What had happened was nothing. It meant nothing. Nothing at all. The still, small voice within assured her of that. Those in this house who had appeared to be people were not in fact people. The earth was a stage, those on it merely characters guided by a script. These people’s story was no more important than any other, which is to say not important at all, mere entertainment for the gods.
What transpired next was nothing more than stagecraft. Alecto had been a minor divinity in ancient Rome as well as in ancient Greece, but her rank didn’t mean that she was colorless. By their nature, the Furies were colorful, agents of retribution, marked by flaunt and flourish, shine and swagger, and it was incumbent upon anyone who would write about Alecto, who would become a vessel for Alecto, for the Chandi aspect of Kali, for others of their dark divinity, to uphold the sacred tradition of flamboyance.
Tanuja stood on the stoop, waiting, the front door open wide behind her.
The cul-de-sac was quiet in the night and muffling fog. At the only other house that contained light, luminous windows seemed not part of any structure, seemed to float in the mist like large video screens made of some lighter-than-air material, none of them tuned to a channel, offering no drama, as if none could compete with events occurring in the Chatterjee house.
There were no shadowy forms of alarmed residents at those windows, no sirens in the distance. Most likely, the brief burst of gunfire had not traveled through walls, through night, through fog, through other walls. But it was not unlikely that even if the sound carried, those near enough to hear it were lost in a video game or binge-watching whatever, or were seeing out Saturday with a joint of good weed, having traded reality for one virtual reality or another. The scripts of their stories did not require them to hear.
Through the lamplight and the darkness and a thickening sea of fog, Sanjay returned with the coiled orange extension cord and the reciprocating saw. He was tall, trim, all in black. For a moment, a sharp fear pierced Tanuja, a terror of Sanjay, but this was only her little brother, her twin, blood of her blood, and the fear at once quieted away.
They did not speak when he arrived at the stoop and followed her into the house, for there was nothing that needed to be said. There was merely stagecraft to perform. Set decoration. Steps to be taken. Always one step at a time. Never knowing what was next until it needed to be done. According to the script by which they lived.
For a while, as they worked, Tanuja thought of Subhadra in the storm of the unfinished novelette, of the beauty of falling rain in silver skeins and the splendor of lightning born from a cumulonimbus womb, of the majesty of thunder like the rumble of colossal wheels moving creation along mysterious tracks….
When the six severed heads were placed at intervals along the walkway leading to the front door, sister and brother stepped out of the night, into the foyer, she with her back turned to one mirror, he with his back to the other. They stood face-to-face, an arm’s length apart. Cool fog slithered through the open door, drawn by the warmth of the house.
Sanjay wept quiet tears. She asked him why, and he didn’t know why.
She said affectionately, “Chotti bhai, little brother.”
He said, “Bhenji,” and his tears flowed faster.
She said, “Peri pauna,” which meant “I touch your feet,” though she did not stoop to touch them, for he already knew how profoundly she cherished him.
His reply, “Peri pauna,” brought tears to her eyes.
Not quite sure why she said it, she said, “Every story must have an end. That is the way of stories.”
Because it was what his script instructed him to say, Sanjay replied, “I will count to three.”
He counted in perfect cadence, precisely two seconds between the numbers, no hesitation because of doubt or confusion or emotion, for their actions must be perfectly simultaneous in this, which was their last moment on the stage.
His eyes on hers, her eyes on his, his pistol pressed to her head, hers to his, they—
—never heard the coeternal shots that ended their lives, though the sound of a single but double-loud blast carried through the open door and along the front walkway and into the cul-de-sac, drawing the attention of a neighbor who had just stepped out to walk his dog, then the police, then the news media, and then the world in all its ignorance.