“Ugh,” said Iris, and she shoved the open pill bottle away from her nose. “What is in that?”
“Seitapar, I guess. Whatever that is.”
Iris and I stood in Mariel Silva’s kitchen, a long, low affair with timbered ceilings, shiny brown tiled countertops, and the dull pink-red sheen of Mexican tile on the floor. The vent hood over the antique stovetop was positively Victorian in scale, and I had never seen more counter space outside of a restaurant. It was a room of hard surfaces, and the least little sound carried and caught. Even our clothing, with every tiny move, gave birth to echoes.
Mariel—Carole—leaned against the wall, sipping a martini, while Iris and I had taken up opposite sides of the kitchen island in an effort to inspect Dale’s confiscated “medication”. Needless to say, Carole’s recitation had been cut short thanks to Dale’s condition, and we had strongly considered calling an ambulance. In fact, both Carole and Iris had urged that we do exactly that, and I found myself the lone abstainer, a position I did not wholly understand. I suppose it had to do with my not wanting to be separated from my friend. If he disappeared into the bowels of Los Angeles healthcare, would I be able to follow?
This was cowardly, I know, but with Bonesy on the loose, and her wider mysteries still very much unsolved, I simply couldn’t help myself. I insisted to the two women that what my usually hale and hearty friend needed was rest. I begged Carole—Mariel—to allow us to install Dale in a spare bedroom, and she relented in the end. Of course it then took all three of us plus Talitha to hoist Dale’s limp form, a task even more arduous than that of relieving Dale of his pill bottles, and that had been a dogfight. For a man who could barely lift his head or keep his eyes open, Dale had struggled like a cornered wolverine.
The Seitapar certainly did smell. The closest antecedent that I could conjure was cheese, inedible and rotting. It put me in mind of my compost pile, whenever I added fruits and vegetables that had already cooked themselves in the tight confines of my kitchen scraps container (stainless steel and really, for what it is, very attractive).
Iris forced the lid off the E-Tecrased—or should I say, the so-called E-Tecrased. As Carole had noted, in tones considerably drier than her martini, “Even I’m not fool enough to take medicine that comes with a homemade label.”
“Citrus,” said Iris. She leaned in like a white-coated chemist in a mixed-up lab, using one hand to waft whatever scent the bottle contained closer to her nose. “Citrus, but mostly dusty. Like any tablet.”
I took my turn. The E-Tecrased did indeed smell much like a bottle of Vitamin C, a substance I imbibed (in all but the hottest weather) in great quantities, along with daily doses of St. John’s wort, iron supplements, at least one probiotic, calcium, and echinacea.
Familiar the scent might have been, but I disliked it nonetheless, and said so. Why, for example, if the central ingredient was simple Vitamin C, did the bottle not say so? And what sort of present-day doctor prescribed medicine without the intermediary of a licensed pharmacy?
Iris rattled the E-Tecrased, her face pensive. “In England, the doctors have a pharmacy right on the premises. They don’t stock everything, but for common items—antibiotics and so on—it’s all under one roof.”
I said, “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Oh, just—you know. If you’re on vacation, the last thing you want to do is spend your time figuring out another country’s health care system.”
Iris nodded, and now her expression had gone from pensive to puzzlement. “It wasn’t a vacation,” she said. “Or I don’t think so, at any rate.”
The more directed part of my mind, the section that prefers conversations to exhibit a clear through-line, made a strong play for abandoning this off-topic chitchat, but all at once I felt certain that anything to do with Iris and England, no matter how apparently unrelated, could be of crucial importance. I said, “When were you there last? Was it when you made Bonesy?”
“Yes, exactly,” she said, but she reversed her position in an instant. “No, I was there since then. I must have been, because when I made Bonesy, I didn’t get sick. So I didn’t need to see a doctor.”
From the far corner of the room, Carole Lombard sipped her martini and sucked the last of three green olives from the attendant toothpick. Her lips smacked as it went down, and the kitchen obligingly amplified the sound.
I said to Iris, “When exactly did you make Bonesy?”
“Long time ago. Summer of 1979. But since then? I’ve been all over the world, the Galapagos, China, Mexico. Port au Prince, after the quake. England a few times, but not this century.”
Her voice trailed away, and as it did, a thought struck me—but before I could voice it, Carole said exactly what was on my mind. “Not meaning to shove my nose in where it isn’t wanted,” she said, fixing her cool, aloof gaze on Iris, “but this book you’ve got me reading, it’s from England, too. And it’s yours, right? When exactly did you get that?”
