FINN SPENDS FIVE MINUTES MOVING AMONG the corridors of the Gate House calling for Harley. He’s not satisfied she’s not here, but what the hell else is he supposed to do? He heads out the front doors, the piano barking angrily as he leaves. The battering wind is like a punch in the face.
It’s freezing. His breath catches in his throat. The valley is swollen with snow. The ice helps to clear his mind. He knows with a perfect understanding that there’s someone at the school who shouldn’t be here.
He heads back toward his office. He tries to feel if he’s stepping into someone else’s footsteps, but there’s no way to tell. The walk is completely covered over again but he’s still got his bearings, hears the knotted chimes clanging, knows exactly where he is. That’s something anyway.
Despite the fact that his voice won’t carry far he feels the need to shout her name out here too. “Harley! Harley!” It’s still so foreign to his tongue that it’s like screaming gibberish. Then, as if there’s a better chance she might respond, he calls, “Moon! Moon!” He sounds like a fucking idiot. He yells, “Roz! Roz?”
He’s got to move. The temperature is still dropping. The blizzard’s worse than he’d expected. And he doesn’t even have one of his stupid hats on.
Three years upstate and he’s still not used to how things work around here. Everybody burrows for days. The county takes its sweet-ass time digging them out. In Manhattan, you slow down for a breath and you’ll get mowed down by the five hundred guys on your heels. If three feet of snow drops in three hours, the cabs will still smash it to slush. Pedestrian traffic never stops.
Up here, every spring thaw dredges bodies that have been frozen for three or four months, sometimes twenty yards from their own houses. Some holler folk says, Oh yah, that there’s my brother Augie’s boy Boomer, wondered where he’d got hisself to, we was waiting on the deer meat he promised.
Finn arrives at the Main House but has trouble getting the door open. Feels locked at first but he strains and the latch finally turns. Weather like this is when everyone bitches about the historical society preserving the original construction and design of St. Val’s. There’s more than a century’s worth of wear nestled beneath the cosmetic renovations and necessary upgrades.
You can feel the hotel reasserting itself. You step inside and can almost feel Rutherford B. Hayes standing shoulder to shoulder with you.
He makes his way to the nurse’s office and finds the door locked. The knob is frigid, no one’s been this way for a while.
At the bottom of the stairway he stumbles on the goddamn slate. He stomps twice on the stone and can feel the need for action rising in him. He’s this close to unleashing a flurry of blows against the wall. Wouldn’t that be righteous, break his hands because he got mad at the paneling. He moves up the steps holding the banister, listening to the whispers in the wood.
A noise on the second floor quickens his stride. He thinks, Finally, here’s Roz, here’s Duchess, here’s Harley, here’s Violet. His world is a small one. He wonders how much further it can shrink.
Nearing his office, he hears a groan and thinks, Roz, did someone thump your head too? Are you wandering the halls now, your forehead bleeding, looking for me?
“Who is it?” he asks.
There’s no response.
He asks again, steel and heat in his voice. “Who’s there? Roz?”
A flat wet cough, almost shaped like a word, is the answer.
He takes a step toward it.
“Who is it?”
His name meets him.
“Finn.”
It sounds like Vi.
“Violet?”
“Finn.”
He steps forward into a thick blanket of mingling odors so strong that it snaps his head back. The scents of sperm and sweat and terror are so powerful that he gags and lets out a squawk.
And woven among them all is the stink of blood.
He raises the back of his hand to block his nostrils. “Ah …” Finn starts to drift and lets out a growl, clutching the cane tightly and forcing himself to stay in place. “Vi? What’s?”
“Christ,” he hisses, and the midget halves are hacking at each other in his belly, the fury of Howie is overwhelming.
The end is here and you know it.
Vi whimpers, “Run. Run away, Finn.”
She can’t speak clearly. Her voice is contorted by pain. She’s outside his door, on the floor, clutching herself. Finn kneels beside her. He touches her swollen face. Her lips are split and bruised. She’s been slapped and punched, her nose gushing. The blood flows and tries to take him along. He sees her the way he’s seen a hundred domestic disputes, her eyes practically spinning with fear.
“Shh, shhh, you’re all right now, Violet.”
“You have to get out. You have to—”
“What happened?” he asks, and he’s not sure if he’s speaking to her. Something inside is trying to warn him. He holds his hand out and she grabs it, holds on tightly. Two of her nails are broken.
“They want you,” Vi tells him. “Run.”
“Who did this?”
“—run away, you have to leave.”
“No.”
“Run. Go.”
“Stop saying that.”
“There’s two of them, Finn.” Her voice is tight and strained. A gurgle of blood comes up and splashes against her teeth. Her hand clenches and she draws him near. “They have knives. Holler men.”
He snarls, “Motherfuckers.”
“They’ve been waiting for you.”
Violet’s been raped. Violet is bleeding. He thinks, Jesus, she’s just a little girl. The irony doesn’t escape him. He can’t control himself anymore as he flails and falls into the ocean of color that used to be his life. He’s going to get to use his strong hands again. He knows he’s smiling.