just knew was supposed to be there.

“Fuck it,” she whispered as she eased the fridge door shut and turned around. Her voice sounded oddly strained in the eerie quiet of the building. For the first time in a long time, she wished Rob was here with her. Usually, she didn’t always appreciate him hanging around, but tonight, for some reason, she really wished he were home.

Fighting back the undefined fear that trembled in her gut, she walked into the living room and picked up the cordless phone. After dialing Marty and Sheena’s number from memory, she waited as the phone rang on the other end once...

Twice...

“Damn,” she muttered when it rang a third time, and she cleared her throat, preparing to leave a message. Just before the fourth ring, Sheena’s sleepy-sounding voice answered, “Yeah?”

Manda’s first thought was that she had interrupted her and Marty making love.

“Yeah, uh, hi. It’s me,” she said simply.

“Manda. Hey. How’s it going? Long time no hear.”

“Okay, I guess,” Manda said, a bit mystified. “I was just wondering if Rob was still at your place or if you know where he was.”

After a tense moment of silence at the other end of the line, Sheena cleared her throat and said, “Rob?”

“Yeah. Last night you called and said he was gonna crash at your place. I was just wondering if he’d left and where he might’ve gone, ‘cause he’s not here.”

There was another, longer silence at the other end of the line. Manda could feel her face flushing. Her pulse started beating fast and feathery in her neck.

“There’s nothing here to eat, so I was heading down to Free Street before Billy’s gig to get something, and I was hoping to catch him to tell him to meet me there.”

“Ahh... Manda... Have you been drinking or something?” Sheena asked.

It was impossible to miss the concern in her friend’s voice.

“What are you talking about? No, I—of course I haven’t been drinking.”

Manda let her shoulders drop and exhaled sharply, hoping to relieve the tension that was building up inside her.

“Look,” she said, fighting to remain calm. “Just tell me if you know where Rob is, okay? I want to hook up with him so he won’t have to come all the way back here before going down to Free Street.”

“Manda. The only other person I know named Rob is my cousin who lives in Pennsylvania,” Sheena finally said. “If you mean that guy you were dating, he died two years ago in a car accident. You don’t remember?”

“What are you talking about?” Manda said, almost choking as the air rushed out of her lungs. “My boyfriend—Rob... Rob Stone. You and Marty went out drinking with him last night. You called to tell me he was staying at your place. I just need to—”

“Whoa, girl. Get a grip, why don’t ‘cha,” Sheena said. “I don’t know what you’re on, but you’d better watch it. You don’t sound so good.”

“No. No, I’m not good!” Manda shrilled as tiny ice-cold fingertips clawed at the inside of her throat. “I most definitely am not good. Not if you’re gonna fuck with me, too!”

“I’m not fucking with you, Manda. Honest.”

Sheena’s voice remained low and calm, but it did nothing to stop the rush of fear inside Manda. A hot pressure blossomed behind her eyes as she glanced around the apartment. Outside, the evening sky had darkened, taking on a curious depth of black. Her legs felt stiff as sticks as she walked over to the window and stared up at the night sky above the city. Darkness shifted against deeper darkness, like a living thing. High above the city, a curious cloud formation swirled as though driven by a harsh wind. At first, it was almost impossible to see, but the longer Manda stared at it, the clearer she could make out a cloud that had taken on an odd, three-dimensional effect. A huge spiral turned and shifted in upon itself, swallowing itself and the surrounding blackness into an ever-deepening blackness. Within the spiral arms of the cloud, elongated flecks of dark red twisted and merged like thick clots of blood. They melted together, separated, and merged again as they were sucked into the spinning vortex.

Manda was transfixed. The telephone dropped from her nerveless hand to the floor. She didn’t hear it hit, and she was only distantly aware of Sheena’s high-pitched voice, twisted with worry and fear, calling out to her so loudly it rattled the tiny speaker in the handset.

*    *    *

“God damn, it figures,” Jason Aceto muttered as he glanced around at the morning crew, gathered in the break room for the opening store meeting.

“What figures?” asked Craig, the assistant manager.

“Manda’s late... as usual,” Jason said, shielding his mouth with his clipboard as he spoke. “Fifth time this month. She probably won’t call, either.” He made brief eye contact with Craig and smirked. “So I guess that’s it for her. Company policy is company policy. Nothing I can do about it. I’m gonna have to fire her ass... if I ever see her again.”

Craig glanced at him, stone-faced, not revealing his own thoughts. Jason either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention and began the meeting. After he ran through the morning announcements and the news from the home office, Billy hurried off to the front desk and popped a Beatles CD into the music system, and everyone else got to work.

Jason went into his office, closed the door, and plunked down in his chair. Staring past his computer at the wall in front of him, he sat there drumming his fingers on the chair arms and seething with rage that Manda hadn’t bothered to call in before she didn’t show up. After all the times he cut her slack and gone to bat for her when he knew he should have fired her.

But this was it.

He had to follow store policy.

As much as he wanted to be rid of her, though, he also didn’t want to be rid of her. He still harbored what he knew, deep down, was a futile hope that—given time—Manda would realize how much better for her he would be than that poseur writer she was living with. Jason had a mountain of e-mails and paperwork to go through today, but he pushed back from his desk, stood up, and went out to the café to grab a cup of coffee.

The workday passed slowly for him because he couldn’t stop thinking about Manda. By noon, he was toying with the idea of calling her apartment to see if she was all right, if nothing else. She could be sick or hurt. Maybe if she was in some kind of trouble, helping her out would be a way to get into her good graces.