For a moment, Iris’s mouth hung open, fish-like, refusing to close. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Carole laughed. “In my experience, it’s always the things you can’t remember that bite you hardest in the ass.” She pushed off from her corner counter and made her way to the liquor cabinet. She flung the doors wide and looked over her shoulder at us. “You’re sure I can’t offer you a little pick-me-up? Clark used to say ‘libation’. A libation in times of trouble?”
It was two ten in the morning. Not the sort of hour I like to see. Iris was awake enough (but then, she’d slept for much of the day), and she grudgingly accepted a vodka and tonic. I, feeling that at least one of us should maintain our sobriety, demurred in favor of herbal tea. Carole laughed at that, but I’m not so sure that Mariel did.
After putting aside one tablet of each type, we threw the rest of Dale’s medicine down the sink and ran the garbage disposal for a full minute. With the two survivors safely stowed in an empty pill box, one Seitapar and one E-Tecrased, we rang for Talitha, who appeared instantly, now wearing cargo shorts and a faded yellow T-shirt reading One Tough Sistah. Carole handed her the pills and gave concise instructions to take them to the Silvas’ private physician in Sherman Oaks. “Make sure he orders a proper analysis,” she said, “and send the results to this phone number here.” The number, hastily scribbled, was mine.
As soon as Talitha was out the door, I hefted Bonesy’s Book of Hours and said, “Ms. Lombard, I know it’s late, and I realize we’re not even halfway through, but I believe we need to cut to the chase.”
“If you don’t start calling me Carole, that teabag is going to wind up halfway up your nose.”
“Fine, yes. Carole. My point is, your skills right now as translator are invaluable. I hope we may rely on you to continue.”
Of course she spotted my flattery for what it was, but then, I’d expected that she would. What Mariel Silva wanted from life I did not profess to know, but Carole? Dead or not, Hollywood’s guiding lights have always thrived on a heady diet of gossip, glossies, and praise. What else does the well-groomed ego require, after all? No surprise, then, that she extended a hand as I proffered the book.
“Tactically,” I said, “I believe we ought to concentrate our efforts on the very first part—or last, depending on how you look at it. The part where the ink maybe isn’t ink.”
Carole placed the book on the island countertop and opened the cover. She turned to the first page and smoothed it as best she could, fingers splayed. For the first time, I noted the silver nail polish, an exact match for her dress.
“This,” she said, in a careless voice, “isn’t ink?”
I didn’t want to scare her, but then, Carole Lombard had always had a tough-girl, tomboyish reputation, and on top of that, she’d just threatened to shove a hot teabag up my nose. As if that weren’t enough, this was a woman who’d died a horrible death in a fiery plane crash. I took a chance and said, “Dale thinks it’s blood,” and left it at that.
For a full minute, perhaps longer, Carole studied the page without speaking. When she did open her mouth, she winced, and her voice had turned reluctant, as if she were trespassing on something intensely private.
“Hard to read?” said Iris, after sipping her vodka.
“It’s fragments,” said Carole. “I’m trying to decide where to begin.”
The ice in the vodka shifted with a chinking crack. We waited. At last Carole began.
“‘A fitting gift,’ said my captors, in giving me this tome. ‘A witch should keep her writings close,’ said another. And so I am alone except for this, my William’s book to keep me company. Rain comes. Night. I have never liked the cold.”
Iris began pacing around the island, rubbing one hand atop the other, as if she, too, could feel the chill. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Where is this? Where are we?”
“Prison,” I said, but simply uttering the word proved its inaccuracy. This woman—for woman she surely was, the way she referred to William Wolcott—was suspended in a crossroads gibbet, and this same woman knew (with her book beside her, and able to write in it only when she dipped her finger in her own blood) that she would die where she hung.
But why? Of what was she accused?
“Sorry,” I said, when I realized both Carole and Iris were staring at me. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. And anyway, I’m wrong. Prison’s not where she is. Please keep reading.”
My efforts at diplomacy persuaded Iris to resume her pacing, while Carole bent to the page. Reading, she said, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,” and Iris echoed her with, “Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum.”
“Now hold on a minute,” Carole said, staring pointedly at Iris as the latter began another noisy circuit of the kitchen. “I thought I was the Latin specialist here.”
“That one, I know,” Iris replied. “It’s not exactly obscure.” Then, as if realizing she sounded abrupt, or harsh, or both, she tore a page from my playbook. “Please go on. We can’t do this without you.”