But the day’s responsibilities kept piling up, and his workday ended without him finishing even half of what he’d hoped to finish. With a bitter feeling of remorse and resentment, he left the store a little after five o’clock, got into his car, and headed to Manda’s apartment on Congress Street.

By the time he pulled up to the curb in front of the apartment building, daylight was bleeding from the sky. Narrow rafts of clouds spread across the western horizon like purple-stained fingers that were trying to tear through the thin fabric of the sky. Pinpricks of starlight appeared overhead, barely visible through the glare of city lights.

For more than five minutes, Jason just sat hunched over his steering wheel, peering up at the darkened windows of Manda’s apartment. Several times, he thought he glimpsed a hint of motion—something dark and indefinable—moving behind the glassy reflection; but when he strained to see if it was Manda, he realized it was only the reflection of the clouds, shifting across the window.

“Go home,” he whispered to himself. “Just go the hell home and forget about her.” Several times, he gripped the key in the ignition, preparing to start the car and drive away, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

He knew—he could sense—that Manda was up there in the gathering darkness.

Maybe she really was sick or hurt ...

Maybe she wasn’t able to get to the phone to call work or a doctor.

As much as he tried to deny it, Jason knew he was going to go up and knock on the door just to make sure Manda wasn’t in any real danger.

“Damn,” he muttered as he drew the key from the ignition and swung the driver’s door open. As he stepped out into the street, a brief gust of cold wind raked chills across his back. Hunching up and tucking his neck into the collar of his jacket, he walked up to the front door, pressed his face against the glass, and peered into the foyer.

There was no one in sight.

The dim, bare light bulb cast a nut-brown glow over the dust and grime-caked floor and stairway. His teeth were chattering, and his hand trembled as he pressed the doorbell for apartment 7-B. From deep inside the building he heard a faint buzzing sound. He took a breath and held it as he waited for Manda to buzz him in, but the only sounds were the sounds of the city traffic behind him.

“Jesus... Jesus... Jesus!” he whispered, watching his breath fog the front door glass and then dissolve. The reflections of the city lights distorted in the door glass, and for just an instant, he thought he saw a black smudge reflected over his left shoulder. Grunting with surprise, he turned and looked, but there was nothing there.

His anger rose as he gritted his teeth and pressed the buzzer button again, harder this time, as if that would communicate his urgency. He held it down while slowly counting to five and then released it.

Still no answer.

She probably isn’t even home, he told himself.

Most likely, she had skipped work without calling in because she was just as sick of her job as he was sick of her bullshit. She had probably taken off for the day, gone somewhere with her loser boyfriend the pseudo-writer, and was having a grand old time. She probably just hadn’t gotten home yet.

“‘Scuse me.”

The voice speaking so suddenly behind him made Jason jump. He turned to see a young man, standing close behind him on the steps.

“Sorry... Sorry,” Jason muttered, stepping aside so the man had room enough to insert his key into the front door lock. The man barely acknowledged him, but as he opened the door and stepped into the foyer, Jason braced the door open with his hand. The man regarded him with undisguised suspicion.

“Forgot my keys,” Jason said with an innocent shrug. He knew how lame he must sound but didn’t care. “My girlfriend’s in the shower and probably can’t hear me buzzing.”

“What apartment you in?” the man asked.

“Seven-B,” Jason replied with a flick of his head to indicate the upstairs.

The man glared at him in silence for a second or two, then nodded and proceeded inside without another word. Jason watched as he walked down the corridor to a darkened doorway on the left at the far end of the corridor. After the man let himself into his apartment and shut the door, Jason exhaled. He was going to go upstairs to Manda’s door, but something off to his right caught his attention.

The apartment mailboxes.

He wasn’t sure why, but he experienced a jolt of recognition when he saw a padded manila book mailer on the floor in front of the row of glass-fronted boxes.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he muttered as he walked over to the row of boxes and, bending down, picked up the book envelope.

The package had been sent out from the bookstore. The store’s return address was clearly stamped in the upper left-hand corner on the front along with a carefully hand-lettered address:

Manda Simoneau

325 Congress St.

Apt 7 B

Portland, ME 04401

“Goddamnit! I knew it!”

Jason hefted the package. He could tell, just by the feel, that it was a book, and it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out which book it was. It had to be the one Manda had special ordered and then not bought because she couldn’t afford it. Instead of returning it like she had been told, she had mailed it to herself.

Jason’s hands were trembling out of control as he slid his forefinger under the stapled end of the package and ripped it open. As soon as he did, he let out a yelp of pain when a staple sliced into his forefinger just above the knuckle. A bright streak of blood ran down the side of his finger, smearing the book cover as Jason withdrew the book from its package.

“You sneaky little...” he whispered when he saw the black, faux-leather cover and read the title out loud: “Psychic Black Holes.”

Sniffing with laughter, he slipped the book back into the padded bag and tucked it under his arm. Without thinking, he brought his hand up to his mouth and sucked the blood from the wound. The metallic taste made him wince.

The cut’s not so bad, he thought. Probably won’t even need a Band-Aid.

As he left the building and walked down the stairs to his car, he couldn’t help but smile to himself. He’d bring the book to the store tomorrow and send it back to the publisher himself, and that would be the end of it. But not before he confronted Manda with it and fired her under the threat of prosecution for theft. That’d make her think twice about trying to rip off him or the company.

Before getting into his car, Jason glanced up one last time at Manda’s apartment windows. The flat glass mirrored the black, velvet night sky with a cold marble gloss. The clouds swirled in reflection, spiralling inward on themselves with vague hints of deep red.

“So, I guess that’s it for you, Manda,” Jason whispered. His breath came out a gray puff of mist in the chilly night air, and then the gentle breeze silently swept it away as the gathering shadows of the night closed in around him.