Carole, sullen, gave in. “All right. Next she writes, ‘I am not at fault. I am not a witch. I have faith in God and have committed no sin unless science itself be sinful. I take my death as a reward, not as a punishment. I bleed.’” Carole’s finger tapped the page, correcting herself. “No, it’s more continual, ongoing. ‘I am bleeding.’ Better. ‘I am bleeding and I am growing’ or maybe it’s ‘becoming’, yes, ‘I am becoming colder.’”
She paused again, listening as Iris’s shoes scuffed across the terra cotta, ticking slightly. “She was running out of room, but there are two last lines. Want to hear them?”
Rhetorical questions. I have never been a fan.
“Yes,” said Iris impatiently. “Of course.”
“Biblical Latin here,” Carole replied. “Want to try the first part? It’s ‘Beati paupers spiritu’.”
Spirit, spiritu, that was easy, and I watched Iris arriving at the same conclusion. Beati was a blessing, although I wasn’t sure of the tense. What had Iris and me puzzled was paupers. Paupers? Literally? Surely not.
“Oh, of course,” said Iris, stopping her march. “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit.’”
“‘For theirs,’” said Carole, smirking, “‘is the kingdom of Heaven.’ You see? I can trot out the Bible, too.” The smirk vanished, swallowed by a depressed sigh. “The ‘spiritu’ part is barely legible. I think she was out of blood. Or strength. Or maybe both. Here’s the last bit of all, hardly more than a smudge. ‘Te amo William.’”
“Te amo,” repeated Iris. “I love you.”
“And that’s it?” I asked, following immediately with an unintended tautology. “That’s all she wrote?”
“Very funny,” said Carole. “But yes, and I’m pretty confident I got it all in order. Now, I can go farther back, if you like. See what’s on the pages before she gave up using good old-fashioned conventional ink.”
I was on the verge of saying that was exactly what we needed to do when we all three heard the brittle, unmistakable sound of shattering glass. I froze.
“What,” said Iris, “was that?”
My first thought was, No. It couldn’t be.
“Renner?”
But my first thought had already led to a flash flood of follow-ups. No! Not so far south. Six hours plus by car, and at the speed Dale was driving? How on earth…?
There was a snapping, sizzling sound, and the lights in the kitchen abruptly went out.
“Son of a bitch,” said Carole, her voice cutting through the instant gloom. “Now what?”
Near me, I could hear Iris breathing, and breathing fast. I suspected my own pulse was doing much the same. “Don’t worry,” I said, “Bonesy’s not a killer.”
But my right hand had strayed to my face; my fingertips were brushing my bandages. Besides, I knew all too well that the last time I’d trusted a creature from the far side of normality, two innocent teenagers were devoured by a bear. True, to say those two were innocent might have been pushing or even outright slitting the envelope, and to call what killed them a bear was unfair to other bears, but even so. Trust, in this situation, was not going to come easy.
Ears pricked, I listened in the blackness, a gloom allayed only slightly by the trickle of ambient light spilling in from the kitchen windows. Again, my thoughts turned inward, and I heard myself reciting, silently, Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…
“Bonesy, huh?” In the unlit room, without the image of Mariel Silva to get in her way, Carole sounded more than ever like the real Carole Lombard. “Given present circumstances, I’m relieved to hear she’s not out to actually kill anybody.”
There was another distant crash, as of lamps and other décor upending.
From a spot nearby that I couldn’t quite make out, Iris whispered, as if incanting a spell, “May nothing evil cross this door.”
Carole, overhearing, was of a more practical bent. “This room has two exits,” she said, “and the next thing to cross them ought to be us. Come on.”
My eyes had adjusted now, and I could not only hear the determined click of her heels on the tile, but I could see her crossing the room, blocking the cabinets as a lightless silhouette.
“Wait,” I said. “We need to get Dale.”
Carole, still on the move, said, “No, what we need to do is give Bonesy this book.”
“What?”
“It’s hers, right? And she’s come all this way to get it. Now let’s give it back before she wrecks my house.”
“Give it back? But we haven’t finished reading it!”
Another crash sounded, and this time, just after, we heard a thin wail of fright. With Bonesy’s book in hand, Carole ran for the left-hand door, and I (in near darkness) ran to intercept her.
Or course, Carole knew the layout better, and she made it through the swinging doors and into the dining room beyond in scarcely a heartbeat. I, not having memorized the kitchen (I hadn’t thought I’d need to), crashed straight into a set of tall kitchen stools. My balance gone, my feet hopelessly entangled with the stools’ legs, I tumbled with a cry into Iris and we both went down in a heap.
In the distance, we could hear Carole’s receding, hurrying steps and various doors opening and closing as she went. Then came another quivering yell of fright, a man’s this time, followed by an entire series of smashings and crashings. It was as if a crew of late-starting workmen had shown up, intent on demolishing the house. Without really intending to, I glanced out the window, and I was struck by the thought that despite our being all but dead center in the massive metropolis of Los Angeles, we could not have been more isolated. Mulholland Drive is a refuge for people with money, with even the closest of neighbors kept intentionally at bay. Unless someone started firing mortar rounds, it was very unlikely that anyone would hear the ruckus at the Silva residence. We were very much on our own.
From underneath me, Iris said, “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll get Bonesy.”
“Renner!”
“What? I’m supposed to let these people face her on their own?”
It was much too dark to see Iris’s face, but I imagined her as wide-eyed, like a snapshot of some birthday girl caught at the instant of entering a surprise party. Iris Buckhalter, my severe, efficient mentor, reduced at last to this. I had to close my eyes to cut myself free of the image.
“Go,” she said. “I’ll call, and catch you.”
I struggled up, wondering what on earth the police would be able to do, even assuming they could get here any time soon—where was the nearest substation, anyway? Far down the Sherman Oaks side of the hill, surely, and nowhere nearby. Or was a private security firm on the way? A house this size would have a contract with some sort of muscle, but had Bonesy made enough of an entrance that she’d set off the alarms?
Running through a stranger’s mansion at night, in the dark, with nothing but the twilight of city lights and bashful stars to guide me, is an adventure I should not like to repeat. Nor do I bandy the term “mansion” lightly. The Silvas’ house was larger than I ever would have suspected, and I had only the most general idea of which way Carole had gone. The sounds of what I presumed were Bonesy’s latest frantic explorations guided me, but barely, and I careened into one dead-end after another, including bathrooms, an indoor swimming pool complete with a steaming in-ground hot tub, and a four-car garage. At last I discovered a hallway—window-free, and darker than anywhere else I’d been—but by then, I’d wrapped my poor deficient head more fully around the situation and I had my phone out with its flashlight function on. Racing ahead, at last able to see my way, I bypassed room after room in favor of the double doors at the end of the hallway, a portal that stood ajar and through which I could hear the telltale sound—again, not again—of books being flung from shelves and landing like papery fruit on the floor.
Then came a cry, a shriek, and the loudest landslide of loose books yet.
I ran toward the clamor, the world’s longest Turkish rug under my feet. What remained of level-headedness counseled strongly to go the other way, or to supply myself, at the very least, with a baseball bat or a substantial pile of netting, but there was nothing at hand, and before I knew it, the Turkish carpet ran out and I had bulled through the doors.
It wasn’t bravery, it most truly was not. It was only me, sleep-deprived, on auto-pilot. Stupidity by any other name, with loneliness dogging my heels. Where was Dale when I needed him?
It took only a moment to orient. Under the soft blue glow of my flashlight app, I took in the Silva household’s magnificent Victorian library, a floor-to-high-ceilinged affair complete with book ladders, a darkened fireplace, and wing-backed leather armchairs. One of these had tipped over backward, with its occupant still in it; I could see slippered feet, a hint of gleaming aubergine pajamas, and not much else. Carole Lombard, looking more like Mariel Silva than ever, lay unmoving and off-kilter under an avalanche of cloth-bound classics, Ovid and Spenser among them. Whether either she or the man in the armchair were alive, I had no idea. Nor did I have the chance to investigate, for Bonesy chose that moment to fling herself down from the high shelf on which she’d been perched, landing in a crouch beside Carole’s half-buried head.
For once, she was not in a hurry. She moved with the care of a police officer approaching a potential rooftop jumper. Sniffing, she tilted her head, paused as if to be sure of the scent she’d caught, and then she leaned down and shifted the fallen books. There it was, just below the top layer: Bonesy’s book, the one she sought, lying an inch beyond Carole’s limp, outstretched fingers.
Bonesy let out a wispy hiss of muted pleasure, and reached for her prize.
“Imo!” I cried, seizing on what Latin I could. “Stop right there!”
She stopped. She rocked back on her haunches and stared up at me, one eyeball rolling in its socket, the other still. The hazy flood of my flashlight app cooled the brass-and-black color of her bones and turned them silver, as if I’d washed her in moonlight. I could hardly believe it—and I tried not to, even as I thought it—but for a moment, she appeared quite beautiful.
Then she leaned forward and tapped one skeletal finger against the cover of her book, at the same time fixing me with a quizzical stare. Her eyes had settled now, and there was no doubt that I had her full (if unwanted) attention.
Again, she tapped the book.
“Yes,” I said, in a loud, clear voice, as if Bonesy were deaf instead of merely ignorant of contemporary English. “I’ve read it. Most of it. I need to read the rest.”
With a swift flick of her wrist, Bonesy flipped back the cover. She pointed to the first page, the frontispiece and the dim brown scratchings. Once more, her head tilted as if in question, and when I did not at once reply, she rapped the page with her knuckles.
“Yes,” I said. “We read that part.”
Bonesy inserted the tip of her index finger’s phalanges under the leaves and, with undoubted reverence, turned to the next page.
This time, I shook my head. “No. Not yet. I do not speak Latin. Non Latine. I need that woman there”—pointing—“to help me.”
Swiveling her skull, Bonesy studied Mariel Silva’s prostrate form, half hidden under the cascade of fallen splay-covered books. Meanwhile, my flashlight app dimmed perceptibly. I didn’t have to check the icon to know that my battery power was not long for this world.
Bonesy swung her arms back, then hopped lightly onto Mariel’s head. Her hands began a series of gesticulations that grew more frenetic by the moment. The toothy jaw clacked and jittered. I, no longer so sure of myself, took a step backward.
Never show fear, isn’t that the policy for lion tamers, or tough guys like Dale? Would Arnold Schwarzenegger have taken that one step back? Or General George Patton? Did Fannie Lou Hamer ever once back away from the fight at hand?
As my light faded, lumen by precious lumen, I took a second fateful and retreating step, and this time Bonesy matched me. A third step, and again Bonesy kept pace. Step by step, we worked our way across the room to a set of massive bay windows, the kind one finds in ancient libraries or grand old manor homes, the sort with a wide sill at the base, more than large enough to sit on. Before I could think of some alternative, I was backed against that sill and had worked myself all the way across it until my spine pressed to the heavy glass and my feet were off the floor. Next thing I knew, Bonesy had crept up between my legs, edging closer with liquid, clinical movements. Her feet and fingers tocked against the wood, then brushed my clothes. Had she been human, and alive, I would have smelled her breath.
“Get back,” I said, feebly. “I’m a minister engaged in holy work.”
Did she grin? She looked as if she did. Either way, she leaned in close, closer, too close, and I turned my head sideways so I wouldn’t have to see whatever it was that was coming. Outside, I saw gardens, a landscaping of shadows, and from the farthest recesses of the house, I heard footsteps, movement, but not enough, not a mounting rescue, not more than one person. Where were the sirens, the yelling, the sounds of onrushing aid? Nowhere, that’s where. Not coming. I was on my own.
Angela, I thought. I want to live to see Angela.
What an extraordinary thing to think—and I do believe that it would have been enough to rouse me, for it was a mighty surprise, I must say, that in the moment of what would likely be my death, I should think not of my mother, or myself, or my congregation, but of Angela—and with her, perhaps, my unborn child.
Honestly, given another moment, I would surely have taken some splendid, sudden action, but instead, as the light of my phone faded to oblivion, Bonesy grabbed hold of my head and forced me to face her. Dear God, but it was awful. To be so close to something so irredeemably unnatural.
What happened next was worse. With deft, quick fingers, Bonesy plucked out her left eyeball and shoved it into my mouth. Her other hand caught me below the chin and slammed my head against the window. The impact did the trick; before I could spit the eye back out, I’d swallowed it whole.
Half gagging, I pushed Bonesy away and rolled onto my side. My entire midsection was seized in knots. Bonesy, one-eyed, danced away, crazed as a caged monkey.
“What,” I managed, gasping, “did you just do?”
No time now to think of Angela. The world I knew, the solid world of forms and substance, had become a smoky, whirling vortex. It was as if daily reality were a sort of bath, and someone had just removed the stopper in the drain.
Did I struggle? I think so. I hope so.
Not that it did any good.
The last thing I saw was one-eyed Bonesy cavorting around the library, her book held in both hands above her head, the very picture of mad triumph.
After that, there was only the whirlpool sucking me down and down and down.